In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources has resulted both from expanding development, changes in climate, and from pollution, so that the future supply in some of the more arid areas is a concern going forward.

A. both from expanding development, changes in climate, and from pollution, so that the future supply in some of the more arid areas is a concern going forward
B. both from expanding development or changes in climate, and pollution, so that future supplies in some of the more arid areas are a concern
C. from expanding development, changes in climate, and also from pollution, so that the future supply in some of the more arid areas is a matter of concern going forward
D. from expanding development, changes in climate, and pollution, so that future supplies in some of the more arid areas are a concern
E. from expansion of development, changes in climate, and from pollution, so that supplies in some of the more arid areas are a future concern

In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources has resulted both from expanding development, changes in climate, and from pollution, so that the future supply in some of the more arid areas is a concern going forward.

A. both from expanding development, changes in climate, and from pollution, so that the future supply in some of the more arid areas is a concern going forward
B. both from expanding development or changes in climate, and pollution, so that future supplies in some of the more arid areas are a concern
C. from expanding development, changes in climate, and also from pollution, so that the future supply in some of the more arid areas is a matter of concern going forward
D. from expanding development, changes in climate, and pollution, so that future supplies in some of the more arid areas are a concern
E. from expansion of development, changes in climate, and from pollution, so that supplies in some of the more arid areas are a future concern

Gerunds, Present participles, and progressive tenses


We have seen three forms of verb +ing forms.
They are1. Gerunds, 2. Present participles, and 3. Present or past progressive tenses. Of the three, we shall now deal with gerunds.

Gerunds


A Gerund is a verb taking the ‘ing’ form and functioning essentially as a
Noun. A gerund may be accompanied by more descriptive words such as adjectives, prepositions, or objects of prepositions and in such cases, they are called gerund phrases

Example

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." ---- An old saying.

Here the words 'feeling, 'expressing', 'wrapping' and 'giving' are examples of gerunds.

Gerunds and Present Participles

Present participles also take the ‘ing’ form. However, a present participle functions as a non-finite form of a verb. In contrast, gerunds behave like nouns.

How to differentiate a gerund from a present participle or progressive tense.

Let us take a simple verb sing; its ‘ing’ form is singing. It can be either a present participle or a gerund or can be part of a past or present progressive tense.

1. Progressive tense

When a verb+ing word is preceded by an auxiliary verb, then it becomes a verb, indicating the progressive tense.

Am singing
Are singing
Is singing
Was singing
Were singing
Have been singing
Has been singing
Had been singing
Will be singing

2. Present participle

a) When the verb+ing form or its phrase acts an adjective, modifying a noun, then it is a present participle. (When it is in the beginning of the sentence)

Singing a song, Tom walked along the river.
Shouting abuses, Dick tried to browbeat Harry
By sending a bouquet, the students expressed their love for their teacher.

Here, the ‘ing’ forms modify a noun that is placed next to the comma. These are all participles.

b,. In some cases, the verb+ing form with a comma before or without the comma before may be placed in the middle of a sentence or at the end of the sentence.

3. Gerund

On the contrary, when the ‘ing’ form is followed by a verb or verb phrase then it will be a gerund.

Going by his words will lead to wrong conclusions
Shopping on weekends is cumbersome because of heavy crowds.

A gerund is a noun that could be used as a subject, direct object, object of the preposition, or a predicate noun.
Subject: Swimming is a healthy exercise
Direct object: I enjoy drinking tea.
An object of the preposition: Empty roads are good for driving practice

1. Find the simple subject and predicate

if the ing word is not part of a progressive tense (in other words a verb), then determine whether it is a noun representing a subject or the object or object of the verb or object of the prepositions. All such ing words are gerunds.

On the contrary, if it is an adjective, then it is not a gerund but a present participle.


Present participle: Climbing the mountain, Jack and Jill enjoyed much -- climbing modifies the subject Jack and Jill and hence is an adjective as well as a present participle

To repeat:

4. A gerund is essentially a noun trying to do an action. We can apply some of the attributes of a noun and see whether the ing form fits with the parameters of the noun.

4A. The first such test is whether the ing form acts as a subject or object. --
Singing is a pleasant entertainment

Here, singing is the subject of a simple sentence; only a noun or a noun phrase can act as the subject of a clause. Hence, in the given context, ‘singing’ is a gerund

4B. See whether the ing form is an object of the verb

Tom likes singing
Singing is the object of the verb ‘likes’; it is a gerund

4C. see whether it has any adjective preceding it, especially in the form of a possessive pronoun

Tom feels that his singing is better than that of many others

Here the verb+ing form singing is modified by the possessive pronoun ‘his’. Hence, singing is a gerund.

4D. Sometimes an article is a gerund-marker. See whether the verb+ing is preceded by an article such as ‘the’
‘The shopping’ at Spencer’s is a delight.


4E. (important)
See whether the ing word can be replaced by the word ‘it’ and the sentence still completes the meaning. The pronoun ‘it’ can complete the meaning while a participle cannot.

Singing is a good past time
It is a good past time.
Here we can replace singing with the pronoun it

He went into the class, dancing like Michel Jackson
He went into the class, it like Michel Jackson -- This makes no sense and hence is not a gerund.

4F...(important)
see whether the verb+ing word or the entire ing phrase can be replaced by the word ‘something’

Singing along the riverbank, Tom jogged for nearly four miles in one hour
(Singing) Something along the riverbank, Tom jogged for nearly four miles in one hour

(Singing along the river bank) Something, Tom jogged for nearly four miles in one hour

When you replace the ‘ing’ word or phrase with something, nothing meaningful turns out. Therefore, the phrase starting with singing cannot be a gerund.

Now try this.

Singing along the riverbank is a refreshing pastime

After replacing the ‘ing’ word with something, the sentence reads as
Something (Singing )along the river bank is a refreshing pastime

Now you can see there is meaning in the clause. Therefore, the ‘ing’ phrase is a gerund in the context.

Jack and Jill are climbing the hill -- are climbing is the verb in this sentence.

Jack and Jill enjoy climbing the hill
Climbing is a gerund, an object of the verb enjoy.
Jack and Jill are mad about climbing the hill
Here climbing is the object of the preposition about. Hence a gerund

I'm confused between D and E. I think D violates the parallelism: "from expanding development, changes in climate, and pollution". Shouldn't it be "from expanding development, changes in climate, and from pollution"?

Last but no least, I can't quite understand the use of "so that" in the sentence. As far as I know, "so that" implies intention. For example: "Yesterday, I went to bed early, so that I can get up early in the morning". Here "so that" shows my intention of sleeping early. Am I correct?