Water is one of the most important resources in the world,
and its availability is vital for humans. Having an abundance of fresh, clean
water is very important for our society to function and thrive. As human
populations have continued to increase and we have started to use industrial
applications, our need for water has also continued to grow at a rapid rate. Now,
in certain parts of the world, our need for fresh water is beginning to eclipse
the earth’s ability to regenerate it. The management, collection and treatment
of fresh water has always been at the forefront of civil engineers
responsibilities.
| A picture from the annual snow measuring. Typical snow levels are between 6 to 7 feet |
Recently in California, the governor, Jerry Brown, used an
executive order to impose a 25 percent reduction in water usage throughout the
state. This move puts the United States’ most populous state in uncharted
territory as California has never imposed mandatory water restrictions before.
The announcement from the governor came directly following California’s annual
snow pack measuring in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where they have had a
record drought year.
Some of the features of the new plan being put into place in
California include, increasing the cost for high volume users, reducing excess
water usage in urban areas, and increasing waste-water reuse. The state will
have to continue to deplete their reserves which includes heavy pumping from
aquifers and reservoirs. Although the state is not running out of water, the
rate at which they are depleting their reserves is unsustainable.
This new aggressive policy may just be the beginning of
major change throughout the country as many of the aquifers and reservoirs in
the southwest have continuously been depleted in recent years due both to
drought, and over consumption. Because of this water shortage, many are calling
for the construction of seawater desalination plants along the coast. These
plants could supplement the water supplies of the regions in which they are
built, but present many design challenges. In addition to the call for
desalination plants, the Southwest’s freshwater infrastructure is under the
microscope as people look to make the system more efficient, as well as reduce
consumption.
As stated earlier, there are many challenges associated with
desalination plants. One of the major hurdles to be overcome are the massive
amount of energy needed to run the plant. Because of this large energy
consumption, the water made from the plant is much more costly to produce then
natural water. This means that for the most part, the plant is only used in
times of intense drought. Another obstacle is what to do with the salt the
plant removes from the water. Many of the current plants around the world
simply put the salt back into the ocean. Recently however, it has been shown
that this high salt concentration close to the plant has a negative impact on
the local ecosystem. Because of these drawbacks, many in California are hesitant
to go ahead with the costly construction of a plant.
Over the next several years we will probably see a lot of
change in how water is used in California as well as to the infrastructure. It
will be interesting to see how they handle the challenges they are presented.
As populations continue to increase and water becomes scarcer, many areas
around the world will have to wrestle with the same problems that California is
facing.
This is obviously a very concerning issue to the world as a whole, as water is necessary for life on earth. I imagine that a large contributor to this issue is simply the abuse of resources by humans. Humans have been abusing and over-consuming natural resources since the beginning of our existence, and the fact that our water usage is outrunning our supply of fresh water is not surprising. The general public definitely needs to be educated on the importance of not wasting water, but as you said, this is also a huge responsibility for civil engineers to find sustainable solutions to. Putting policies like this in place will help, but it is going to take a lot of hard work on the part of engineers and others to come up with methods of increasing the fresh water supply. Coming up with ways of desalinating water without using such large amounts of energy, and properly dealing with the salt, are issues that need to be dealt with in the near future. This is certainly not an issue that can be ignored, and hopefully through advancing technology and policies like this one, California will be on a more sustainable track very soon, and the rest of the world will also be able to deal with these same issues when they inevitably arise in the future.
ReplyDeleteThis problem is not unique to California. Although the earth surface is covered with over 70% water, only 2.5 percent of the water on earths’ surface is fresh water. The rest is salt water. We sometimes over look this fact because water is not something we typically think of when we think of resources we might run out of, but for most people around the world this is already a problem. Wasting of water in in most cases is the cause of that problem. North Americans use more water than any other group on the planet. I think the solution with this is going to involve engineers and the public working together. Engineers need to find a cheaper way of desalting water; one that does not require massive amount of energy. The public also needs to be educated on proper water usage so we can prevent events like these. Something as simple as not letting the water run the whole time you are washing your face can save lots of water. Hopefully other cities take notice and educated their residents so this situation won’t happen to them.
ReplyDeleteThe California water crisis is a perfect topic for an ethical issue. This problem is very apparent in today's news so it is awesome to see someone write about this. When this started to surface in the news i didn't believe it at first because i thought there was no way that we could be running out of clean water. As it turns out i did quite a bit of research on this topic and found out how scary it truly is. One of the largest consumers of California's clean water is the golf courses. Now me personally i love to golf fan couldn't imagine a summer without hitting the links time to time, but if it comes down to it where we need clean drinking water and don't have enough we may have to start shutting down golf courses. This really hit me home and your blog did an excellent job in informing us what is happening and what will happen if nothing is done.
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