Water, water everywhere ...

Scientific American article on water and why it's so important for life.

Desalination

Listen up folks, you've read it here before (myself and commenters both), and I'll say it again. Fresh water is one of the scarcest resources on the planet. Here is an article on desalination techniques in Scientific American. It's a good read.

Almost three quarters of Earth's surface is covered with water, but most of it is too salty to drink. And the 2.5 percent that is freshwater is locked up either in soil, remote snowpacks and glaciers or in deep aquifers. That leaves less than 1 percent of all freshwater for humans and animals to drink and for farmers to use to raise crops—and that remnant is shrinking as rising global temperatures trigger more droughts. The upshot: it's becoming increasingly difficult to slake the world's thirst as the population grows and water supplies dwindle. Analysts at the investment bank Goldman Sachs estimate that worldwide water use doubles every 20 years.

If you talk to someone in the know ...

... when it comes to environmental issues, and you ask them what the next "Big Deal" is, they'll tell you "Water". Water is a hot commodity, and we totally take it for granted. I mean, admit it ... you literally flush drinking-grade water down the toilet every day without even drinking it. I've blogged about it before. However, despite our cavalier attitude about water, it really is a finite resource. One only need look at Atlanta of last year to realize that, and farmers in California this year are going to be squeezed very tightly thanks to new regulations.

So? We need more water, and we need is yesterday. And scientists may have stumbled upon something which may help us achieve that goal. Desalination done cheaply, also an item I mentioned in that blog entry I linked to earlier in this entry.

To Hell With Oil ... Where Is The Water?

Expect lots of droughts in the future.

At least 36 states expect to face water shortages within the next five years, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. According to the National Drought Mitigation Center, several regions in particular have been hit hard: the Southeast, Southwest and the West. Texas, Georgia and South Carolina have suffered the worst droughts this year, the agency said.

This is obviously not a "Good Thing". With droughts come increases in food prices, which isn't something most people can handle right about now.

So, what can we do?

Water shortages don't have to remain a fact of modern life, drought experts say. Many offer the same solutions: Build better water delivery systems to accommodate population growth, develop more efficient uses of irrigation, and shift agriculture from the West to the East where it's easier and cheaper to water crops.

Infrastructure folks. More water storage capacity, both for on-farm and municipal use. I cannot stress the on-farm use enough either. I heard that costs in California for irrigation of a single acre in California is up from ~$30 last year to over $600 this year. If that report is true (if it was reported correctly AND I heard it correctly) that spells clusterf**k. Plus, it's about damn time we started working on inexpensive membrane technologies to desalinate sea water.