Is WATER the new oil?

[Aussie]

Water is a finite resource, in the sense that no more is available now than there was millions of years ago. So, use of it will be under great pressure as populations expand and industry needs explode.

We all drink re-cycled water.......recycled and recycled and recycled, and....etc etc etc etc.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Admitedly another tangent, but interelated ...

UN: Global Population to Top 10 Billion by 2100
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2011 ... 04-01.html

Today's world population is currently close to seven billion, increasing by the second, and is projected to surpass seven billion towards the end of this year.

Based on the medium projection, the number of people in the world should pass eight billion in 2023, nine billion by 2041 and then 10 billion at some point after 2081.

[lisa jones]

Water is a finite resource, in the sense that no more is available now than there was millions of years ago. So, use of it will be under great pressure as populations expand and industry needs explode.

We all drink re-cycled water.......recycled and recycled and recycled, and....etc etc etc etc.

Water is a finite resource: there are some 1 400 million cubic kilometres on earth and circulating through the hydrological cycle. Nearly all of this is salt water and most of the rest is frozen or under ground. Only one-hundredth of 1 percent of the world's water is readily available for human use.

This would be enough to meet humanity's needs - if it were evenly distributed. But it is not. In Malaysia 100 people share each million cubic metres of water; in India, the figure is 350 and in Israel, 4 000. And where there is water, it is often polluted: nearly a third of the population of developing countries has no access to safe drinking water.

In many countries, the amount of water available to each person is falling, as populations rise. By the year 2000, Latin America's per caput water resources will have fallen by nearly three-quarters since 1950. In the twenty-first century the main constraint on development in Egypt will be access to water, not land. Over 230 million people live in countries - most of them in Africa or the Near East - where less than 1 000 cubic metres of water is available per person each year.

Even countries with greater supplies are extracting too much from their underground water reserves. The water table under Beijing is sinking by 2 metres every year, while Bangkok's has fallen by 25 metres since the 1950s. The level of the vast Ogallala aquifer, which lies beneath eight US states, is dropping by nearly 1 metre a year.

Pollution exacerbates the problem. Some 450 cubic kilometres of waste water are poured into the world's surface waters every year: two-thirds of the world's available runoff is used to dilute and bear it away.

A world short of water is also an unstable world. More than 200 river systems cross international boundaries, and 13 rivers and lakes are shared by 96 countries. Over-use or pollution by countries upstream can be devastating for those downstream. Access to water, particularly in areas where rainfall is low or erratic, is becoming a major political issue and vital to national interests.

Faced with these crises, the world must learn to be less wasteful and to manage its water resources better. Methods include conserving supplies, using reservoirs and small dams to catch runoff, recharging aquifers, protecting watersheds and recycling waste water in agriculture and industry.


Read more here .. http://www.fao.org/docrep/u8480e/u8480e0c.htm

[Monkey Magic]

What? I am not a Greeny type, have attacked the Greens etc.

Climate change is going to radically reduce the flow of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yellow River, Mekong River.

And it will increase the availability of water in other lands. The climateers always neglect to mention that.

[Monkey Magic]

Water is a finite resource, in the sense that no more is available now than there was millions of years ago. So, use of it will be under great pressure as populations expand and industry needs explode.

We all drink re-cycled water.......recycled and recycled and recycled, and....etc etc etc etc.

Water is a finite resource: there are some 1 400 million cubic kilometres on earth and circulating through the hydrological cycle. Nearly all of this is salt water and most of the rest is frozen or under ground. Only one-hundredth of 1 percent of the world's water is readily available for human use.

This would be enough to meet humanity's needs - if it were evenly distributed. But it is not. In Malaysia 100 people share each million cubic metres of water; in India, the figure is 350 and in Israel, 4 000. And where there is water, it is often polluted: nearly a third of the population of developing countries has no access to safe drinking water.

In many countries, the amount of water available to each person is falling, as populations rise. By the year 2000, Latin America's per caput water resources will have fallen by nearly three-quarters since 1950. In the twenty-first century the main constraint on development in Egypt will be access to water, not land. Over 230 million people live in countries - most of them in Africa or the Near East - where less than 1 000 cubic metres of water is available per person each year.

Even countries with greater supplies are extracting too much from their underground water reserves. The water table under Beijing is sinking by 2 metres every year, while Bangkok's has fallen by 25 metres since the 1950s. The level of the vast Ogallala aquifer, which lies beneath eight US states, is dropping by nearly 1 metre a year.

Pollution exacerbates the problem. Some 450 cubic kilometres of waste water are poured into the world's surface waters every year: two-thirds of the world's available runoff is used to dilute and bear it away.

A world short of water is also an unstable world. More than 200 river systems cross international boundaries, and 13 rivers and lakes are shared by 96 countries. Over-use or pollution by countries upstream can be devastating for those downstream. Access to water, particularly in areas where rainfall is low or erratic, is becoming a major political issue and vital to national interests.

Faced with these crises, the world must learn to be less wasteful and to manage its water resources better. Methods include conserving supplies, using reservoirs and small dams to catch runoff, recharging aquifers, protecting watersheds and recycling waste water in agriculture and industry.

Read more here .. http://www.fao.org/docrep/u8480e/u8480e0c.htm

Just had to fix that for you Lisa. You have a habit of providing direct quotes without actually acknowledging that it is a direct quote. Wouldn't want anyone to think that YOU actually wrote that... you don't write anything of substance.

[IQS.RLOW]

lol!

[lisa jones]

Water is a finite resource, in the sense that no more is available now than there was millions of years ago. So, use of it will be under great pressure as populations expand and industry needs explode.

We all drink re-cycled water.......recycled and recycled and recycled, and....etc etc etc etc.

Water is a finite resource: there are some 1 400 million cubic kilometres on earth and circulating through the hydrological cycle. Nearly all of this is salt water and most of the rest is frozen or under ground. Only one-hundredth of 1 percent of the world's water is readily available for human use.

This would be enough to meet humanity's needs - if it were evenly distributed. But it is not. In Malaysia 100 people share each million cubic metres of water; in India, the figure is 350 and in Israel, 4 000. And where there is water, it is often polluted: nearly a third of the population of developing countries has no access to safe drinking water.

In many countries, the amount of water available to each person is falling, as populations rise. By the year 2000, Latin America's per caput water resources will have fallen by nearly three-quarters since 1950. In the twenty-first century the main constraint on development in Egypt will be access to water, not land. Over 230 million people live in countries - most of them in Africa or the Near East - where less than 1 000 cubic metres of water is available per person each year.

Even countries with greater supplies are extracting too much from their underground water reserves. The water table under Beijing is sinking by 2 metres every year, while Bangkok's has fallen by 25 metres since the 1950s. The level of the vast Ogallala aquifer, which lies beneath eight US states, is dropping by nearly 1 metre a year.

Pollution exacerbates the problem. Some 450 cubic kilometres of waste water are poured into the world's surface waters every year: two-thirds of the world's available runoff is used to dilute and bear it away.

A world short of water is also an unstable world. More than 200 river systems cross international boundaries, and 13 rivers and lakes are shared by 96 countries. Over-use or pollution by countries upstream can be devastating for those downstream. Access to water, particularly in areas where rainfall is low or erratic, is becoming a major political issue and vital to national interests.

Faced with these crises, the world must learn to be less wasteful and to manage its water resources better. Methods include conserving supplies, using reservoirs and small dams to catch runoff, recharging aquifers, protecting watersheds and recycling waste water in agriculture and industry.


Read more here .. http://www.fao.org/docrep/u8480e/u8480e0c.htm

And also here .. http://www.fao.org/docrep/u8480e/U8480E3h.jpg <-- shows a distribution of the world’s water

[Jovial Monk]

Himalayan glaciers and snowfields are in slow retreat. ATM they are the source of seven of the world’s biggest rivers incl Ganages, Brahmaputra, Yellow River and the Mekong river. What happens when the Himalayan ice is pretty much gone year round? I think it is 25% of the worlds population that rely on these rivers for drinking, irrigation and transport.

[Monkey Magic]

Water is a finite resource, in the sense that no more is available now than there was millions of years ago. So, use of it will be under great pressure as populations expand and industry needs explode.

We all drink re-cycled water.......recycled and recycled and recycled, and....etc etc etc etc.

Water is a finite resource: there are some 1 400 million cubic kilometres on earth and circulating through the hydrological cycle. Nearly all of this is salt water and most of the rest is frozen or under ground. Only one-hundredth of 1 percent of the world's water is readily available for human use.

This would be enough to meet humanity's needs - if it were evenly distributed. But it is not. In Malaysia 100 people share each million cubic metres of water; in India, the figure is 350 and in Israel, 4 000. And where there is water, it is often polluted: nearly a third of the population of developing countries has no access to safe drinking water.

In many countries, the amount of water available to each person is falling, as populations rise. By the year 2000, Latin America's per caput water resources will have fallen by nearly three-quarters since 1950. In the twenty-first century the main constraint on development in Egypt will be access to water, not land. Over 230 million people live in countries - most of them in Africa or the Near East - where less than 1 000 cubic metres of water is available per person each year.

Even countries with greater supplies are extracting too much from their underground water reserves. The water table under Beijing is sinking by 2 metres every year, while Bangkok's has fallen by 25 metres since the 1950s. The level of the vast Ogallala aquifer, which lies beneath eight US states, is dropping by nearly 1 metre a year.

Pollution exacerbates the problem. Some 450 cubic kilometres of waste water are poured into the world's surface waters every year: two-thirds of the world's available runoff is used to dilute and bear it away.

A world short of water is also an unstable world. More than 200 river systems cross international boundaries, and 13 rivers and lakes are shared by 96 countries. Over-use or pollution by countries upstream can be devastating for those downstream. Access to water, particularly in areas where rainfall is low or erratic, is becoming a major political issue and vital to national interests.

Faced with these crises, the world must learn to be less wasteful and to manage its water resources better. Methods include conserving supplies, using reservoirs and small dams to catch runoff, recharging aquifers, protecting watersheds and recycling waste water in agriculture and industry.

Read more here .. http://www.fao.org/docrep/u8480e/u8480e0c.htm

And also here .. http://www.fao.org/docrep/u8480e/U8480E3h.jpg <-- shows a distribution of the world’s water

Fixed again. Goodness me... you have no regard for writers do you?

[Monkey Magic]

Himalayan glaciers and snowfields are in slow retreat. ATM they are the source of seven of the world’s biggest rivers incl Ganages, Brahmaputra, Yellow River and the Mekong river. What happens when the Himalayan ice is pretty much gone year round? I think it is 25% of the worlds population that rely on these rivers for drinking, irrigation and transport.

Why Monk... they will go on the hunt looking for where the water has moved to and settle there. Alternatively, they will find very clever ways of accessing what water remains. Such as it has always been... such as it will forever be.