Water: Where will it come from in 2050?

[Michaelangelica]

On distribution look at this site
CalWaterWarRoom
CalWaterWarRoom: Cal Water Deals In Motion

[gribbon]

Going back on what I said a while ago, it might be possible for poor countries to use desal...after all, all alot of these countries would have to do is reduce their military expenditures by a small amount...

What we need is a proper calculation of the economic growth which these countries will experience, and then see if they can afford it...I'm going to try at some point to find out about the priorities of these governments, because as one person said earlier, it does depend on political will....

This site shows that Namibia has a reaosnable level of growth, but I can't see the gov setting aside the amount I calculated would be needed...

NationMaster - Statistics > GDP > Real growth rate by country

So Namibia has 3.5%, and other water short countries have higher...I can easily see North Afrcian countries managing their supplies, but not Naimbia unfortunately...

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by gribbon

Going back on what I said a while ago, it might be possible for poor countries to use desal...after all, all alot of these countries would have to do is reduce their military expenditures by a small amount...
[/url]

So Namibia has 3.5%, and other water short countries have higher...I can easily see North Afrcian countries managing their supplies, but not Naimbia unfortunately...

For the cost of the Iraq war -100billion PA, the USA could give all the third world fresh water
(or, more likely ,free champagne and beer!).

For what the West spends on luxury ocean cruises clean water could be had for all
(Source:- New International Nov 2006)

Multinational companies launder around 207Bil. of profits tax free out of developing countries a year.
By contrast, aid from rich countries to poor countries is 80 bil. a year.
(New Internationalist Dec 2006)

Still without some marked improvement in de-salination technology and cost there will just not be enough fresh water to go around by 2050. There is just so much on the planet and that's it!

[gribbon]

Still without some marked improvement in de-salination technology and cost there will just not be enough fresh water to go around by 2050. There is just so much on the planet and that's it!

Well, we need to be cerati on the intentions of the governemnts: let's take another case study and look at how much these countries adhere to environmental concerns....

Okay...

Angola

This country really has nothing to complian or worry about, seeing as it has significanlty more water per capita than the vast majority of Africa. With 13,203 cubic metres per capita, in comparison with 5,705 for the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, this country really has nothing to complain about. Not only this, but thus far, only 0.4% of the withdrawals have been from renewable resources, which could explain the shortages. Namibia could afford water, and so can Angola...just a bit of planning needed, really...

Angola - Water Resources and Freshwater Ecosystems - Country Profile

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by gribbon

just a bit of planning needed, really...

and
money?

Population below poverty line:
70%

Debt - external:
$11.24 billion

Subsistence agriculture provides the main livelihood for half of the population, but half of the country's food must still be imported. In 2005, the government started using a $2 billion line of credit from China to rebuild Angola's public infrastructure,

and
a decent government

Corruption, especially in the extractive sectors, is a major challenge facing Angola.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications...s/ao.html#Govt

and
no war and homeless displaced persons

27-year civil war ending in 2002; 4 million IDPs

and
an enviroment not under the huge pressures of poverty, war and population

Environment - current issues:
overuse of pastures and subsequent soil erosion attributable to population pressures; desertification; deforestation of tropical rain forest, in response to both international demand for tropical timber and to domestic use as fuel, resulting in loss of biodiversity; soil erosion contributing to water pollution and siltation of rivers and dams; inadequate supplies of potable water

and perhaps money for their own oil

yep
"just a matter of planning really."
With that level of naive confidence you should be working for International Aid agencies.
They could use your simple confidence to boost their moral

[gribbon]

I never denied that Angola is poor, badly run and so forth, but with the resources obtainable water supply for this country has the potential to be easy.

Quote:
Corruption, especially in the extractive sectors, is a major challenge facing Angola.

Corruption for Angola is only a problem at the commercial and business level, not at government levels. Seeing as the government of Angola has taken control of much of the countries economy, especially the oil institutions (which last thing I knew where owned by Sonangol group), and to a lesser extent it’s industry, it would not be harder for Angola to develop than most other countries in Africa. Lack of infrastructure is a problem, though. But with oil wealth as great as Angola’s, this latest contract with China, and good relations with Libya and Namibia, there’s no reason why that cannot be changed.

Population below poverty line:70%
Quote:
Debt - external:$11.24 billion

The economy is recovering fast enough, (GDP real growth rate is at 19.1% (and has been for some time now) NationMaster - Statistics > GDP > Real growth rate by countryand the civil war is all but ended.

and
a decent government
and
no war and homeless displaced persons
Quote:

On February 22, 2002, Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, was killed by government troops, and a cease-fire was reached. UNITA has given up its armed wing and usurped the role of major opposition party, and President dos Santos has announced he will hold elections in 2008. This might be a desperately poor country, but what you haven’t grasped is that it is recovering and has the resources to provide itself with water. Now that the war is over, they can reduce their military expenditures to a more sensible level. (In 2003 they were ludicrously high at 22%, and even now they are at 5.5%).

I fail to see how Angola, Namibia or Libya for that matter can have problems with water supplies. Also, I suggest you look at the link, because it does state clearly there that Angola has a renewable supply of 13,204 cubic metres per person. Only if you have 1,700 per capita can you have a shortage, and only if its less than 1000 per capita is it water stress.

Naiive confidence? Don’t think so somehow….

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by gribbon

Naiive confidence? Don’t think so somehow….

Your optimism astounds me
Keep it up! - but not to the detriment of logic

[Michaelangelica]

Salt water can be used instead of fresh water

Water salinity levels for various uses
Source/Use
EC (dS/m)
Distilled Water
0.00
River Murray (SA, 1993)
0.79
Desirable potable limit for humans
0.83
Grape, potato, sweet corn yields reduced by 10%
1.7
Lucerne yield reduced by 10%
2.2
Absolute potable limit for humans
2.5
Limit for mixing herbicide sprays
4.69
Limit for poultry
5.8
Limit for pigs
6.6
Limit for dairy cattle
10.00
Limit for horses
11.60
Limit for beef cattle
16.6
Limit for adult sheep on dry feed
23.00
Sea water
50.00
The Dead Sea
555.00

Source: Dowelling in Taylor 1993

Salinity Solutions - Urban salinity

[TheBigDog]

Niagara Falls has a volume of 750,000 gallons/second. That is enough water to give each of the 6 billion people on earth 10.8 gallons every day. That is just one river.

It is not supply, it is distribution.

Bill

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

Niagara Falls has a volume of 750,000 gallons/second. That is enough water to give each of the 6 billion people on earth 10.8 gallons every day. That is just one river.

It is not supply, it is distribution.

Bill

But would you want to drink it??
Niagara Falls - Great Lakes Wiki

By the 1970's, life in the Niagara River was exhausted from all the toxins. Fish were dead, some species even completely gone. Each day waterfowl could be found dead on the banks of the river. More chemical dumping continued:

* SCA Chemical Services announced plans in 1979 to dump 110 million gallons of chemical waste into the lower Niagara River. Even through citizen opposition, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued a permit and the dumping took place from 1981 through 1988.
* Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation were licensed by the EPA to dump 950 lbs of toxic chemicals per day.
* In 1981 it was discovered that 37 million gallons of radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project had been injected into shallow wells near the Niagara River .

In 1984 it was estimated by the Canadian government that 9,000 lbs of toxic chemicals were being legally dumped into the Niagara River every day. Today the United States EPA has listed 26 superfund sites along the Niagara, and nearby cities have began cleanup projects for improve the river. With the past 100 years of toxins going into the Niagara River, it would take over 200 years to renew the river if all current dumping was immediately stopped.

by toxic chemicals such as PCBs, mirex, chlordane, dioxin, dibenzofuran, hexachlorocyclo-hexane, PAHs, and pesticides.
. Metals and cyanides in the sediment prevent open lake disposal of bottom sediments dredged from the river. Sources and loadings of pollutant causing use impairments in the Niagara River include these sediments as well as inactive hazardous waste sites, combined sewer overflows, and other point and nonpoint sources. Contamination originating from discharges within Lake Erie's watershed contributes t

Great Lakes Area of Concerns (AoCs): Niagara | Great Lakes | US EPA

I rains more than enough in the wet season in Northern Oz too
But the economics and engineering of getting it to the south are impossible

This was interesting & probably necessary if you are about to drink Niagara water

Water Purification Techniques:

Different water purifiers use different techniques of purification. The common techniques used to purify water include boiling, carbon filtering, distilling, reverse osmosis, ion exchange, electrode ionization, water conditioning and plumbo-solvency reduction.

Carbon filtering: This technique is commonly used in home water filters. Charcoal, a form of carbon with a high surface area due to its mode of preparation, adsorbs many compounds, including some toxic compounds. The water is passed through activated charcoal to remove such contaminants. Granular charcoal filtering and sub-micron solid block carbon filtering are the two types of carbon filtering systems.

Granular charcoal is not very effective for removing contaminants such as mercury, volatile organic chemicals, asbestos, pesticides, disinfections byproduct (trihalomethanes), mtbe, pcbs etc. The sub-micron solid block carbon filter is the better system that removes all of the contaminants.

Home water filters drinking water sometimes also contains silver. These small amounts of silver ions can have a bactericidal effect.

Reverse osmosis: The reverse osmosis water system is the technique in which mechanical pressure is applied to an impure solution to force pure water through a semi-permeable membrane. The process is called reverse osmosis, and is theoretically the most thorough method of large-scale water purification.

Ion exchange: Most common ion exchange systems use a zeolite resin bed and simply replace unwanted Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions with benign (soap friendly) Na+ or K+ ions. This is the common water softener. A more rigorous type of ion exchange swaps H+ ions for unwanted cations and hydroxide (OH-) ions for unwanted anions. The result is H+ + OH- → H2O. This system is recharged with hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, respectively. The result is essentially deionized water.

Electrodeionization: It includes passing the water through a positive electrode and a negative electrode. Ion selective membranes allow the positive ions to separate from the water toward the negative electrode and the negative ions toward the positive electrode. It results in high purity de-ionized water. The water is usually passed through a reverse osmosis unit first to remove nonionic organic contaminants.

Water conditioning: This is a method of reducing the effects of hard water. Hardness salts are deposited in water systems subject to heating because the decomposition of bicarbonate ions creates carbonate ions that crystallize out of the saturated solution of calcium or magnesium carbonate. Water with high concentrations of hardness salts can be treated with soda ash (Sodium carbonate) that precipitates out the excess salts, through the common ion effect, as calcium carbonate of very high purity. The precipitated calcium carbonate is traditionally sold to the manufacturers of toothpaste.

Plumbo-solvency reduction: In areas with naturally acidic waters of low conductivity (i.e. surface rainfall in upland mountains of igneous rocks), the water is capable of dissolving lead from any lead pipes that it is carried in. The addition of small quantities of phosphate ion and increasing the pH slightly both assist in greatly reducing plumbo-solvency by creating insoluble lead salts on the inner surfaces of the pipes.
About the Author

Paul MacIver writes about Water Filters & Purifiers. Visit the Water Purification website for further info on water purifiers and Water Filters You may freely reprint this article as long as nothing is changed, bio is included with links intact
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