A Very Thirsty Planet

"No water, no life.  No blue, no green."--Sylvia Earle

Of course, Dr. Earle (a prodigious author about all things wet) is not making a novel revelation here; we all need water to survive. But for centuries, mankind has largely taken water for granted, assuming nature would always provide an inexhaustible supply.  We were wrong; massive water shortages are growing every single day. This blog will outline how much water we have, how it's used, and how much we waste.  I will post new blogs focusing on current and future strategies to confront the single most defining question of our time: Can we provide enough food and water for a current world population of 7.4 billion, which, according to the UN, will increase to some 11 billion by 2050?

Some current statistics:   According to the UN's 2014-2015 World Water Development Report (1) Estimates vary, but at least 768 million people still have no access to fresh water. (2) 20 % of the world's aquifers are facing over-exploitation. (3) By 2050, 3 billion people will move out of poverty, and besides water, will also want more of everything (houses, cars, a full belly, etc.). The Journal of Environmental Health has a simple way to describe how much H20 exists: "If you take all the water in the world and put it in a five-gallon bucket, the amount of fresh water would be about two tablespoons. Even then, only about 1% of our fresh water is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers and ice fields."  And this shortage of water is exacerbated by a new threat--world wide climate change, which is already negatively affecting the amount and quality of all water sources.

The Earth Island Journal reported last June  about the disappearance of lakes world wide, including:  Bolivia's Lake Poopo (56 miles long and 20 miles wide), Turkey's (135 square miles) Lake Aksehir and Iran's Lake Urmia (2,000 square miles).  Further,  the report noted that a fifth of the ponds in Northern Alaska (there are millions) have disappeared completely while Mongolia has lost 25 % of its lakes since the 1980's. The loss of Russia's Lake Aral was famously chronicled in print and film starting in the 1960's, when Russia began a vast but monumentally stupid effort to divert two rivers which fed the lake, so they could grow cotton in the desert. What was once the 4th largest inland sea in the world (26,000 square miles) is now a poisonous desert.

Historically, water was primarily used for slaking our thirst and growing food.  Water usage mushroomed as a critical component of three revolutions. The First Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century began with the creation of steam energy. A Second Industrial Revolution would occur in the late 19th century and involve the development of steel industry and giant corporations. Now, a Third Industrial Revolution is evolving after the advent of personal computers, creating game changing technologies like  3D printing, robots and countless web-based applications. 

Since the demand for water continues to rise, we must learn how to husband this resource wisely.  How are we doing? I will start with an analysis of California agriculture, the largest source of food production in America, focusing on just how much irrigated water it takes to grow the following specific crops (US Dept. of Agriculture numbers):
One head of broccoli-- 5.4 gallons  one walnut--4.9 gallons a head of lettuce--3.5 gallons  a tomato--3.3 gallons  one almond--1.1 gallons  one pistachio--0.75 gallon  a strawberry--0.4 gallon  one grape--0.3 gallon.

The Smithsonian   has provided an interactive graph which shows how much water is needed to fill your dinner plate. For example, 8 ounces of beef (621 gallons), 6 ounces of pasta (99.6 gallons) and 8 ounces of asparagus (162.6 gallons) for a stunning total of 850.2 gallons. (The food calculations are derived from all US sources, not just California.)  Perhaps it is way past time humans begin to contemplate reducing our intake of animal proteins because continuous meat production will cause an unsustainable use of precious water.
  
California's water use is unique because, unlike other states, 80% of their water is dedicated to agriculture, the rest is for the 20 million, largely urban, residents.  This ratio has created a long history of fights over water rights, but the recent five year drought put such a severe strain on their water, the state was forced to enact emergency legislation to 
conserve water, which includes bans on watering lawns after 48 hours of rain, washing cars without a shut-off nozzle on the hose and cities watering grass on road mediums with potable water. They also have a program of rebates for people who remove grass and install desert landscaping. I certainly applaud these efforts, but I also believe it is time to revisit places like Oregon's famously fertile Willamette Valley, and the Mississippi Delta.  The old Cotton Belt is fading because there is a world wide glut of the white stuff. Why not transition some of that acreage into the rapidly growing domestic market for fruit and vegetables? 

I also feel it is long past due that America dramatically reduce providing egregiously expensive farm subsidies ($20 billion per year, according to the USDA) most of which goes to big, rich farmers, producing staple commodities like corn and soy beans by using vast amounts of water and chemicals. (Sadly, according to the Government Accountability Office, between 2007 and 2012 Uncle Sam paid some $3 million in subsidies to 2,300 farms where no crop of any sort was grown. Another $10.6 million was paid to farmers who had been dead for over a year.)  By reducing fat-cat subsidies, there would be, in my opinion, a growth in small farms.  They would not provide all the food we need, at least initially, but it would be a damned good start.