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Water Woes: A Global Roundup

As if the slow global response to climate change wasn't worrisome enough, more and more news highlights just how serious -- and scary -- our water shortages are becoming.

As if the slow global response to climate change wasn't worrisome enough, more and more news highlights just how serious -- and scary -- our water shortages are becoming.

Global warming is obviously a huge concern; as author and sustainability executive Auden Schendler says in his new podcast with Joel Makower, "This is your acid test: Are [companies] talking about climate change or not? If they’re not, they’re not working on environmental issues." And a big part of the problem, as well as the problems we're having addressing it, is not just how enormous the problem is, but just how unclear its effects will be.

Water, however, is another issue entirely. Not only are water problems looming large -- they're already here for, say, an entire continent -- but we know pretty precisely how they'll affect us. From immediate problems like death and disease to somewhat longer term issues like food shortages, water is literally the basis for life, and as a result needs immediate action.

Fortunately (I suppose), there has not yet been any serious bloom of "water shortage deniers" -- no one is saying that the water crisis doesn't exist, that we're actually about to see a surplus of water, and no companies or think tanks are bankrolling any drought deniers.

And yet, that's all cold comfort, in light of some of the news out there this week.

The Economist ran two solid stories on water issues this week. The first, "Sin aqua non," looks at the question, "Does the world really face a global problem?" And after running through a torrent of water problems, from Madagascar to Australia to California to Brazil to the Aral Sea, comes to this:
Not on the face of it. There is plenty of water to go around and human beings are not using all that much. Every year, thousands of cubic kilometres (km3) of fresh water fall as rain or snow or come from melting ice. According to a study in 2007, most nations outside the Gulf were using a fifth or less of the water they receive -- at least in 2000, the only year for which figures are available. The global average withdrawal of fresh water was 9% of the amount that flowed through the world’s hydrologic cycle. Both Latin America and Africa used less than 6% (see table). On this evidence, it would seem that all water problems are local.

The trouble with this conclusion is that no one knows how much water people can safely use. It is certainly not 100% (the amount taken in Gulf states) because the rest of creation also has to live off the water. In many places the maximum may well be less than one fifth, the average for Asia as a whole. It depends on how water is returned to the system, how much is taken from underground aquifers, and so on.

But there is some admittedly patchy evidence that, given current patterns of use and abuse, the amount now being withdrawn is moving dangerously close to the limit of safety -- and in some places beyond it. An alarming number of the world’s great rivers no longer reach the sea. They include the Indus, Rio Grande, Colorado, Murray-Darling and Yellow rivers. These are the arteries of the world’s main grain-growing areas.
The whole article is worth a read; this quote just lays out the problem.

And the problem really is global: other news out today finds that Mexico City has cut off a pipeline that serves 5 million residents because the reservoir feeding the pipeline is dangerously low due to rain shortages and leaks in the reservoir.

Further south, the Andes may well be a harbinger of water woes the rest of us face, according to a story in the always-engaging Yale Environment 360. The article, by Carolyn Kormann, looks at how global warming is affecting Andean populations in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia:
In recent decades, 20,000-year-old glaciers in Bolivia have been retreating so fast that 80 percent of the ice will be gone before a child born today reaches adulthood. So far this melting has brought temporary increases in stream flow and contributed to massive Amazonian floods that forced several hundred thousand people from their homes last year.

But within the next decade, scientists predict that this torrent of meltwater will turn into a trickle as glaciers shrink, meaning that the age-old source of water during the dry season will steadily dwindle. Some highland farmers near La Paz already report decreased water supplies.

“Here you have precipitation only part of the year,” said French glaciologist Patrick Ginot as he stood at 16,500 feet next to Zongo glacier last year. “But it’s stored on the glacier and then melting throughout the year, and so you have water throughout the year. If you lose the glacier, you have no more storage.”
A little closer to home, two articles out today highlight how food production is both a cause and victim of water crises. A story from Greenwire's Scott Streater, reprinted here by the New York Times, looks at how legislation allowing ranchers in arid Eastern Washington unlimited water access for livestock is taking its toll on the region's aquifers:
At issue is a proposal by Easterday Ranches Inc. to build a feedlot for 30,000 head of cattle that would withdraw a shade under 1 million gallons a day from the ancient Grande Ronde Aquifer during the driest months of the year.[...]

But local farmers are concerned about more than just the Easterday project. Many fear that Easterday's arrival will blaze a trail for other industrial-sized livestock and dairy operations that may be drawn to eastern Washington where a burgeoning food processing industry has taken hold, including a large slaughterhouse owned by Tyson Foods Inc.
Also on the farm front, NPR's Marketplace reports on how California's drought is affecting the state's farmers: "California is facing its worst drought in more than 15 years," reports Jennifer Collins. "Water rationing could cost the state's agricultural industry more than $2 billion and 40,000 jobs."

Collins' report does point to solutions, and highlights how the state is working with farmers to encourage conservation by letting them sell their excess water allotments. It's the same idea explored in the other water-related Economist article, "Awash in waste." Developing a cap and trade, or any of a number of incentives for conserving water and putting a realistic price on it, is the type of solution that makes water conservation an immediate need, and will hopefully get us out in front of the tidal wave of water concerns the world is facing.

For a look at what companies and other organizations are doing to improve their water efficiency, GreenBiz.com has heaps of related news in our water efficiency section, and be sure to check out two great features: Saving Every Last Drop by Sarah Fister Gale, and Water Basics: You Can't Manage What You Don't Measure by Andrew Collier and Andrew Glantz.

Wave photos CC-licensed by Flickr users sub_lime79 and suburbanbloke.

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