[You are not required to read the text on this subject. Use the notes below and make sure to material where (Q) is situated. I will come up with a question from that section. I am not bothering to give you the question, as it did not make much sense for the midterm. The class project is based on the video we will see on Tuesday and the debate on Thursday.Water as a resource:

Water as a Resource

(Q) Because 70% of the Earth is covered by water, it is called the ‘Blue Planet’. Yet only 2.5% of the world’s water is fresh, while 97.5% is oceans. And only 0.3% of this freshwater is available from rivers, lakes and reservoirs, 30% from the grounwater, while the rest is stored in distant glaciers, ice sheets, mountainous areas – all places that we can hardly access

Hydrologists estimated in 1996 that humans are currently using over half of the accessible fresh water. Between 1950 and 1990, global water demand tripled -- and despite conservation measures, it is still rising. If current trends persist, the demand for water might exceed the total available supply by around 2030. There simply won't be enough falling from the sky to satisfy our needs.

Notes for the topic: Responsible for following weeks quiz
Where you see a (Q) means that a question will derive from that material.

III. Too little water with increasing needs of residential citizens often at odds with agricultural and industrial needs Populations outrunning water supplies.... ......By Hillary Mayell Water tables are falling on every continent and major rivers are being drained dry before they reach the sea, according to a report by the Worldwatch Institute that draws a direct link between water availability, population growth and food security. (Q) Water tables fall Postel estimates that 40 percent of the world's food comes from irrigated cropland ; and she points out that historically, most irrigation-based civilizations have failed. Problems associated with irrigated farming include water-logging, salting and silting. The introduction of diesel and electrically powered pumps has added a new wrinkle: aquifer depletion. The report sites examples of falling water tables ; and their effects on agricultural output: In India, researchers estimate that water is being pumped from the ground at double the rate of aquifer recharge from rainfall. The International Water Management Institute estimates that India's grain harvest could be reduced by up to one fourth as a result of aquifer depletion. The country's population reached 1 billion in August and is expected to add an additional 18 million people a year for the foreseeable future. Depletion of the Ogallala aquifer in the southern Great Plains of the United States has led to irrigation cutbacks in farming states; Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado have been losing irrigated land over the last two decades. Texas has lost irrigated land at roughly one percent a year since 1980. Water tables are falling in China almost everywhere that the land is flat. Under the North China Plain, the country's breadbasket, water tables are falling by roughly 5 feet (1.5 meters) a year. Where wells have gone dry, farmers have been forced either to drill deeper, if they can afford it, or to abandon irrigated agriculture, converting back to lower-yield rain-fed farming. China's population is also estimated at 1 billion. Together, China, the United States and India produce about one-half the world's food. (Q) Rivers running dry As populations continue to grow and pull more water from rivers, a new phenomenon; rivers running dry has developed. China's Yellow River first ran dry in 1972. Since 1985, it has run dry for part of each year. In 1997, it failed to reach the sea during 226 days, or roughly 7 months of the year. India's Ganges River has little water left during the dry season when it reaches the Bay of Bengal, leaving farmers in Bangladesh strapped for water. The same is true of the Nile River. Most of the water is now claimed, but the populations of the three basin countries, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, are expected to nearly double by 2050 .In central Asia, the Amu Darya, one of two rivers that once fed the Aral Sea, is now drained dry by farmers in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As the sea has shrunk to scarcely half its original size, the rising salt concentration has destroyed all fish, eliminating a rich fishery that once landed 100 million pounds of fish a year. Hydrologists estimate that when the amount of fresh water per person in a country drops below 1,700 cubic meters a year the country is facing water stress. Similarly, the Colorado, the major river in the southwestern United States, rarely ever makes it to the Gulf of California, and the fishery at its mouth has disappeared. The link between food shortages and water shortages is close. Hydrologists estimate that when the amount of fresh water per person in a country drops below 1,700 cubic meters per year the country is facing water stress. Postel estimates that the number of people living in countries experiencing water stress will increase from 467 million in 1995 to over 3 billion by 2025 as population continues to grow. Water scarcity leads inevitably to competition between urban and rural residents. Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain, it's cheaper for a country to divert water to its urban centers and import grain than to have its own farmers use the limited water to grow food. This works fine until a country runs out of money or there's a crash in the world grain market. With more and more countries looking to the world market for food, spreading water scarcity may translate into world food scarcity sooner rather than later.

Concentrating on the third issue, why too little.... the answer is fairly obvious, but the solution is inherently difficult. The following is modifed from the UN report on water shortages in the world, from the Population Reports is published by the Population Information Program, Center for Communication Programs, The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health....no longer online and from various news sources online ( ENN, NY Time) (Q) Reasons for water resource issues: 1. Water consumption has doubled every twenty years....we have more people Global water consumption rose six fold between 1900 and 1995 -- more than double the rate of population growth The United States is one of the most prodigious consumers. When total water consumption is divided by the population, each citizen on average uses 150 gallons a day compared to 50 gallons for Europeans and just 7 1/2 gallons for Africans. 2. To increase food productivity, we've multiplied the level of water use for irrigation by a factor of four to five... i.e.. Midwest US, China Water use in agriculture is slated to increase as world food demand rises. Agriculture already accounts for about 70 percent of water consumption worldwide, and the United Nations projects a 50- to 100-percent increase in irrigation water by 2025 "With water tables falling in key food-producing regions such as the southern Great Plains of the United States, several states in India (including the Punjab, the country's breadbasket) and much of northern China, any projections that do not take into account aquifer depletion will overstate future food gains." -" World Watch" To also consider: Salt plagues Australia drinking water In the latest revelation in Australia's dryland salinity crisis, unless new agricultural practices are adopted in southern Australia, residents there will need to buy water or find new water sources because their water will be too salty to drink, a science briefing forum was told in state parliament Wednesday. Dryland salinity has plagued Australia since the first forest was cleared for crops and pastureland. As a result, southern Australia's water is too salty to drink and 20 percent of the regions' surface water resources are already above acceptable saline levels for human consumption. Over-irrigation is not only wasteful but potentially damaging for the soil. If soil becomes waterlogged and the water table rises, salts from deep in the ground are carried to the surface, where they can form a crust when the water evaporates. This salty soil is then infertile -- a problem called 'salinization'. 3. Distribution of water worldwide is not even...... The largest increase in the world's population is occurring in location with little natural water resources...ie. number of African nations A 1997 United Nations assessment of freshwater resources found that one third of the world's population lives in countries experiencing moderate to high water stress. 60 percent of the world's drinking water is located in just 10 countries, including Russia, the United States, China, Indonesia and Brazil. Industrialized countries use far greater amounts of water than rural ones, and rich countries use more than poor ones. Only 40 percent of the world's population has enough water. image taken from: World resources Institute: http://www.wri.org/wri/wr-98-99/water.htm 4. Concentration of populations in urban areas forces major redistribution of water supplies with attendant waste and inadequate piping...ie. Mexico City The need for increased electric power for industry and residential uses has increased the number of dams worldwide, causing major redistributions of waterways, and resulting in the loss of that water for others... i.e.. California, New Zealand. "China now officially recognizes that 300 of its largest cities are facing water scarcity. Of these, 100 cities, including Beijing, face acute water scarcity. In the spring of 1994, the government banned farmers from reservoirs in the agricultural regions surrounding Beijing, because all available water was needed in the cities. This experience is likely to be repeated hundreds of times over the next decades in the world's water-scarce regions." World Watch" 5. Water pollution adds enormously to existing problems of local and regional water scarcity by removing large volumes of water from the available supply. Water quality in most of the developed countries has steadily improved in recent years Even in the developed world, however, wastewater is not necessarily treated before discharge. In the southern member states of the European Union, about 50 percent of the population is not yet connected to sewage treatment operations Many developing countries undergoing rapid industrialization are now faced with the full range of modern toxic pollution problems -- eutrophication, heavy metals, acidification, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) -- while still struggling to deal with traditional problems of poor water supply and lack of sanitation services

II. Impacts of current water use: (Q) Problem 1. In some areas, water withdrawals are so high, relative to supply, that surface water supplies are literally shrinking and groundwater reserves are being depleted faster than they can be replenished by precipitation:

In average rainfall years, Californians use more groundwater than is replaced by precipitation, stream seepage or artificial recharge programs. Annual statewide overdraft -- taking out more than is replenished -- is estimated by DWR to be approximately 1.4 million acre-feet in a normal year. The long-term decline in groundwater storage can result in lowered water tables and increased energy costs for pumping. In some basins, overdraft leads to land subsidence and can cause sea water and other contaminants to invade the aquifer. (from California Water Issues/ http://www.water-ed.org/briefing.html#overdraft): Photo of fissures caused by subsidence in the SW Photo from USGS at:http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/changes/anthropogenic/subside/ Examples of subsidence depressions in : Arizona: subsidence in Eloy:15 feet ..................West of Phoenix:18 feet California: SW of Mendota: 29 ft..... Davis: 4 ft ....Sanata Clara Valley:12 ft. ....Ventura: 2 ft. IN China and India subsidence is much, much worse.

(Q) Problem II: Continuing Conflict Over Fresh Water Myths, legends and written histories reveal repeated controversy over freshwater resources since ancient times. Scrolls from Mesopotamia, for instance, indicate that the states of Umma and Lagash in the Middle East clashed over the control of irrigation canals some 4,500 years ago. Throughout history, water has been used as a military and political goal, as a weapon of war and even as a military target. But disagreements most often arise from the fact that water resources are not neatly partitioned by the arbitrary political borders set by governments. Today nearly half of the land area of the world lies within international river basins, and the watersheds of 261 major rivers are shared by two or more countries. Overlapping claims to water resources have often provoked disputes, and in recent years local and regional conflicts have escalated over inequitable allocation and use of water resources. A small sampling of water conflicts that occurred in the 20th century demonstrates that treaties and other international diplomacy can sometimes encourage opposing countries to cooperate--but not always before blood is shed. The risk of future strife cannot be ignored: disputes over water will become more common over the next several decades as competition for this scarce resource intensifies. --P.H.G. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ U.S. 1924 Local farmers dynamite the Los Angeles aqueduct several times in an attempt to prevent diversions of water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. India and Pakistan 1947 to 1960 Partitioning of British India awkwardly divides the waters of the Indus River valley between India and Pakistan. Competition over irrigation supplies incites numerous conflicts between the two nations; in one case, India stems the flow of water into Pakistani irrigation canals. After 12 years of World Bank–led negotiations, a 1960 treaty helps to resolve the discord. Egypt and Sudan 1958 Egypt sends troops into contested territory between the two nations during sensitive negotiations concerning regional politics and water from the Nile. Signing of a Nile waters treaty in 1959 eases tensions. Israel, Jordan and Syria 1960s and 1970s Clashes over allocation, control and diversion of the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers continue to the present day. South Africa 1990 A pro-apartheid council cuts off water to 50,000 black residents of Wesselton Township after protests against wretched sanitation and living conditions. Iraq 1991 During the Persian Gulf War, Iraq destroys desalination plants in Kuwait. A United Nations coalition considers using the Ataturk Dam in Turkey to shut off the water flow of the Euphrates River to Iraq. < India 1991 to present An estimated 50 people die in violence that continues to erupt between the Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the allocation of irrigation water from the Cauvery River, which flows from one state into the other. Yugoslavia 1999 NATO shuts down water supplies in Belgrade and bombs bridges on the Danube River, disrupting navigation. Bangladesh 2003 Bangladesh is concerned that a proposed Indian project to divert some rivers that flow through both countries could cause environmental and economic damages in this delta nation, officials said. According to Bangladeshi media reports, India plans to link 37 rivers through dams and canals that would transfer water from its flood-prone east to its arid central, western and southern regions.The idea is to provide water for irrigation and power generation, and control annual floods and droughts in India, but officials and environmentalists here fear it could reduce river flows in Bangladesh, depleting fish stocks and threatening the livelihoods of millions of people. USA 2003 The United States should consider stopping the flow of water to Mexico from the Colorado River if the southern neighbor continues to lag behind in its water-sharing obligations under a 1944 treaty, Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday. Mexico's mounting water debt has created serious problems for Texas farmers in the border region, Perry said. "Diplomacy for all these many years does not appear to have worked," he said after speaking to a group of water planners at the Water 2025 Conference. "There comes a time when we must take further steps. If Mexico continues to refuse to live up to the obligations, the United States should consider turning off the tap." Africa 2004 ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — African countries could face water wars if the power of their mighty rivers isn't properly harnessed and shared, officials from across the continent said Tuesday. Government ministers from 19 African nations discussed how to streamline and better utilize three main river basins — the Nile, the Zambezi, and the Senegal — that constitute the economic backbone of the countries they drain. "The utilization of these rivers has mostly been a source of contention and conflict," Ethiopian minister of water resources Shiferaw Jarso told the two-day summit titled "Africa's Experience of International Waters."More than two-thirds of Africa's 60 river basins are shared by more than one country, creating potential conflict over how they should be harnessed and used. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) warned in a recent report that water wars are likely in areas where rivers are shared by more than one country.

(Q): Problem III: Destruction of natural habitats leading to loss or major declines of species There are numerous examples worldwide of loss of species with loss of water. From whole lake ecosystems to salmon runs competiting with irrigation needs. A single example: After a 15-year fight, environmentalists in 1994 prevailed in their struggle with Los Angeles over the waters of Mono Lake. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) was restricted from diverting the flow of four of the fresh water creeks that feed into Mono Lake until the level rises 18-feet above the 1994 lake level, which is expected to take 20 years. By 1997, the lake had risen 8 feet. LADWP's nearly 50 years of exports caused the lake to drop 40 feet, which increased saline levels and threatened the unique ecosystem. Others:In Egypt, diverting water from the Nile has virtually wiped out some 30 of 47 commercial species of fish. In Europe, the Rhine River is so polluted that eight of its 44 fish species have disappeared and another 25 are rare or endangered. California has lost more than 90 percent of its wetlands, resulting in two-thirds of the state's native fish becoming extinct or in decline (Q) Solutions: ( parts adapted from Nature journal; others from numerous sites) 1. Desalination At present desalination -- the removal of salt from sea water or brackish water -- is very expensive, mainly because it consumes so much energy. Desalination provides less than 0.2 per cent of all the water used in the world. Only in relatively wealthy water-poor countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel and the United States, is it conducted to any significant degree. But cheap and efficient solar power could, if it becomes feasible, make a big difference. Sophisticated solutions such as solar-powered desalination plants have a role to play, particularly in wealthy yet arid countries, but the two biggest components of the global water crisis are the contamination of drinking supplies with human faeces, and the massive wastage of water that is inherent in prevailing agricultural practices. Both of these problems could be alleviated by refining and implementing existing technologies. 2. Drain on resources The world's difficulties with sanitation might be eased if we abandon the idea of disposing of our waste with a flush. In the rich North, flush toilets are the largest single drain on domestic water supplies. But there is no need for the developing countries that currently lack adequate sanitation to imitate this wasteful practice, which would require substantial investment in sewage-treatment infrastructure. Ventilated, composting toilets can now safely turn human waste into an odourless, soil-like residue. Further development may be needed to reduce the cost of the technology. But as demands for water grow, this has to be a better solution than a system that involves the contamination and subsequent treatment of precious water supplies. 3. Recycling: In developed countries, many industries are already recycling the water they need (largely for cooling), rather than discharging it after one round of use. This is in everyone's interest. It lowers an industrial plant's water bill (sometimes by as much as 90 per cent), the stress on resources is reduced, and pollution is cut. 4. Meanwhile, irrigation for agriculture accounts for more than two-thirds of humanity's use of water. In many cases, the techniques used are much the same as when the farmers of Mesopotamia first diverted water from the Euphrates some 6,000 years ago: dig a channel from a river to your crops, and let gravity do the work. Thanks to seepage and evaporation, however, this can result in almost 60% of the diverted water being lost. Today, we do not need to be so wasteful. By using 'micro-irrigation', in which water is piped and fed onto crops through sealed systems, irrigation can be made 90% efficient. Much greater use could also be made of recycled waste water, rather than drawing from supplies that could be used for human consumption.Seventy per cent of the domestic water discharged from communities in Israel is now used for irrigation. 'Sewage farming' may sound unappealing, but it makes sense An WWF report recommends various methods for managing water more efficiently to tackle the food and water crisis. It highlights that the main causes of water shortages are inappropriate irrigation systems and growing crops unsuited to the environment. This is being driven by misdirected subsidies, low public and political awareness of the crisis, and weak environmental legislation. The WWF report identifies cotton, rice, sugar cane, and wheat as the “thirstiest” crops in nine large river basins rich in biodiversity. WWF believes that growing crops more suited to the location and season would give more ‘crop per drop’. In the Niger River basin for example, rice is grown in the dry season, and therefore demands more water. Switching to growing wheat during that season could reduce water use by more than a third on average while still producing a crop of food and commercial value. 5. One unconventional and almost bizarre proposal for redistributing water is to transport it across the ocean in gigantic plastic bags. The bags have to be light and flexible, yet waterproof and very tough. Several companies, such as the Nordic Water Supply Company in Oslo, Norway, and Aquarius Holdings Ltd in England, are attempting to develop 'water bag' technology. 6. ( from EPA) Pricing water appropriately is important for water providers and consumers to get the right market signals. Like other utilities, drinking water and wastewater systems are typically either regulated monopolies or publicly owned. One of the key challenges facing systems under these circumstances is to provide their services in an economically efficient manner. Prices play an important role, but the price signal often is muted in publicly owned systems or regulated monopolies. The price of drinking water and wastewater services is rarely equal to marginal cost (i.e., the cost to the system of producing an additional unit of water), and is often below the average cost per unit of water service (implying some form of subsidy). 7. Form an ENN article: This applies not only to Kenya but to all countries, including our own. Water infra struture is in dismal condition world wide. "There are people in the semi-arid and arid areas who still have to walk about 10 hours looking for wate," said Martha Karua, Kenya's minister of water resources. "That situation is totally unacceptable. Kenya is a water-scarce country, but I believe that with efficient management of our water resources, we can use the available water resources for the benefit of everybody and to cover all our needs," she said. She said rebuilding Nairobi's crumbling water infrastructure with leaking pipes would cost more than $80 billion, but much also needed to be done to eradicate corruption and misuse. "In Nairobi around 40 percent of the water is unaccounted for," Karua said. "It is estimated that there are around 4,000 water vendors licensed by the Nairobi City Council. What is amazing is that very few of these have any known water source, which means basically that we are licensing people to vandalize the system." 8. Tuesday, September 02, 2003 GENEVA — Major cities should focus efforts and funds on conserving forests, which naturally purify their drinking water, saving them from spending billions of dollars on water treatment facilities, a study published Monday showed. The study of 105 big cities by the World Bank and the ecology organization the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-International) showed that one-third of them, including New York, Tokyo, Barcelona, and Melbourne, get much of their water via protected forests. Getting bright young scientists and engineers interested in the world's water problems is vital. One difficulty, in that regard, is that composting toilets and micro-irrigation aren't seen as sexy topics. Yet there are prominent role models to show that scientific excellence and the application of appropriate technologies can go hand in hand. Step forward Rita Colwell, director of the US National Science Foundation, who for the past three decades has studied the factors that influence outbreaks of cholera. Today, her team's research incorporates the latest techniques of genomics and remote sensing, yet Colwell remains aware of the value of low-tech solutions. One of her most recent papers evaluates the use in Bangladesh of folded sari material to filter Vibrio cholerae, the cholera pathogen, from drinking water (R. R. Colwell et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 100, 1051–1055; 2003). Political solution But it is at the political level that the battle to avert the global water crisis will ultimately be won or lost. For too long, politicians have tried to tackle problems with water resources through centralized control and grandiose engineering projects. 'If it flows, dam it', has been their mantra. These schemes have brought benefits through an expansion of hydroelectric power, and have allowed vast areas to be opened up for cultivation, but the human and environmental consequences have often been disastrous. Take the Aral Sea, a giant salt lake between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in central Asia that is rapidly being turned into a dust bowl, destroying a unique ecosystem and with it the livelihoods and health of many of the region's 5 million people. This environmental catastrophe, today a source of tension between five nations, is a consequence of the former Soviet Union's policy of diverting water from the rivers that feed the Aral Sea to irrigate its vast plantations of cotton. Such aberrations are not the exclusive preserve of socialist planning — witness Saudi Arabia's draining of its aquifers in the 1980s and 1990s in order to become an exporter of wheat, and the continuing obscenity of sprinklers watering golf courses in the parched western United States. We need to move away from such misguided adventures, which will require more decisions about water resources being taken in close consultation with local water users. Most fundamentally, however, averting the global water crisis will require developed nations to summon the political will — and hard cash — to help the world's poorest countries tackle water-borne disease, and put their use of water on the path to sustainability. Officially, the world has already signed up to the goal of halving the number of people lacking access to safe drinking water by 2015. But this will cost tens of billions of dollars, and even before the crisis in Iraq consumed their attention, world leaders were showing little commitment to providing the necessary funds. Water Banking: Australians have just won an award for coming up with this solution: Water banking is used in the arid southwestern United States. Under groundwater banking procedures, the state of Nevada receives credits for Colorado River water stored in Arizona's groundwater basin. The state of Arizona has created an innovative Arizona Water Bank, through which unused Colorado River water can be stored in underground aquifers for future use. By way of example, the rule would allow an entity in Nevada to pay the cost of storing water in Arizona or California. "While aquifer storage and recovery is not a new concept," Martin explains," what is unique about our work is the quality of the water recovered. We've been injecting water that is undrinkable into brackish and saline aquifers and from that, producing water that is suitable for irrigation." The collection and storage of urban stormwater in aquifers presents challenges. Stormwater runoff has flow rates up to thousands of gallons per second, while aquifers can only accept water at rates of up to tens of gallons per second. This means a temporary water storage solution is needed. "Urban wetlands, which are becoming the vogue in most new urban developments for flood mitigation and water treatment, offer increased opportunities for stormwater storage and improve the quality of water before it is injected into an aquifer," says Dr. Dillon.