CNN did an excellent piece on water today. There are related articles at the site.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/01/03/millennium.water/index.html

Water, water everywhere -- but will there be enough to drink?

From Correspondent Siobhan Darrow

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is Part I of a two-part series exploring the issues of water supply in distribution facing the next millennium. The second installment will be posted Tuesday.]

(CNN) -- Water is the most common substance on Earth, covering more than 70 percent of the planet's surface. Water makes up two-thirds of our own bodies.

But the abundance of water is an illusion.

Only a tiny fraction of the planet's water is drinkable. Ninety-seven percent is sea water, which is expensive and difficult to desalinate. About 2 percent is caught in polar ice caps. That leaves just 1 percent to sustain life in the next millennium.

Already, 26 countries are classified as water-stressed -- meaning they don't have enough water to sustain agriculture and economic development. A third of Africans live without enough water, as do most in the Middle East.

"Looking out to 2025, the number of people living in water-stressed countries will increase six and a half times," says Sandra Postel, an author and water analyst.

Rivers running dry

Much of the world relies on natural underground storage tanks called aquifers. Humankind is rapidly using up those reserves, digging ever-deeper wells and lowering water levels in every continent. Chinese officials are even considering moving the capital from Beijing because of chronic water shortages.

"Up until a hundred years ago, we were hardly using but a fraction of the Earth's water," says William Cosgrove of the World Water Council. "Today we are using more than half of it and the result is we are reaching a dangerous point that is not sustainable."

More than half of the major rivers are going dry or are polluted, endangering the health and livelihood of those who depend on them.

In 1998, 25 million people fled their homes because of water crises in river basins -- a higher number than refugees of war. By 2025, environmental refugees could quadruple.

"In developing countries, about a quarter of the population don't have access to clean water," says Richard Jolly of the U.N. Development Program. "That's 1.3 billion people."

More than twice that number -- almost 3 billion people -- don't have decent sanitation, causing millions of deaths each year. A child dies every eight seconds from drinking contaminated water.

'Solutions' that damage

In China, the Yellow River was once the cradle of their civilization, nurturing China's northern plains. Some 3,600 miles long, it was known throughout history as China's sorrow, because of its tendency to flood.

Now it is causing distress for the opposite reason: it is running dry.

"Industry has expanded, agriculture has expanded and the population has boomed," says Elizabeth Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations. "But there has been no thought given to how to manage the resources of the Yellow River."

And grandiose plans are in the works to rearrange another river-- the Yangtze.

China is in the process of building the world's largest dam on the Yangtze. It's a controversial project expected to displace more than a million people and radically change the ecosystem for the entire region.

One needs only to look next door to the former Soviet Union to see the potential damage such solutions can cause.

The Aral Sea in the former Soviet Central Asia may provide a nightmarish glimpse of ecological disaster in the future.

When Soviet central planners decided to grow cotton in the desert, they diverted water from the rivers flowing into the Aral Sea to irrigate the fields. The sea has since shrunk to two-thirds of its size.

Ships lie in a sandy graveyard that once had water.

The old port town of Muynak is now 30 miles from the coast of the dying sea. Children suffer respiratory diseases, the cows are sick and the native fish are all gone.

"It's one of the examples that really shows the close connection between the health of an aquatic ecosystem and community and the people that depend on the ecosystem," Postel says.

It's not only communist central planners but capitalists as well who meddle with the flow of rivers.

In the United States, the Colorado River is ranked as one of the worlds most stressed and over-committed rivers.

Dams harness its might waters and in dry years, not a single drop of the Colorado reaches the sea.

It took nearly 5,000 workers four and a half years, working 24-hour-a-day shifts, to build the Hoover Dam in the 1930s. Ninety-six workers died during the construction of what was in its day the world's biggest dam.

The Hoover Dam was built to bring electricity to a vast area and water to the arid Western United States.

It is an engineering wonder of our age, some say rivaling the pyramids. But in the future, as the disruption of the environment becomes more fully understood, experts studying water say it could stand as a testament to the folly of man's quest to tame nature.

The Colorado is the lifeblood of the burgeoning American Southwest, filling swimming pools and keeping Las Vegas' 48 golf courses lush.

Ever-thirsty Southern California uses 14 percent more than its allotment. Little water is left to flow downstream and nourish the Colorado delta in Mexico. As a result, the once-vibrant ecosystem there has turned into a parched and salty marsh.

"Our dollars would be better spent rejuvenating the delta, as opposed to growing more lettuce in the hot desert," says Bill Snape of Defenders of Wildlife.

But more than delta wildlife is as risk. An Indian tribe that has depended on the river for centuries is on the verge of extinction.

"For us, this river is life," says a Cocopah chief, "because the life, the soul, is what we call the river.

A fount of peace?

Perhaps nowhere in the world is the strain of sharing water more acute than in the Middle East, where the shortage adds to tensions between nations. Some political leaders have warned that disputes over water could eventually lead to war, but it's been a long time since that's happened.

"If you look in history for the last water war -- you have to go back 4,500 years -- the only water war in history was between the city states of Lagash and Uma over irrigation rights on the Tigris River," says water rights expert Aaron Wolfe.

Today, the Tigris and Euphrates are again a source of potential conflict. Turkey's $32 billion dam and irrigation project will mean less water to downstream neighbors such as Syria and Iraq, who claim the project will rob them of water they need.

But there are hopeful signs between once-bitter enemies in the region. Jordan and Israel included a water agreement in their peace treaty.

"It's the first real treaty in the region that deals with water," says Middle East consultant Mary Morris. "Instead of threatening each other as adversaries, they have begun to come together."

Instead of stirring conflict, "the scarcity can be a catalyst for a miracle in the Middle East," she says, perhaps ushering in an era of cooperation.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), January 03, 2000

Answers

Being from Southern California, I well understand the conflicts that water (and lack thereof) can bring. No water = no development. While we have relatively few water shortage problems on Kaua'i, most of the world has extreme problems...and these will be magnified by climatic changes. Places that had enough won't...and places which were dry (but changed to wet) will be over-utilized when the climate changes back.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 03, 2000.

Looks like the author of that water piece hadn't heard of Stephan Riess and "primary water"....

The notion that only 3 percent of the world's water is the only drinkable water (short of desalination) is incorrect.... read on.

........In the early 50's, a geo-chemist, metallurgist, mining engineer and dowser named Stephan Riess theorized that a vast supply of water ran under the Mojave desert large enough to supply the needs of all the people in southern California. Riess's conclusions were corroborated by a study done by civil engineers. Their findings revealed that there was as Riess called it, primary water travelling in the deep rock fault system under the desert that had nothing in common with the water in the alluvium sedimentary aquifers. This rock fissure water was also so pure that chlorination was unnecessary, and it ran like deep, life-giving veins in the earth. In fact, Riess contended that most underground water did not originate via precipitation that had gradually percolated through the soil as previously thought. Water is incompressible, so once it has reached a depth where the density of the soil becomes equal to its own, it simply cannot "seep" downward any further. He felt instead that the largest quantities of water underground were formed from the elements within the earth, and constituted primary water that had never seen the surface of the earth before. Freshwater springs that spew forth large volumes of water off the coast of islands are good examples.

........As proof of his theory, Riess drilled a number of deep, successful wells, and turned barren, California desert land into fertile, productive acreage. A southern California magazine, Fortnight, ran a 2-part article in 1953, and diagnosed why such a discovery was ignored by local politicians. There was simply too much money to be made in the vast water transport systems planned that California's financial and political leadership had to ignore Riess's discovery. Riess asked, "Why should huge sums of money be spent to build pipe lines over great distances, when Mother Nature has created her own pipe lines? It is certainly far more economical to pump water vertically up 450 feet than to pump and transport it laterally for 450 miles!"

........By 1958, Riess's work was noticed by the Israeli government and they invited him to find water for their new city of Eliat on the Red Sea's Gulf of Aquaba. Riess met with the then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his advisors who urged him to go ahead with his search for water as soon as possible. On May 29, 1959, the Jerusalem Post announced that the Riess-located well was sufficient enough to supply a city of more than 100,000 people including industry and outlying villages!

http://www.tiac.net/users/seeker/Dowsing/water.html

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), January 03, 2000.

OR...

Great reading, thank you =)

-- cin (cinlooo@aol.com), January 03, 2000.

Much of my current work involves the area of water use and water rights. One reason water may be used to grow that lettuce is because it is private property owned by the farmer. Much of California water rights are based upon the concept in equity of "first in time, first in right." Miners, farmers and ranchers were among the first to use the water and came to have property in it.

Things are a bit different in California than in the East. All living things require water - fish, wildlife, cows and vegetables - oh, and people. In the west, there is a scarcity of water and an ever growing human population, particularly where there is no water. As Mark Twain said: "Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting."

For an additional perspective: http://www.cfbf.com/waterw.htm From California Farm Bureau Federation Earthwise Agriculture: Water Watchers

"Water is the lifeblood of agriculture. Nothing grows without water. Of the rain or snow that falls in California each year, about two-thirds goes straight to the environment where it evaporates or is taken up by trees and other native plants. The remaining water runs off into rivers and steams.

"Of that runoff, more than 30 percent runs directly to the Pacific Ocean or other saltwater bodies without being trapped. The state Department of Water Resources says managed wetlands, wild-and-scenic rivers and other environmental uses account for 46 percent of California's applied water use. Agriculture accounts for 43 percent and urban uses for 11 percent.

"California farmers make every drop of water count. They use modern irrigation systems such as microsprinklers, drip irrigation and wheel-move systems to deliver water to thirsty plants, vines and trees. Water conservation is practiced every year, not just in times of drought.

"Many farmers reuse irrigation water by employing irrigation return systems to capture water after it has run through fields and pump it to the head of the field to use it again. Irrigation efficiency improved about 10 percent during the 1980s, to 70 percent. Some irrigation districts in the state report on-farm efficiency levels exceeding 95 percent. The state Department of Water Resources calls California's irrigation efficiency "higher than usually perceived by the general public."

"Harvested per-acre yields of most California crops have more than doubled in this century. New crop varieties with characteristics like shorter stature plants, shorter growing seasons and crops with better disease resistance and ripening characteristics have helped reduce water needs. California farmers use slightly less water than they did 30 years ago, but they produce 67 percent more crops.

"Farmers enhance their irrigation efficiency with lasers to level land, computers to manage irrigation, soil testing and improved weather forecasting. Some use global positioning technology to monitor field productivity to optimize the use of water, fertilizers and pesticides.

"While crops such as rice and alfalfa have been criticized for their water use, these crops provide many unseen benefits. Rice and alfalfa fields attract beneficial insects and they provide a food source for birds, rodents, rabbits and other herbivores.

"Alfalfa, a multiple-harvest crop, provides high-protein feed for the state's $3 billion dairy industry. Alfalfa, a perennial crop, provides a place for waterfowl and raptors to feed, nest and hunt.

"Many farmers use cover crops such as vetch, subterranean clover, crimson clover, oats and cereal rye between orchard and vineyard rows to improve soil quality and water penetration, and to provide a biological source of nitrogen. The technique is part of a farming system known as BIOS, Biologically Integrated Orchard System that is used in many areas of the state.

"Farmers and ranchers have taken the initiative to help protect water quality in several watersheds in the state. A plan by the California Farm Bureau Federation, Non-Point Source Initiative 2000, has helped landowners form local watershed working groups to restore, enhance and protect all watershed resources. Landowners in several watersheds are helping to identify and prioritize pollution sources and to apply the appropriate controls, to monitor and assess results and to improve controls to obtain water quality efficiency.

"Farm Bureau is using this voluntary approach to implement a statewide program to organize and enroll agricultural landowners into agricultural watershed working groups to undertake voluntary non-point source planning and control under the guidance and direction of their regional water quality control boards, and in cooperation with other jurisdictional agencies and interested stakeholder groups.

"In several areas of the state, farmers and ranchers have planted trees and native plants to prevent streambank erosion and provide habitiat for fish. Farmers remove trash and debris from streams and provide gravel to provide spawning beds for fish."

-- marsh (siskfarm@snowcrest.net), January 03, 2000.