Without water, we die.
Water scarcity is real. As someone who lives in the country with the largest supply of freshwater, even I am scared. A future without water is a dead-end. Literally!
Where’s all the water?
71% of the Earth’s surface is water-covered. The oceans carry almost all of this water. Of this 71%, only 0.3% is actually usable by humans. But even some of that water is unattainable. That is because pretty much all of the fresh water on this planet is groundwater or frozen in the glaciers. That leaves us with surface water (lakes and rivers). Rivers account for only 0.49% of that initial 2.5% of freshwater.
The Issue
1 in 3 people do not have access to potable water and if we do not change our habits with water usage, close to 5 billion people will face water water stress by 2025.
Water stressed: when more than a quarter of the region’s water is used
How did we get here?
- Agriculture
Agriculture uses 70% of the water that is currently available. This percentage can be broken down even further into poor irrigation systems, overuse of water for crops, and growing crops in arid land instead of finding an environment that is more suited for harvesting crops. Lastly, the biggest thing is cows!
The feed used for livestock uses an immense amount of water. Plus, as meat lovers continue ordering burgers, this amount will keep increasing— one quarter pounder burger takes 1875 liters of water which is equivalent to more than 1 hot tub 🍔
2. Water Contamination
Since industries do not invest in proper waste management infrastructures, a lot of chemicals from factories and/or agriculture pesticides make their way into the water. This is referred to as runoff. We lose even more water this way since now that water is deemed unpotable.
3. Overusage
I could go on and on about this one! But it’s quite simple.
We do not value water and so we use way too much when we do not need to.
Although only 8% of available water is said to be used for personal use, by lowering the amount of water we use, we can ensure a less water-scarce future.
A few weeks ago, I was working on a “moonshot” project. The goal was to look at problems in this world, and come up with an idea that would solve it by 10x not just 10%! That’s when I first looked into water scarcity.
During my research, I thought to myself…
Why can’t we just use saltwater? 💭
Introducing: Desalination
In simple terms, desalination refers to the process of removing salt from salt water.
Desalination has been tried and tested in 2 ways.
#1 Thermal Osmosis
This is an older technique and is not used anymore. Essentially, the saltwater would get boiled and scientists would capture the steam and turn it into freshwater.
This wasn’t good enough, and so… reverse osmosis came along!
#2 Reverse Osmosis
This technique is being used extensively in the Middle East and North Africa. It does not use heat as opposed to thermal osmosis, which makes it a little bit energy-efficient.
The pros:
- This method of desalination is understood and is backed up by scientific data
- Sources of salt water are almost unlimited (the oceans!)
- Safe — there are areas that are already using desalinated water for personal use
- Not dependant on external factors — all you need is the ocean
Here’s how it works:
The saltwater gets pressurized a LOT and is forced through a membrane which it does not want to go through! This membrane forces the salt ions to break apart from the water molecules.
And voila, you have freshwater 🚰
But there’s a catch!
The process of reverse osmosis produces a by-product, called brine. Brine is a super salty solution. This technique is 50% efficient, since, for each liter of fresh water, they also get 1 liter of brine.
Where does all this brine go?
As of now, the brine makes its way to where all the water accumulates. The ocean! Scientists have said that even though adding this water into the ocean can have bad effects on ecosystems, it is not enough to stop producing water in this form.
Desalination is not the answer.
The more I looked into desalination, the more it became clear that it cannot fix our issue at the root! The root issue for water scarcity isn’t that we don’t have enough water.
It’s that we aren’t allocating the water that we have in the right quantities to the right places.
Desalination is not a solution to water scarcity, it is a option to narrow the gap between water supply and demand — Manzoor Qadir
Why not?
- Not solving the root issue
- It can be up to 25x more expensive (building a plant)
- Brine as a byproduct — only 50% efficient and can harm marine life and accumulate on the ocean floor
- Takes a lot of energy and produces greenhouses gases
It takes 2 kilowatt-hours of energy in order to produce 1 cubic meter of freshwater. Desalination plants take a lot of energy in order to reach the pressurizing points required to break apart the ions between the salt and water molecules.
Desalination is a controversial topic to fixing our water situation. A common theme is that:
It’s difficult to advocate for a new technology that would be using even more energy in times where we need to use less!
Aquifers — the underground supply
97% of the worlds liquid fresh water are found in aquifers. Over decades, continents have been tapping into these aquifers to attain fresh water supply. In fact, close to 1.5 billion people depend on ground water as their primary source of drinking water.
Think about aquifers as a life savings account. They are a great and effective source of water, but once we run out, it’s going to take a long long time to refill them.
Mexico City is a great example of aquifer usage. More than 50% of this area get’s their water using aquifers. However, once these are drained, they will need to find an alternative.
The thought of not having water can be mind-boggling. But it’s going to be a reality soon, if we don’t fix this issue now.
So that’s it? Are we doomed?
Not quite… yet!
Current Solutions
There are 2 very special projects that I recently came across while on a mission to understand water scarcity.
- Whisson Windmill — extracting water from thin air
In a nutshell, this wind turbine is connected to a refrigeration compressor which cools the blades of the turbine. Wind makes these cold blades move and then the water is condensed from the air! This water is then able to be collected.
2. AquaMagic Machine — more portable version of the windmill
This machine pulls air directly from the area surrounding it. Inside the machine, the air is cooled via a refrigerated coil. The air condenses, and the water is collected, purified, and released through a spigot.
Ok.. that’s a lot of water talk.
But you still might be wondering: Water is continuously being recycled, we cannot destroy nor produce water, so who cares right?
Wrong!
The effects of climate change have a role to play. As they always do! 😬
As the Earth heats up, more and more water gets trapped in our atmosphere. That stays in the form of water vapor which is a greenhouse gas. If more water is trapped in our atmosphere, then there’s less on land for us to use.
More significantly, water contamination is drastically reducing the amount of water we can use. Acid rain is another major threat to potable water.
What can we do?
- Switch it up! If you’re not willing to go no meat, instead of a steak, have chicken because it has a much lower water footprint.
- Coffee > Tea. Coffee uses 140 litres of water for one cup, compared to 34L for tea.
- Buy less clothes. Jeans for example use 3028 litres of water!!!
- Eat less processed food. Double win for water consumption and your health!
- Don’t leave the tap running
- Shorter showers
I think you get the gist!
If there is one thing that you take away from this article, I hope it’s that you see the value in water. Water is a finite resource. Without water, we die. The next time you empty your glass of water in the sink without finishing it, think about someone who would have liked the chance to have those sips.
Thank you for reading! If you are interested in this topic and want to talk more feel free to contact me through LinkedIn. Cheers ;)
