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Water: Will There Be Enough?
“Everyone understands that water is essential to life. But many are only
just now beginning to grasp how essential it is to everything in life – food,
energy, transportation, nature, leisure, identity, culture, social norms, and
virtually all the products used on a daily basis.”
World Business Council
for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
There is as much water on planet Earth today as there was one million years
ago. But there is less water existing today in a liquid state that is fit to
consume.
At the same time, there are far more people on the planet and each and every
one of them must consume water everyday in order to exist.
Simply put, the world is running of clean, safe, water.
According to the United Nations, 1.1 billion people do not have access to
safe drinking water. The UN also asserts that 2.6 billion people do not have
access
to water for sanitation purposes. By the year 2025, the number of people without
access to safe fresh water is projected to climb to well over 4 billion.
While most inhabitants of Earth continue to go about their day-to-day lives
oblivious to this coming crisis, a growing number of wealthy investors and
corporations
are purchasing water rights and positioning themselves and their companies
to take advantage of this coming crisis. Their investments assure them a future
of wealth once a water-starved world finds it must meet their terms for access
to the one commodity no one can live without. Over the past 10 years, Investments
in water related stocks and bonds have already returned wealth to investors.
The Media General water utilities index has risen by 133%, over the past decade
- twice what the Dow Jones Utilities Index has grown over the same period.
Americans tend to believe that water shortages will primarily impact foreign
lands and that the U.S. will always have access to clean water. But the reality
is starkly different. Areas of the U.S. have already experienced severe drought,
and shortages are looming in many other areas. In Florida, the state desperately
wants to pump untreated surface water into their critically shrinking aquifer.
So far, federal regulations prohibit such practices. In Texas and other states,
water distribution is being privatized – placed into the hands of private
companies who are using oil-drilling methods to tap remaining resources in
nearly drained aquifers.
Recently, state governments and Canadian provinces surrounding the Great
Lakes agreed to a compact prohibiting the development of pipelines and other
forms
of water transfer from the Great Lakes to water starved areas in the U.S. and
Canada.
In Washington DC, the Bush Administration has withdrawn a proposal that would
have tightened the arsenic standard for drinking water in the U.S. Critics
claim that the move will allow thousands of Americans to be slowly poisoned
by their
drinking water. But most also concede that tighter controls on arsenic levels
could force the closing of many municipal wells throughout the country and
lead to an immediate water crisis in areas throughout the country.
According to the California Department of Water Resources, unless new sources
of water are identified, by 2020 the state will face a water shortfall equal
to the total amount of water consumed today by its residents. Water resources
in the Los Angeles area are adequate to furnish the needs of only about 1 million
inhabitants. All additional water must be supplied from outside sources or
through desalination. The region’s population is expected to reach 22
million by 2020 and 48 million by the year 2030. Major regions throughout Nevada,
Arizona,
New Mexico, Texas and elsewhere share similar problems. Populations continue
to grow and water resources continue to shrink.
Where water is plentiful, people tend to be wasteful of the resource. It
is also more difficult for the people living in water rich nations to understand
the
danger presented by a global water shortage. Americans especially, tend to
dismiss claims of a water crisis looming in the near future. Talk to most Americans
and
they will tell you that there is plenty of water in the U.S., and, if a water
shortage does occur, we can simply build desalination facilities to convert
seawater to freshwater.
According to the International Desalination Association, over 13,000 desalination
plants operate throughout the world today, producing more than 12 billion gallons
of water per day. Not surprisingly, about 60 percent of the world’s desalination
plants are found in the Middle East.
A human must consume between 1 and 7 liters of water per day to survive.
A gallon of water is roughly equal to 3.8 liters – a little over half the average
daily water needs for a human. Going by these numbers, it would seem that existing
desalination plants have the capacity to provide water to every human on Earth.
This being the case, it’s easy to see why many may question that any
crisis truly exists today or will exist in the future.
While desalination can produce fresh water for human consumption and irrigation,
the use of desalinated water requires energy and results in increased costs.
When it comes to planning a future strategy for water resources, nearly every
expert agrees that desalination should be a last resort.
Approximately 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered with water.
At the same time, water also exists below land surface and as water vapor in
the air. Planet Earth is a closed system that allows little matter, including
water, to ever leave or enter the atmosphere. Therefore, the water that exists
here today existed here billions of years ago. Earth’s ecosystem cleans
and replenishes our water through what we call the hydrologic cycle.
While there seems to be an abundance of water on Earth, only about 0.3 percent
of all that water is usable by humans. Most water is found in the oceans and
contains salt which humans and land animals cannot consume. Other water is
contained in ice, in soil, and as vapor in the atmosphere.
The majority of fresh water on Earth is found underground in aquifers. Surface
water, which is water found in lakes and rivers, is the type of water most
commonly used by humans.
We use water for everything we do as humans. Every product we manufacturer
and every food we cultivate has a hidden “water cost” associated with
its development. For example, it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one
gallon of corn-based ethanol. When you consider the fact that the U.S. Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires that the manufacture of ethanol
be increased to 36 billion gallons per year by 2022 you quickly come to the realization
that it will require 67 trillion gallons of water to be used every day just to
produce this one product – ethanol.
Ethanol is just one tiny example among millions of consumer products requiring
tremendous amounts of fresh water. Obviously, every agricultural product requires
fresh water and accounts for the majority of water usage throughout the world.
But all other consumer products also contain a hidden water cost. A single
tee shirt, for example, requires the use of 22 thousand gallons of water for
its
manufacture.
In much the same way that many Americans did not see the connection between
petroleum products and other consumer goods until a shortage of petroleum created
an increase
in the price of nearly all consumer goods, consumers will most likely only
see the value of water in a product when the cost of that water begins to rise.
The cost of desalination today, generally runs between US$0.50 to US$0.70
per
cubic meter. Because removing salt from seawater is an energy intensive process,
the cost of energy plays a major role in determining the cost of desalination.
Presently, U.S. desalination plants produce fresh water at a rate of around
US$3.10 per 1,000 gallons. Distribution adds to the cost of this water. For
example,
depending on the distance and method of distribution, desalinated water would
add a cost of between US$0.04 and US$0.07 to the price of one head of lettuce,
assuming an irrigation rate of 28 liters per square foot.
Initially, U.S. businesses may benefit from a global water shortage. As agricultural
production comes to a halt in equatorial regions, these nations will become
more dependent upon imported food from places like the United States. China,
which
once produced all the food needed for its citizens, now relies on imported
food. The reason for this change is found in water shortages that have turned
once
fertile agricultural land into barren desert. In addition, China continues
to over pump water from aquifers to feed its water starved industrial base.
Water
levels of aquifers are dropping at a rate of about 1 meter per year in Northern
China and government sources acknowledge that about 300 of its cities are running
short of water. Chinese water resources are also being impacted by unrestrained
industrialization, which has resulted in the pollution of rivers and streams.
In India, too, key aquifers are dropping in level and agricultural soil is
becoming saltier from contaminated irrigation water. India’s “green revolution” succeeded
in greatly increasing food production for its citizens but the lack of clean
water is now taking a toll on agricultural production and requires that India
rely on imports to feed its burgeoning population.
Mexico City is sinking into the ground as the 20 million citizens there consume
water from the underground aquifer faster than it can be replenished. Mexico’s
agricultural industry has also been hurt by outbreaks of disease such as E-coli
attributed to the use of polluted water for irrigation purposes.
Virtually every nation located near or south of the equator is expected to
experience water shortages in the coming years.
According to the World Bank, 80 nations now have water shortages. According
to the World Health Organization, millions of people throughout the world today
only have access to contaminated water. In the Sudan, the number of people
who
rely on contaminated water is put at 12.3 million. In Cuba the number is 1.2
million; in Tunisia, 2.1 million; in Zimbabwe, 2.7 million; in Syria, 3.8 million;
in Venezuela, 5 million; in Iran, 5.6 million.
It is estimated that 5 million people die each year throughout the world
as a result of contaminated water.
Many of the nations that experience severe water shortages tend to also have
high birthrates. Many also maintain the lowest per capita incomes. As the lack
of clean water impacts further upon their country, these people will be required
to rely more and more on imported foods, severely impacting attempts to foster
development and improve internal living conditions.
Scholars and analysts studying world water conditions predict that the future
will bring about wars stemming from water shortages. The late U.S. Senator
Paul Simon (IL Dem), in writing his book, Tapped out: The Coming World Crisis
in Water
and What We Can Do About It stated that, “Within a few years, a water
crisis of catastrophic proportions will explode upon us…
That crisis has exploded and tensions are mounting between bordering nations
looking to secure access to water. More than a dozen nations obtain most of
their water from rivers that cross the borders of other nations. Iraq, Syria,
Turkey,
Israel, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Gambia, the Sudan and the Congo have
all experienced hostility and, in some cases, exchanged threats with neighbors
over
water rights. Even in North America, Mexico and the U.S. have been at odds
on the sharing of water from the Colorado river.
Egypt is projected to have a population of around 95 million by 2025 and
yet has no measurable rainfall. The nation relies solely on the Nile River
for
all of its water. Should nations upstream of Egypt such as Sudan or Ethiopia
interfere
with the flow of the Nile, Egypt would be destroyed. But as the populations
of the Sudan and Ethiopia increase, it is nearly imperative for these nations
to
consume more from the Nile. If management of populations and natural resources
cannot be undertaken, then the matter will be settled by force.
Clearly the future will demand the construction of more desalination plants
throughout the world which will employ thousands of operating engineers in
a growth industry
producing and distributing safe water. Vast pipelines will have to be constructed
into the interiors of nations providing desalinated water from the oceans to
inland cities and agricultural areas. As water scarcity increases, awareness
of the resource and its vital importance will surely increase, perhaps making
humans more responsible in their use and distribution of water.
Whenever you have a high demand for a scarce commodity, the groundwork is
established for the creation of a cartel that can control price and distribution.
That
access to water has, since the dawn of time, been considered a fundamental
human right
is just one of the moral issues that will undoubtedly arise as water is traded
tomorrow in the same manner as oil is traded today. Nothing short of population
control and the establishment of strict, global conservation and environmental
laws can stop and reverse what has already begun. The likelihood of either
of those things happening is too remote to consider. Preparation is the next
best
thing.
Opportunities too numerous to mention exist in meeting this new global challenge.
From underground drilling and water exploration to international finance of
water conservation projects, hundreds of thousands of new jobs will be developed
around
water and the distribution of water. Land reclamation and new methods to prevent
soil deterioration will be developed to maximize agrarian potential and massive
cleanup efforts will be undertaken to restore natural water resources. In the
latter case, private enterprise may fund cleanup efforts in exchange for exclusive
distribution rights of the water.
Living in a world that is half starved for water will usher in a new paradigm.
Regardless of what some people may believe, water is a commodity and will be
treated as such on the world market. The fact that the number of people dying
each year from a lack of access to safe water will increase from today’s
5 million per year to perhaps 5 million a month or even 5 million a day, is
not going to change the way water is processed and distributed. The sooner
people
come to accept this fact, the sooner they can avail themselves of the opportunities
that are developing.
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