World water resources 3

[0707]

In this forum we have been talking sometimes more seriously, sometimes with some superficiality, about oil, alternative energies and also global warming.

What about world water resources?

Sea and rivers pollution, underground water ponds contamination, droughts and lack of rain in remote zones of the planet and advance of the desertification. Are there a world conscience and solidarity polities and real efforts to inverse these situations?

 

[0707]

In New England region the control emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are starting to pay off. The switch from coal to gas in both power generation and in the home, while being mainly for economic reasons, has also meant a lot less pollution and as consequence less acid rain.

 

[COEngineeer]

No worries! Technology will fix everything

 

[0707]

I supose all of us tend to burying the head in the sand in the hope that some future technology will fix everything.

 

[moltenmetal]

Fresh water is nothing other than another form of stored solar energy. And just like the other forms of stored solar energy (i.e. fossil fuels etc.), it's distributed by geography and geology- and we're mining it at an unsustainable rate.

Charge more for water use and it will be conserved better. Charge more for water disposal and people will find ways to re-use it more often. Same goes for atmospheric dumping of contaminants etc.- no cost equals free equals excessive use. The market doesn't conserve things that are not assigned a cost. Real costs of one person's consumption are imposed on others who are not involved in the transaction. Taxes are the only way to fix this failure of the market to assign costs equitably.

 

[GregLocock]

In the solar power thread I asked if anyone could suggest a good way of storing solar power.

It strikes me that a domestic drinking water system, solar powered, might be a cost effective way of 'storing' solar power.

Here's a truly terrible example:

Run all your grey and black water out into the back paddock, as is known technology.

Now, set up solar powered cold plates above the back paddock.

The water evaporates off the paddock, condenses onto the cold plates, voila, drinking water (or at least very clean water to use as the first step in a drinking water system).

As usual the devil is in the details. Is this a better cradle to grave solution than centralising waste management? or desalination? I don't know.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[kenvlach]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the following expression, common in the Western US:

Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting over.

Also, the Aral Sea, which has lost 60% of its area and 80% of its volume due to Soviet irrigation projects, is a prime illustrationof the effects of manmade water diversions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

And North Africa was a major wheat producer for ancient Rome, 2000 years ago. And a few thousand years prior, there were lush forests where now is desert. So, some natural climate change, plus effects of man and his beasts (overgrazing causing desertification), especially in the sub-Sahara Sahel:
Water Stress in Sub-Saharan Africa

http://www.cfr.org/publication/11240/

And in the central US, the large Ogallala aquifer has dropped as much as 400 feet (in Kansas) as the water is mined for irrigation. One USGS prediction: "Almost all the central and southern High Plains would be unable to run center-pivot irrigation by 2020..."
Also, "Over 700 miles of perennial streams are now seasonally dry in Kansas, as their water seeps away into dry sediments."

http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/~GEL115/115CH18miningwater.html

So, water resources is indeed a worthy subect for Eng-Tips!

 

[LCruiser]

And Mono Lake is virtually drained for Los Angeles drinking water. A good book on the water wars of the western US is "Cadillac Desert" in which the author, indeed, mentions the saying "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting over" but it's a western US idiom, and not originally from Mark Twain.