WATER WEALTH: Growing demand for freshwater could exceed available supplies regionally.
Image: flickr/Darwin Bell
South Bend, Ind., avoided $120 million in upgrades and conserved millions of gallons of water by becoming one of the first cities on the globe to use cloud computing to manage its water systems.
In Oregon, local officials cooled down water from wastewater plants by planting trees near riverbanks rather than using cooling equipment, lowering investment costs at the same time.
The Department of Energy, meanwhile, is working with governors and transmission officials in Texas and the western United States on a multi-year computer project to find the best locations for new power plants faced with growing scarcity in nearby water resources to cool down their operations.
These examples underscore the many options available to alleviate a growing global water crisis exacerbated by climate change, water experts said yesterday at forum in Washington, D.C., sponsored by Growing Blue, a group created by Veolia Water in consultation with the United Nations, Columbia University and water conservation groups.
"Water is posed to be the commodity of the 21st century," said Richard Sandor, an analyst at Environmental Products, who also founded the Chicago Climate Exchange.
Current statistics -- outlined yesterday in a new report from IBM at the event -- highlight the challenges facing the water sector on everything from drought to storm runoff.
Between 2005 and 2030, the number of people living in areas where water demand will exceed available supplies could rise 40 percent, from 2.8 billion to 3.9 billion, the company said.
A water trading system to conserve supplies
By 2070, the value of flood-exposed economic assets in 136 major ports could reach 9 percent of global gross domestic product. In global agriculture, 35 percent of annual water is wasted because of "poor resource management."
In the United States, there will be a need for 165 percent more water by 2025 above 2000 levels, the report says. Energy use -- such as use for cooling down power plants during hot summers -- accounts for 49 percent of U.S. water demand.
Tight supplies will be further squeezed by a potential shortage of workers managing stormwater, drinking water and wastewater systems, said Mary Keeling, a manager at IBM. The issue is "often overlooked," she said.
In the United States, the average water utility worker is 44.7 years old, with a retirement age of 56, Keeling said. That raises serious questions whether utilities will have the personnel they need to address problems such as drought, she said.
For Sandor, an obvious answer to future water shortages is water trading, which would allow water-stressed areas to purchase supplies from other regions. As one example, he said that it takes the same amount of water to make $250,000 worth of alfalfa as it does to run an Albuquerque, N.M.'s computer chip plant, yet farmers "can't sell their water rights" in the state, he said.
While it could take 10 to 20 years to build a water trading system in a given region, it is an idea that would boost conservation tremendously, he said.
The idea is a controversial one. A study in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association published this spring outlined the potential difficulties of setting up a water trading system in the American West, including the fact that there is not an umbrella authority over states in the 1922 Colorado compact. Some critics also are concerned about trading altering river flows and disrupting hydroelectric dams, among other things.
Alberta could lead the way
Yet Sandor said Alberta, Canada, could be a first mover. The province faces multiple pressures of growing oil extraction, business development and population growth in an arid climate, and there are preliminary discussions about the concept (ClimateWire, Aug. 3).
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8 Comments
Add CommentYes... "Water trading" sounds like a great idea, but it's unlikely that the 'water hoarders' will be interested in participating except to the extent that they can profit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI seem to recall that Nestle's, for example, is big in buying municipal water supplies around the world, especially in arid regions - you know, as an 'investment in the future'...
I agree hoarding and price gouging will become a particularly annoying problem. To that end I prpose we do two things. First complete and or build as the case may be the infrastructure to relocate flood waters that simply cause exorbenant damage elsewhere to aggricultural areas as is practcally possible. Second; where that is not an option build the infrastructutre to transport and desalinate sea water in huge quantities in areas requiring abundant freshwater supplies for consumtion and use as well as aggricultural sustainability. This is a completely feasable approach and would result in a great number of high paying jobs for skilled labor and engineers aloke.It would also allow for economic and ecological stability in this country we call home.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd Oxygen the commodity for the 22nd century. They will pay every cent they have for it,once the biosphere is in rapid decline.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf all life-forms that develop intelligence follow similar paths, its no wonder aliens have never made contact.
Mr.Chen Guangbiao decided to treat fresh air as a kind of commodity since the air pollution in China is so severe. And I wonder the water trading here is similar to what Mr.Chen did.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWater is already a commodity that's precious (and not readily available, as it used to be) for many Indians. The fortunate few who have plenty of it tend to use it most wastefully, despite knowing that a great many of us are suffering without it. Now, things look to get a lot worse for most Indians, as the corporates home in on this precious commodity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article, while most interesting, did not point to useful ideas that could be used by 'most people' who do not have ready access to water.
GSC
Our freshwater stocks will improve with warming as rainfall increases 6.5% per degree warming (Wentz et al). This is all due to the acceleration of the water cycle with warmer water and the increase in sea surface areas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWater is not "consumed" when we use it. It is merely making a slight detour from it's natural cycle. Those areas with water shortage should be helped with continuing warming.
Unfortunately, temperatures have flattened, for the last 15 years and our water stocks will, as well. If we cool, the world will indeed experience acute shortages as more evaporation is locked up as polar and glacier ice.
I realize that this seems counter intuitive, but if you live in a water scarce area, warming helps, cooling is a disaster, as it always has been. GK
Tony Allan's book on virtual water
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_water
www.amazon.co.uk/Virtual-Water-Tackling-Precious-Resource
points out that we've avoided water wars because we've traded virtual water in the form of food and other produce.
But he also points out that we need to rely on rain, not irrigation, for farming.
As for G. Karst's suggestion that we want global warming to get more water - well we may get more water overall, but that's no help if rainfall becomes more sporadic, more unpredictable, more extreme, as predicted by climate scintists, and as seemms indeed to be happening already. So no, global warming is not good for rain, not for food production.
Worth looking as well at
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'Feeding a Thirsty World: Challenges and Opportunities for a Water and Food Secure Future' by the Stockholm International Water Institute:
http://www.siwi.org/documents/Resources/Reports/Feeding_a_thirsty_world_2012worldwaterweek_report_31.pdf