Water Shortages Not Getting the Publicity They Deserve
Scientific American, May 2009:
In China the water table under the North China Plain, an area that produces more than half of the country’s wheat and a third of its corn, is falling fast. Overpumping has used up most of the water in a shallow aquifer there, forcing well drillers to turn to the region’s deep aquifer, which is not replenishable. A report by the World Bank foresees “catastrophic consequences for future generations” unless water use and supply can quickly be brought back into balance.
As water tables have fallen and irrigation wells have gone dry, China’s wheat crop, the world’s largest, has declined by 8 percent since it peaked at 123 million tons in 1997. In that same period China’s rice production dropped 4 percent. The world’s most populous nation may soon be importing massive quantities of grain.
But water shortages are even more worrying in India. There the margin between food consumption and survival is more precarious. Millions of irrigation wells have dropped water tables in almost every state. As Fred Pearce reported in New Scientist: Half of India’s traditional hand-dug wells and millions of shallower tube wells have already dried up, bringing a spate of suicides among those who rely on them. Electricity blackouts are reaching epidemic proportions in states where half of the electricity is used to pump water from depths of up to a kilometer [3,300 feet].
A World Bank study reports that 15 percent of India’s food supply is produced by mining groundwater. Stated otherwise, 175 million Indians consume grain produced with water from irrigation wells that will soon be exhausted. The continued shrinking of water supplies could lead to unmanageable food shortages and social conflict.
I get why this catastrophe is under-reported – it is happening in non-Western countries, and the trend is long-term, not the big story of this year. Although this news is worrisome, what bothers me more is how it takes us so much closer to the breakdown of society. In the next few years, it seems clear that food will become a scarcer resource. Experts studying the trend will make the assumption that all other factors will remain the same – wars, diseases, economies. There’s a possibility that they will factor in global warming…
The neglect is regarding the rare events that will definitely happen one day – an asteroid/comet strike or a supervolcano. In out deepest past these substantially reduced the human population. But back then there were plenty of edible resources to go around, and we had far superior survival skills – in those days we were less feeble and pampered.
When you combine our current food crises with a possible catastrophic event circa 2012, it is obvious that food is going to be a valuable commodity. I repeat, buy long-lasting food now – in bulk.
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