Showing posts with label security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label security. Show all posts

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Is Any Place FREE from Potential Safe Water Risk?

Water risks come in many forms and if "amount of safe water" is used as a measure, then too-much water (flood) is one extreme while too-little water (drought) is the other extreme. Other measures that define risk are quality, limitations imposed by nature or constraints imposed by a lack of water supply infrastructure.
Flood Risk
Water Risk - Flood Occurrence
Source - http://aqueduct.wri.org/atlas
World Resources Institute's AQUEDUCT Project has mapped the occurrence of floods in the 1985-2011 period. Some interesting observations:
- The Eastern half of the US has experienced many floods; Much of Western Australia has had to cope with floods; Floods seem to cover all of South Asia and the Middle East excluding countries that have predominantly desert landscapes; Mid and Eastern Africa have needed to cope with floods; etc.
Areas free of foods include:
- Mid and south-western US; Much of Canada; Northern regions of Russia and the Scandinavian states; Southern tip of Africa; Midsection of Australia; etc.
Drought Risk
Water Risk - Drought Severity
Source - http://aqueduct.wri.org/atlas
Another map from the AQUEDUCT Project displays drought locations during the 1985-2011 time period. Some conclusions: Australia's midsection and west experience drought; The US west coast and western states are drought prone; Northern and southern Africa have experienced drought frequently; Canada's midsection will see drought as will north and northeastern Russia; The Scandinavian areas free from floods have seeen many droughts; etc
Combining Risk of Flood and Drought
A most interesting and ominous conclusion surfaces when the two maps, flood history and drought history, are superimposed: there seem to be very very few areas where water, as drought or flood, does not pose a hazard to humanity and, also, nature:
- Much of Australia, the US, Africa, Europe, Russia, the Middle East. Canada, etc have been prone to risks from water, either as drought or as flood.

Safe water is a worldwide issue! Very very few of us will not face some form of water insecurity in the near future. We are all in the same boat where safe water is concerned!











Saturday, September 1, 2012

Freshwater's Supply Chain is Unlike that of Any Other Resource!

Freshwater is a resource like no other. While differences between freshwater and other renewable and non-renewable resources are many, freshwater's supply chain makes freshwater a most unique natural and renewable resource. Nature delivers freshwater in ways it doesn't do for any other resource. 
Freshwater's Current 3-Source Supply Chain
Source - willoughby.nsw.gov.au
3 sources of freshwater exist for most human settlements. These are:
1. Rainwater that naturally falls on the settlement
2. Freshwater transported from near and far locations  to the settlement, and
3. Locally obtained water, usually from a combination of sources located at ground level (e.g. rivers and lakes) and below ground (e.g. wells that tap the local water table).
Some locations do not, of course, have all 3 sources available to them -  but most do, because this 3-source approach was seen as the most prudent and dependable one.
Threat's to the 3-Source Supply
All three sources can be threatened today in a variety of ways for human settlements in different locations:
1. Climate change has impacted the frequency, amount and location of rainfall.
2. The ability to bring water from remote locations is threatened by both dwindling resources at the remote location and the assertion of communities along the transportation route to the freshwater being transported.
3. Continued extraction of groundwater has lowered water table levels, in some cases to depths that are difficult to access.
Rainfall - Resource delivery on a near-regular schedule
Source - diswaterdrams.com
Other than freshwater, nature delivers no other natural resource on a fairly regular schedule to locations where the resource may also be ingeniously available in bulk. 
Delivery of freshwater as rain was probably of little value while humans were migrating all over the globe. Rainfall's value only became evident about 10,000 years ago, when humans chose to settle down in one place (and grow the food they needed) instead of moving around in search of food. Humans, in a sense, became dependent on rainfall at the start of the agricultural age.
Rainfall Dependency
Once reliant on rain to grow their food, humans became subject to the impacts of any change in rainfall delivery frequency, amount or location. And it is, in large part, this dependency that is shaping a crisis in freshwater supply - supply of rain is simply too undependable.
The one unique feature that defines freshwater delivery is today the one unique force behind freshwater scarcity and water security.