Could Greek mythology's water serpent, the Lernaean Hydra, be is an excellent model to define our problem of Safe water aka freshwater?
The Lernaean Hydra
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| Lernaean Hydra Source - eaudrey.com |
The Hydra was the guardian of the Underworld and lived beneath the waters of a lake, the Lake of Lerna. It was shaped like a serpent with its heads its unique feature: It had multiple heads and would grow two heads for every one head that was cut off. One of the Hydra's heads was called the Immortal Head because it could not be cut off.
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| Heraces (silver sculpture from the 1530s) Source - wikipedia.org |
Heracles (Hercules, to us) was charged with the task to kill the Hydra. He initially tried cutting off individual heads but saw two new heads replace those he chopped off.
Eventually he did figure out a way to kill the Hydra. Maybe, Heracles' solution shows us the way to solve the problem of safe water - more on this in the next blog post.
Constant Amount of Freshwater Precipitation
Precipitation in rain, snow and other forms is the only act of nature that makes safe drinking water (aka freshwater) a renewable resource.
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| Annual Precipitation Source - http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2008/VernonWu.shtml |
The aggregate global annual freshwater precipitation has stayed more-or-less constant over time - it has never changed in an amount that might give us reason to classify freshwater as a nonrenewable resource!
Variability in annual amount is not significant by any measure.
Whatever action humanity may take, this cycle of aggregate precipitation continues unabated. So there would conceivably not be a water problem at all unless we are missing something
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| India precipitation change Source - delayedoccilater.wordpress.com |
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| Change in US precipitation Source - meted.ucar.edu |
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| Change in Africa precipitation Source - scrippsblogs.ucsd.edu |
This missing something is variability in local rainfall, snowfall and other deposits of freshwater i.e. the variability in aggregate precipitation at any single location.
The problem of safe water is, thus, characterized in the changes that surface when we examine local changes in precipitation patterns.
How is the Problem of Freshwater a Hydra?
Our global precipitation amount is the body of the Hydra that doesn't change while the heads are the local problems that are as many as places where people live and work - a new factory needs additional safe water but may end up polluting a local stream from where we used to get freshwater; a city grows in population that requires the city fathers to build a new aqueduct to transport safe water from hundreds of miles away; simply look at any local community for its future vulnerabilities to its existing safe water supplies!
Like the Hydra of Heracles, our Hydra of freshwater supply grows a new head - usually too many multiple new heads - whenever local precipitation levels change beyond humanity's ability to counter that change with a compensating change in demand.
Our global precipitation amount is the body of the Hydra that doesn't change while the heads are the local problems that are as many as places where people live and work - a new factory needs additional safe water but may end up polluting a local stream from where we used to get freshwater; a city grows in population that requires the city fathers to build a new aqueduct to transport safe water from hundreds of miles away; simply look at any local community for its future vulnerabilities to its existing safe water supplies!
Like the Hydra of Heracles, our Hydra of freshwater supply grows a new head - usually too many multiple new heads - whenever local precipitation levels change beyond humanity's ability to counter that change with a compensating change in demand.
The Challenge of Safe Water
Humanity's ability to cope at the local level with the variability of nature's continuously renewed safe water supply is our primary challenge that can rip apart the foundations of our societies everywhere in the world, once again, in the 21st century.
