Why Sea Water Needs Cleaning!

Seawater is 97.5% of the total water on Earth. In times of drought and other thirst, humans have tried to cleanup seawater to turn it into freshwater. But so far we do not know how to transform seawater into freshwater economically and without severely impacting the environment.
Seawater has a composition much like the human body

Seawater composition
Source - earth.usc.edu

Recognizing that our ancestors originally lived in the sea, it is not surprising to find that the proportion of minerals and salts in human tissue is very similar to that in seawater.
Of course, the exact proportion varies around a similar mean proportion for individual seawater and human tissues.
Human bodies require the salt they contain.
Human bodies loose salt easily
Sweating, crying and urinating are some of the ways in which the human body looses salts. We must replace this lost salt but we cannot intake an excessive amount of extra salt. The excessive salt is bad for the cells that make up our bodies and organs like our kidneys.
What happens when we ingest more salt than we need?
Water moves out of cells to dilute the salt content to a normal acceptable level. This movement dehydrates cells and impairs their normal functioning. Seizures, unconsciousness and brain damage are some of the results of extreme dehydration or prolonged dehydration. Excessive intake of seawater is, thus, a life threatening issue for the human body.
Salt content of Freshwater
USGS has categorized different waters, based on their salt content in parts-per-million (ppm), as follows:

• Fresh water - Less than 1,000 ppm
• Slightly saline water - From 1,000 ppm to 3,000 ppm
• Moderately saline water - From 3,000 ppm to 10,000 ppm
• Highly saline water - From 10,000 ppm to 35,000 ppm
• Ocean water - about 35,000 ppm

To avoid intake of excessive amount of salts, we must, therefore, clean up seawater (i.e. lower the salts it contains) before it is safe for human consumption. The process of lowering salinity or amount of salts in seawater is known as desalinization.

Wind and Water on US Eastern Shoreline this weekend

How High Winds got named Hurricanes!

How we classify Hurricanes based on wind speed!

Source - en.ryan.ru
Copyright Ria Novosti 2010

Freshwater Shortage OR Crisis?

Whenever we talk and hear about freshwater and the future, our most frequently used phrase is 'freshwater crisis.' Less frequently used phrases include 'freshwater shortage' and 'freshwater thirst.'

The American Heritage Dictionary

Source - 123rf.com

This dictionary defines a 'crisis' as:

• a 'turning point' or 
• a 'crucial or decisive point or situation.'

It also calls a crisis 

• "an unstable condition in political, international and economic affairs in which an abrupt or decisive change is impending' and 
• 'a sudden change in the course of an acute disease either towards improvement or deterioration' and 
• 'the point in a story or drama at which hostile forces are in the most tense state of opposition.'

Crisis is about RISK and not about a BAD outcome

From the above descriptions, a crisis exists when a situation exhibits the following characteristics:

• An unstable state of affairs
• A decisive change is pending



Source - forbes.com

• Distinct possibility of a highly undesirable or a highly desirable outcome

Under these criteria, a crisis is not necessarily bad. 

The outcome of a crisis can also be a positive and good one.

The difference between calling the future situation with freshwater a 'crisis' and not a 'shortage' only implies that:

• Freshwater in the future is a situation characterized by a certain level of risk and uncertainty
• A necessarily 'bad' result is NOT being foretold

Depending on the risk and uncertainty, some will predict a 'freshwater crisis' while others will accept it as a 'freshwater shortage'