Vegetarian to Vegan by Sarah Taylor

Author:Sarah Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book Publishing Company
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Water Scarcity

Many of us don’t think about our water supply – we turn on our faucets and clean water comes out in abundance at any time of the day, in any quantity we want, hot or cold. We take long showers, run dishwashers, washing machines and sprinklers. We wash our bodies, dogs, cars, boats, RVs, windows, sidewalks, and porches. We water our gardens and trees and lawns. I expect most of us in developed countries take this for granted. Water has always been there when we wanted it, and it always will be. Or will it?

Fresh water is surprisingly scarce. Only 2.5% of all water resources on our planet are fresh water, and 70% of that is locked up in glaciers, permanent snow and the atmosphere.180 Currently, 38% of the world’s population lives in water stressed areas, and this is supposed to increase to 64% by 2025.181

If you’re tempted to think that it’s only the most arid countries in Africa that have true drought problems, you’ll be surprised to learn that many industrialized countries are so short on water that laws have been inacted to force citizens to drastically cut back their water use. For example, citizens in certain areas of Australia are not allowed to hose off their sidewalk or other inorganic property, and are rationed on how often they can wash their cars.

It seems that Australia’s situation may have been a foreshadowing for other countries. The United States experienced a summer drought in 2012 that was so severe that dozens of farms closed down permanently in the Midwest, and prices for corn, wheat, and other staples rose over 50% in just two months. That same summer, Russia experienced a similar drought, and Asia’s monsoon rains were far lower than usual.

In further examples of water shortages, the island of Tuvalu literally ran down to only 3 days water supply after a long drought in 2011, and other island nations like the Maldives and Kiribati will likely lose their supply of fresh water as global warming raises the sea level which will cause salt water intrusion into their wells, spoiling their groundwater. Entire nations are facing the looming situation of not just having a reduced water supply, but having no water supply. That’s how scarce water is becoming in some parts of the world.

What is happening to our fresh water? Where is it going? In some cases, there are droughts or the fresh water supply is spoiled through pollution or salt water intrusion. However, in other cases, we are simply using it all up.

Geologists have known for years that the United States has serious signs of diminished fresh water supply. Perhaps the scariest example comes from one of the largest fresh water sources in the world, the Ogallala Aquifer. Most of the middle states in the U.S. rely on the Ogallala Aquifer for their fresh water, including Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and South Dakota.

What, exactly, is an aquifer? An aquifer is a naturally made groundwater storage reservoir.

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