This story is a supplement to the feature "Facing the Freshwater Crisis" which was printed in the August 2008 issue of Scientific American.
Pressure from Climate and Population Growth
Models examining the effects of climate change and of population and economic growth on water availability by 2025 indicate that climate change alone will bring scarcity to many places (top). Population growth, however, is even more dangerous. In the absence of concerted action to save water, the combination of population growth and climate change (bottom) will create scarcity far and wide.
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14 Comments
Add CommentIt is obvious that we cannot continue to squander fresh water resources. The developed countries must stop flushing drinking water down the drain; watering lawns and washing cars, clothes and dishes with pure water. All municipal sources should be non-potable, gray water, from sewage recycling, desalination or marginal sources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDRINK BOTTLED WATER, it is sustainable and safe.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or an advertisement for Alhambra...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would appear that population growth is a major factor in this looming crisis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince over population is a contributing factor in so many environmental problems, zero or even negative population growth should be our goal. China's on child per couple policy should become a world policy.
On the surface, population growth is a seemingly impossible problem. However, there is a solution. Educated people, particularly educated women, have fewer children than those who are uneducated. But educating people, particularly women, is a radical act in much of the world. Obviously, it behooves all of humanity to take that radical action.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNews Flash: Most bottled water companies actually withdraw their water from local systems where their bottling plants are located. This is the primary reason they continue to be unregulated by the US EPA; the communities distill and filter the water for them. Read your labels on bottled water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd, no, this is not necessarily sustainable. Where do you think all that plastic comes from? How would you feel about facing a fresh water crisis while some company is making a huge profit from removing water from your watershed?
Woory, worry, worry: feel better. I perdict by 2025 we will be entering a strong cooling cycle. Thenwe can thaw ice for our fresh water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you know how much clean water is required to make a plastic bottles?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"In terms of water use alone, much more is consumed in making the bottles than will ever go into them plus all the other related emissions during the production process of the same bottles. How can someone think that that is sustainable?
Looking at Scandinavia on the climate change + population growth map makes no sense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPopulation growth is next to none and water is abundant - where I live we are still using 15-25,000 year old reservoirs from the last ice age, and our .more recent reservoirs are full for the next 100 years.
I have to ask myself if the rest of the map is as faulty as it is for the Scandinavian area?
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can get hot air by recycling the heat so we can get drinkable water at low prices.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt has been found that the heat is recyclable like any other object. When the heat is recycled an additional energy emerges. The Thermal Energy Recycling system (TERS) will be the energy of the future. Open your minds and we will be able to replace fuels.
Thousands of letters I have sent commenting how to get hot air by recycling the heat, but the Scientific community is in the worst paradigmatic paralysis of all times. The Galileo’s time has not ended yet. The founders of thermodynamics are responsible for the problem of pollution, global warming and the dependence on fuels we have now.
I am inviting governments, institutions, universities and foundations to send the experts in order to have a demonstration with a TERS hot air generator prototype in Cali, Colombia. It uses 5.3 Kw/hour and produces 12 Kw/hour. It produces 1050 cubic meter of hot air/hour up to 73 ºC. If some components of the prototype are improved we will be able to get the same volume of air up to 250 ºC with the same 5.3 kw/hour. The prototype uses a blower; (0.35 psi and the heat produced by the electric motor is evacuated). The prototype does not use fuels or electric resistors to heat the air. This research must be continued.
More information would be sent if required.
Raúl Caicedo Astudillo - E-Mail: rcaicedo.adiabatica@gmail.com
Raul, did you pay SciAm for all of the advertising you are getting by posting your commercial on the comment forums? Please shut the hell up and submit an article for real review to see if it has any validity at all instead of being a forum whore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also question the validity of these maps because no sources or assumptions are given for the information displayed.
I always wondered why sometimes there were multiple posts of the same thing. Now I know. The SciAm site is poorly designed from a security point of view and when unsecured content is combined with secured content, security measures cause the site to generate an annoyingly large number of errors creating the impression that the post failed when it actually succeeded.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis map predicts a freshwater shortage in the Great Lakes region of the United States. This is absurd on its face - the Great Lakes, while receding, will not be depleted by 2025. Especially considering the variables used for this map (Local Supply expressed as a percentage of Local Demand) this is simply not credible for the Great Lakes region. While I am not an expert in this matter, I encourage the authors to offer more explanation in order to persuade me that their doomsday scenario is possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWATER CRISIS CAN BE TACKLED BY CLOUD SEEDING
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf China is employing 37000 technicians for cloud seeding to produce additional 65 billion cubic meters of rain water per year at a cost benefit ratio of 1:27,why should American citizens with several scientific experts be worried about how to resolve the crisis.please browse through the following web sites and write to the President of United States not to lag behind China and Japan in obtaining 40% additional rainfall/snowfall by seeding both cold and warm clouds by using both ground generators and aeroplanes.see the webs
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2714955.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-29-china-rain_x.htm
http://www.gitam.edu/cos/env/English-Book.pdf
http://shivajirao.cloudseeding.googlepages.com/scienceofcloudseeding
http://jcsepa.mri-jma.go.jp/outreach/20070131/Presentations/P3_Yao.pdf
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/139167.pdf
http://english.people.com.cn/english/200007/14/eng20000714_45496.html
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2007/s1920342.htm
prof.T.Shivaji Rao
Expert,cloud seeding project of Government of A.P.state and Director,centre forEnvironment,Gitam University