In the US, wells being drilled ever deeper as groundwater vanishes(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
In the US, wells being drilled ever deeper as groundwater vanishes
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/wells-are-getting-deeper-as-groundwater-gets-depleted/
184 comments
> Interestingly, farmers view water usage as a trade secret
I wonder why. Do slight changes in irrigation patterns have a significant effect on crops?
I wonder why. Do slight changes in irrigation patterns have a significant effect on crops?
Definitely! If someone is able to figure out how to use less water to grow the same amount of crops they could totally outcompete and undercut other producers.
There's an interesting Planet Money episode about it: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/12/732147345/the-water-marketpla...
There's an interesting Planet Money episode about it: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/12/732147345/the-water-marketpla...
>If someone is able to figure out how to use less water to grow the same amount of crops
We've already had that for years. Farmers don't want to make the structural investments required to get there. Water for farming needs to become prohibitively expensive for them to even consider moving away from their wasteful large fields. Tax the hell out of the land, too.
What takes an acre of land and 100,000 gallons of water (a crop of wheat grass) can be done in a building 1/8 of an acre, 90% lower water requirements if not more, and produce 6x more than what the open plot of land does, on a yearly basis, on average.
I did and proved that almost a decade ago. Looks like nobody still wants to listen.
We've already had that for years. Farmers don't want to make the structural investments required to get there. Water for farming needs to become prohibitively expensive for them to even consider moving away from their wasteful large fields. Tax the hell out of the land, too.
What takes an acre of land and 100,000 gallons of water (a crop of wheat grass) can be done in a building 1/8 of an acre, 90% lower water requirements if not more, and produce 6x more than what the open plot of land does, on a yearly basis, on average.
I did and proved that almost a decade ago. Looks like nobody still wants to listen.
Water usage combined with weather information likely gives competitive advantage is futures markets.
I'm sure it could but why would the farmers care about the futures market, unless they are using futures to hedge against their own crops?
That's exactly what the commodity futures markets are for. There's a reason why the big commodity trading floor was in Chicago (it's essentially all electronic now of course).
But wouldn't they want the futures market to have perfect information? So that the futures could be priced exactly right, which would mean the lowest possible price that counterbalances a down market perfectly?
I assume the farmers aren't trying to make money from the futures, they're just trying to not lose money. Their profits come from actually growing food. The futures are just there in case something bad happens. Right?
I assume the farmers aren't trying to make money from the futures, they're just trying to not lose money. Their profits come from actually growing food. The futures are just there in case something bad happens. Right?
I'd venture farmers make half or more more of their money on futures markets. Argi-business is a global market and optimal prices for your commodities don't necessarily conform to your local conditions/crops/etc.
I can't speak for all farmers, but my family owns a farm and the futures market is huge in it generating money.
You can use the futures markets to hedge against bad crop yields, lock in profits for accounting and cash flow purposes, inform what crops you are going to grow. It's immensely valuable.
I can't speak for all farmers, but my family owns a farm and the futures market is huge in it generating money.
You can use the futures markets to hedge against bad crop yields, lock in profits for accounting and cash flow purposes, inform what crops you are going to grow. It's immensely valuable.
Do you know of any good articles on this. I.E. futures for the small family-run farm?
There's magazines like this one (https://www.agweb.com/farmjournal); however it sounds like we'd have different ideas of small though. Outside of direct to consumer farmers market type opperations, "small" farms in the US are still measured in thousands of acres (just, 4 figures instead of 6).
The meta markets in how and when you sell crops (pre sale on the futures market vs sale at harvest, vs store and wait for commodities prices to be ideal) is, honestly fascinating and so different from the image of the "farmer" in popular culture.
The meta markets in how and when you sell crops (pre sale on the futures market vs sale at harvest, vs store and wait for commodities prices to be ideal) is, honestly fascinating and so different from the image of the "farmer" in popular culture.
That's still useful, thanks!
What does it use _“block-chain”_ for?
Anonymity, presumably. That said, you'd think there would be no reason that whatever real-world authority is ensuring no one extracts more than their purchased credits allow would already have all the secret information and could just be the clearing house for the transactions.
Farmers are on large plots, and there is only so much watertable. Why do they need to be anonymous?
Sounds like more blockchain hype + the hidden potential for Nestle or whoever to buy up all the water rights discretely. Utilities should not be anonymous.
Sounds like more blockchain hype + the hidden potential for Nestle or whoever to buy up all the water rights discretely. Utilities should not be anonymous.
Truly, one would think you’d still need an authority to connect the water supply usage to the blockchain per se.
hype
When some aquifers are drained, they take many thousands of years to replenish, a heavy rain season doesn't really help with these depleted aquifers.
Here's a great video on Cody'sLab that explains how confined aquifers work and why they take so long to replenish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4iCgxsZX4
Here's a great video on Cody'sLab that explains how confined aquifers work and why they take so long to replenish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4iCgxsZX4
It even shows why some aquifers may never replenish. The layer of the aquifer is not tightly compressed and can hold water. When the water is released and the layer starts to compress from the weight from above, its ability to hold water is permanently diminished.
The sinkhole above it can hold houses though!
Happens to Teheran and many Indian cities. Viewable via satellite.
Las Vegas has a lot of subsidence due to ground water use.
In the Santa Clara valley. Used to be the water table was so high in a lot of places you could drill artesian wells. When orchard farms got going they pulled so much water that by the 19920's some places sunk 12 feet. The fix was irrigation systems and replenishment.
I read my great grandfathers diaries and water was a big deal in the 1880's. One spring after dry winter he had to slaughter all of his calves and the older dairy cows. Later that year his older brother shot himself in despair. Next year his sisters and younger brother went up to Oregon to live with relatives and never returned.
Water has been a big deal my whole life in California. That's unremarkable. What's new is it's becoming a big deal in a lot of places.
I read my great grandfathers diaries and water was a big deal in the 1880's. One spring after dry winter he had to slaughter all of his calves and the older dairy cows. Later that year his older brother shot himself in despair. Next year his sisters and younger brother went up to Oregon to live with relatives and never returned.
Water has been a big deal my whole life in California. That's unremarkable. What's new is it's becoming a big deal in a lot of places.
Cody! I love that guy. His vids are so refreshingly insane and hackery. I'd suggest nearly all his vids.
That said, the guy seems like he has some psychological issues. I hope he gets the help that he deserves, if he isn't already.
Cody, if you are out there, you rock man! Keep being Cody!
That said, the guy seems like he has some psychological issues. I hope he gets the help that he deserves, if he isn't already.
Cody, if you are out there, you rock man! Keep being Cody!
The same phenomenon is happening is happening in China & India and probably many other parts of he world as well. As we become more a more affluent society, our on water consumption increases. We need to raise awareness at a global level about preserving and saving water.
https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/04/28-000-riv...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/photos/rivers...
https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/04/28-000-riv...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/photos/rivers...
Why not just price water to reflect supply realities?
Why would anyone care about saving water when it's so dirt cheap? "Awareness" seems like a waste of time in comparison.
Why would anyone care about saving water when it's so dirt cheap? "Awareness" seems like a waste of time in comparison.
Exactly. My father in law lives in a town that has no water metering (and usually, but not always, plenty of water).
In the summer he puts his sprinklers in 2 or 3 times a day, even when dire warnings are issued about water consumption.
Human behavior is all about the impact on the back pocket (particularly if you are a pensioner).
Where does he live?
Serious question. I'd be interested in whether or not his behavior is a function of living in an area drowning in fresh water sources?
If he does not live in such an area, then I'm really interested in how the municipality is able to keep the price of water that low? That would seem to defy the rule of supply and demand in my mind.
Serious question. I'd be interested in whether or not his behavior is a function of living in an area drowning in fresh water sources?
If he does not live in such an area, then I'm really interested in how the municipality is able to keep the price of water that low? That would seem to defy the rule of supply and demand in my mind.
He's not in the US, but in a town of 160K-odd people, with a very decent river running right through.
Water is indeed very cheap, but the main thing is that there's no metering. Metering is seen by some as taking away their rights, and possibly leading the elderly/poor to skimp on water and thus hygiene - so there is considerable resistance to water metering. It's not a sustainable position though (because of people like him :) and metering must arrive one day.
Water is indeed very cheap, but the main thing is that there's no metering. Metering is seen by some as taking away their rights, and possibly leading the elderly/poor to skimp on water and thus hygiene - so there is considerable resistance to water metering. It's not a sustainable position though (because of people like him :) and metering must arrive one day.
Most places in the Northeast have an abundance of water, and water rates mostly fund infrastructure. For example, NYC only began metering water usage in 1986.
Does market economics work if there's no way to prevent the tragedy of the commons?
That's a confusing question. The tragedy of the commons happens specifically when a resource is under- or un-priced.
It's not a confusing question. The tragedy of the commons happens when a company or person abuses a resource that is provided for the good of all. We can look at any company and realize that compared to an average individual the pollution and resource consumption is crazy.
The problem with industry is that everything is value added but nobody looks at externalities sufficiently or value subtracted.
The problem with industry is that everything is value added but nobody looks at externalities sufficiently or value subtracted.
The key is to 'sell' or 'gift' the property rights to the resources that were previously part of the commons (and to a party that can economically protect their new asset).
I'm hoping one day something like that will happen with fisheries, e.g. someone will own fisheries or maybe even schools of fish. Anything less seems doomed to tragedy.
Note that government management of a previously 'commons' resource is, in theory, the same basic arrangement. In practice tho, the very different incentives shaping government organizations doesn't seem to as reliably protect resources as for private entities.
('Markets fail'. Governments fail too. What's the expected difference in the rate of failure of the two?)
I'm hoping one day something like that will happen with fisheries, e.g. someone will own fisheries or maybe even schools of fish. Anything less seems doomed to tragedy.
Note that government management of a previously 'commons' resource is, in theory, the same basic arrangement. In practice tho, the very different incentives shaping government organizations doesn't seem to as reliably protect resources as for private entities.
('Markets fail'. Governments fail too. What's the expected difference in the rate of failure of the two?)
This is the most important question of our era.
A lot of people outside of cities have their own groundwater wells, which is at least part of what the article is talking about. How do you price water people are pulling directly from the ground with their own equipment?
Aren't water wells permitted? In that case, you simply require a meter, ideally the cellular or zigbee sort. I'm sure there would be water bandits but it doesn't seem totally impossible.
Hang on, you want me to pay the local government for water under my land that they don't treat or pump for me? You're going to have to adjust some property laws in the US (and at least England and Canada I would guess) to do that.
I thought surface rights and water rights were already unbundled in a lot of US states.
Rain barrels are/were illegal in a lot of US areas because you didn’t own the water that landed on your property.
Rain barrels are/were illegal in a lot of US areas because you didn’t own the water that landed on your property.
Wait, what now? Read that out loud and consider the idea that rain waters my lawn for free regardless of whether I have a barrel.
Holy good God it’s not totally fabricated. https://www.truthorfiction.com/collecting-rainwater-is-illeg...
Holy good God it’s not totally fabricated. https://www.truthorfiction.com/collecting-rainwater-is-illeg...
Beneath your land is also a fiction, it takes hundreds of years to accumulate and stretches far beyond the boundaries of your land.
Yeah your house and property sits above a subterranean _lake_. You can't just pull water out of a lake as you please. You shouldm't be able to pull out ground water as you please either.
Look, it's not my pet project, I'm just pointing out that if we decided we needed to track groundwater usage for whatever reason- price, allocation, whatever- it could probably be reasonably done.
There is no reason at all you can't put a meter on a well. None. Everything to do that exists.
I assure you that you will have a very difficult time enforcing permit rules anywhere that is not dense enough to have town water.
Who knows, farmers understand that they essentially compete with their neighbor for groundwater, so maybe they would police eachother & ensure that everyone plays fair & had a meter. Just dreaming.
It's one of the applications for zoning in rural areas.
My parents live in an area where there is no municipal water system. Due to the geology for both water supply and septic systems, they mandate a minimum lot size of 4 acres.
My parents live in an area where there is no municipal water system. Due to the geology for both water supply and septic systems, they mandate a minimum lot size of 4 acres.
I can’t speculate too much without knowing where, but it sounds more like regulatory capture to prevent development.
With conservation, rainwater collection, gray water re-use, incinerating/composting toilets and/or engineered septic fields, a lot can be done without a lot of groundwater or usable natural septic field.
With conservation, rainwater collection, gray water re-use, incinerating/composting toilets and/or engineered septic fields, a lot can be done without a lot of groundwater or usable natural septic field.
It’s in the middle of nowhere. My neighbor was the mayor who implemented it, with the goal of encouraging development.
Encouraging development with minimum lot sizes of 4 acres?
Or simply charge more for the license itself.
You 'sell' or 'gift' the rights to all groundwater in a suitably defined watershed and that controlling entity sets prices (and at least partially enforces their rights). The controlling entity could be a government organization. A private organization would need either some kind of cooperative police apparatus (with the ability to detect, and stop, violations of the controlling entity's rights to the groundwater).
Doing so would probably make poor people die of dehydration as scarcity increases. Those with the means to drill their own wells will do so, especially if there is a strong commercial incentive. We already saw this play out in past years in california as individual humans faced onerous water restrictions while big agro continued to grow almonds using the same water supply. Bringing symmetry to regulations should be the first priority before any further burden is placed on individuals.
Because we as a society have decided that we are all better off if it's cheap enough that poor people can still use it on a whim. Of course this results in some people over-using but we think that's less of a problem.
I don’t know about the rest of the US, but in SF water pricing is tiered. A small amount costs x per gallon. A larger amount costs 2x per gallon. And even larger amount costs 4x per gallon, etc.
Unfortunately the rich can still abuse this, as it’s not actually proportionate to income. I wish more public fees were, like speeding tickets, car registration costs, etc, so that rich/poor impact was more normalized.
N.B. The multipliers are illustrative and not the actual numbers.
Unfortunately the rich can still abuse this, as it’s not actually proportionate to income. I wish more public fees were, like speeding tickets, car registration costs, etc, so that rich/poor impact was more normalized.
N.B. The multipliers are illustrative and not the actual numbers.
Tiered pricing seems like a decent compromise.
Scaled pricing is stupid. I didn't work my ass off climbing the ladder just to get screwed out of the same fraction of my money by the government as when I brought home a few hundred a week. If you want to cut the poor a break then make fees and fines tax deductible.
Scaled pricing is stupid. I didn't work my ass off climbing the ladder just to get screwed out of the same fraction of my money by the government as when I brought home a few hundred a week. If you want to cut the poor a break then make fees and fines tax deductible.
Ahhhh, I want a gold classism card as well. Climbing the ladder is a choice that the rest of shouldn't have to bear. Your choice, your price.
Artificial suppression of water prices is equivalent to a direct cash transfer proportional to water usage. The more water you waste, the more money you get.
The exact same thing (making the poor able to afford water) could be accomplished much less destructively by making the cash transfer a flat constant (thereby not incentivizing gratuitous water wastage).
The exact same thing (making the poor able to afford water) could be accomplished much less destructively by making the cash transfer a flat constant (thereby not incentivizing gratuitous water wastage).
Great idea. Then when the air gets dirty we can just charge people for purified air.
I get that you're being facetious. But if purified air became sufficiently expensive, and it was the only way to breathe, everyone really would get serious about polluting less.
Would they? The whole point of a polluted commons is that no one actor is able to make an impact from their own choices. Only collective action can make a difference, and that requires an enforceable agreement to cooperate plus enforcement to make sure that no one cheats.
In a world of unbreatheable air, the most rational individual action is not to reduce polluting; rather, it's to pollute as hard as possible in order to make lots of money with which to buy purified air.
In a world of unbreatheable air, the most rational individual action is not to reduce polluting; rather, it's to pollute as hard as possible in order to make lots of money with which to buy purified air.
> Only collective action can make a difference,
But how do you motivate collective action and fight apathy? High prices are one way to do it.
But how do you motivate collective action and fight apathy? High prices are one way to do it.
That's not a reasonable comparison. A more realistic one would be to tax anything that pollutes the air to compensate for the cost of purifying it. Which is a great idea.
Do you care about saving petrol?
Being able to "price" something requires existence of a functional market.
Markets can only exist when contracts can be enforced.
Being able to enforce a contract requires monitoring and ability to issue fines, you also needs appropriate laws.
All of the above does not exist when it comes to ground water harvesting - especially in India and even in a police state like China.
Markets can only exist when contracts can be enforced.
Being able to enforce a contract requires monitoring and ability to issue fines, you also needs appropriate laws.
All of the above does not exist when it comes to ground water harvesting - especially in India and even in a police state like China.
If it makes you feel any better, California is perfectly capable of doing all that, but they still don't, and are stuck in a tragedy-of-the-commons type water shortage where farmers will gladly waste $1 of water to produce 5 cents of crops, because the alternative is to get nothing.
Additionally, if they don't waste $1 of water to produce $0.05 of crops & do nothing with it instead, they lose the water rights next year.
Yet companies build plants on the Great Lakes, hoover up all the water, filter it, bottle it, and sell it to the unsuspecting, who happily buy it.
I never ever saw bottled water as a kid in Europe. It wasn't until I moved to the US where it appeared to be commonplace. When I went back home to England last year, they've got it in every supermarket I visited. Sad, really. I still just drink out of the tap here in Texas.
I never ever saw bottled water as a kid in Europe. It wasn't until I moved to the US where it appeared to be commonplace. When I went back home to England last year, they've got it in every supermarket I visited. Sad, really. I still just drink out of the tap here in Texas.
Yet companies build plants on the Great Lakes, hoover up all the water, filter it, bottle it, and sell it to the unsuspecting
I can't speak for every state, but here in Michigan (The Great Lakes state!), companies like Nestle have to apply for a license that subjects them to regular inspections to make sure they're not over-burdening the local groundwater supply. They pump from wells on their own private land using their own facilities. Their license fee is pretty cheap, something like $300USD.
This seems like a common-sense regulation that doesn't overly burden either the company or the regulator.
I buy Ice Mountain spring water with a clear conscience.
I can't speak for every state, but here in Michigan (The Great Lakes state!), companies like Nestle have to apply for a license that subjects them to regular inspections to make sure they're not over-burdening the local groundwater supply. They pump from wells on their own private land using their own facilities. Their license fee is pretty cheap, something like $300USD.
This seems like a common-sense regulation that doesn't overly burden either the company or the regulator.
I buy Ice Mountain spring water with a clear conscience.
The aquifers they pump from definitely reach beyond their land. Your con-science shouldn't be so easily manipulated.
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I've heard though in Europe it is more common to have sparkling water in restaurants while in the US its plain water (maybe filtered tap water)
The only reason for that is to charge more.
What you wrote about bottled water not being a thing in Europe is definitely country specific. When I lived in Germany none of my German friends drank water from the tap. They would buy packs of bottled water for drinking at home.
Depends on where exactly you live.
Much of the US cities have great tap water. Some places (Flint) get lead going on.
However, much of the water in the US by area is well water. Well water tastes gross, and has some dubious health effects if not filtered right. Bottled water seems reasonable for those people.
Just because bottled water is not useful for you, does not mean it's not useful for anyone.
Much of the US cities have great tap water. Some places (Flint) get lead going on.
However, much of the water in the US by area is well water. Well water tastes gross, and has some dubious health effects if not filtered right. Bottled water seems reasonable for those people.
Just because bottled water is not useful for you, does not mean it's not useful for anyone.
I never said it wasn't useful. Obviously there are people who need it. I just won't pay for it when I already do by paying for house water. Our tap water is clean here in Texas.
It’s happening everywhere and one of the reasons is probably population. Earth was never crowded as it’s today.
Everybody is thinking it, but no one is saying it: "too many people".
I feel like that's why the apocalypse, post-apoc, and zombie movies are so popular. They catch that subconscious zeitgeist of loathing their neighbors and feeling like they're surrounded by the "NPC" meme.
I feel like that's why the apocalypse, post-apoc, and zombie movies are so popular. They catch that subconscious zeitgeist of loathing their neighbors and feeling like they're surrounded by the "NPC" meme.
That, and build lots of desalination plants. We can engineer our way out of this problem without compromising our quality of life.
At what cost? Desalination is not cheap in terms of the energy it uses or even the environmental cost of what to do with the left over brine.
We can certainly be less wasteful at home. Flushing toilet waste with potable water and even to some extent using potable water to bath in are incredible wastes of a precious resource.
We can certainly be less wasteful at home. Flushing toilet waste with potable water and even to some extent using potable water to bath in are incredible wastes of a precious resource.
They’re trivial wastes of a precious resource. Toilet flushing isn’t a significant consumer of potable water, and retrofitting multiple municipal water lines is expensive for the benefit.
The vast majority of water use is agriculture. Skimping in your home doesn't change that.
To be honest I suspected that and was going to say something about it but then I tried to verify my suspicion and couldn't immediately find a reference for it.
From what I did see about 50% of domestic use is watering plants. Getting rid of conventional lawns would be a good start.
From what I did see about 50% of domestic use is watering plants. Getting rid of conventional lawns would be a good start.
Depends how you do it. My mom’s backyard is going from useless lawn to cares-for fruit/veg garden.
Water consumption is going up. Dunno if our practices use less than buying what we produce.
Water consumption is going up. Dunno if our practices use less than buying what we produce.
To be fair the comparison isn't between growing your own and buying in a grocery store. If you get anything useful out of it then I think that's arguably a better use of water than a lawn.
How does flushing my toilet from water drawn from a river ... and then pumped back into the same river slightly downstream hurt anything?
That water is cleaned to within an inch of its life. Pumped for miles and then treated before being returned to the river. The same goes for the gallons of water which is used for showering.
Grey water could easily be reused for flushing or watering plants.
Grey water could easily be reused for flushing or watering plants.
When I use the sink now, the water ends up right where it started, and the next town downstream can use it too.
If I watered plants and didn't let the water return to the river, the next town downstream wouldn't be able to do the same thing. For them, it's objectively better for me to send it back to the river than give it to the atmosphere via plants.
If I watered plants and didn't let the water return to the river, the next town downstream wouldn't be able to do the same thing. For them, it's objectively better for me to send it back to the river than give it to the atmosphere via plants.
Water doesn't just disappear when plants take it up by the roots.
Technically easy, but economically terrible if you bother with the permits, sign-offs and buying an approved system when you effectively can’t DIY.
I’m waiting for WalMart or Amazon to sell an elegant $500 incinerating toilet and $500 gray water system that’s approved and just needs pipe/power connections.
We have the tech to run homes without any sewer connections.
Solutions right now seem to be priced/targeted at situations where buyers have no choice.
I’m waiting for WalMart or Amazon to sell an elegant $500 incinerating toilet and $500 gray water system that’s approved and just needs pipe/power connections.
We have the tech to run homes without any sewer connections.
Solutions right now seem to be priced/targeted at situations where buyers have no choice.
Can't the brine be dumped back into the sea somewhere, leaving net saltiness the same?
I can see that dumping point would become clogged, but presumably that would be only a local environmental issue.
Israel gets like half of their drinking water from desalination. With solar/wind/nuclear/tidal energy, it could be very inexpensive.
Handling the massive amounts of brine resulting from desalination could end up costing a lot. They’re already having issues with it.
It's still not inexpensive. Desalination plants cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build.
80% (and counting)
desal may work for 10M people, as Israel has shown. That won't help 300M people in India, another 300M in China.
Lets stop wastefully watering lawns as a starting point. Some places are probably already doing that, but the use of native landscaping needs to spread further.
The largest water user, at least in California, is agriculture. Fortunately they're now planting fewer acres of low-value crops such as cotton. But other crops use an insane amount:
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-calif...
1 walnut 4.9 gallons
1 almond 1.1 gallons
1 pistachio 0.75 gallons
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-calif...
When I was in the Palm Springs area about 10 years ago they were watering their sand to keep the amount of dust down.
Dates not mentioned? Date palms can drink cube a day!
Don't forget - in a lot of places, you'll lose your home (to the HOA) if you _don't_ water your lawn.
Federal, State or local laws can avoid that problem. Like the law that prohibits HOA's from preventing you from installing a TV antenna.
https://www.fcc.gov/media/over-air-reception-devices-rule
https://www.fcc.gov/media/over-air-reception-devices-rule
well then why did you move in there, lol
Well the lawn rule was probably a non-issue because it was cheap/easy/morally justifiable enough to comply with with at the time and appeared it would be for the foreseeable future.
You can't just sign a contract voluntarily and expect that some line items you can just ignore. That's your own fault at that point.
I believe the amount of water used for lawns is an order of magnitude smaller than the water used for fracking. The water for fracking is definitely lost, while the water we use even for bathing is recycled infinitely.
I think it takes something on the order of 2+ million gallons of water to frack a single well, once. Some wells need multiple fracks.
I will say, though, that in North Dakota, they get a significant amount of their fracking water from Lake Sakakawea, i.e. Missouri River. The amount of water used for fracking is a rounding error compared to how big that lake is. Might be more of a concern in more arid areas, though.
I will say, though, that in North Dakota, they get a significant amount of their fracking water from Lake Sakakawea, i.e. Missouri River. The amount of water used for fracking is a rounding error compared to how big that lake is. Might be more of a concern in more arid areas, though.
I'm not going to keep a green lawn just because I can name things that are even more wasteful. We need to solve all our problems, not just the biggest ones.
As far as "recycled infinitely", that may be true, but out here in the West that is a yearly timeline. We get most of our water from the melting snowpack. Once we use it, it is gone until it snows again next winter, and melts again next spring.
As far as "recycled infinitely", that may be true, but out here in the West that is a yearly timeline. We get most of our water from the melting snowpack. Once we use it, it is gone until it snows again next winter, and melts again next spring.
In many places graywater is not recycled. So we have improvements that can be done there.
However, industrial uses of water definitely outpace consumer usage.
However, industrial uses of water definitely outpace consumer usage.
For arid locales, I completely agree. I live in Denver, which gets something like 20” of precipitation a year. It’s basically a desert.
As far as I know, most of the tap water here is extracted from the Denver basin aquifer. There was a Denver post article a while back that claimed this aquifer would be depleted by something like 2050, and that some communities on the western edge of the metro had already gone dry.
While projections like that are difficult and a newspaper isn’t a journal, this is still pretty terrifying. But everybody has a green lawn. It’s part of my lease that I have to water the lawn. I really think we ought to follow Albuquerque and have gravel and cactus everywhere...
As far as I know, most of the tap water here is extracted from the Denver basin aquifer. There was a Denver post article a while back that claimed this aquifer would be depleted by something like 2050, and that some communities on the western edge of the metro had already gone dry.
While projections like that are difficult and a newspaper isn’t a journal, this is still pretty terrifying. But everybody has a green lawn. It’s part of my lease that I have to water the lawn. I really think we ought to follow Albuquerque and have gravel and cactus everywhere...
I like lawns. So do lots of other people. It's okay to expend resources on things that aren't bare essentials. The price mechanism, not social control, is what allows for efficient allocation of scarce resources. Let people who want to pay for the water water their lawns.
> Lawns in US take 41 million acres. That figure makes lawn the most widespread plant under irrigation in the contiguous US.
https://healthylandethic.com/2013/11/17/why-prairies-matter-...
Pretty wasteful use of limited resource - water.
https://healthylandethic.com/2013/11/17/why-prairies-matter-...
Pretty wasteful use of limited resource - water.
And its a great plant to boot!
- Kids love to play in it.
- Quickly soaks up CO2 by growing phenomenally fast.
- Great at mitigating soil erosion and keeping slight hills from sliding
- Great feed if you live in the country (I drive by an old horse shelter on my way to work).
- Oh, and you don't have to water it if you don't live in a place where it's not supposed to be.
But that says more about the people that live where grass shouldn't be than it does for us who live where grass wants to be.
- Kids love to play in it.
- Quickly soaks up CO2 by growing phenomenally fast.
- Great at mitigating soil erosion and keeping slight hills from sliding
- Great feed if you live in the country (I drive by an old horse shelter on my way to work).
- Oh, and you don't have to water it if you don't live in a place where it's not supposed to be.
But that says more about the people that live where grass shouldn't be than it does for us who live where grass wants to be.
But how much of that is irrigated? As I understand it in California there is a lot of irrigated lawns. But I doubt the majority of lawns in the US is irrigated or watered.
Do you own a lawn? Scotland is perhaps the only place I know where you can not water lawn in summer.
Please! There are plenty of places. Western PA for one.
Even if I did water my lawn, I don't even understand how I could waste water where I live, short of owning a fracking operation.
Even if I did water my lawn, I don't even understand how I could waste water where I live, short of owning a fracking operation.
Those in New Zealand can avoid watering, particularly if the lawn is kikuyu. It is a complete pain to maintain though as it grows very fast when it’s warm, wet and sunny. It makes you itchy is you lie on it too.
It depends on what species the lawn is. If it's the same species that grows naturally in vacant lots and by the roadside, it doesn't need watering unless there's a significant drought.
A lot of people (at least in the PNW) just let their lawn go dormant in the summer rather than water it. Since we'd be using city water in most places, it is expensive to dump that on grass.
New England here, haven't ever watered the lawn
You're right but water is not priced properly. Everything above the minimum requirement to survive should be at least 10x more expensive.
Yes, although for that to work water needs to be priced differently from today.
Okay. So let's do that. Let's let the price of water reflect its scarcity. Appropriate conservation measures will follow automatically without some central bureaucracy having to make uniform rules that are necessarily poor fits for individual preferences and circumstances.
What would you advise a poor person should do if they can no longer afford food because it's too expensive?
> Let's let the price of water reflect its scarcity.
You say that like it's the easy solution. It'd have to be regulated on a federal level. Good luck getting that to pass, well, anywhere. With the way humans discount future consequences, and the amount of money companies can use to lobby or bribe politicians, it's going to be way too late when it'll become politically feasible to do in many places.
You say that like it's the easy solution. It'd have to be regulated on a federal level. Good luck getting that to pass, well, anywhere. With the way humans discount future consequences, and the amount of money companies can use to lobby or bribe politicians, it's going to be way too late when it'll become politically feasible to do in many places.
Why would it require legislation? Scarcity will drive up price automatically.
Because we'd have to rework the existing legislation that determines who has right to the water, & also the various legislation that expressly prohibits the reselling of water or the forming of water markets. We don't legislatively set the price, but we have to create the conditions for the market.
The market is very good at ignoring or hiding scarcity or other externalities until the damage is done. Nothing is "automatic" about it. The "free market" doesn't exist in a way that would allow the price to organically reflect water's actual scarcity.
For those interested in exploring the political and social consequences of this in a near-term (albeit fictional) world, I highly recommend reading "The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi. From the Goodreads description:
> In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, leg-breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her luxurious developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get dust.
> In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, leg-breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her luxurious developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get dust.
And if anyone prefers non-fiction, Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner describes the (completely fucked) water supply situation out in California.
One of my all-time favorite non-fiction books, perhaps even more topical today than it was when it came out in 1986. It's a shame that the author died in 2000 at the young age of 51; the book deserves a sequel or two.
Cadillac Desert figures prominently in the plot of Bacigalupi's novel.
Bacigalupi's near-future fiction is all too believable.
Or just read about Syria and Turkey.
When I was a kid, we owned a house out in a small farming community in western Washington State. One of the things we had to do is drill the well a solid 100 feet below the water table, because the upper 60 feet had measurable levels of fecal coliform bacteria. This was fairly rural. Our nearest neighbor was a quarter mile up the road, and we were surrounded by livestock pastures with cattle herds.
I would imagine the current owners of the property have had to re-drill the well at least once as population density in the area increased.
I would imagine the current owners of the property have had to re-drill the well at least once as population density in the area increased.
Unpopular (or at least unconventional) opinion: depleted aquifers are a good thing, because it's turns one of the externalities of outrageously exploited agriculture into a true cost. More expensive food means less land use and less energy spent irrigating what we do grow.
(I felt the same way about "peak oil" 20 years ago, but alas fracking messed that guess up.)
(I felt the same way about "peak oil" 20 years ago, but alas fracking messed that guess up.)
That's the issue, I've found, with hoping that calamity will make the problems visible enough to shock us into making systemic changes. Humans are very good at inventing clever short-term "solutions" that ameliorate the symptoms but wind up making the long-term problem worse. I have no doubt that if/when global civilization fails due to global warming, we'll wind up burning everything in sight to power our air conditioners for a few minutes of respite.
GMO is supposed to save us this time, if we have to pay for it some other way is still being discussed.
Have any more improvements been made in the process of removing salt from ocean water in large volume? Is anyone actively still working on this?
Did a quick google search and found that Israel launched a large desalination plant back in 2015 (uses reverse osmosis). Here's the source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534996/megascale-desalina...
Thankyou. That would suggest it is feasible on a large scale. Hopefully more countries will start to invest in desalination plants. With ocean levels rising, now should be a good time to optimize that process even further.
Desal works fine, but uses a lot of energy. With ever cheaper solar panels, there will soon be a point where it makes sense to power a desal plant on just solar power.
But there is still the small matter of the salt that is left over. There is so much salt on this planet that no one wants it. You could dump it back in the ocean, but wherever you do so becomes too salty, which would be really bad if you dump it back right where you're doing your desalinization.
Which means we either need to ship it to the middle of the ocean (which maybe you can do with autonomous solar powered boats) or you need to figure out some other use for all that salt.
But there is still the small matter of the salt that is left over. There is so much salt on this planet that no one wants it. You could dump it back in the ocean, but wherever you do so becomes too salty, which would be really bad if you dump it back right where you're doing your desalinization.
Which means we either need to ship it to the middle of the ocean (which maybe you can do with autonomous solar powered boats) or you need to figure out some other use for all that salt.
Perhaps that could augment or replace our existing salt mining.
Its just amazing to look at population growth in the desert states, Nevada, Arizona, Utah should be barren wasteland, not with rapidly growing cities of millions. Running out of water seems inevitable.
This is poor reporting and possibly poor science. It's not enough to say that it will vanish. We need to know on what timescale it will vanish. I suspect that it will last at least several centuries at current extraction rates. Several hundred years from now, the climate may be completely different, energy might extremely cheap, new continental water distribution might be constructed, etc.
Aquifers are a local resource, you can think of them as somewhat like lakes that rest in depressions in geological strata rather than in depressions in the ground. There is not one large aquifer which spans the US. As a result, the details of the situation depend greatly on the area. In the Southwest, where aquifer depletion has been a major concern, there are concerns that some aquifers may deteriorate in quality due to overextraction to the point that expensive water processing is necessary over a scale of one to two decades (e.g. along the Mexico border). It's also somewhat difficult to give a year range because there is generally not actually a cut-off point where you completely "run out" - instead, the cost of extracting and processing the water increases as overextraction continues, due to a lower water table and, worse, increased salinity. Alamogordo, NM has already initiated the construction of a desalination plant because of this problem - a very expensive proposition, and one the public rarely thinks of inland.
Concern about aquifer depletion is increasing across the nation, not just in the desert southwest, but the severity of the problem varies. What is reasonably consistent is that the situation is getting worse in most places.
The USGS has general information here: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-103-03/
Concern about aquifer depletion is increasing across the nation, not just in the desert southwest, but the severity of the problem varies. What is reasonably consistent is that the situation is getting worse in most places.
The USGS has general information here: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-103-03/
Read this
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/magazine/the-water-wars-o...
> Local farmers had watched over the last decade and a half as waves of industrial farms arrived, tilling so much land that dust storms began darkening the sky. These enormous corporations were descending on the valley for the same reason homesteaders had a century ago: the year-round growing season and the lax regulation.
> In 2014, a Saudi Arabian-owned company, the Almarai Corporation, bought 10,000 acres in the town of Vicksburg, northwest of Sulphur Springs Valley, planting alfalfa to ship halfway around the world to feed Saudi cattle. Then, a United Arab Emirates farming corporation, Al Dahra, bought several thousand-acre farms along both sides of the Arizona-California border. These purchases were perfectly legal, but many residents felt these newcomers were essentially “exporting water.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/magazine/the-water-wars-o...
> Local farmers had watched over the last decade and a half as waves of industrial farms arrived, tilling so much land that dust storms began darkening the sky. These enormous corporations were descending on the valley for the same reason homesteaders had a century ago: the year-round growing season and the lax regulation.
> In 2014, a Saudi Arabian-owned company, the Almarai Corporation, bought 10,000 acres in the town of Vicksburg, northwest of Sulphur Springs Valley, planting alfalfa to ship halfway around the world to feed Saudi cattle. Then, a United Arab Emirates farming corporation, Al Dahra, bought several thousand-acre farms along both sides of the Arizona-California border. These purchases were perfectly legal, but many residents felt these newcomers were essentially “exporting water.”
Both science and journalism are iterative processes, you report the facts you have so others can take it further.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Off the top of my head:
Fresno County, California is a quiet and overlooked pioneer in water rights and water development. They are a modern "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" in that about 150 years ago or so, it was essentially desert with greenery growing only near the rivers. That changed drastically when they built canals.
After building canals, they found that some low-lying areas turned into ponds. It was a side effect of the canals raising the groundwater level.
From there, they actively created groundwater recharge systems. In the last 100 years, while most aquifers in the US only went down, groundwater levels in Fresno actually improved at times, helping to protect the area's water supply.
I lived in Fresno for over two years while homeless. I considered staying in part because I expect it to be a quiet haven of secure water supplies in coming decades as our water supply issues spiral into ever deepening crises globally. I bet some systems could borrow best practices from them and at least slow the problem.
Water for a thirsty land: the Consolidated Irrigation District and its canal development history is a history of water development in Fresno. It's a fascinating read. I highly recommend it.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/water-for-a-thirsty-land-the-...
Earthships can provide adequate residential water supplies via rain catchment in areas with as little as 8" of annual rainfall.
One of the arguments for eating vegetarian is that beef uses a lot of water to produce. You don't have to go full on vegan to reduce the amount of water burden your diet represents. Just cutting back on your consumption of beef can have an impact.
As a child, I grew up with a set of encyclopedias at home. One article that really stuck in my mind was about successfully growing trees in the desert for agricultural purposes by shaping the ground to be a local catchment system to extend the usefulness of natural rainfall.
You make a square or rectangular catchment area with one corner being the low point. It's not very different from designing a shower with a low point for the drain.
You plant your tree in the low point corner so it is downhill from the rest of the catchment area. When it rains, the catchment fills up and the tree has its own personal water supply for at least a few days.
The interesting and technical part is that you need to develop standards for how large of a catchment to build based on plant species and rainfall levels. Too large of a catchment can cause root rot and kill the tree. Too small and it won't get enough water to thrive.
There are many ways we can work on maintaining a high quality of life while reducing our use of water. We don't have to throw our hands in the air and accept that it is inevitable that we will just hurtle towards some doomsday scenario until we get some mass die-off event for humans, in essence.
Off the top of my head:
Fresno County, California is a quiet and overlooked pioneer in water rights and water development. They are a modern "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" in that about 150 years ago or so, it was essentially desert with greenery growing only near the rivers. That changed drastically when they built canals.
After building canals, they found that some low-lying areas turned into ponds. It was a side effect of the canals raising the groundwater level.
From there, they actively created groundwater recharge systems. In the last 100 years, while most aquifers in the US only went down, groundwater levels in Fresno actually improved at times, helping to protect the area's water supply.
I lived in Fresno for over two years while homeless. I considered staying in part because I expect it to be a quiet haven of secure water supplies in coming decades as our water supply issues spiral into ever deepening crises globally. I bet some systems could borrow best practices from them and at least slow the problem.
Water for a thirsty land: the Consolidated Irrigation District and its canal development history is a history of water development in Fresno. It's a fascinating read. I highly recommend it.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/water-for-a-thirsty-land-the-...
Earthships can provide adequate residential water supplies via rain catchment in areas with as little as 8" of annual rainfall.
One of the arguments for eating vegetarian is that beef uses a lot of water to produce. You don't have to go full on vegan to reduce the amount of water burden your diet represents. Just cutting back on your consumption of beef can have an impact.
As a child, I grew up with a set of encyclopedias at home. One article that really stuck in my mind was about successfully growing trees in the desert for agricultural purposes by shaping the ground to be a local catchment system to extend the usefulness of natural rainfall.
You make a square or rectangular catchment area with one corner being the low point. It's not very different from designing a shower with a low point for the drain.
You plant your tree in the low point corner so it is downhill from the rest of the catchment area. When it rains, the catchment fills up and the tree has its own personal water supply for at least a few days.
The interesting and technical part is that you need to develop standards for how large of a catchment to build based on plant species and rainfall levels. Too large of a catchment can cause root rot and kill the tree. Too small and it won't get enough water to thrive.
There are many ways we can work on maintaining a high quality of life while reducing our use of water. We don't have to throw our hands in the air and accept that it is inevitable that we will just hurtle towards some doomsday scenario until we get some mass die-off event for humans, in essence.
It hasn't "vanished", it is just hiding in the ocean and the atmosphere. Same as the (vanished) water at the icecaps.
As the Earth heats, the water evaporates. When that happens it adds to heat retention. Expect the water to make a bold reappearance as we experience tropical storms.
As the Earth heats, the water evaporates. When that happens it adds to heat retention. Expect the water to make a bold reappearance as we experience tropical storms.
The groundwater has vanished and become skywater, which is much less useful to a farmer.
On the flipside the great lakes are nearly at an all time high. Maybe the growth in those places requiring deeper wells have exceeded what they can support?
The Great Lakes aren't exactly the same as pristine aquifers suitable for drinking water...
https://www.usgs.gov/news/widespread-plastic-pollution-found..., https://www.safewater.org/fact-sheets-1/2017/1/23/the-great-... etc.
https://www.usgs.gov/news/widespread-plastic-pollution-found..., https://www.safewater.org/fact-sheets-1/2017/1/23/the-great-... etc.
The Great Lakes sources their water from glaciers melting. Too little and too much of a thing it’s still worrying.
The great lakes watershed isn't within 1000 km of a glacier. It's a snowpack and rainfall watershed.
The great lakes were created by receding glaciers, but it's been more than 10,000 years since they were glacier fed.
The great lakes were created by receding glaciers, but it's been more than 10,000 years since they were glacier fed.
Do you have a source for this? I thought they were sourced was almost all rainfall both directly into the lake and from the streams and rivers that surround them
Glaciers formed them, but probably have little to do with sustaining them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes
If this were actually a serious issue, we would be discussing NAWPA again for real.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power...
The original blueprint used nukes to dig the trenches, but conventional explosives work just fine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power...
The original blueprint used nukes to dig the trenches, but conventional explosives work just fine.
Actual water resources researcher focusing on climate change here. My job is focused on what can we do to continue to deliver water to society under future scenarios (and what steps we can take to get there) from policy to infrastructure investments. The article doesn't present anything new for us but the problem is that the general public isn't informed.
While we're the oldest engineering discipline, remember that even until around the 80s people didn't think or know about groundwater contamination. They've always thought that sticking contaminated water back into the ground would filter it naturally like magic. In the late 80s more and more people started to understand that's not how it works. Even then, these policies and ideas are still in the process of being accepted in developing countries almost 40 years later and even then "what else can we do? My son needs water now and he could get hit by a car tomorrow so this is a problem I'll deal with later."
The problem (as the article states) is that the issue is so distributed. We're talking about traditionally individualized solutions for a problem that needs a more coordinated solution. However, noone is willing to pay for that or considers other investments as "more critical" than major water projects (also many environmental groups aren't as risk averse as water utilities). I mean the biggest cost in water isn't the actual product but the transportation costs. We have water, we just don't have enough funds to deliver them everywhere in a sustainable manner at a price that people are willing to pay.
NAWPA idea was conceived even before we understood our environment. It's the wrong solution. I mean even 10 years ago we had a landmark article that changed the paradigm of how we decide policy and build infrastructure[0]. I'd never take NAWPA for anything now than the "grandiose-ness of the 50s", especially since that was during a "water resources renaissance" in the United States where even crazy ideas were taken seriously.
[0] https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/CLEE/Milly_2008_Science_S...
While we're the oldest engineering discipline, remember that even until around the 80s people didn't think or know about groundwater contamination. They've always thought that sticking contaminated water back into the ground would filter it naturally like magic. In the late 80s more and more people started to understand that's not how it works. Even then, these policies and ideas are still in the process of being accepted in developing countries almost 40 years later and even then "what else can we do? My son needs water now and he could get hit by a car tomorrow so this is a problem I'll deal with later."
The problem (as the article states) is that the issue is so distributed. We're talking about traditionally individualized solutions for a problem that needs a more coordinated solution. However, noone is willing to pay for that or considers other investments as "more critical" than major water projects (also many environmental groups aren't as risk averse as water utilities). I mean the biggest cost in water isn't the actual product but the transportation costs. We have water, we just don't have enough funds to deliver them everywhere in a sustainable manner at a price that people are willing to pay.
NAWPA idea was conceived even before we understood our environment. It's the wrong solution. I mean even 10 years ago we had a landmark article that changed the paradigm of how we decide policy and build infrastructure[0]. I'd never take NAWPA for anything now than the "grandiose-ness of the 50s", especially since that was during a "water resources renaissance" in the United States where even crazy ideas were taken seriously.
[0] https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/CLEE/Milly_2008_Science_S...
Why are so many water researchers opposed to letting the price of water vary and drive market-based conservation?
Great question! There's really no simple answer to this unfortunately also I don't think I'm the best person to answer this question, but I'll try my best!
Water is a basic human right. In most countries, water is a public good that the government subsidizes and, to some extent, the market is adjusted to allow vulnerable households to afford the resource as well. If we have a 100% free market-based solution then in many locations the poor and underprivileged have a considerably less access to this vital resource (some won't get any). An example of this can be seen in India. Many districts there suffer from intermittent water supply (where the local piped water comes at irregular intervals instead of continuously). These people might not be able to shower regularly and they aren't given a schedule of when the water will come, so they can't schedule their day or week. Many of these people might even have to leave work for a day (losing that income and economic productivity) and jump out to fill up their water tanks in their homes. As they don't know when the water comes (no regular scheduling), this uncertainty can be nerve racking and (even if you're trying to stretch it out to last) may not be enough to last your family until the next "supply". In these cases, you call in a water tanker to refill your tank but even then you don't know if it'll come.
On the tanker truck company's side, they don't want irregular domestic clients, they want more regular commercial clients (because the total customer value is much higher, you get more money from those clients than a household that needs a one-offer). So those companies aren't really incentivized to service residential clients. So if another call comes in, those commercial clients would take higher priority than those vulnerable households.
Those solutions don't really help this problem, and this problem is just going to grow for the foreseeable future. Not exactly what I'm talking about, but IWA recently published an article about how many cities are shifting from 24/7 to intermittent water supply solutions [0], and if this becomes irregular and the system starts to fail, then this will just keep that problem growing. One of the projects I'm involved in works on trying to solve this exact problem and we recently got some support from the US National Science Foundation as well as the Gates Foundation. However, there's still a long way to go. (Sidebar: Anyone want to give us more funding or help? Send me a message!)
[0]: https://iwa-network.org/running-out-of-water-cities-shifting...
Water is a basic human right. In most countries, water is a public good that the government subsidizes and, to some extent, the market is adjusted to allow vulnerable households to afford the resource as well. If we have a 100% free market-based solution then in many locations the poor and underprivileged have a considerably less access to this vital resource (some won't get any). An example of this can be seen in India. Many districts there suffer from intermittent water supply (where the local piped water comes at irregular intervals instead of continuously). These people might not be able to shower regularly and they aren't given a schedule of when the water will come, so they can't schedule their day or week. Many of these people might even have to leave work for a day (losing that income and economic productivity) and jump out to fill up their water tanks in their homes. As they don't know when the water comes (no regular scheduling), this uncertainty can be nerve racking and (even if you're trying to stretch it out to last) may not be enough to last your family until the next "supply". In these cases, you call in a water tanker to refill your tank but even then you don't know if it'll come.
On the tanker truck company's side, they don't want irregular domestic clients, they want more regular commercial clients (because the total customer value is much higher, you get more money from those clients than a household that needs a one-offer). So those companies aren't really incentivized to service residential clients. So if another call comes in, those commercial clients would take higher priority than those vulnerable households.
Those solutions don't really help this problem, and this problem is just going to grow for the foreseeable future. Not exactly what I'm talking about, but IWA recently published an article about how many cities are shifting from 24/7 to intermittent water supply solutions [0], and if this becomes irregular and the system starts to fail, then this will just keep that problem growing. One of the projects I'm involved in works on trying to solve this exact problem and we recently got some support from the US National Science Foundation as well as the Gates Foundation. However, there's still a long way to go. (Sidebar: Anyone want to give us more funding or help? Send me a message!)
[0]: https://iwa-network.org/running-out-of-water-cities-shifting...
Surely water security is also a basic human right, and that is directly impacted by destructive consumption subsidies.
> If we have a 100% free market-based solution then in many locations the poor and underprivileged have a considerably less access to this vital resource (some won't get any).
If we set water prices to something sane, how much cash do we have to give the poor to leave them in the same financial position?
Surely it can't be much: domestic water usage is but a fraction of agriculture and industry, and the number of poor which couldn't afford water is but a fraction thereof.
> If we have a 100% free market-based solution then in many locations the poor and underprivileged have a considerably less access to this vital resource (some won't get any).
If we set water prices to something sane, how much cash do we have to give the poor to leave them in the same financial position?
Surely it can't be much: domestic water usage is but a fraction of agriculture and industry, and the number of poor which couldn't afford water is but a fraction thereof.
Presumably because they do not want huge segments of the human population to die because they are unable to afford access to the literally most basic necessity for life on this planet.
Food costs money; why should food and water be managed differently? (Presumably, with subsidies or such as needed)
Funny thing. There's a research topic called virtual water that focuses on the trade of water through food or other "products". Look it up! It's really interesting! It talks about the trade of water most commonly through food products! (How transporting an apple from California to Pennsylvania means you're exporting and importing water!)
It's a new topic that's only really taken shape and impact in the last two decades!
It's a new topic that's only really taken shape and impact in the last two decades!
I'm sure that your job is very wonderful, but the NAWPA post was not entirely serious, and I hope that a water resources researcher would realize that first of all. For one thing, it's not a municipal drinking water project, it's an irrigation project to deliver large amounts of water to (potential) cropland in the American Southwest.
It's really about (massively) increasing US (and therefore world) food production. If first world municipalities run out of water, people can always move. If the third world runs out of food due to price increases, they die in very large quantities. And I promise you, human beings will certainly decide to destroy a very great deal of habitat before letting a few billion people starve in the face of climate change.
It's really about (massively) increasing US (and therefore world) food production. If first world municipalities run out of water, people can always move. If the third world runs out of food due to price increases, they die in very large quantities. And I promise you, human beings will certainly decide to destroy a very great deal of habitat before letting a few billion people starve in the face of climate change.
See it as you want, but that's a pretty negative view on the entire situation. We as humans are very resilient and we'll continue to find a way to make it through. This also isn't a localized issue but an international issue with localized variable impact. It doesn't exactly work like the way you described... But hey you do you!
I'm aware that NAWPA post wasn't entire serious, but the thing is that similar to how people were investing in companies during the .com bubble that had no clear monotization plan, Water also went through a similar phase. Municipal water and irrigated water are very different topics I agree, but from the direction I work in we look at them in a similar light. There's another project our organization is involved in that is focusing on investments in dam infrastructure in Africa to help deliver water for farmland irrigation. The specific context is different, but water is water, and the issue with quantity and transportation is present (and common) on both sides.
Again, do what you want or believe what you want, but the reality of the situation is there.
I'm aware that NAWPA post wasn't entire serious, but the thing is that similar to how people were investing in companies during the .com bubble that had no clear monotization plan, Water also went through a similar phase. Municipal water and irrigated water are very different topics I agree, but from the direction I work in we look at them in a similar light. There's another project our organization is involved in that is focusing on investments in dam infrastructure in Africa to help deliver water for farmland irrigation. The specific context is different, but water is water, and the issue with quantity and transportation is present (and common) on both sides.
Again, do what you want or believe what you want, but the reality of the situation is there.
> Municipal water and irrigated water are very different topics I agree, but from the direction I work in we look at them in a similar light.
Yet another strange, nearly zero-information post. Another post you made the other week sheds more light on this job of yours:
>I work in critical infrastructure planning. My organization builds software in R, Python, and other programming languages customized for these major organizations.
Yet another strange, nearly zero-information post. Another post you made the other week sheds more light on this job of yours:
>I work in critical infrastructure planning. My organization builds software in R, Python, and other programming languages customized for these major organizations.
Any nukes proved too dirty to be feasible, which is why we never used them in this manner. There were a lot of good ideas that sounded good in the 60's, but they had no real idea how much of a pain contamination, cleanup and thousands of years of storage of that material would be. Then they finally did and these ideas went away.
> If this were actually a serious issue, we would
I fail to see how the choice of response (or not) determines seriousness of the issue. We've seen plenty of people stick their head in the sand in the past.
I fail to see how the choice of response (or not) determines seriousness of the issue. We've seen plenty of people stick their head in the sand in the past.
It also sounds like a false dichotomy.
Is that the origin of the villain's name in 'Tank Girl'?
Following the early 2010s drought in California, laws were enacted to cap and eventually reduce the amount of groundwater that can be extracted. Recent advancements in water usage tracking infrastructure, combined with the law has led to a natural environment to create a cap and trade system.
Interestingly, farmers view water usage as a trade secret, and so the pilot marketplace is using block-chain to provide an anonymous marketplace. Groundwater management in California (and I assume across the nation) is regulated by a patchwork of different local government agencies and laws, but there is an awesome opportunity to provide a unified software based marketplace to establish a groundwater commodity market.
A market also facilities conservation as farmers now have incentive to lower their water usage and sell excess water on the market. A big challenge however is transportation of water across vast distances.