36 US States Face Water Shortages

by moonwolf | April 3, 2008 at 01:06 pm | 421 views | 2 comments

At least 36 states are expected to face water shortages within the next five years, according to U.S. government estimates. Available freshwater supplies are dwindling across the country due to rising temperatures and droughts, while increasing sprawl, population and inefficient resource usage are leading to rising demand.

"Is it a crisis? If we don't do some decent water planning, it could be," said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the American Water Works Association. Rising temperatures due to global warming have increased evaporation rates across the country and reduced the availability of important water sources. One of these is the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which supplies a significant portion of California's water. Across the West, similar trends are expected to reduce flows of the Colorado River, which supplies water for seven states.

Meanwhile, rising sea levels are expected to cause saltwater to infiltrate freshwater aquifers in coastal states, rendering that water unusable.

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amyjudd

at 13:08 on April 3rd, 2008

This is really scary, and five years is not a long time at all.

tinwhistler

at 18:30 on April 3rd, 2008

In the 19 May 2006 issue of Science, there was an article about using carbon nanotube membranes to desalinate water, a development at Livermore National Laboratories. The article suggested that the cost of producing potable water from the oceans could be reduced by 80% from the lowest previous cost using reverse osmosis technology. Such a cost reduction would bring potable (ocean) water to us at, or even less than, the cost of purified water from current fresh-water sources. But exploiting the new technology is a huge problem -- carbon nanotubes conduct electricity better than copper and are lighter, so the airplane manufacturers want as much as they can get (as do other end users). Government needs to get involved to set priorities, allocating production according the end uses having the greatest benefits for all humanity and not just the super-rich investor group. Since the government, however, is owned by that group, there is little chance of intelligent allocation.

Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego