Reflections on the Global Water Crisis

I am writing this post as part of Blog Action Day, an internet initiative in which bloggers from around the world are blogging on environmental issues. The topic I have chosen to spotlight is the global water crisis. I am in no way able to do this topic justice in a single post. In this post, I will simply attempt to identify some of the major features of this problem. My purpose is to raise awareness. While individual conservation efforts are very important locally, the problem requires large-scale, systematic action. However, this is unlikely to occur without broadscale awareness and individuals putting pressure on governments, agriculture, and industry to adopt freshwater-friendly policies.

What do Arizona, Bangladesh, Colorado, the Gaza Strip, India, and Iran have in common?
A shortage of fresh water in populated areas.

About 97% of earth's water is salt water, found in the oceans and seas. This water is unsuitable for human consumption, agriculture, and many industrial needs. It is only readily available in coastal areas, and even then, desalination is a costly energy intensive process. A lot of the remaining 3% is tied up in polar ice caps and glaciers. A very small fraction of all the water on earth is available for human use. This includes surface water found in rivers, lakes, and streams, and groundwater found in aquifers. (See groundwater clips in the clip roll).

In many parts of the world, once plentiful sources of surface water are drying up. (See the clips on the Aral Sea and on rivers affected by global warming). This makes groundwater resources even more important. However, it's a lot easier to see how much surface water we have than it is to determine how much water is contained under the ground. Groundwater modeling is an area of active research in hydrology and mathematics. The goal here is to be able to use a limited number of measurements to predict future water levels given a certain amount of pumping. Ideally, communities would be using the best groundwater models available to strive for sustainability -- that is, pumping no more out of the aquifer than will be replaced through precipitation, runoff, or in some cases, artificially recharging the aquifer by pumping treated waste water back in. However, such planning is not the norm in most places.

In the Western US, communities that are outgrowing local water supplies are buying water rights from other communities, building pipelines and importing water. This in turn places a large strain on the water resources of the community that the water is being piped from. (See the clip on "Water Wars in Arizona.")

Since the ground serves as a natural filter, groundwater is often assumed to be clean and safe to drink. This is not always the case. Minerals found in the soil may make the water unsafe. For example, arsenic in the drinking water is a problem in some parts of India. Additionally, agricultural and industrial practices pollute the surface water, which is not isolated from the groundwater. Aquifers are replinished in part by runoff. Many aquifers are now contaminated with pesticides and other industrial and agricultural wastes.

Lack of sanitation also results in contaminated water supplies. This is a problem in many parts of the world and is responsible for many deaths every day, especially among children.

The consequences of lack of sanitation and depletion and contamination of fresh water resources include human disease and death, loss of biodiversity, wildfires, loss of land for agriculture leading to great economic strain, and regional conflict.

Please take a look at the clips below and follow the links to the articles that you would like to know more about. Wikipedia has a good article on the water crisis. The United Nations website is also a good source of information.

I will continue to post information and links related to this topic.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Eight Burst Nebula

Another beautiful astronomy photo.

clipped from antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov NGC 3132: The Eight Burst Nebula Explanation: It's the dim star, not the bright one, near the center of NGC 3132 that created this odd but beautiful planetary nebula. Nicknamed the Eight-Burst Nebula and the Southern Ring Nebula, the glowing gas originated in the outer layers of a star like our Sun. In this representative color picture, the hot blue pool of light seen surrounding this binary system is energized by the hot surface of the faint star. Although photographed to explore unusual symmetries, it's the asymmetries that help make this planetary nebula so intriguing. Neither the unusual shape of the surrounding cooler shell nor the structure and placements of the cool filamentary dust lanes running across NGC 3132 are well understood.