Thirst for Power by Michael E. Webber

Author:Michael E. Webber [Webber, Michael E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2016-05-04T22:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Trends

THE KEY UNDERLYING DEMOGRAPHIC trend that can strain the energy-water nexus is growth: population growth and economic growth. Population is growing, exceeding 7 billion people globally in 2011, and is projected to continue growing. Peter Gleick, a leading scholar on water issues, MacArthur Fellow, and member of the National Academy of Sciences, made a comment about global population that really stuck with me. While briefing the Roundtable on Sustainability at the National Academy of Sciences meeting in June 2013, he discussed global population trends. He said, “The most interesting day in the history of the world will happen in the twenty-first century: that is the day the global population is smaller than it was the day before.” Until that day, global population is projected to keep growing, plateauing between 9 and 11 billion people sometime between 2050 and 2100.

Along the way, each one of those billions of people will need energy and water. More people means more demand. At the same time we have been getting richer. Demand for energy and water have been growing faster than population, driven by economic growth on top of the population growth.1 This phenomenon occurs because affluent people eat more meat, which leads to water consumption. They also consume more electricity, which uses water. Unfortunately, many water withdrawals are from nonrenewable resources. That means the trends for consumption will trigger water shortages unless something changes. By 2005, at least half of Saudi Arabia’s fossil (nonrenewable) water reserves had been consumed in the previous two decades. Globally, much more groundwater is pumped out of aquifers than is recharged naturally. Therefore the water table has been going down.

It’s not just the Middle East, though. Significant declines have also been observed in the Ogallala Aquifer under the Great Plains of the United States, spanning eight states from South Dakota to Texas.2 Water tables lowered by as much as 234 feet were observed in Texas, while the average drop across the entire aquifer was 14 feet. Storage of water fell from 3.2 billion to 2.9 billion acre-feet. Although these numbers are daunting, the impacts on water in the aquifer were not exclusively negative in all locations. Some localized increases up to 84 feet were observed in Nebraska as a consequence of seepages and reservoirs affecting the amount of water stored underground.

These withdrawals from nonrenewable sources and shifts in water levels, stored water, and water use over time affect the amount of water that is available to humanity and nature. Overall, water availability is declining globally.3 Available water dropped from 17,000 cubic meters per person in 1950 to 7,000 cubic meters per person in 2000. Water stress occurs between 1,000 and 1,700 cubic meters, and a water crisis occurs at less than 1,000 cubic meters. Notably, some countries are already at these levels, and are cause for concern: Qatar (91), Libya (111), Israel (389), and the UK (1,222). All of these datasets point toward a conclusion that water stress is increasing. High-profile research published in Nature has concluded that nearly 80 percent of the global population endures high levels of threat to water security.

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