Drought on Lake Oroville Reservoir in California
Water is vital to our existence, along with oxygen and food, right! So, you think we would make it a top priority to conserve and protect these finite resources. Hmmm… unfortunately that is not always the case. Today, I will focus on clean drinking water. You may think we have a lot of it as the world is mostly covered by water. Yes, that is true, but only 3% is made up of fresh water and only a third of it is available to us, since the rest is inaccessible, deep, underground, or frozen in glaciers.
In my previous blogs, I have written about the extreme weather patterns occurring around the world causing severe droughts. The Western U.S. is experiencing the worst drought in 1,200 years! All while population is increasing in this region and about 44% of the U.S. is experiencing drought.
Here in the USA, fresh water sources are being depleted at a rate never seen before due to unprecedented demand along with increased hot and dry conditions, resulting in strict water cuts for seven states and the Colorado river. This is causing the shutdown of hydroelectric plants, farmers to sell off land and plant different crops that require less water and cattle rangers forced to sell off their livestock.
According to the World Wildlife Fund by 2025, two thirds of the worlds population could face water shortages, resulting in mass migration for humanity, political instability, and conflicts at the local, city and governmental levels.
So, what do we do about it? Do we continue to flush our toilets and water our lawns with potable (drinking) water? I hope not! Every year, about 9 billion tons of potable water is lost due to leaky faucets, pipes, and water mains. Water conservation measures are a key solution to implement into society. It is critical to utilize President Biden’s infrastructure bill to change our old ways and usher in clean resilient and renewable technologies to help fight against our freshwater dilemma.
Please check out this article which dives deep into some new solutions already implemented at a scalable level around the world and new the ones in the works! New solutions are very important because the traditional desalination (Desal) process has negative effects, such as consuming large amount of energy and water and producing brine that is twice as salty as the seawater where it typically gets dumped back into the ocean.