Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship,
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,
All the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
---From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
My third class this module is Environmental Science. I have to take it in order to graduate on time, otherwise, I wouldn't be. However, I did learn something interesting already. This week's assignment was about water. It turns out that water is a fascinating subject, and not one I frequently think of, other than to cringe once a month as I pay the bill. I should be thinking about it more, though, and you should, too.
According to my textbook, and it should be fairly accurate since it was published in 2008 and cost me a fortune, we do a poor job of managing our water resources. I think we can all agree on that, since we all know that there is always media coverage about one drought or another. Unfortunately, as with most things, the media is paying attention to the wrong thing. Droughts are devastating, but what's even more devasting is what we are doing to ourselves. Droughts are part of nature, but the damage we're causing to the hydrologic cycle is not.
You may have heard of the Aral Sea. It is a freshwater lake located in the former Soviet Union. In the 1930s the Soviet regime decided that the area surrounding the sea could grow cotton if it were irrigated. The regime wanted to become the world's largest exporter of cotton, so the two large rivers flowing into the Aral were tapped for irrigation water. By 1960, millions of hectacres of land came under irrigation, and the Soviet Union became the world's second-largest cotton exporter. The project was deemed an enormous success. However, the water the sea was receiving was reduced to zero by the 1980s, and the sea began to shrink.
Death came quickly. Because no new water was entering the lake, the salinity began to increase, and the lake's ecology was devastated. The first to succumb was the fishing industry that had employed 60,000. As the lake continued to shrink, eventually reaching a tenth of its original size, the exposed lake bed caused pollution and choked people for miles around. The population around the lake suffers from increased cancer and a higher infant mortality. The climate changed, and the gowing season shortened. Farmers switched from growing cotton to rice. Animal species unique to the have become extinct. The lake is now three times as salty as the ocean, and the only life it sustains is brine shrimp.
Stupid, right? But, it was those ignorant Soviets, and something like that could never happen again, right? Not necessarily. The Rio Grande, the second-largest river in the United States, disappears about 300 feet from the Gulf of Mexico because its waters are drawn down all along its course for domestic use and irrigation. The Colorado River is almost completely drained by the United States before it reaches Mexico. The Dead Sea may disappear by 2050 because its inflow of fresh water is diverted by both Israel and Jordan. The extinction of any of these bodies of water would have devastating consequences on the world.
And what about the water that comes out of our taps? Are we cautious about its use? No, we are not. A developing-nation family living where one must spend most of the day finding and carrying water finds that one gallon per person per day is sufficient to provide for all of its essential needs, including cooking and washing. In contrast, a typical household in the United States consumes an average of 100 gallons per person per day. If all indirect uses are added, this figure increases to 1,300 gallons per person per day. That's crazy! Obviously, we don't appreciate water for the precious resource that it is. And, if we had to work harder than turning a faucet on, we would be very conservative in its uses. As with most things, we in the United States are blessed and don't even know it. 40% of the world's food is grown in irrigated soils, and present-day irrigation wastes huge amounts of water. Much of the water applied is lost to evaporation, percolation, or runoff. Farmers have no incentive to install new water-saving methods, though. The drip irrigation system can reduce water use by as much as 70%, but costs about $1,000 per acre to install. In comparison, water for irrigation is heavily subsidized by the government, so farmers pay next to nothing for it. And neither do you or I.
I intend to educate my family on the importance of water conservation, and I wish the schools did a better job. What I've written here should be taught to every child in school, so that they can learn to look at water in a new light. I also intend to be more responsible with our use (or waste) of water.
I believe I'll have a glass of water. I promise to use it well.
