Talk:Water crisis

finite supply
"The Earth has a finite supply of dirtyweird 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.
 * Hello unsigned anonymous. While it's great to know that you've single-handed come up with workable solutions to the world's water crisis, your comments would be better directed to the relevant world leaders and authorities who need your expertise to implement them.  This talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, and the article is for a factual description of the current (and historical) state of affairs as can be verified by reliable secondary sources. NTK (talk) 05:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

hello NTK, thanx for the dismissive missive :P The post is here to spur the inclusion of factual scientific context which the article hasn't included, namely the hydrological cycle vs time. The "Water Crisis" for any given region is typically seasonal

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080418112341.htm

"The global land surface temperature was the warmest on record for March, 3.3°F above the 20th century mean of 40.8°F. Temperatures more than 8°F above average covered much of the Asian continent. Two months after the greatest January snow cover extent on record on the Eurasian continent, the unusually warm temperatures led to rapid snow melt, and March snow cover extent on the Eurasian continent was the lowest on record."

human adaptation to a more extreme delivery isn't "my solution" rather a global imperative. The three interrelated aspects my post included within a joined context where, retention, reuse and replenishment (new surface storage, indefinite re-treatment, the vapor pressure equilibrium of the hydrological cycle). By compartmentalizing this article and artificially limiting the primary "solution" to human desalination (as opposed to employing an accelerated global evaporation\desalination cycle) shapes the way the issue is thought about. We are loosing our natural storage capacity (ice) and need to artificially replace it, as well as change how we use water.

Reductio ad absurdum, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum next storm surge experienced by every human alive, one pint of water is placed in a bottle and sealed "surface water" has just increased. Impounded, used and retreated for as long as possible before its eventual evaporation (largely dependent on local air exchange & temperature) the lions share of replenishment in the hydrological cycle comes from the oceans.

PS Governments are for centralized "solutions", widely available useful information is for decentralized solutions.

I seriously believe this article can benefit from an expansion of "surface waters" and the totally absent concept of more extreme delivery cycle. Its as if the article is discussing an average, not the increasingly real world surplus and deficit nature of the hydrological cycle vs demand. The passage I took umbrage with in particular

"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[5]."

shapes the problem as static and the exclusion of the oceans is misleading. I posted this in here as an argument in hopes that the obvious deficiencies and assumptions in the article would be addressed by a third party, not ridiculed. (Unsigned).


 * This discussion is the same as "redistribute wealth", etc. Economists know that wealth isn't a finite resource to be distributed, but a resource to be created via hard work. The same with drinking water: ecologists know that it is not a finite resource to be distributed, but a renewable resource to be harvested from rain. Oh, but communists doesn't want to hear that, do they? This discussion, as so many environmental issues, has turned political! Aldo L (talk) 03:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Causes of water deficit''' we speand lot of water in washroom during bath If we dont waste water we are able to use that water in agriculture sector and grow lot of food .. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.110.25.28 (talk) 07:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

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 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 IN 2012
We'll 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. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.220.221.96 (talk) 23:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * lol BBnet3000 (talk) 00:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe that the extreme temperatures and climate change are a result of the Earth purifying itself for 2012. After 2012, the people who survive will develop nanotechnology to make sure things like that never happen again and we will eventually reach the Singularity in the year 2045. GVnayR (talk) 03:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Climate Change Impact on water
Warnings of a water and food crisis s this year, but the danger was stressed repeatedly to the assembled world elite. Scarcity of water was named by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a top priority at the World Economic Forum and he warned that conflicts lay ahead if the provision of the vital resource could not be assured.

"Population growth will make the problem worse. So will climate change. As the global economy grows, so will its thirst. Many more conflicts lie just over the horizon," While the world's population tripled in the 20th century, the use of renewable water resources has grown six-fold. Within the next fifty years, the world population will increase by another 40 to 50 %. This population growth - coupled with industrialization and urbanization - will result in an increasing demand for water and will have serious consequences on the environment.

Biofuels, which were initially hyped as a "green" solution to the world's energy needs, drew criticism from the chairman of the UN's Nobel Prize-winning climate change panel.

"Wherever the production of fuels is going to conflict with the production of food, particularly in a world in which food prices are going up... obviously we are running into difficult territory," revealed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri. [[27]http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/10/europe/EU-GEN-Hungary-Climate-Change.php]

Already there is more waste water generated and dispersed today than at any other time in the history of our planet: more than one out of six people lack access to safe drinking water, namely 1.1 billion people, and more than two out of six lack adequate sanitation, namely 2.6 billion people (Estimation for 2002, by the WHO/UNICEF JMP, 2004). 3900 children die every day from water borne diseases (WHO 2004). One must know that these figures represent only people with very poor conditions. In reality, these figures should be much higher. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pretchan (talk • contribs) 02:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC) This section is related to water crisis as discussed above and linked to Human Security because this existing article is not comprehensive in exploring the cause of water crisis. Climate change is one important factor which we should not neglect.


 * I think it would be helpful to include maps such as this one and these two published in the Scientific American. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.187.0.164 (talk) 14:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Where is the evidence that overpopulation causes lack of safe, clean water?
The article does not contain a single shred of evidence that lack of safe, clean water is caused by overpopulation.

Here is a List of countries by population density. If you look at the list, you will see that there is no correlation between population density and lack of safe, clean water.

Here is the Corruption Perceptions Index. If you look at this list, you will see that there is a huge correlation between government corruption and lack of safe, clean water.!

Tap water is not a natural resource. Instead, tap water is the product of scientists, engineers, technology, innovation, etc. When government is properly run, it always manages to provide people with safe, clean water, because the scientists and other people are properly rewarded for their efforts to provide people with clean, safe water.

Grundle2600 (talk) 07:36, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I see you've included one reference to back up this view. The reference mentions the viewpoint but does not give any explanation - do you have any other references? Barrylb (talk) 18:27, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this report (exec summary) backs up some of what you are saying. eg they say "Water insufficiency is often due to mismanagement, corruption, lack of appropriate institutions, bureaucratic inertia and a shortage of investment in both human capacity and physical infrastructure" and "Many of the solutions to water problems lie in better governance." I'm not sure if your arguments about the List of countries by population density and Corruption Perceptions Index is original research though ? -- Barrylb (talk) 18:47, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Is it worth pointing out that (in many areas) lack of safe drinking water is caused not by overpopulation but by the environmental factors creating fresh drinking water? Desert, unstable water flows, unstable precipitation levels...these are the main factors deciding how much water is available to a basin, where overpopulation exacerbates water situations. If you want to blame anything for water shortages, you might consider looking toward agricultural use first (since in most areas it's by FAR the overriding consumer of water, some sources saying around 80% of typical fresh water use), and then look also to industry (that further exacerbates their usage by the environmental pollution). Again, overpopulation can strain water resources, but the few litres a day each person uses is a pittance compared to most agricultural uses. The "overpopulation" argument is all too frequently not caused by overpopulation, but the usage patterns conflicting with the cycles of precipitation. The crisis is especially poignant when exacerbated by poverty and the subsistence patterns dependant on the water use. Gba111 (talk) 06:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Neutral Point of View?
some of the wording in this article seems a bit biased --voodoom (talk) 06:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You could be right - which bits? Or feel free to go ahead and fix. Barrylb (talk) 08:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Not NPOV
This article is biased. It takes the view of pessimistic environmentalists. For example, it states that more than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water without mentioning that this proportion (and probably number) has decreased steadily over the last decades. I have tried to fix this but more has to be done.

Just because some international organizations talk of a water crisis doesn't mean there is one. They naturally have an interest in portraying the problem as bad as possible to attract attention and funding. Jacob Lundberg (talk) 12:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That might very well be the case. I have not had time to review the entire article. But IMO the topic is on the crisis aspect not the stable aspect so it will inevitably seem to lean toward coverage of the more pessimistic literature on the topic. That said, I think a section on contrarian viewpoints would add nice balance. The burden is on whomsoever is inclined to have that view mroe adequately represented to put the time in to do the research. There is nothing stopping anyone from doing that so, as the saying goes, there's no crying in baseball. Go to it and I will support your right to have inclusion of those critics even though I suspect they are pollyanish. 21:49, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Biased certainly true
The article is not a Neural Point of View; its cites aguanomics.com too often. It does however link in to several points of view articles and gives a range of projections. Int. org.s in views vary greatly. They are widely used in geography articles for good reason - they have studies/websites that are copyright-allowed and they don't give one country's (e.g. US) bias. The mention of gain in access to safe drinking water is in there now, so quit moaning about progress. And don't scorn at the very least the inter governmental organisaitons - I bet all my wealth (save my drinking water) a survey would show most people think not enough aid is going into the best schemes to give us safe drinking water when they consider since the sixties that 2 Billion people have now gained access, leaving far less than that to go.--Adam37 (talk) 22:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)And dats a big deal !

Nanotechnology can solve the water crisis
I believe that nanotechnology will solve the water crisis by allowing nanofactories to create water in infinite amounts on a sub-atomic level. This won't be until the year 2025 but I believe nanotechnology can solve things like that, pollution, and even find a cure for autism. GVnayR (talk) 03:42, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The topic and sea ice....
--222.64.220.28 (talk) 10:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22water+crisis%22+%22sea+ice%22&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

With the changes to Planetary boundaries ... Add "Consumption of water and the global hydrological cycle is a Planetary boundaries metric.".
Add "Consumption of water and the global hydrological cycle is a Planetary boundaries metric.", but also other wp article might be drinking water/potable water (consumption), water resources, and fresh water. 99.112.215.132 (talk) 17:56, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Boundary issue Freshwater consumption
 * Suggested indicator Consumption of water and the global hydrological cycle
 * Suggested limit 4000 km3/yr of runoff resources
 * Still no reason for inclusion, even if planetary boundaries was a notable paper. (It's not a notable topic.)  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 18:16, 22 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Just your comment, or any notable citable references? 99.190.86.133 (talk) 05:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You (or someone) needs to demonstrate notability; I don't need to demonstrate non-notability. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 08:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Just a heads up without taking sides. This section seems like it needs to be re-written in English. Coming into it cold, I for one find it difficult to figure out just what the issue is.  Geo Bard  Rap 21:50, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Revised Planetary boundaries has "Global human consumption of water (km3/yr)" for Control variable. 99.56.123.49 (talk) 23:52, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Still no reason for inclusion. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 02:15, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, Rubin, however awkwardly IPs state their case here and elsewhere, it is you who comes across as the POV warrior. It is time you came clean and explained where the obsessive flurry of obstructive edits you make on planetary boundaries comes from. There is nothing I can find in the literature to support your position, apart from some throwaway comments made by Stuart Pimm when the concept was first floated. And I note that Pimm does not appear to have repeated or expanded his objections, and it may be that it is Pimm who has the egg on his face. Are you coming from a religious fundamentalist position? Or is it just that you genuinely believe, that even if God if not looking after all of this for you, then everything is going to be fine anyway, because that is what you want, and that the concept of habitable boundaries must therefore be nonsense? If these comments misrepresent your position, then it is long overdue for you to explain and justify just what your position really is. Can you do that? If not, then soon I'm going to start reverting your more eccentric and dysfunctional edits. You are bringing administrators into disrepute behaving this way. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Reorganized article into more logical sections
Hopefully, I reorganized this article to a more logical format. It seems to make sense to group the effects of water scarcity and then move towards potential solutions rather than mixing up the two in sections. There is more work to do, but I am leaving that to someone else. Thanks! Quill and Pen (talk) 20:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

correct redirect is to Water Scarcity
Only some parts were merged with Water Security. The main article was merged with Water Scarcity, which is in itself more logical, and especially so because it claims to be a redirect "from an alternative name". – Sampa (talk) 21:17, 26 February 2018 (UTC)