Why You Need to Worry About the Global Water Crisis

It’s becoming clear that we have every water problem you can think of. Groundwater, seawater, drinking water—you name it, we’ve got a problem with it.

Over-pumping groundwater for agriculture has caused California’s ground to begin collapsing and some of the world's largest groundwater aquifers to deplete. Globally, one-in-nine people lack access to safe water and sea levels are expected to rise drastically.

Entire countries are already going underwater and water feuds are already among us. The population is only expected to increase, and so is global water insecurity.

It’s undeniable that we’re facing a water crisis. It's certain that we will all feel the effects of it at some point, and if not us, our children.

So what are we going to do about it?

Rising Sea Levels

Global sea levels are expected to rise 10 to 30 inches by 2100. This is drastic, considering the oceans have only risen eight inches since 1880, but it’s not surprising since three of those inches have been within the last 25 years.

This leads to natural security threats, drinking water issues, and food insecurity.

Countries ranging from the Netherlands and Japan to Kiribati and Vietnam have already experienced severe flooding and are expected to completely go underwater once the water level rises higher. More developed countries like the Netherlands are able to spend large sums on flood control, but less developed countries have no other option but to encourage their citizens to migrate.

If the global sea temperature increases just four degrees, 34 million Japanese citizens will be left homeless. 

The Mekong River Delta in Vietnam is home to thousands of people and is the source of half of the country’s food supply; yet, it is expected to be completely inundated by just a few more inches of sea level rise. At this rate, mass migration is likely.

Image by: Borgen Magazine

                                           

The governments of Kiribati and Palau are already urging their citizens to relocate because they don’t have the financial resources needed to implement proper flood control. We can only expect massive numbers of refugees to cram in with less-affected nations if the sea levels continue to rise like they have been.

At this point, national security is at risk and political turmoil is to be expected. The already 150 million homeless people and 1.6 billion people who have inadequate shelter in the world are expected to rise in numbers if we don’t do something soon.

Agricultural fields and wells will be flooded with saltwater, leaving entire populations with massive food and water shortages. Not only will our lands be crowded, but they will also be suffering. 

Drinking Water Crisis

Just within our current population, one-in-nine people lack access to safe drinking water. What about when our population reaches the 9 billion mark that is projected by 2050?

As seawater begins flooding more nations, wells and other water sources will be contaminated and unsafe to drink.

South Africa’s struggles have hit the news hard, but they aren’t even ranked in the top 36 countries with the greatest water insecurities by the World Resources Institute. Countries like Bahrain, Jamaica, and Singapore are only a few countries that have alarming cases of dehydration and deaths from unsanitary water.

Image by: Lifewater

Most of the countries who have notoriously struggled with water insecurities have been less developed, but nobody will be safe when sea levels reach their projected heights. U.S. coasts, the United Kingdom, Japan, Ireland and many other more developed countries are expected to suffer tremendously in only a few generations of time.

Groundwater Depletion

Here, we reach the topic of massive food insecurity, and geographic degradation.

Groundwater is used for a large portion of agricultural irrigation systems. According to The Washington Post, the Ogallala Aquifer located in the Great Plains of the U.S. is used to produce one-fifth of the U.S.’s supply of wheat, corn, cattle and cotton.

The Ogallala Aquifer, being one of the largest in the world, isn’t expected to last another ten years with the rate at which we’ve been extracting water from it.

The easiest, short-term solution would be to dig deeper aquifers, but this is highly expensive, unsustainable, and would raise costs of simple things like a loaf of bread by entire dollar amounts.

Image by: World Resources Institute

California’s land is sinking from the amount of groundwater being extracted from the state’s soil. The lack of groundwater has weakened the soil so much that some areas have sunken over 13 inches in just eight months.

There have been fights in Peru between farmers because of water pipes that are taking groundwater from one farm and giving it to another. We can expect this kind of thing to become normal as groundwater depletes further.

More than half of the planet’s largest 37 aquifers have depleted since 2003.

Solutions

1.       Vote for climate-focused government leaders

The best thing you can do as a citizen with power is elect decision-makers who will make decisions that focus on the global water crisis. You can do all you want, but if your leadership doesn’t have the goal in mind, you can only get so far.

2.       Support better desalination technologies

One of the most effective ways to deal with rising sea levels would be to take out the salt so that it’s drinkable, safe, and better for the land. However, our current desalination technologies require a ton of energy, and are mostly powered by fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases and warm the plant even more.

 Innovations to make desalination plants run off of renewable energy like solar are in the works, but they still need development. Another big issue is figuring out how to draw water from the ocean without sucking in marine life.

You can help by supporting and donating to organizations who do this type of research, or by contacting your government to support these initiatives.

3.       Climate education

The most effective water advocate is an educated one. We need to make this crisis a huge topic of conversation, which means educating people. Advocating for environmental awareness in public schools or even hosting community meetings in which members of the community can get together and learn about the water crisis could go a long way.

At the very least, I urge you to just talk about it.

4.       Government plans/alliances

A hopeful option for less developed countries to be able to combat the water crisis involves government and community alliances. A prime example is the Niger Basin Climate Resilience Plan that is an alliance plan between countries near the Niger River Basin.

If we build transnational plans and alliances now, we can support future refugees and try to prevent citizens of developing countries from becoming refugees in the first place.

5.       More sustainable agriculture

As seen from the over-pumping of groundwater, we need another method of agriculture that doesn’t draw from groundwater. A method of agriculture that doesn’t get harmed by seawater flooding would be optimal too.

The solution, then, would be indoor vertical farms. Detailed in my sustainable agriculture post, vertical hydroponic farms are the way to go for our water crisis adaptation initiatives.

We use 70 percent of our water for agriculture. According to Water Nexus Conference co-director Felix Dodds, we will need an extra 30 to 40 percent of food compared to today by 2030. We need a change.