I do not enjoy writing on the subject of water depletion,
drought, and contamination. Our society does not like to address the hard
truths of industrialization and the consequences of our own actions. As a
society, we like to waste many things food, water, electricity and everything
for the stake of a simple fix. Climate
change will push the limits of our resources and water is no different. By
ignoring the problem, it will not go away. Nature will push it in your face whether
you like it or not. The Earth will shove the climate issue right in front of
the windshield until it is acknowledged. I know I am writing on a subject that
makes many uncomfortable and uneasy to talk about. As a society we need to grow
up or nature will decide our fate for us.
In the United States we use more water than any other modern
nation on Earth. According to a United Nations report the average water use per
person per day is 580 gallons. The smallest water user is Mozambique which uses
less than 10 gallons a day. See Table Below (Shen, 2014)
One can see from the graph that we use a lot of water. Let’s
look more into these numbers and what we use our water on this precious
resources which cannot be wasted.
Majority of our water in the United States comes from fresh
water supplies such as reservoirs, lakes, springs, and groundwater. The graph
below shows the breakout of these numbers per use provided by the USGS.
As we look at the domestic water use we use about 74 gallons
a day. The graph below shows how much we use in our homes everyday.
Many Western States have increasing lower snowpack numbers
and increasing population. For example, in Colorado this past April the
snowpack was reported at 69% of normal which was not encouraging numbers for a
growing population (Finley, 2015) . Also in the Sierra
Nevada range was the lowest it has been in 500 years (Newbern, 2015) .
As our plant warms the snowpack will lessen causing less water available
for water use. We have to be constantly conserving water in the West and not
only during drought times. What a lot of people do not realize is once the
water is gone. Its gone! Especially with groundwater.
Groundwater is considered to be ancient water or old water.
It can take thousands of years for some aquifers to recharge. Just like our
surface water our groundwater is being over pumped and over allocated and over
used past its recharge rates. Below is a video of part of this cycle.
Then in order to get into the rocks depends on how porous
the rock is
Another problem which we have created a concrete jungle and
with this jungle in the cities and towns it creates more runoff and flooding. Normally
the rain would go back and recharge into the soil but with greater run off
causes more flooding as we have more 1-500 or 1-1000 year flood events. As one
can see all of these issues are connected you cannot talk about one issue
without bringing up another issue. As I write more on this blog you will begin
to see this as with the climate change issue. Everything is connected.
Works Cited
Finley, B. (2015, 4 2). Weather News.
Retrieved 10 17, 2015, from Denver Post:
http://www.denverpost.com/weathernews/ci_27837306/colorado-mountain-snowpack-low-at-69-percent-raising
Newbern, E. (2015, 9
24). Live Science. Retrieved 10 17, 2015, from Live Science:
http://www.livescience.com/52265-california-snowpack-shrinking.html
Shen, J. (2014, 5 8). Data
360. Retrieved 10 17, 2015, from Data 360.org:
http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=757
USGS. (2010, 01 01). USGS
Water Science School. Retrieved 10 17, 2015, from USGS Water Science
School: http://water.usgs.gov/edu/wateruse-diagrams.html
