Fresh water on Earth

[Space Jockey]

We are not actually losing volume, water is a renewable resource, but the fact is development and waste is causing the water tables and aquifers to be depleted faster than they can be replenished. Sewer and septic systems contaminate wells, cities such as Las Vegas with fountains for tourists and Midwestern transplants in Phoenix who insist on green lawns in the desert are just a part of the problem.

See this picture of what happens from withdrawal of water and compaction of the soil
This is a marked utility pole from 1925 to 1979.

68% of Earth's freshwater is in glaciers, and the rest in groundwater.

If that picture does not scare you, I do not know what will. This is no joke.


San Joaquin Valley
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/groundwater.../image/b94.gif


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[KeithBC]

Buy a rainwater tank Declan

I agree. We have 4500 gallons of rainwater storage. We get nearly no precipitation in the summer, and 1.5 metres of it in the winter. Gardening with well water makes no sense, and doesn't work, so harvesting rainwater is a no-brainer.

[Dublin sky watch]

I never use any watering for my garden. We get enough rain all year round here not to have to bother with watering. They introduce hose pipe bans only when we have a real drought but even if we had I still would not water the lawn. Grass is very tolerant and I would not be that bothered by it going brown for lack of water...

Have had a rain barrel for some time, but lack of space has not allowed me to use more then !.

[Crazyhair]

Unfortunately the U.S government has a philosophy of.... if you have the money you can use as much as you want!

[Anotheryahoo]

I just pump it out of the ground here in S.C. in fact the best well water I ever have had! No well water taste or anything, in fact is just as good or better then bottle water. I was amazed when we 1st moved here because well water on the coast was undrinkable. No longer have to pay for water! Sorry to hear about the problems elsewhere though.

[GunMonkeyINTL]

Unfortunately the U.S government has a philosophy of.... if you have the money you can use as much as you want!

I agree. It would be much better for them to dictate how much everyone can use and make sure we all get the same amount. While they're at it, they can take all of our money (I mean, it's really theirs anyway), put it in a pile and divide it up equally. Next, maybe they can take care of educating our children and providing us with health-care too. Government involvement makes everything better.

Personally, I don't think fresh water is as scarce as it seems it's just, like Christine pointed out, in some places you have to work for it. Hell, the sahara desert sits on one of the largest known aquifers, it's just deep in the ground in an area no one seems to really care about. The reason that water scarcity has come to the forefront is that people insist on packing themselves into cities like rats, and there's insufficient infrastruture to deliver the increasing volume needed in those very concentrated areas. I'm not trying to say there will always be enough and that there will never be a problem, but the current fearmongering smells a little bit like "global cooling"...I mean "global warming"...I mean "climate change", to me.

[OleCuss]

There's desalination and ways to harvest water vapor. Really no need for most of us to be short on water.

But Las Vegas is effectively unsustainable without finding a very expensive way of getting water there. I just don't see it.

I would, however, like to learn more about xeriscaping. Water isn't all that expensive here but I think I'm wasting more than I should have to on lawn that is under-utilized. Don't want to take the approach some have of paving over the front- and back-yards, however.

[jenniferchristine]

If you don't want to water the lawn, put down crushed granite.
If we were short of water, and we probably will be in a while - we will automatically change the way we use it. Like coal, oil, gas, wood, ozone.....

[Cladinator]

I consider myself lucky. My water is free and fresh from a natural well.
All I require is an electric pump.

We (humans) are on the verge of mass producing devices that can turn salt water into fresh drinking water. I don't think the situation is THAT desperate yet.

[jenniferchristine]

I may be a bit cynical but I've noticed over the years how some things are eased into the system to allow the full economic suction on our wallets to be enabled.
Digital cameras for example - they came out and could easily have been made much more capable - they invented several generations - 640x480 then 1024x768 etc etc. They cost an arm and a leg too.
They didn't need to - it was to compensate Kodak and Fuji and other film makers who were about to lose their shirts...
It took 12 years to go from really awful to moderately capable cameras - allowing the developers to install card readers and printers.
They very nearly missed the boat - they had to inflate the price of ink and 'photo paper' to make sure that ordinary folks couldn't afford to print all their pics. And of course built in obsolescence so that your printer will only last for 'x' number of cartridges.
Now you can buy a printer by lexmark for less than the price of a new set of ink cartridges......how sick is that?

You can't tell me that they haven't already invented and shelved many generations of articles because the 'time' isn't right.

Solar power paint was shown on TV (new inventors)early this year and even though they already had already got a marketable product that was 1/3 the price of the mica panels and twice as efficeint and twice as long lasting, it is not even in the papers - it has disappeared - 'for further research' - of course they don't want to sell that until we NEED it. It amounts to portable power that is free. Paint your car and caravan and you won't even need petrol. You can't have that available on the open market can you???????
Nicola Tesla was murdered because he invented a way of producing FREE ENERGY 100 years ago - can't have that now can we?