Water, Water... Nowhere?

            “Water, water, every where,/ Nor any drop to drink” (Coleridge).  Never have the immortal words of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge held greater meaning than at present.  Without water, there can be no life as we know it, and it is for that reason that water scarcity is a major factor in driving humanity toward “island civilizations” (Nash).  The research paper “Is physical water scarcity a new phenomenon? Global assessment of water shortage over the last two millennia” (Kummu) explains how water scarcity is directly correlated with population growth.
            This study, in which geological evidence was used to approximate water resource availability between 0 A.D. and 2005 A.D., provides compelling data suggesting that increased rates of human population growth directly brought about water scarcity, both in individual regions and on the Earth as a whole.  

The authors of this paper label increased trade, irrigation, and reservoir capacity as key culprits of global water shortages.  Despite the purpose of these items being that of more efficiently utilizing limited water resources, all three inhibit the natural movements of water.  Trade, especially of water or products containing water, such as produce, is essentially the transferring of water from one region to another, regardless of whether or not the receiving region is experiencing a shortage of water.  Irrigation delivers water to regions where it is otherwise scarce, but, in doing so, removes water from other regions, thereby making the source regions themselves more susceptible to water shortages.  This irrigated water is then ‘packaged’ in the form of produce and shipped abroad, further displacing water supplies.  Reservoirs, whether for recreation, power generation, drinking, or irrigation, cripple the natural flow of rivers, causing widespread water shortages downstream, in addition to further propagating the aforementioned water displacement by irrigation and subsequent trade.

A personal theory of mine, though, I admit, I have no scientific data with which to back it, is that at least a small portion of the world’s water scarcity is caused by pipes and other plumbing.  The real question is: just how much water is trapped inside of metal pipes at any given time?  These pipes, over a large enough scale, act as a giant water tower, storing water for later use.  When applied to the entire world, it seems that a fairly significant amount of water is effectively isolated from the elementary water cycle at any given time.  This water cannot be consumed, does not contribute to lakes and other bodies of water, and may even be responsible for ever-worsening global drought conditions, as any water trapped in pipes would not be permitted to evaporate or otherwise humidify the air.  This ‘phantom water supply’ could easily be linked to water shortages attributed to population growth in this paper; indeed, it is clearly shown that available water resources did not drop drastically until very recently, particularly the 1900s, coinciding with the majority of global urbanization; about 2% of world suffered from water shortage before 1900, when that amount jumped to 9% and has since reached 35% in 2005 (Kummu).  The Earth hasn’t lost any of its water since then, and sea levels haven’t risen substantially in that time, so where else could the water have gone?

On another note, the human body is mostly water and as human populations increase, even more water is removed from circulation at any given time, this being merely a thought and by no means an argumentative statement.  And don’t even get me started on bottled water!  Regardless, the point is that water scarcity, brought upon by dislocation, is a major problem associated with population growth and the current format of widespread human civilization.  If the issue is not soon resolved, it may become necessary to cut down human populations and concentrate them in “island civilizations” (Nash), where water supplies can be carefully regulated, recycled, and otherwise sustained.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.” Poetry X. Ed. Jough Dempsey. 7 Jul 2003. 22 Aug. 2012 <http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/624/>.

Kummu, Matti, Philip J. Ward, Hans De Moel, and Olli Varis. "Is Physical Water Scarcity a New Phenomenon? Global Assessment of Water Shortage over the Last Two Millennia." Environmental Research Letters 5.3 (2010): n. pag. IOPscience. 16 Aug. 2010. Web. 22 Aug. 2012. <http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/3/034006/fulltext/>.

Nash, Roderick Frazier. “Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth in the Fourth Millenium.” Environmental History. Published: 15 July 2010. 371-380.

Below is a column I clipped from the Technician today that further explains the importance of water in civilization, and the problems that come with its ever-increasing scarcity.  I apologize for the somewhat awkward appearance of this huge picture shooting out of this blog post, but it was the only way to make the clipping legible.