外刊出题源丨第三期：巴西水资源：无水可喝

2016-08-18Yoyo老师奇喵校园

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Water in Brazil: Nor Any Drop to Drink.  （巴西水资源：无水可喝）

文章导读：作为世界上水资源最丰富的国家之一，巴西拥有世界上12%的淡水资源，人均水资源量达到3600立方米，但却面临无水可喝的窘境。本期本章我们一起来了解巴西的干旱问题。

(BRAZIL has the world's biggest reserves of fresh water. That most of it sits in the sparsely populated Amazon has not historically stopped Brazilians in the drier, more populous south taking it for granted. )

（①此处常设细节题，考查前后文的转折：第一句指出巴西拥有最多淡水资源，但是第二句说明大部分在亚马逊无法缓解干旱问题，选项常常会根据第一句内容进行干扰项设置。）

No longer. Landlords in São Paulo, who are wont to hose down pavements with gallons of potable water, have taken to using brooms instead. Notices in lifts andon the metro implorepaulistanos to take shorter showers and re-use coffee mugs.

São Paulo state, home to one-fifth of Brazil's population and one-third of its economic activity, is suffering the worst drought since records began in 1930. Pitiful rainfall and high rates of evaporation in scorching heat have caused the volume of water stored in the Cantareira system of reservoirs, which supplies 10m people, to dip below 12% of capacity. This time last year, at the end of what is nominally the wet season, it stood at 64%.

On April 21st the governor, Geraldo Alckmin, warned that from May consumers will befined for increasing their water use. Those who cut consumption are already rewarded with discounts on their bills. The city will tap three basins supplying other parts of the state, but since these reservoirs have also been hit by drought and supply hydropower plants, fears of blackouts are rising.

Without a downpour, Sabesp, the state water utility, expects Cantareira's levels to sink beneath the pipes which link reservoirs to consumers a week after São Paulo hosts the opening game of the football World Cup on June 12th. To tide the city over untilrains resume in November, it is installing kit to pump half of the 400 billion litres of reserves beneath the pipes, at a cost of 80m reais. The company says this (“dead volume”)

（②此处常设词汇题，考查对“dead volume”的理解，需要注意前后文的理解。）, never before used, is perfectly treatable. Some experts have expressed concerns about its quality.

Mr. Alckmin has not ruled out tightening the spigots. Flow from taps in parts of São Paulo has already become a trickle, for which Sabesp blames maintenance work. Widespread cuts could hurt the governor's re-election bid in October. Hours after he announced the latest measures, a thirsty mob set fire to a bus.

Paulistanos use more water than most Brazilians, but lose less of it to leaks: 35%, compared with a national average of 39%. Sabesp, listed on the New York Stock Exchange but majority-owned by the state government, is a paragon of good governance,says John Briscoe, a water expert at Harvard and a former head of the World Bank mission in Brazil.

(The problem exposed by the drought is that supply has not kept pace with the rising urban population.)（③此处常设细节题，考查“干旱爆发的原因”。）Facing a jumble of overlapping municipal, state and federal regulations, investment in storage, distribution and treatment has lagged behind. And not just in São Paulo; the national water regulator has warned that 16 projects in the ten biggest cities must be completed by 2015 to prevent chronic water shortages over the next decade. (So far only five are finished; work on some has not begun. Short-term measures should keep the water trickling for now. But the well of temporary solutions will eventually run dry.)（④此处常设推断题，通过文中陈述的情况可以推断出：该措施的实施现状并不乐观，只能暂时缓解缺水问题，无法长期解决这一问题。）

知识点

1.link to与…连接， 联系

It will be helpful when I need to link to them.

当我想要连接到他们的时候会很有用。

2.rule out宣布……不可能，排除……的可能性

We don't rule out the possibility that negative trends in the periphery could stabilize.

我们不排除外围国家的发展趋势从不利走向稳定的可能性。

3.set fire to点着；激起；燃点

Protesters set fire to government building and burned his likeness in effigy.

抗议者点燃了政府大楼和卡扎菲的肖像。

4.compare with与…相比；比得上

Life isn't fair-don't compare with or be jealous of others.

生活并不是公平的不要比较也不要嫉妒别人。

END

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