Talk:Water crisis

An entry from Water crisis appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 28 September, 2006.

Wikipedia

finite supply

"The Earth has a finite supply of fresh water, stored in aquifers, surface waters and the atmosphere. Sometimes oceans are mistaken for available water, but the amount of energy needed to convert saline water to potable water is prohibitive today, explaining why only a very small fraction of the world's water supply derives from desalination"

Can be misconstrued without understanding "surface waters" "the earth has a finite supply of fresh water" at any one time. But the balance between fresh and salt can be effected by far more than just human desalinization. When desalination is addressed immediately after that statement, but not increased storage capacity of surface waters(ie: drop a hole the size of Lake Erie in the middle of India for a Monsoon catchment) it can be misconstrued when combined with "finite" to a younger reader. Surface water can be delayed nearly indefinitely with the proper storage and treatment\reuse, (which need not be capital intensive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_machines) with a net loss within the hydrology cycle that is oceanic, delivered at no cost, drawn and impounded at nature's extremes. Surface water that would otherwise return largely underemployed to the ocean. Oceanic evaporation increases with a worldwide net energy gain. "Since the kinetic energy of a molecule is proportional to its temperature, evaporation proceeds more quickly at higher temperature." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation

Other possible impoundments include artificial condensation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condensation (an efficient use of waste heat, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas-absorption_refrigerator) the net loss in water vapor would be replaced from all surfaces, the lion's share of which is oceanic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_pressure

The "water crisis" is not constrained by a finite supply of fresh water, rather human practices and an unwillingness to invest in the infrastructure necessary. Presenting a sole example of an ongoing energy investment (desalinization) as opposed to infrastructure investments with a potential of a net energy gain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_energy_gain employing positional energy as freely delivered by the atmosphere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_energy limits the scope of the question.

The net energy storage of the oceans and atmosphere are increasing, naturally occurring freshwater storage is decreasing, the trend is toward a more erratic hydrology cycle http://www.wmo.ch/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_791_e.html that erratic delivery will by necessity need to be employed, humans will have to replace at least a part of the ice storage with long term impoundment and reuse.

The crisis is one of demand, delivery window, and efficiency. Not a closed system with a finite supply of X amount of freshwater. That is only true if qualified by a period of time. Impoundment of water in one part of the cycle will be replenished from salt and fresh water surfaces, soil and transpiration over an extended period of time, reaching a new (and constantly changing) vapor pressure equilibrium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpiration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evapotranspiration

More energy within the system means higher rates of evaporation and less natural retention of surface water (ice) with a net loss to the Oceanic stage of the cycle. Impoundment and reuse however can reverse that, especially if the more energetic (if erratic) delivery is anticipated.

merger with asian water crisis

superficially looks like a reasonable idea, but the Asian Water Crisis is a huge topic in and of itself and can easily merit an entire article. better idea is to merge Asian water crisis with China water crisis Anlace 04:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you for your opinion and pointing out at a related option.
  • I agree that the topic is very big. But in therms of general descripotion, water crisis in Asia basically does not differ much from water crisis anywhere else, so it may be a summary section in the main article
  • On the other hand, Water Crisis in each separate country (China water crisis, Water crisis in India, etc.), are very well separated topics which describe particular specifics in each country: occurences, examples, how it is fighted, etc. This approach is very common in wikipedia, see category:Categories by country.
  • Also, there are naturally possible articles about water crises along major rivers, where several countries compete for the same resource.
• Mukadderat 04:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure we are in any disagreement here. I think i agree with all your remarks. It sounds like what we need to perform is a split. Take the Asian water crisis article and split relevant info into the two surviving articles: Water crisis and China water crisis. What do you think? best regards. Anlace 04:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

"Asian water crisis" has nothing special that cannot be found in the two other articles, and I am turning it into a redirect to Water crisis. Asia is so vast territory and so diverse that the article can be just as general as "global water crisis". The water problems in Asia are basically the same as in Africa. So IMO it only makes sense to have a single overall "water crisis" article and a series of "water crisis" articles by country. Mukadderat 16:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Original research

This article needs to show that the term (water crisis- as applied here to mean the world is/has run out of water) is used by official organizations.--Peta 02:38, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

references have been supplied showing that the United Nations, National Resources Defense Council, World Bank, WHY and numerous other agencies with worldwide perspective use this term. by the way this article was already more well referenced than 99 percent of all wikipedia articles. you have a lot of work on your hands to attack the 99 percent...since you are starting to call for references from one of the best referenced articles :( Anlace 03:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The dates as specified in the opening sentence should also be supported.--Peta 03:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Reference supplied as requested per new edits to article. In addition the UN article already cited in the intro [1] documents that the water crisis has existed for at least two decades. regards. Anlace 05:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It'd be nice if that one cite needed tag was also taken care of before this appears on DYK.--Peta 05:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, i agree. I've placed the UNICEF citation (on-line form) as an edit to water crisis to address this. Thanks for your help in improving this article. Regards. Anlace 14:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Biofuel

The latest edition of the New Scientist has an article on biofuel pointing out that some of the effects of its increased use may be to (a) increase land under cultivation, (b) divert cultivation from edible crops and, (c) divert cultivation towards water-guzzling crops such as sugar cane. I don't have the article to hand and I don't know enough about the subject to extemporize but it sounds relevant to this article to me. I might come back to the article when me, a computer and the magazine are all in the same place at the same time - unless someone beats me to it.217.154.66.11 12:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

GLACIATION TO START ON 2012

Well have enough water for everyone , the problem will be just that we'll have to boil it to make use of it. Glaciation is near. Have a nice day.