Droughts, storms, and floods are worse and more frequent. Rain and snow have changing schedules.
Water e.g. for drinking and irrigation becomes less and less available.
It seems complicated to estimate how much water has usually been available to beings living on land and what our share were. But we can enjoy the highest quantity and quality of water when we let it cycle. The Sun is the main celestial body that moves water: it heats the water and the water rises. Air moves the water; when it cools the water enough, the water falls on Earth. When it falls on land, it flows on and into it. Groundwater moves in the ground and out of it. Plants move some of it into the air. (I don’t know yet how the water moves at great depths.)
They wrote: “Approximately 65% of the water falling on land is stored within, or evaporated from, the soil and plants (Oki and Kanae, 2006).”
Water distribution
They wrote: “Oceans account for only a “thin film” of water on the surface.” They say that the volume of water on Earth is estimated at 1.386 billion km³ and water is distributed like this:
About 2.5% (34.65m km3) of water is fresh. The rest of it is salty.
30.1% (10.43m km3) of fresh water is underground.
69.5% of it is frozen.
When it melts, much of it seems to be lost e.g. to the Baffin Bay (between Europe and America).
The rest of 0.4% is in lakes (0.25%), soil, air, marshes, rivers, and beings. While every body of water sustains us, soil moisture makes up only 0.05% of fresh water and the atmosphere holds only 0.04% of fresh water. What we call weather and agriculture use 0.09% of fresh water; this is inaccurate e.g. because water moves in more complex ways. 0.003% of fresh water is alive.
In 2018 they wrote that humans weighed 0.06 Gt C, and animals 2 Gt C. It seems that all beings weigh around 178 Gt C. So people might weigh 0.033% of all beings. If this weight were proportional to the percentage of water in humans, people would hold 0.000001% (10 to the power of -8) of fresh water.
They wrote: “The volume of liquid fresh water comes to about 10,633,450 km3, of which 99 percent is groundwater, much of which is not accessible to humans.” How much groundwater can we use?
They wrote: “0.007 percent of the planet’s water is available to people” This means 97,000 km3 or 12,468 m3 / person.
UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has counted 54,737 km3 of renewable water. Does this mean that 43,000 km3 of water renew much more slowly? (They indicated in 2003 that renewable water amounted to 43,764 km3 / year. Have they discovered 11,000 km3 in the meanwhile?)
They haven’t published data about how much water a large number of countries withdraw, so they counted withdrawals of only 2,235 km3 / year in 2017, but UNESCO reported that 4,600 km3 of water were demanded in 2016.
A long time ago I read this in this book: “The climate is mild, and there are no epidemics. The people are gentle and compliant by nature, do not quarrel or contend, have soft hearts and weak bones, are never proud or envious. Old and young live as equals, and no one is ruler or subject; men and women mingle freely, without go-betweens and betrothal presents. Living close to the waters, they have no need to plough and sow, nor to weave and clothe themselves, since the climate is so warm. They live out their span of a hundred years, without sickness and early deaths; and the people proliferate in countless numbers, knowing pleasure and happiness, ignorant of decay, old age, sorrow and anguish. By custom they are lovers of music; they hold hands and take turns to sing ballads, and never stop singing all day. Hungry and tiring they drink the Divine Spring, and are soothed and refreshed body and mind, and so drunk, if they take too much, that they do not wake for ten days. When they bathe and wash their hair in the Divine Spring, their complexions grow sleek and moist, and the fragrant smell does not leave them for ten days.”
This is one of people’s many similar dreams about ideal life. If we renounced agriculture and garments, we wouldn’t face a water crisis. We like drinking and eating to be as simple as possible. Divine or not, we do drink from springs and wells. If water cycled in a simplified way, similar to the one presented in this ancient story, we might not worry that we use a tenth of renewable fresh water. But we must consider more data than those included in, and linked to, in this article, organize them better, and understand them.
FAO: “Non-renewable water resources are groundwater bodies (deep aquifers) that have a negligible rate of recharge on the human time-scale and thus can be considered non-renewable.” It seems that the largest quantities of non-renewable water are stored in arid areas from Africa and the Middle East.
Between 1961 and 1990 there fell more than 107,000 km3 of water on Earth every year. Is only half of it renewable? How have precipitations changed?
They wrote: “Almost 15% of groundwater monitoring stations in Europe recorded that the standard for nitrates established by the WHO were exceeded in drinking water, and monitoring stations recorded that approximately 30% of rivers and 40% of lakes were eutrophic or hypertrophic in 2008–2011 (EC, 2013a).”
They wrote: “In areas where material above the aquifer is permeable, pollutants can readily sink into groundwater supplies. Groundwater can be polluted by landfills, septic tanks, leaky underground gas tanks, and from overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. If groundwater becomes polluted, it will no longer be safe to drink.”
You can task us to help protect your groundwater.
They wrote that we have caused maybe half of the species of large animals to disappear during the last 50 millennia. It took nature several millennia to recover, then we mined for fossil fuels and caused another mass extinction. “a near-future biomass crash that will unfavorably impact humans, their domesticates, and other species is unavoidable unless alternative energy sources are developed to replace dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.” Does this mean that we must make great efforts to avoid famine and death?
Water use
We have interfered in the water cycle, e.g.
- we have turned our fourth largest lake into a polluted desert as we’ve used much water heading for it to grow food;
- we have lost about 1.7 million hectares of forest in the first 4 months of 2020; this can mean 50m hectares (500,000 square kilometers) during the last decade; almost the area of Thailand, the 50th largest country.
They say that we lost 1.3 million km2 of forest between 1990 and 2015. It seems that in 2015 there were about 4 billion hectares (40 million km2) of forest. It seems scary that there are less than 6,000 square meters of forest per person. They indicate that forests covered 30% of land in 2015 and that they’re covering less and less of it. (They say that the land area is 127m km2.)
They wrote: “About 30% of the global land area is forested, but at least 65% of this area is already in a degraded state (FAO, 2010).” We can help you improve the state of your favorite forest.
They say: “By 2025, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas.”
I wish we had done something about it decades ago. We cannot postpone corrective measures.
We’re building teams that will communicate with you, conduct research, and agree with you on what services we will provide. (I’ve given here examples of services.)
We use water e.g.:
- to drink
- to eat
They say: “Withdrawals for irrigation are nearly 70% of the total withdrawn for human uses, those for industry 20%, and those for municipal use about 10%.”
Look at how awful data the World Bank has published in this case! It’s the nth time when an institution publishes poor data, presents them poorly, or words their content so you stop reading.
- to move our excrements
- to clean our bodies
- to cover our bodies
- to clean artifacts
- to cool artefacts
- to cut things, mainly to mine
Heidi Vella wrote: “Mining uses water primarily for mineral processing, dust suppression, slurry transport and employees’ needs.”
Current mining is not sustainable. How can we improve this situation?
- We help miners improve some methods and means.
“In 2005 the Argyle diamond mine used more than 3,500 megalitres of water from the lake to run operations. By 2009 they had reduced this to 300 megalitres — a 95% drop. Rio Tinto did this by capturing and recycling water used by the processing plant, the biggest user of water, and capturing seepage from tailings, which also get recycled. Dewatering of the underground mine and from the surface pit operations are also collected and stored in two dams for drinking and operational use.” - We help you adjust some of your habits and plans so that your use of products increases water availability. This can also help you to afford water for a longer time.
Some data from Australia, produced in 2011: “By far the highest production level in the sector is for coal, which since 1994 has almost doubled production from 456 Mt/year to approximately 815 Mt/year in 2008. Iron ore also has a very high production rate, having grown from 129 Mt/year in 1944 to approximately 340 Mt/year in 2008. Increasing production has used up most of the higher-grade ores so that the industry is increasingly accessing ores of lower quality, which require greater volumes of water to be used per tonne of metal produced.” As mining becomes more difficult, many products will cost more. Some costs are the decreasing quality of air and the decreasing amount of usable water. We recommend people to invest more in water.
“It is believed that there is under-reporting of use, because some enterprises do not report all uses, such as water used in tailing dams.” We help improve data management, because this helps everybody plan more realistically.
“Over 250 ML of water is required to produce a tonne of gold, but the price of gold is so high that it still represents a value added of $80 000 per ML of water used.” 250 kl of water / kg of gold.
We increased the production of gold from 2.8k tonnes in 2010 to 3.5k tonnes in 2018. So we consumed 7.14 km3 of water to produce gold during these 9 years.
They indicate that we demand over 2k tonnes of gold for jewelry every year: 500 Gl (0.5 km3) of water. Almost 7 times less than that for technology, although gold is more useful in devices than in ears and banks. We can help people to transition from dated bracelets to useful devices and to enjoy more water.
They wrote: “By some estimates, water-related infrastructure now accounts
for approximately 10 percent of the industry’s capital expenses.”
“between 2000 and 2017, water-related issues were implicated in 58 percent of mining cases lodged with IFC’s Compliance Officer Ombudsman, an independent recourse mechanism that responds to complaints from project-affected communities.” So people choose to live on over using certain products.
“Mines are increasingly located in close proximity to one another, to other industries, and to surrounding communities. It is no longer sufficient for mining companies to understand and manage only their own interactions with water resources. It has become ever more essential to understand how the dynamics and interplay of mine water use impacts other actors located in the broader water catchment.”
“The importance of a solid evidence base in informing sound water governance is driving a push from government, civil society, and investors for more data disclosure by mining companies.” “Disclosure” is not enough. People with a common interest must manage relevant data commonly. Instead of e-mailing a .pdf file every 3 years, they must use databases together with other stakeholders, so that they plan together. “collaboration on water challenges is becoming the new norm. This collaboration requires mining companies to look beyond the company fence, to engage with other water users to understand their priorities and water needs, and to work together towards a more coordinated, inclusive, and holistic approach to water use and management.”
As with many other data, data about mining are spread across many databases and are costly to analyze and summarize. You can hire us to change this for the better.
UNESCO’s report on water development from 2018
1. “Contemporary global water demand was estimated at about 4,600 km3 per year in 2016 and projected to increase by 20–30% to between 5,500 and 6,000 km3 per year by 2050” So about 7.4b people consumed 4,600b m3 of water, i.e. a human consumed 620,000 liters of water in a year, or 51,800 liters of water per month, or 1,700 liters of water per day on average. Some people consume much more water. Turkmens stand out:
- we could say that each of them consumes more than 16k liters per day
It seems that they use most water to make things for other peoples.
- they have reduced their water resources to 4.3m liters / person / year, i.e. 11,780 liters / day.
This should be enough for their livelihoods.
- 97% of this water comes from other countries
- in 2004 they used 26,360b liters of water in agriculture, on almost 20,000 km2, so 1.34b liters / km2 or 1,340 liters / m2.
Whom have they fed?
They dress people: “Although Turkmenistan was formerly the world’s 10th largest cotton producer, exports have fallen by 50% in recent years. This is due in large part to the environmental difficulties of irrigation in a desert environment. Cotton cultivation in Turkmenistan required a large amount of water to be diverted from the Amu Darya river and also introduced a great deal of fertilizer into the river. As a result, cotton cultivation in Turkmenistan is one of the factors causing the drying up of the Aral Sea.”
Who wants to dress by destroying less life?
When we destroy something, we hurt ourselves, we reduce the quality of our life and our chances to live on.
You can order with us clothes made more sustainably.
- 1.9m Turkmens don’t have access to safe drinking water.
How can one improve access to safe drinking water?
2. “Groundwater use globally, mainly for agriculture, amounts to 800 km3 per year in the 2010s, with India, the United States of America, China, Iran, and Pakistan (in descending order) accounting for 67% of total abstractions worldwide.” This means about 17% of water use.
3. “Meeting the estimated 60% increase in food demand will require the expansion of arable land under business-as-usual. Under prevailing management practices, intensification of production involves increased mechanical disturbance of soil and inputs of agrochemicals, energy and water. These drivers associated with food systems account for 70% of the predicted loss of terrestrial biodiversity by 2050 (Leadley et al., 2014). These impacts can largely be avoided if further intensification of production is based on ecological intensification that involves improving ecosystem services to reduce external inputs (FAO, 2011b).”
We can help you manage ecosystem services in order to increase your food security.
4. “An estimated 80% of industrial and municipal wastewater is released to the environment without any prior treatment, resulting in a growing deterioration of overall water quality with detrimental impacts on human health and ecosystems (WWAP, 2017).”
We can help you treat wastewater.
5. “Agricultural intensification has already increased chemical use worldwide to approximately two million tonnes per year (De et al., 2014). The impacts of this trend are largely unquantified and there are serious data gaps.”
You can rely on us to improve the management of any data you need.
6. “Average global economic loss from floods and droughts is over US$40 billion per year across all economic sectors. Storms add another US$46 billion in economic losses annually, on average. The number of deaths, affected people, and economic losses varies significantly by year and continent, with Africa and Asia being the most affected in terms of all three indicators. These numbers are projected to increase to US$200–400 billion by 2030, according to various estimates. Such losses strongly affect water, food and energy security and consume most of the current total development aid flow (OECD, 2015a).
Since 1992, floods, droughts and storms have affected 4.2 billion people, causing US$1.3 trillion of damage worldwide (UNESCAP/UNISDR, 2012).
Floods have accounted for 47% of all weather-related disasters since 1995, affecting a total of 2.3 billion people. The number of floods rose to an average of 171 per year over the period 2005–2014, up from an annual average of 127 in the previous decade (CRED/UNISDR, 2015).
According to the OECD, “the number of people at risk from floods is projected to rise from 1.2 billion today to around 1.6 billion in 2050 (nearly 20% of the world’s population) and the economic value of assets at risk is expected to be
around US$45 trillion by 2050, a growth of over 340% from 2010” (OECD, 2012, p. 209).
The population currently affected by land degradation / desertification and drought is estimated at 1.8 billion people, making this the most significant category of ‘natural disaster’ based on mortality and socio-economic impact relative to GDP per capita (Low, 2013).”
We can help you plan so that you control better your benefit-cost ratio. Asia is the continent with the best soil moisture, so it will be easier to live and do business there. Central Africa can be preserved so that life is bearable there, too. How many Europeans will move there? Those living in Australia can at least use more water.
7. “Soil erosion from croplands carries away 25–40 billion tonnes of topsoil every year, significantly reducing crop yields and the soil’s ability to regulate water, carbon and nutrients, and transporting 23–42 million tonnes of nitrogen and 15–26 million tonnes of phosphorus off land, with major negative effects on water quality (FAO/ITPS, 2015a).”
You can hire us to help you to improve methods and reduce soil erosion. It’s a really complex discussion, but it can help you control better the quality of your life.
8. “Wetlands (including rivers and lakes) cover only 2.6% of land but play a disproportionately large role in hydrology per unit area. The best estimate of reported global loss of natural wetland area due to human activity averages between 54% and 57%, but loss may have been as high as 87% since 1700, with a 3.7 times faster rate of wetland loss during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, equating to a loss of 64–71% of wetlands extent since that existing in 1900 (Davidson, 2014).”
We can help you counter this trend and avoid the degradation of wetlands.
9. “Around 25% of greenhouse gas emissions arise from land use change (FAO, 2014b) and water loss is implicated in many trends in land degradation; peatlands, for example, play a significant role in local hydrology, but this type of wetlands also stores twice the carbon of the entire world’s forests and when drained, peatlands are a source of massive greenhouse gas emissions (Parish et al., 2008).”
You can ask us to help you plan the use of land so that you avoid such high costs.
We must preserve peatlands. We’ll work hard and effectively when you hire us for such work.
10. “While almost 800 million people are currently hungry, by 2050 global food production would need to increase by 50% to feed the more than 9 billion people projected who live on our planet (FAO/IFAD/UNICEF/WFP/WHO, 2017). It is now accepted that this increase cannot be achieved through business-as-usual and that transformational change in how we produce food is required (FAO, 2011b; 2014a).”
One of our teams started by working with farmers to deliver food that is produced more sustainably. We add to this team people who help increase food availability. We’ll help you with things mentioned here: “A review of agricultural development projects in 57 low-income countries found that more efficient use of water, reduced use of pesticides and improvements in soil health had led to average crop yield increases of 79% (Pretty et al., 2006).”
We collect and process data related to such methods: “Agricultural systems that conserve ecosystem services by using practices such as conservation tillage, crop diversification, legume intensification and biological pest control perform as well as intensive, high-input systems (Badgley et al., 2007; Power, 2010).”
11. “Increased attention to watershed management — particularly, land protection, reforestation and riparian restoration — is expected to help reduce operation and maintenance costs of urban water utilities, improve service quality and delay the need for expensive capital investment in capacity expansion (Echavarria et al., 2015).”
I intend to write about this in an article on land management.
Notes
I have deleted parts of this article. It still includes more than 3,500 words.
I have asked questions which I haven’t answered. You can have me provide information that helps you.
It’s the first time that I quote so many words. It’s a very complex discussion. I encourage you to discuss here at least one topic, so that we can plan helpful actions.