Water scarcity can mean scarcity in availability due to physical shortage, or scarcity in access due to the failure of institutions to ensure a regular supply or due to a lack of adequate infrastructure.
Water scarcity already affects every continent. Water use has been growing globally at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and an increasing number of regions are reaching the limit at which water services can be sustainably delivered, especially in arid regions.
FACTS AND FIGURES Over 2 billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress. (UN, 2018)
It is estimated that by 2040, one in four of the world?s children under 18 ? some 600 million in all ? will be living in areas of extremely high water stress. (UNICEF, 2017)
700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030. (Global Water Institute, 2013)
About 4 billion people, representing nearly 2/3 of the world population, experience severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2016)
With the existing climate change scenario, by 2030, water scarcity in some arid and semi-arid places will displace between 24 million and 700 million people. (UNESCO, 2009).
A third of the world?s biggest groundwater systems are already in distress (Richey et al., 2015).
Nearly half the global population are already living in potential waterscarce areas at least one month per year and this could increase to some 4.8?5.7 billion in 2050. About 73% of the affected people live in Asia (69% by 2050) (Burek et al., 2016).
And its takes loads more water to make a gallon of baby cow growth liquid (or 'milk' as we prefer call it) compared with say soy milk ... and similar to produce quantities of animal flesh compared with plant alternatives.
When there were only a few of us we could 'afford' to squander stuff (oil, water, electricity) but as soon as demand approaches the limits of supply, we have to first cut back (better economy vehicles, less cows milk, lower energy appliances) but what once demand outstrips supply again?
The solution is rarely to increase supply, *especially* if doing so also increases the burden on the earth and / or an increase in pollution.
We will have to learn to limit our consumption and in many cases we can already do that by making simple changes.
Eg, I wonder how many people will continue to mostly work from home after the lockdown, reducing the burden on the transport system and the cost to businesses of property in the big cities.
I wonder why cow's milk (and to a lesser extent goat's and sheep's) and products make from these (butter, cheese) have historically been used in preference to "milk" made from plants (soya, wheat, oat). Is it that the technology to make plant-based milk has only been available comparatively recently, or is it that for some reason it was "easier" to devote pasture land to the feeding of cows for their milk? Some land will have been for growing cows for their meat, but I wonder if beef cows have ever been used also as milk providers (for humans, as oppose to calves) or vice versa - nowadays milk and beef breeds are different to each other.
How much land would be saved if it was converted from cow-pasture to growing cereals and vegetables as substitute for animal meat? Do we in the UK have enough land of high enough quality to grow crops other than grass which will generally grow on poorer (less nutritious) land. And would we have to increase the production of chemical fertilisers as a substitute for animal manure?
I wonder if the *choice* of the consumer is allowed to influence the decision: I prefer meat and cow's milk to vegetarian substitutes, and I positively loathe most vegetables, especially green (leaf/stem) as opposed to root. Maybe if I'd been raised as vegetarian I wouldn't have known the difference and would have learned to like vegetables because I didn't know about meat ;-)
Is the water-shortage argument as relevant to European and American countries, given that they have less of a problem with water shortage than Asia? Will our conversion to non-animal sources of milk etc actually help the water-famine parts of the world?
Well, we were possibly drinking 'coconut milk' quite a long time ago and the 'milk's of other plants no doubt?
I think it was a bit of both, plus the desire wasn't there before. The desire to not use so much water, not to exploit the animals and not to continue with so much pollution (methane etc).
True, mostly to get the yields up, to exploit the animals as much as possible (making a dairy cow carry 10x more milk than it might otherwise).
The ratios are out there and it varies depending on all sorts of ground / terrain etc.
Are think there are alternative crops that are hardy to all sorts of ground types that are fairly valuable and how do you 'cost' the suffering of the animals (and pollution / water usage etc) in that value.
I think there is some discrepancy between the image of beef / dairy animals spending their day lazily eating the green pasture of the UK but the UK also had many massive farms where the animals are mainly fed on 'feed' brought / bough in.
Sure, a lot of this is about education and an understanding of where our food comes from (or lack thereof). Show a child the real source of a 'chicken nugget' and I'm pretty sure most would never eat them again. The meal wasn't so 'happy' for the cow it was once part of. ;-(
Yes ... but obviously to a lesser degree and for now. We will be able to spend the money on building and running desalination plants. However, water won't be quite a cheap and people may think a bit harder about how they use it. 'Most people' only care when it affects them in their pocked (and hence why we are fined when we don't care).
Yes, if for example they grow soybeans that get's turned into soy milk that earns them more money than the few beef / dairy cows that were there before and that saves 75% of the water previously consumed.
The thing is, none of this needs to be 100% or overnight, however a general movement towards eating less meat and drinking less cows mil is defiantly under way and being taken up by the younger folk in greater numbers.
We (oldies) may have just taken the idea of drinking the lactate of another species (by keep taking their young away and injecting them with chemicals) as normal but it isn't (and never has been to many many people around the world, especially those who haven't yet built up an adult tolerance to it (a further example of how 'unnatural it is to adult mammals).
But it's like many things ... when you kept a few cows, pigs or chickens, either for milk, eggs or their meat, they generally lived otherwise 'naturally' and we just took some milk or eggs for ourselves (or a cow, pig of sheep now and again). Once we go past that and then start 'farming' these things on a massive industrial level, most people, if actually caring for animals would consider it a step too far.
In the same way that if one person in a small company wanted to bring their cycle in for safety, or take their well behaved dog into work, that was generally accepted. It's not (generally) the case once you get to the stage where they say, 'what if everyone wanted to do that'?
The point is, if cycling to work was considered 'better' for the people and the planet, maybe the companies should make reasonable / secure provision for them? eg, It will take a change in mindset before these sorts of things will generally happen, to make people think about what they are doing, something like a worldwide pandemic ...
I don't think we'll need desal any time this century, or the next. There's a huge amount more water available than we use, and water use goes down as appliances & methods of cooking, cleaning etc get more efficient.
Bogs can be flushed with roof rainwater. Gardens can be watered (not that that's often necessary) with grey water. Perennials are becoming more popular, reducing water use.
In the more distant future, more food production will move to indoor farming which is massively more water efficient.
and that's another way water use is falling. Car washes also.
Both of these will require, in all properties that want to do it, plumbing changes and large tanks to store the rainwater, and a way of stopping the grey water (which will contain organic matter) from growing things in it. Hopefully it would then still be useful for watering.
We have water butt storage for well over 1000 litres, but that's still only a few quids worth of water as it comes out of the tap. And the butts to store it in aint cheap.
Why would soy milk be cheaper and why would anyone convert to it? Further, over what period of the year would it be available - compared to cows which provide milk all year round. And don't pretend it can be stored for use in 6 months time or ecologically imported from the other hemispere. Where does soy grow, anyway.
Some unimaginitive person was asking why we went to cows for milk rather than plants. Probably because it was obvious to our primitive forbears that there are animals that produce milk (like: anything that's another mammal, f'rinstance). Whereas it's not at all obvious that plants can be made to produce the stuff.
You may be right, but doesn't depend on how the climate changes further?
Then why do we (already) have hosepipe bans?
Cleaning I get, but cooking? Steamers have been out for years but my Mum still regularly has a hob covered in pots of veg on the boil. I've had one tonight as we no longer have a steamer and CBA to use one if we had.
If it's rained recently. I got told off for not watering the plants that daughter put out the front of our place recently. The water butt we put on next doors downpipe was empty and I CBA to lug water though the house.
They can, if the pluming is sufficiently modified (and something that will probably be in one of the changes in mindset I was talking of).
Except no one id going to go round the country replacing all the self set / managed trees with stuff that's more water friendly?
Yup, vertical gardens, hydroponics ... all still require water, albeit less or better used.
Yup, like I said, however, we can only *reduce* so far, if we continue consuming we may not be able to do what we want, just what we need or accepting that going without might be an option.
So, given that a litre of cows milk (the lactate of another species) takes probably 3-4 times the water it takes to make a litre of soy milk and given the thousands of cows being exploited around the world to provide such (with the cruelty and pollution that also generates) and how many people are lactose intolerant *still*, after all these years mankind has been drinking baby cow growth fluid, it makes perfect sense to move to something with less negative impact all round.
There was a TV prog a while back where two lads living together were trying to cut costs. One of the thing that was pointed out to them was their water usage and part of that was down to the fact that had 3-4 baths each day each and washed *everything*, even if it was only worn briefly.
What amazes me is how such consumption (and it's cost) comes as a surprise to some people?
We (or many of us) have evolved to accept a disconnect that is harmful to both animals and ourselves.
not really, there's vastly more than we need here. The Sahara may have a water shortage, we certainly don't & won't.
because a) the spend on water treatment is limited to the point that these bans are to a tiny degree useful b) we waste most of this treated water
exactly. That practice is disappearing. Having looked at this in some depth, and I don't plan to get into it fully here, I expect there will be further water loss reducing cooking practices emerging in future.
Of course whether some or all the time depends on tank capacity & water use. If water cost rises so will average tank size.
it's a very simple mod
??
a tiny percentage as much is required
it's always finite, but even with today's technology that 'so far' can wipe out most of our current water use
ultimately perhaps. Not any time this century.
that's another way water use is being cut
and washing takes ever less water as the years roll by.
Kids leave home without understanding much of the world now. Twas ever so but it does seem to be getting worse.
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