Water: The Worldwide Crisis Grows

In the summer of 2008, the UK newspaper The Guardian published a story on the drought in South Australia, commenting that:

Australia's epic drought is tightening its grip as a deepening ecological crisis unfolds in the south of the country. After seven years of the Big Dry, water levels in lakes at the mouth of the mighty Murray river have fallen by up to 50cm below sea level and environmental damage is spreading on a massive scale, according to conservationists.

At Bottle Bend Lagoon, drought and over-use of water by farmers for irrigation has left swaths of riverbed exposed, producing a toxic chemical reaction that is spreading. The banks are lined with poisonous aluminium and manganese salts and the water is dun-coloured, smells like rotten eggs and is as corrosive as battery acid. Fish have died in their thousands and red gum trees and plants are also dying.

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The crisis has come about because Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in a century. Years of scant rainfall have left vast areas parched and last month it was predicted that up to a million people could face a shortage of drinking water if the drought continues. The report from government officials warned that there could be problems supplying drinking water from the Murray Darling in 2008-2009 unless there is significant rainfall soon.

In a follow up story published yesterday, The Guardian is reporting that the dire predictions of last summer are, unfortunately, coming to pass:

The water in Australia's biggest river is running so low and is so salty that the nation's fifth-largest city, Adelaide, is at risk of having to ship water in to its residents, politicians have warned.

Adelaide's water crisis follows similar problems in cities around the world, as the combination of growing population, increasing agricultural use and global warming stretches resources to the limit. Experts are warning of permanent drought in many regions.

Salinity levels in some stretches of the Murray river already exceed the World Health Organisation's (WHO) recommendations for safe drinking, and South Australia's water authority and 11 rural townships east of Adelaide have been told to prepare for the worst.

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"There's simply too many people pulling water out of the river," said Roger Strother, Coorong council mayor. "We've been saying that one day it would catch up, and this summer is when it is going to happen. It could be next week."

As the story make plain however, this is not exclusively an Australian problem:

Adelaide is one of many cities around the world facing acute water shortages as populations grow, long-term droughts continue and ground water is not replenished. The Chinese water minister, Chen Lei, today told engineers at a water conference that two-thirds of Chinese cities now face serious shortages due to rapid industrialisation and climate change.

"Compared to 1956-79, the average rainfall has dropped 6% in three major river basins," Lei said. "Most parts in the north of China are now facing water shortages problems, especially because of the increasing influence of climate change and the faster speed of industrialisation and urbanisation."

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According to a new UN environment programme report, perennial drought conditions are developing in south-eastern Australia and south-western North America. "Projections suggest that persistent water scarcity will increase in a number of regions in coming years, including southern and northern Africa, the Mediterranean, much of the Middle East, a broad band in central Asia and the Indian subcontinent," the report said.

With the impacts of climate change only just beginning to be felt, and the added issues of growing human populations and increasing urbanization, reports like this will become commonplace. The report concludes with this short list of cities around the world that are dealing with these impacts right now:

Beijing: Most of Beijing's water comes from the Miyun reservoir, but a decade of drought and huge population increase has left extreme shortages. Water diversion projects are helping, but this is depleting resources from other regions. The city must spend $3.5bn (£2.2bn) in the next five years to cope with a population expected to rise to 17 million.

Nairobi: The city has imposed water rationing, following an acute drought that has affected all Kenya's water catchment areas. River and reservoirs are at historically low levels. Flower farms and export-oriented agriculture are also reducing supplies available to people.

Mexico City: 2009 has been the driest year recorded in the city of 19 million people. Water is rationed and many areas have no piped water for days at a time. The government has imposed fines of up to $1,200 for hosing down cars and sidewalks or watering lawns during daytime hours. Signs warn that the city could run out of water next spring unless residents switch to low-flow showers and toilets, and plug leaks.

Gaza: Water fit for human use will run out in the Gaza strip within 10 years, the Gaza Coastal Municipal Water Utility and UN agencies said this month. Tap water is already salty, and only 5-10% of groundwater is drinkable. Gaza's population is expected to increase to 3 million by 2025.

Kathmandu: Erratic rainfall and drier winters have left Nepal's capital very short of water. The water company can provide only 160m litres a day but the demand is well over 200m litres. Many households are drilling their own boreholes to extract groundwater with electric pumps, but the water table is sinking approximately 2.5 metres a year and this is not sustainable in the medium term.

It's time we all recognized that water is now a critical resource, in increasingly short supply worldwide. Smart water management needs to be on everyone's radar as a critical issue to be addressed at every level, from governments to corporations to individuals. There's no escaping our need for water and the longer we wait to apply corrective actions the harder and more expensive they will be.

WeatherTRAK Technology Saves ANOTHER Million Gallons of Water...

A small mention of a big win for one of our customers appeared recently in the San Diego Business Journal:

…I guess we can say Jack’s no longer all wet! The American Society of Irrigation Consultants recognizes San Francisco-based HydroPoint Data Systems. Why? The Bay Area firm collaborated with Jack in the Box’s corporate staff to upgrade the irrigation system in Kearny Mesa to significantly reduce water use. The result? Jack is now saving a million gallons of water a year…

Way to go Jack! I can't help but wonder what a million gallons of water translates to in dollars saved for Jack in the Box. Regardless, it's another real life demonstration of corporate sustainability translating directly into improvements in the bottom line. Conserving water and cash, not a bad combination during a drought and a recession...

El Niño Sputters: Chances for Drought Relief Recede

Hopes for a wetter than average winter, provided by developing El Niño conditions in the central Pacific, are waning, the San Diego Tribune reports. Increases in ocean surface water temperatures, first detected back in June, are slowing, which increases the chances that California's drought will continue:

Long-range forecasters are less and less bullish about El Niño, a global atmospheric condition that could bring extra precipitation to San Diego County.

Most of them say the odds still slightly favor a wetter-than-normal rainfall season in California, which could use a drenching after three straight years of drought. But the fledgling El Niño is showing signs of losing steam.

“If I were buying up water futures, I would not be reaching deep into my wallet at this point,” said Jan Null, a former forecaster for the National Weather Service who now runs a meteorological company.

California's water managers are taking a similar stance: They're not relying on El Niño to fill the state's depleted reservoirs. The shrinking supply has forced many water providers — including virtually all of the ones in San Diego County — to implement voluntary or mandatory restrictions on usage.

“We're planning for a dry 2010,” said Elissa Lynn, senior meteorologist for the California Department of Water Resources.

With an end to the drought in doubt, and water restrictions and rate hikes thus likely to continue, the economic and environmental benefits of Smart Water Management have never been clearer. Whether you represent a business with multiple properties, an HOA or an individual residence, WeatherTRAK products are the solution for surviving the drought and the recession without killing your landscape or your finances.

Unintended Consequences

The LA Times has a story out today highlighting a new danger posed by California's ongoing drought:

Scientists suspect that parts of the San Joaquin Valley have started to sink again after years of stability, a troubling development that geologists say can be traced to increased pumping of groundwater.

State water managers are worried that falling land surfaces could damage the California Aqueduct, which carries water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the valley and Southern California.

One more example of why water management needs to be approached in a holistic, all encompassing way in order to capture all the threats and opportunities for any given scenario. Just think, if that philosophy had been applied here, this threat to a major component of Southern California's water supply could have been identified, mitigated and possibly entirely avoided.

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Sacramento - Two Steps Forward...

One step back. I really don't understand what's going on in Sacramento. How can the capital city of a drought stricken state not be leading the way on smart water management? With so many great examples to follow, like LA, Long Beach, Marin and Sonoma Counties, why do they continue to get even the simple things wrong? Here's the latest from the Sacramento Bee, whose reporters seem to be working overtime trying to save the city from itself, at least where water use is concerned:

This summer the city of Sacramento moved to conserve water with new rules that extended a watering ban earlier in the morning on watering days.

The heart of the water-use ordinance, which uses an odd/even day schedule, is a ban on watering lawns and gardens from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. That's two hours longer than the previous limit of noon to 6 p.m.

But a look at what's behind the extended hours found that water conservation, even during the third consecutive year of drought, was just one of the ordinance's goals – and not the most important, ranking behind things like saving on electricity it takes to pump water.

The review also found that the new watering hours do not conserve as much water as possible considering the city's weather conditions.

That's because the ordinance's ban includes hours when the evaporation rate during watering is actually lower than during some of the hours Sacramentans are now allowed to irrigate.

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An analysis by The Bee found that the city could conserve more water, especially during summer, if it would instead ban watering between 6 and 8 p.m. when temperatures and the Delta breeze are still robust.

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Calculations show that during the summer – June, July and August – an evening watering ban from 6 to 8 p.m. would conserve 3.9 percent to 5.3 percent more water than the existing morning ban of 10 a.m. to noon.

That's a savings of as much as 16 gallons for a typical system that runs 20 minutes once a week over 1,000 square feet of lawn.

Should it really take research by the Bee to point these things out, or should we expect water managers to factor these things into the equation without the expert assistance of journalists?

The Bee also pointed out the easiest, and best, way to make sure your landscape irrigation accounts for both evaporation and transpiration:

Some of the newer "smart" watering controllers can sense weather conditions such as temperature and if it's raining, and adjust the amount of water used.

"If it's raining, it won't water. And if it cools down, it will water less," Ingels said. "You set your program, and it will take over."

Now if only I knew where to get one of these smart controllers...

Water Scarcity Threatens the Entire Southwest

The New Mexico Independent published commentary yesterday that really brings home the future outlook for water in the southwestern U.S.:

When your neighbors are in trouble, chances are you’re in trouble too. Look around southwest and mountain west America. Everywhere you’ll find major cities from Los Angeles to Denver, and Las Vegas to Phoenix worried sick about their water supply – as well they should be.

If the Colorado river continues to dry up and western drought becomes a perpetual hazard as current predictions have it, Las Vegas, Nevada will be facing a Katrina-like catastrophe, only this time it won’t be about flooding, but about running dry. Some 90 percent of Las Vegas’s water comes from the diminishing Colorado River.

Phoenix, Tucson, Denver and Los Angeles are in different boats, but their ponds are shrinking too.

And New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming — the “upper basin” states in the Colorado Compact of 1922 — have “junior” water rights to California, Arizona, and Nevada, the states that comprise the “lower basin.” And that means in a crisis, upper basin states won’t get their water until lower basin states have their’s.

The article continues, highlighting the danger to New Mexico if, as a holder of junior water rights to the Colorado, demand from California, Arizona and Nevada continues to increase. But that danger isn't limited to New Mexico, it's shared with, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Four U.S. states that could quite literally not have enough water to meet demand in the foreseeable future. Add to that the continued issues of groundwater depletion and contamination in 3 of the 4 states due to natural gas extraction, and the continued push from energy companies to begin exploiting oil shale (another water intensive process) in Colorado and Utah and you've got a recipe for disaster for millions of residents.

We need to get smarter, faster.