Water Now and In the Future?

So I was just reading my google alerts today and it is really scary.   Just for fun if you want to really see what is happening in the world of water set yourself up with a google alert.  Basically what they do it e-mail you all the new stuff on the web on whatever subject you want to read about.  Mine is water shortage, conservation or something like that.  I read, every single day about things that are really alarming concerning our water situation in the world.  A recent article on http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=259 is extremely scary and only if we don’t read it and head it’s warning.  Basically the article starts out saying that the worlds water consumption due to agriculture and just human use will increase by over 30% by the year 2025 and we already have a third of the world experiencing a physical water shortage.   By 2030 (only 22 years from now) half the world will experience a physical water shortage.  Imagine what that will do to areas that are experiencing it now.  Do not think water will be more important than oil?  We can possibly sustain life without oil although since our bodies are 70% water we cannot sustain life without it. 

It is estimated that over 70% of our water is used for irrigation.  I was walking down the street the other day and saw water running down the gutter from a sprinkler system that was used over 3 blocks away.  I thought to myslef, that person has wasted the amount of water that would be the total alotment for 10 people in some countries.  The sad thing is there are better ways to irrigate now, you can still have that green lawn and those lush fields it just takes a willingness to change the way we do things.  Imagine if we could cut the 70% down by 25% how much more water there would be available.  We still use flood irrigation in this country for agricultural crops, not only does this waste a lot of water but the runoff from the farms with pesticides and fertilizers pollutes the rivers and streams.  Sprinkler systems tend to blow the water into the air and 30 to 60% depending on climate evaporates and never gets to the plants.  There are other methods such as sub surface drip or sub surface capillary irrigation (SCI) systems that distribute water below the surface and directly to the plant roots.  Sub surface capillary irrigation tends to distribute the water more efficiently than sub surface drip.  Sub Surface Capillay uses a fiber to distribute it directly to the plants roots.  Sub surface drip tends to leave small saturated zones below the surface causing anerobic conditions in the area of the supply.  The key however is the fact that the water is distributed ’below the surface’,  so if in fact you do happen to over water a bit you do it with half as much water and, if there is any waste it goes back to our natural underground storage system we call the aquifer where it becomes readily available for re-use.  These systems are very expensive for farmers to implement so we need to push government officials to provide help for them to get this done.  When I say expensive we have to think what is more expensive, avoiding a water crisis or waiting till it happens and then trying to figure out how to fix it.   Imagine this, lake meade is that huge lake outside ‘Sin city’ nevada otherwise known as Las Vegas.  Various estimates by some very smart people say that lake could run dry somewhere between 2025 and 2050.  Do you know that that lake supplies water to about 30 million Americans.  When we think it can’t happen here, think again.   The lake is now down over 100 feet below normal and droping fast.  A big portion of that water is part of the supply for Los Angeles. 

Another fact, the state of California cut water going south out of the delta by 30% this year to save the smelt.  Central california is a huge producer of our fruits and vegatibles, you can literraly drive for 100’s of miles and see nothing but farm after farm, Irrigated farms that is.  What happens when the farms go fallow in california because of lack of water.   Everyone heard about Atlanta this summer and how the entire city could see thier taps go dry.  Just imagine if you woke up and your faucet did not run.  In fact just think how would I get a drink of water or take a shower then imagine the pandemonium if the entire city had that problem.  We would all have to get in our cars and just leave it a ghost town.   Anyhow, I can go on for hours about this subject.  Not to be commercial but for solutions to this issue espcially in irrigation go look at our web site, I firmly believe we have a solution to this problem see what you think at www.kisssusa.com  We are a small company that is just starting to grow, we feel we have something that will really help out the situation in the world if we can just get people to try it.  You won’t believe the politics envolved in trying to spread a new product like this.   Anyhow enough of my rant, any comments concerns negative or however just write back and let me know.

This entry was posted on 16. October 2008 at 22:18 and is filed under Water News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.