How much fresh water do we have left? How long would it take to use it all up? How much has the price of water increased over the past century, and what would we most likely do, from a technological standpoint, if fresh water became scarce?
If freshwater became scarce we could build a large filtering system to filter salt out of seawater from the oceans, or we could drill wells in the midwest because there is a very large watertable there. I dont belive water will become scarce worldwide anytime soon, but that’s just my opinion.
There is an infinite supply of fresh water. It comes from the sky.
1% of the world water is fresh water and it is constantly being recycled by mother nature.
More like ~2% of the world water is fresh water, if you include glaciers and ice caps. However, fresh water in streams, lakes, and groundwater systems makes up about 0.65% of the world’s total water.
As friedo said, there will be a fresh water supply as long as it continues to rain. The real issue is the quality of our fresh waters, although declining water table levels (especially for cities that depend almost entirely on groundwater, like San Antonio) is also a concern because it necessitates depening existing wells and the establishment of new wells (both of which mean big $$$).
What friedo and UNIMATRIXONE said. See this link for more info…or do a Google Search for “hydrologic cycle”. Not to put you down but I learned this in my 6th grade geography class.
thats a funny way of not putting me down.
Thanks for checking, yes I am aware of rain. But do you all realize the usage of water by 6 billion people, far more than have ever existed on this planet has affected the amount of fresh water available. There is far less water per person and more of it is contaminated in some way or another then ever before. Don’t get me wrong I’m not worried, I don’t pay much for the water from the tap and it tastes just fine, I won’t be hoarding Evian anytime soon, I was just looking for some long term estimates from the GQ crowd.
I should have looked for it before posting but here is one answer to my OP.
This article: The Emerging Water Crisis and Its Implications for Global Food Security has a nice map of the world showing projected water shortages in 2025. The data comes from this (PDF) report: World Water Demand and Supply,1990 to 2025: Scenarios and Issues
Googling on fresh water shortage “united nations” turned up lots of interesting links.
Explain the increasing freshwater (potable) shortages in south Florida, Arizona and California? Why does the Weather channel, among other news sources, list current rainwater deficits and two-year rainwater deficits in their programs?
Why is the city of Tampa Bay, Florida, building a desalination plant? Explain why the Colorado River doesn’t empty into the Gulf of California anymore? Have you read the NRCS Spring and Summer Streamflow Forecast for this year? Have you read last year’s NRCS Spring and Summer Streamflow Forecasts?
Have you been out on any of the forest fires this summer, talked with the fire fighters and done soil tests? Have you looked at the US Drought Monitor map and compared it to the concentration of forest fires in the US this summer? Have you read the Nat’l Weater Service Drought Assessment for this year?
Do you drink bottled water? If you do, do you drink it because it’s trendy and you just want to be like the “in crowd?” Or is there a more substantial reason why you don’t take a full glass from the tap?
According to NOAA last week, 36 percent of the USA is in severe to extreme drought. Drought means, among other things, that acquifers are not being replenished sufficiently (not to mention we are already taking water from acquifers at a faster rate than nature replenishes them). We don’t drink rainwater in the USA - we get it from acquifers. And the water we do get from acquifers is not rainwater from a few days or a few months ago. Acquifier rainwater is old - on the order of thousands of years old.
It’s one thing to search Google under “hydrologic cycle,” because that’s a very small part of it. Why not search under “drought” and “freshwater shortage” and “acquifers” to see the links from official sources all over the world.
North Georgia is one of many areas in the US currently experiencing a multi-year drought. Even with water restrictions, the Atlanta metro area has started to withdraw the maximum water from Lake Lanier (the biggest resevoir around), which the Army CoE had predicted wouldn’t be reached 20 years from now. With projected growth, water restrictions are going to be a permanent way of life for the region. All of the surface water has been “oversold” so there is no more to be had there. The bedrock does not contain large enough reserves to make wells practical on a large scale. It’s too far from the ocean to make piping and desalinization practical.
There is only one source left: processed waste water. (Let’s all go “yeeeuw”.) But even that will soon be all allotted.
And Georgia is hardly the desert west.
The midwest does not contain a large enough aquifer to supply the current needs of the region. They are draining out what is there at breakneck speed. It will go dry in a few decades.
Big regional transfers of water like what California did are no longer politically viable. All regions need all the water they have and won’t allow any to be exported.
Am I going to have to give up mowing grass? Oh dear…
This is already happening, it’s called, desalination, the method of removing salts and other impurities from water.
Desalination is used alot in the Mid Eastern countries.
Try “Cadillac Desert”, which has been in print for years. PBS did a series on it also. Anyone who lived in CA in the mid 70’s can tell you about mandatory water restrictions, which included giving up lawns.
As opposed how to what you’re already drinking? If you hold a funnel out in the rain to collect it in a bottle, you’re still drinking “processed waste water”.