Week 3 Assignment Template Sustainable Living Guide Contributions, Part Three of Four: Sustaining Our Water Resources Instructions: Using the term that you have selected from the list provided in the classroom, please complete the following template. Create a minimum of 5 to 7 well-crafted sentences per paragraph. In your response, you are expected to cite and reference, in APA format, at least two outside sources in addition to the class text. The sources must be credible (from experts in the field of study); scholarly sources (published in peer-reviewed academic journals) are strongly encouraged. Delete these instructions before submitting your work to Waypoint. Your Term: Instructions: In the first paragraph; • Thoroughly define your term. • Describe how the term relates to this week’s theme. Provide specific examples. Delete these instructions before submitting your work to Waypoint. [Enter your information here] Instructions: In the second paragraph; • Discuss how the term affects living things and the physical world. • Explain how the term relates to the challenge of achieving environmental sustainability. • Justify if the term represents an obstacle to that goal, or perhaps a technique or technology that might promote it? Again, be as specific as possible and include examples to support your explanations. [Enter your information here] Instructions: In the third paragraph; • Determine at least two specific actions that we can take in order to promote environmental sustainability in relation to this term. Be creative and concrete with your suggestions. For example, you might recommend supporting a particular organization that is active in the field of your term. • Consider actions that might be taken 1) on the individual level, in our daily lives; 2) at the community level; 3) via national and global organizations working on behalf of the environmental issues associated with your term; and/or 4) at the ballot box (though voting). [Enter your information here] After proofreading your assignment carefully, please submit a copy of your work to Waypoint. Introduction When viewed from space, Earth is a watery planet. Indeed, oceans comprise about 71 percent of our planet's surface, while glistening glaciers cover 10 percent of the continents. Yet water shortages are a serious problem. This contradiction is due, in part, to the fact that the abundance of ocean water is too salty for human use, and much of the remaining freshwater is polluted, used up, or distributed unequally. As summed up by one prominent ecologist, "The wet places in the world don't need the runoff because they are wet. The dry places of the world need the runoff to irrigate the land, but they don't get much" (Pimm, 2001). Globally, humans extract about one-sixth of the total volume of all the rivers in the world. But the amount of consumption varies from place to place. In British Columbia, for example, winter snowfall and summer rain are abundant and the population density is low. Thus, rivers carry copious amounts of water into the oceans. On the other hand, in the southwest desert of the United States, precipitation is low and the population is much larger, so the consumption of freshwater outpaces its replenishment. As a result, the Colorado River, which meanders through the American southwest and into Mexico, no longer reaches the ocean. Instead, much of the water from the once free-flowing Colorado River is diverted and extracted to irrigate the parched landscape. And whereas in the past water from the Colorado River used to reach communities in Mexico, today those areas only receive a trickle of salty river water. Massive diversion and use of water from the Colorado River on the American side of the U.S.Mexico border is a source of tension between the two countries. And while this tension is serious enough, it involves two relatively friendly allies and trading partners. The situation is significantly different in more volatile regions of the world such as the Middle East where conflicts over water are potentially explosive. The Jordan River, for example, is a source of water for Jordan, Syria, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. Water is a critically scarce resource in this region and population growth, climate change, and water pollution and misuse are making it even scarcer. As a result, water issues have and will continue to feature as a key factor in regional political negotiations and disputes. Given its importance, it is remarkable how poorly managed water is as a resource. We regularly use rivers, lakes, and the oceans as a dumping ground for our wastes and allow surface contaminants such as spilled oil and agricultural chemicals to pollute critical groundwater supplies. Water is diverted and pumped hundreds of miles (requiring significant levels of energy use) to irrigate golf courses and suburban lawns in the middle of deserts. And, as we'll see in the next chapter, massive quantities of water are necessary to extract energy from unconventional oil and gas deposits. Where our water comes from, how we use (and abuse) this critical resource, and what we can do to better conserve and protect it is the focus of this chapter. We already know that a growing human population and the demands of feeding the world are putting increased pressure on water resources. We'll see in Chapter 7 that climate change could also worsen already-critical water supply conditions in some regions. As a result, everything we can do now to minimize water contamination, pollution, and overuse is essential. The Working Toward Solutions section at the end of this chapter thus provides a wealth of advice and information on how we can do just that. 5.1 Water Supply and the Hydrological Cycle The hydrological or water cycle describes the movement and storage of water between different spheres on the planet. At any point in time water may be stored in the oceans, glaciers, and ice and snow; as groundwater; in rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and wetlands; and lastly, as water vapor in the atmosphere. Water is constantly moving between these spheres through the processes of evaporation, precipitation, infiltration, melting, and groundwater flow. Only 3 percent of the Earth's water is freshwater (not salty), and close to 70 percent of that freshwater is frozen in ice caps at the poles and in glaciers. Therefore, we are ultimately dependent for our survival on a small but critical portion of the overall planetary water cycle. In the first part of this Ecological Society of America (ESA) report written by ecologist Robert B. Jackson and co-authors, we see just how massive and important the water cycle actually is. Beyond our obvious uses of freshwater for drinking, bathing, and washing, our society makes use of water for many other purposes. Scientists break these uses down into categories known as consumptive and instream. Consumptive (or extractive) uses involve removing water from its source for drinking or other residential purposes as well as for industrial use and irrigation of crops. Instream (or nonextractive) uses involve deriving benefits from water without removing it from where it is located. Examples of instream uses include transportation/navigation, recreation, habitat for fish and other aquatic life, hydroelectric power generation, and waste processing. The sustainable management of water supplies frequently involves tradeoffs and/or conflicts between consumptive and instream uses. This was dramatically illustrated in recent years in the Pacific Northwest when irrigation water from rivers was denied to farmers in order to maintain water levels needed for salmon populations. In addition to surface water management there are also concerns over how groundwater resources are managed. Hydrologists (scientists who study the movement and distribution of water) make a distinction between renewable and nonrenewable groundwater. Over three-fourths of all underground water is considered nonrenewable since it is found in aquifers that formed tens of thousands of years ago. Since these aquifers are not replenished by rainfall on the surface, over-extraction of water from them is not sustainable. A primary example of nonrenewable groundwater or a "fossil water" source is the Ogallala Aquifer in the central United States where rapid pumping of water to irrigate Midwestern farmland has lowered the level of the aquifer significantly. In contrast, renewable groundwater refers to aquifers that are regularly replenished by rainfall or snowmelt. Even though groundwater resources are renewable, they can be seriously mismanaged. Examples include when water is removed faster than it is replenished and when pollutants or waste products from the surface are allowed to seep into it. Renewable groundwater deposits can be thought of as bank accounts. As long as we do not withdraw more than is going in, we can maintain a positive balance. Nonrenewable groundwater is better thought of as a one-time inheritance or windfall that we can make use of but only at the expense of lower future balances. A better understanding of the water cycle gained in this section sets the stage for a discussion of water use and misuse in subsequent sections of the chapter. It also will help you understand why water pollution is such a critical environmental issue and why efforts to promote water conservation are so important. By R.B. Jackson, et al. Life on earth depends on the continuous flow of materials through the air, water, soil, and food webs of the biosphere. The movement of water through the hydrological cycle comprises the largest of these flows, delivering an estimated 110,000 cubic kilometers (km3) of water to the land each year as snow and rainfall [a cubic kilometer is an area 1,000 meters wide by 1,000 meters deep by 1,000 meters high, or roughly 10 football fields across, deep, and tall]. Solar energy drives the hydrological cycle, vaporizing water from the surface of oceans, lakes, and rivers as well as from soils and plants (evapotranspiration). Water vapor rises into the atmosphere where it cools, condenses, and eventually rains down anew. This renewable freshwater supply sustains life on the land, in estuaries, and in the freshwater ecosystems of the Earth. Figure 5.1: Hydrological cycle The hydrological, or water, cycle collects and distributes Earth's fixed supply of water through the processes of evaporation, evapotranspiration, and precipitation. Based on information from U.S.G.S. Retrieved from http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html Consider This What is the difference between extractive and non-extractive or instream uses of freshwater? How might these different uses come into conflict with one another? Renewable fresh water provides many services essential to human health and well being, including water for drinking, industrial production, and irrigation, and the production of fish, waterfowl, and shellfish. Fresh water also provides many benefits while it remains in its channels (nonextractive or instream benefits), including flood control, transportation, recreation, waste processing, hydroelectric power, and habitat for aquatic plants and animals. Some benefits, such as irrigation and hydroelectric power, can be achieved only by damming, diverting, or creating other major changes to natural water flows. Such changes often diminish or preclude other instream benefits of fresh water, such as providing habitat for aquatic life or maintaining suitable water quality for human use. The ecological, social, and economic benefits that freshwater systems provide, and the trade-offs between consumptive and instream values, will change dramatically in the coming century. Already, over the past one hundred years, both the amount of water humans withdraw worldwide and the land area under irrigation have risen exponentially. Despite this greatly increased consumption, the basic water needs of many people in the world are not being met. Currently, 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.8 billion lack basic sanitation services. These deprivations cause approximately 250 million cases of water-related diseases and five to ten million deaths each year. Also, current unmet needs limit our ability to adapt to future changes in water supplies and distribution. Many current systems designed to provide water in relatively stable climatic conditions may be ill prepared to adapt to future changes in climate, consumption, and population. While a global perspective on water withdrawals is important for ensuring sustainable water use, it is insufficient for regional and local stability. How fresh water is managed in particular basins and in individual watersheds is the key to sustainable water management. The Global Water Cycle Surface Water Most of the earth is covered by water, more than one billion km3 of it. The vast majority of that water, however, is in forms unavailable to land-based or freshwater ecosystems. Less than 3 percent is fresh enough to drink or to irrigate crops, and of that total, more than two-thirds is locked in glaciers and ice caps. Freshwater lakes and rivers hold 100,000 km3 globally, less than one ten-thousandth of all water on earth. Water vapor in the atmosphere exerts an important influence on climate and on the water cycle, even though only 15,000 km3 of water is typically held in the atmosphere at any time. This tiny fraction, however, is vital for the biosphere. Water vapor is the most important of the so-called greenhouse gases (others include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane) that warm the earth by trapping heat in the atmosphere. Water vapor contributes approximately two-thirds of the total warming that greenhouse gases supply. Without these gases, the mean surface temperature of the earth would be well below freezing, and liquid water would be absent over much of the planet. Equally important for life, atmospheric water turns over every ten days or so as water vapor condenses and rains to earth and the heat of the sun evaporates new supplies of vapor from the liquid reservoirs on earth. Figure 5.2: Earth's water distribution Although Earth is considered a "watery planet," only about 3 percent of Earth's water is fresh, and much of that is locked up in ice caps and glaciers. Since life on Earth depends on this limited supply of water, it is critical to learn to use it in a sustainable manner. Based on information from U.S.G.S. Retrieved from http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/mearthall.html. Solar energy typically evaporates about 425,000 km3 of ocean water each year. Most of this water rains back directly to the oceans, but approximately 10 percent falls on land. If this were the only source of rainfall, average precipitation across the earth's land surfaces would be only 25 centimeters (cm) a year, a value typical for deserts or semi-arid regions. Instead, a second, larger source of water is recycled from plants and the soil through evapotranspiration. The water vapor from this source creates a direct feedback between the land surface and regional climate. The cycling of other materials such as carbon and nitrogen (biogeochemical cycling) is strongly coupled to this water flux through the patterns of plant growth and microbial decomposition, and this coupling creates additional feedbacks between vegetation and climate. This second source of recycled water contributes two-thirds of the 70 cm of precipitation that falls over land each year. Taken together, these two sources account for the 110,000 km3 of renewable freshwater available each year for terrestrial, freshwater, and estuarine ecosystems. Because the amount of rain that falls on land is greater than the amount of water that evaporates from it, the extra 40,000 km3 of water returns to the oceans, primarily via rivers and underground aquifers. A number of factors affect how much of this water is available for human use on its journey to the oceans. These factors include whether the precipitation falls as rain or snow, the timing of precipitation relative to patterns of seasonal temperature and sunlight, and the regional topography. For example, in many mountain regions, most precipitation falls as snow during winter, and spring snowmelt causes peak flows that flood major river systems. In some tropical regions, monsoons rather than snowmelt create seasonal flooding. In other regions, excess precipitation percolates into the soil to recharge ground water or is stored in wetlands. Widespread loss of wetlands and floodplains, however, reduces their ability to absorb these high flows and speeds the runoff of excess nutrients and contaminants to estuaries and other coastal environments. More than half of all wetlands in the U. S. have already been drained, dredged, filled, or planted. Available water is not evenly distributed globally. Two thirds of all precipitation falls in the tropics (between 30 degrees N and 30 degree S latitude) due to greater solar radiation and evaporation there. Daily evaporation from the oceans ranges from 0.4 cm at the equator to less than 0.1 cm at the poles. Typically, tropical regions also have larger runoff. Roughly half of the precipitation that falls in rainforests becomes runoff, while in the deserts low rainfall and high evaporation rates combine to greatly reduce runoff. The Amazon, for example, carries 15 percent of all water returning to the global oceans. In contrast, the Colorado River drainage, which is one-tenth the size of the Amazon, has a historic annual runoff 300 times smaller. Similar variation occurs at continental scales. Average runoff in Australia is only 4 cm per year, eight times less than in North America and orders of magnitude less than in tropical South America. As a result of these and many other disparities, freshwater availability varies dramatically worldwide. Ground Water Hydrologic Cycle Watch this video to learn more about the hydrologic cycle. 00:00 00:00 Approximately 99 percent of all liquid fresh water is in underground aquifers, and at least a quarter of the world's population draws its water from these groundwater supplies. Estimates of the global water cycle generally treat rates of groundwater inflow and outflow as if they were balanced. In reality, however, this resource is being depleted globally. Ground water typically turns over more slowly than most other water pools, often in hundreds to tens of thousands of years, although the range in turnover rates is large. Indeed, a majority of ground water is not actively turning over or being recharged from the earth's surface at all. Instead, it is "fossil water," a relic of wetter ancient climatic conditions and melting Pleistocene ice sheets that accumulated over tens of thousands of years. Once used, it cannot readily be replenished. The distinction between renewable and nonrenewable ground water is critical for water management and policy. More than three-quarters of underground water is non-renewable, meaning it has a replenishment period of centuries or more. The High Plains or Ogallala Aquifer that underlies half a million km2 of the central United States is arguably the largest aquifer in the world. The availability of turbine pumps and relatively inexpensive energy has spurred the drilling of about 200,000 wells into the aquifer since the 1940s, making the Ogallala the primary water source for a fifth of irrigated U.S. farmland. The extent of irrigated cropland in the region peaked around 1980 at 5.6 million hectares and at pumping rates of about 6 trillion gallons of water a year. That has since declined somewhat due to groundwater depletion and socioeconomic changes in the region. However, the average thickness of the Ogallala declined by more than 5 percent across a fifth of its area in the 1980s alone. In contrast, renewable aquifers depend on current rainfall for refilling and so are vulnerable to changes in the quantity and quality of recharge water. For example, groundwater pumping of the Edwards Aquifer, which supplies much of central Texas with drinking water, has increased four-fold since the 1930s and at times now exceeds annual recharge rates. Increased water withdrawal makes aquifers more susceptible to drought and other changes in weather and to contamination from pollutants and wastes that percolate into the ground water. Depletion of ground water can also cause land subsidence [to sink] and compaction [consolidation of sediments] of the porous sand, gravel, or rock of the aquifer, permanently reducing its capacity to store water. The Central Valley of California has lost about 25 km3 of storage in this way, a capacity equal to more than 40 percent of the combined storage capacity of all human-made reservoirs in the state. Renewable ground water and surface waters have commonly been viewed separately, both scientifically and legally. This view is changing, however, as studies in streams, rivers, reservoirs, wetlands, and estuaries show the importance of interactions between renewable surface and ground waters for water supply, water quality, and aquatic habitats. Where extraction of ground water exceeds recharge rates, the result is lower water tables. In summer, when a high water table is needed to sustain minimum flows in rivers and streams, low groundwater levels can decrease low-flow rates, reduce perennial stream habitat, increase summer stream temperatures, and impair water quality. Trout and salmon species select areas of groundwater upwelling in streams to moderate extreme seasonal temperatures and to keep their eggs from overheating or freezing. Dynamic exchange of surface and ground waters alters the dissolved oxygen and nutrient concentrations of streams and dilutes concentrations of dissolved contaminants such as pesticides and volatile organic compounds. Because of such links, human development of either ground water or surface water often affects the quantity and quality of the other. Figure 5.3: Interaction between groundwater and surface water In Earth's hydrological cycle, precipitation not only sustains ecosystems and human activity, but also recharges shallow and deep aquifers. The remaining water returns to the atmosphere via evapotranspiration. Human industrial, agricultural, and municipal users are using groundwater faster than it can be recharged, resulting in depletion of this precious natural resource. A major cause of freshwater depletion is that most groundwater is not actively recharged. Instead, it is "fossil" water—a relic of wetter ancient climatic conditions. Based on information from U.S.G.S. Retrieved from http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1139/htdocs/natural_processes_of_ground.htm#lakes. The links between surface and ground waters are especially important in regions with low rainfall. Arid and semi-arid regions cover a third of the earth's lands and hold a fifth of the global population. Ground water is the primary source of water for drinking and irrigation in these regions, which possess many of the world's largest aquifers. Limited recharge makes such aquifers highly susceptible to groundwater depletion. For example, exploitation of the Northern Sahara Basin Aquifer in the 1990s was almost twice the rate of replenishment, and many springs associated with this aquifer are drying up. For nonrenewable groundwater sources, discussing sustainable or appropriate rates of extraction is difficult. As with deposits of coal and oil, almost any extraction is non-sustainable. Important questions for society include at what rate groundwater pumping should be allowed, for what purpose, and who if anyone will safeguard the needs of future generations. In the Ogallala Aquifer, for example, the water may be gone in as little as a century. Adapted from Jackson, R.B., et al. (2001). Water in a Changing World. Ecological Society of America, Issues in Ecology, Number 9. Retrieved from http://www.esa.org/esa/wpcontent/uploads/2013/03/issue9.pdf. Used with permission. 5.2 Water Availability and Demand In this continuation of the Ecological Society of America report by ecologist Robert B. Jackson and coauthors, we see how human demand and use accounts for over half of all accessible freshwater runoff on the planet. Water demand is broken into three broad categories: agricultural, industrial/commercial, and residential. Of these three, water use for agriculture accounts for the greatest share. Because freshwater supplies are not distributed evenly around the planet, and also because population and the demand for water continues to increase, meeting our need for water in all applications is a growing challenge. Even as the global population continues to rise to nine billion or more, we are already seeing a shortage of freshwater in some regions of the world. Over one billion people currently lack access to adequate and safe water supplies, and as many as three billion lack access to proper sanitation. As a result, an estimated five million preventable deaths occur each year from water-related diseases that mostly claim the lives of young children. In some cases, problems arise from an absolute scarcity of water, whereas in others there is an absence of adequate infrastructure to meet a population's water requirements. Theoretically, a region's water demand can be met sustainably by using renewable groundwater supplies, exploiting river flow, or capturing and storing floodwater and snowmelt behind dams in reservoirs. However, evidence from around the world suggests that in many places these resources are not being managed sustainably. For example, the over-pumping of water for irrigation results in groundwater depletion in key regions of India, China, and North America. Diversion of surface/river waters for irrigation and other consumptive uses alters entire ecosystems, such as the Colorado River. An even more dramatic example is the Aral Sea Basin in Asia where large-scale diversions have caused the depth of one large lake to drop 50 feet in 40 years while the remaining water has become saltier than the ocean. Lastly, dams and reservoirs can address some water needs in some places, but these projects are expensive and can create their own ecological and social problems. With climate change and population growth already worsening water supply and management issues, the prevention of water pollution and promotion of water conservation practices takes on an even more urgent priority. By R.B. Jackson, et al. Growth in global population and water consumption will place additional pressure on freshwater resources in the coming century. Currently, the water cycle makes available several times more fresh water each year than is needed to sustain the world's population of six billion people [now over seven billion]. However, the distribution of this water, both geographically and temporally, is not well matched to human needs. The large river flows of the Amazon and Zaire-Congo basins and the tier of undeveloped rivers in the northern tundra and taiga regions of Eurasia and North America are largely inaccessible for human uses and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. Together, these remote rivers account for nearly one-fifth of total global runoff. Approximately half of the global renewable water supply runs rapidly toward the sea in floods. In managed river systems of North America and many other regions, spring floodwaters from snowmelt are captured in reservoirs for later use. In tropical regions, a substantial share of annual runoff occurs during monsoon flooding. In Asia, for example, 80 percent of runoff occurs between May and October. Although this floodwater provides a variety of ecological services, including sustaining wetlands, it is not a practical supply for irrigation, industry, and household uses that need water to be delivered in controlled quantities at specific times. Thus, there are two categories of accessible runoff available to meet human water needs: (1) renewable ground water and base river flow, and (2) floodwater that is captured and stored in reservoirs. Base river flows and renewable ground water account for about 27 percent of global runoff each year. As long as the rate of water withdrawals does not exceed replenishment by rainfall, these sources can serve as a sustainable supply. Unfortunately, in many places, including many important agricultural regions, ground water is chronically overpumped. Data for China, India, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, and the United States indicate that groundwater depletion in key basins totals at least 160 km3 per year. Groundwater depletion is particularly serious in India, and some water experts have warned that as much as one-fourth of India's grain harvest could be jeopardized by overpumping. The fact that global groundwater extractions remain well below the global recharge rate does not mean that groundwater use in a specific region is sustainable. What matters is how water is used and managed in particular basins, and there are many regions of the world where current demand outstrips supply. Figure 5.4: Actual global renewable water resources per capita Actual global renewable water resources per capita based on 2009 data. Based on data from U.N. Water, Federated Water Monitoring System and Key Water Indicator Portal. Retrieved from http://www.unwater.org/statistics_KWIP.html Turning floodwater into an accessible supply generally requires dams and reservoirs to capture, store, and control the water. Worldwide, there are approximately 40,000 large dams more than 15 meters (m) high and twenty times as many smaller dams. Collectively, the world's reservoirs can hold an estimated 6,600 km3 of water each year. Considerably less water than this is delivered to farms, industries, and cities, however, because dams and reservoirs are also used to generate electricity, control floods, and enhance river navigation. Finally, after subtracting remote rivers from base flows and discounting reservoir capacity allocated to functions other than water supply, the total accessible runoff available for human use is about 12,500 km3 per year, or 31 percent of total annual runoff. Human Water Use People use fresh water for many purposes. There are three broad categories of extractive uses for which people withdraw water from its natural channel or basin: irrigation of crops, industrial and commercial activities, and residential life. In many cases, water can be used more than once after it is withdrawn. Water that is used but not physically consumed—to wash dishes, for example—may be used again, although it sometimes requires further treatment. In contrast, about half the water diverted for irrigation is lost through evapotranspiration and is unavailable for further use. Excessive rates of consumptive water use can have extreme effects on local and regional ecosystems. In the Aral Sea Basin [in central Asia between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan], for example, large river diversions for irrigation have caused the lake to shrink more than three quarters in volume and fifteen meters in depth over the past four decades. The shoreline of the Aral Sea has retreated 120 km in places, and a commercial fishery that once landed 45,000 tonnes [tons] a year and employed 60,000 people has disappeared. Water quality has also declined. Salinity [saltiness] tripled from 1960 to 1990, and the water that remains is now saltier than the oceans. For purposes of water management, the difference between use and consumption is important. Global withdrawals of water (including evaporative losses from reservoirs) total 4,430 km3 a year, and 52 percent of that is consumed. Water use or withdrawal also modifies the quality of the remaining water in a basin or channel by increasing concentration of major ions, nutrients, or contaminants. As the example of the Aral Sea showed, this effect can limit the suitability of water for future use. In addition to water removed from natural systems, human enterprises depend heavily on water that remains in its natural channels. These instream uses include dilution of pollutants, recreation, navigation, maintenance of healthy estuaries, sustenance of fisheries, and protection of biodiversity. Because instream uses of water vary by region and season, it is difficult to estimate their global total. If pollution dilution is taken as a rough global proxy, however, instream uses may total 2,350 km3 a year, a conservative estimate that does not incorporate all instream uses. Combining this instream use figure with estimated global withdrawals puts the total at 6,780 km3 a year. That means humans currently are appropriating 54 percent of the accessible freshwater runoff of the planet. Consider This Read this short blog post by global water expert Peter Gleick on the subject of desalination. What are some of the major pros and cons of this approach to increasing water supply? Is desalination a practical solution to meeting global water demand in the foreseeable future? Global water demands continue to rise with increases in human population and consumption. Increases in accessible runoff, however, can only be accomplished by construction of new dams or desalination of seawater. Today, desalination accounts for less than 0.2 percent of global water use and, because of its high energy requirements, it is likely to remain a minor part of global supply for the foreseeable future. Dams continue to bring more water under human control, but the pace of construction has slowed. In developed countries, many of the best sites have already been used. Rising economic, environmental, and social costs—including habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and displacement of human communities—are making further dam construction increasingly difficult. About 260 new large dams now come on line worldwide each year compared with 1,000 a year between the 1950s and 1970s. Moreover, at least 180 dams in the United States were removed in the past decade based on evaluations of safety, environmental impact, and obsolescence. The destruction of the Edwards Dam on Maine's Kennebec River in 1999 marked the first time that federal regulators ruled that the environmental benefits of removing a dam outweighed the economic benefits of operating it. As a result of these and other trends, accessible runoff is unlikely to increase by more than 5–10 percent over the next 30 years. During the same period, the earth's population is projected to grow by approximately 35 percent. The demands on freshwater systems will continue to grow throughout the coming century. [. . .] Adapted from Jackson, R. B., et al. (2001). Water in a Changing World. Ecological Society of America, Issues in Ecology, Number 9. Retrieved from http://www.esa.org/esa/wpcontent/uploads/2013/03/issue9.pdf. Used by permission. Apply Your Knowledge Start by taking this "Freshwater 101 Quiz" developed by National Geographic http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/freshwater-101-quiz/. How well did you score? What questions/answers surprised you the most? Next, view two short films about the Colorado River (http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/ContestedW and http://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/3play_processed_94/climate-change-and-thecolorado-river/). How has upstream use of Colorado River waters impacted downstream communities and ecosystems? How do you think scientists might design a research experiment to test the ecological impacts of large-scale water diversion projects? 5.3 Water Shortages In this article by Don Hinrichsen of the Worldwatch Institute, we see that the overuse of freshwater supplies has a significant impact on wildlife, ecosystems, and human societies. For example, diversion of freshwater for agriculture, industry, and residential uses leaves less water for other species to drink. Use of rivers and other water bodies as dumping grounds for waste reduces both the quality and quantity of water for other uses. And in some regions described in this reading, lack of clean drinking water has already reached crisis proportions. Specific areas of concern discussed in the following paper include the loss of wetlands, the destruction of aquatic habitats, and the creation of pollution that ends up in various water sources. Wetlands (areas of land with permanently or seasonally saturated soils) play a critically important role in maintaining freshwater supplies for two reasons—they slow moving water down and improve storage, and they help to remove impurities and increase water quality. Wetland loss due to development and other factors thus impacts both water quantity and quality. As was discussed in the last chapter, the loss of habitat is the major contributor to biodiversity loss, and this holds true for aquatic as well as terrestrial habitats. Large percentages of the world's fish, mussels, amphibians, and mollusks are endangered or have already been driven to extinction due to modification of water flows or large-scale diversions of water. In addition to habitat alteration and destruction, water pollution also takes a toll on biodiversity and supplies of freshwater for human use. Up to a certain point, moving water can assimilate some human waste and pollution. But the limit has been far exceeded and the consequences have been serious impairment of surface waters. Many regions of the world are already experiencing, or will soon experience, serious challenges in meeting their water needs. China, reviewed in this article, increasingly has to grapple with the consumptive/extractive versus instream/non-extractive tradeoffs discussed in section 5.1. The Aral Sea Basin in Asia and Lake Chad in Africa offer cautionary examples of how bad the situation can get when water is mismanaged. Because increasing water supplies bumps up against the limits of the hydrological cycle, perhaps the best way to meet the water needs of a growing human population—while leaving enough water for other species—is to become much more efficient in our use. Such a "blue revolution" in the efficiency of water use will be touched on briefly in this article and in more detail in the next section. Since this article was first written roughly 10 years ago, some of the problems it describes have arguably gotten worse. For example, China's Yangtze River dolphin is now believed to be "functionally extinct," and the fate of the Yangtze alligator is nearly as bleak. Likewise, the degradation and disappearance of the Aral Sea has continued apace, and that once great body of water could disappear entirely by 2020. These are just a few of the reminders of why efforts to conserve and protect water resources are so critical. By Don Hinrichsen © lubilub/iStock/Thinkstock Millions of people around the world are experiencing the effects of the world's deepening freshwater crisis, often walking great distances to gather drinking water for their families. On March 20, 2000, a group of monkeys, driven mad with thirst, clashed with desperate villagers over drinking water in a small outpost in northern Kenya near the border with Sudan. The Pan African News Agency reported that eight monkeys were killed and 10 villagers injured in what was described as a "fierce two-hour melee." The fight erupted when relief workers arrived and began dispensing water from a tanker truck. Locals claimed that a prolonged drought had forced animals to roam out of their natural habitats to seek life-giving water in human settlements. The monkeys were later identified as generally harmless vervets. The world's deepening freshwater crisis—currently affecting 2.3 billion people—has already pitted farmers against city dwellers, industry against agriculture, water-rich state against water-poor state, county against county, neighbor against neighbor. Inter-species rivalry over water, such as the incident in northern Kenya, stands to become more commonplace in the near future. "The water needs of wildlife are often the first to be sacrificed and last to be considered," says Karin Krchnak, population and environment program manager at the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) in Washington, D.C. "We ignore the fact that working to ensure healthy freshwater ecosystems for wildlife would mean healthy waters for all." As more and more water is withdrawn from rivers, streams, lakes and aquifers to feed thirsty fields and the voracious needs of industry and escalating urban demands, there is often little left over for aquatic ecosystems and the wealth of plants and animals they support. The mounting competition for freshwater resources is undermining development prospects in many areas of the world, while at the same time taking an increasing toll on natural systems, according to Krchnak, who co-authored an NWF report on population, wildlife, and water. In effect, humanity is waging an undeclared water war with nature. "There will be no winners in this war, only losers," warns Krchnak. By undermining the water needs of wildlife we are not just undermining other species, we are threatening the human prospect as well. Pulling Apart the Pipes Currently, humans expropriate 54 percent of all available freshwater from rivers, lakes, streams, and shallow aquifers. During the 20th century water use increased at double the rate of population growth: while the global population tripled, water use per capita increased by six times. Projected levels of population growth in the next 25 years alone are expected to increase the human take of available freshwater to 70 percent, according to water expert Sandra Postel, Director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Massachusetts. And if per capita water consumption continues to rise at its current rate, by 2025 that share could significantly exceed 70 percent. Consider This What are some reasons that might explain why human water use increased at double the rate of population growth during the 20th century? If humans already expropriate 54 percent of all available freshwater, how might further increases in population affect global water supplies and availability for other species? As a global average, most freshwater withdrawals—69 percent—are used for agriculture, while industry accounts for 23 percent and municipal use (drinking water, bathing and cleaning, and watering plants and grass) just 8 percent. The past century of human development—the spread of large-scale agriculture, the rapid growth of industrial development, the construction of tens of thousands of large dams, and the growing sprawl of cities—has profoundly altered the Earth's hydrological cycle. Countless rivers, streams, floodplains, and wetlands have been dammed, diverted, polluted, and filled. These components of the hydrological cycle, which function as the Earth's plumbing system, are being disconnected and plundered, piece by piece. This fragmentation has been so extensive that freshwater ecosystems are perhaps the most severely endangered today. Wetland Loss Consider the plight of wetlands—swamps, marshes, fens, bogs, estuaries, and tidal flats. Globally, the world has lost half of its wetlands, with most of the destruction having taken place over the past half century. The loss of these productive ecosystems is doubly harmful to the environment: wetlands not only store water and transport nutrients, but also act as natural filters, soaking up and diluting pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural runoff, heavy metals from mining and industrial spills, and raw sewage from human settlements. In some areas of Europe, such as Germany and France, 80 percent of all wetlands have been destroyed. The United States has lost 50 percent of its wetlands since colonial times. More than 100 million hectares of U.S. wetlands (247 million acres) have been filled, dredged, or channeled—an area greater than the size of California, Nevada, and Oregon combined. In California alone, more than 90 percent of wetlands have been tilled under, paved over, or otherwise destroyed. Biodiversity Loss Destruction of habitat is the largest cause of biodiversity loss in almost every ecosystem, from wetlands and estuaries to prairies and forests. But biologists have found that the brunt of current plant and animal extinctions has fallen disproportionately on those species dependent on freshwater and related habitats. One fifth of the world's freshwater fish—2,000 of the 10,000 species identified so far—are endangered, vulnerable, or extinct. In North America, the continent most studied, 67 percent of all mussels, 51 percent of crayfish, 40 percent of amphibians, 37 percent of fish, and 75 percent of all freshwater mollusks are rare, imperiled, or already gone. The global decline in amphibian populations may be the aquatic equivalent of the canary in the coal mine. Data are scarce for many species, but more than half of the amphibians studied in Western Europe, North America, and South America are in a rapid decline. Around the world, more than 1,000 bird species are close to extinction, and many of these are particularly dependent on wetlands and other aquatic habitats. In Mexico's Sonora Desert, for instance, agriculture has siphoned off 97 percent of the region's water resources, reducing the migratory bird population by more than half, from 233,000 in 1970 to fewer than 100,000 today. Water Pollution Pollution is also exacting a significant toll on freshwater and marine organisms. For instance, scientists studying beluga whales swimming in the contaminated St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Atlantic Ocean to North America's Great Lakes, found that the cetaceans have dangerously high levels of PCBs in their blubber. In fact the contamination is so severe that under Canadian law the whales actually qualify as toxic waste. Waterways everywhere are used as sewers and waste receptacles. Exactly how much waste ends up in freshwater systems and coastal waters is not known. However, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that every year roughly 450 cubic kilometers (99 million gallons) of wastewater (untreated or only partially treated) is discharged into rivers, lakes, and coastal areas. To dilute and transport this amount of waste requires at least 6,000 cubic kilometers (1.32 billion gallons) of clean water. The FAO estimates that if current trends continue, within 40 years the world's entire stable river flow would be needed just to dilute and transport humanity's wastes. Apply Your Knowledge While you might have a good sense of your own direct water use through drinking, bathing, and washing clothes and dishes, you might be surprised by how much water it takes to produce many items that you consume on a regular basis. The concept of "embedded," "embodied," or "virtual" water helps us to better understand the actual water requirements of our consumption patterns. For this exercise, start by reviewing these two web pages from National Geographic: The Global Water Footprint of Key Crops The Hidden Water We Use On the global water footprint page, click on some of the food items on the left side of the graphic to see where the water comes from to grow the crops you consume regularly. On the hidden water page, click on some of the food and other items in the graphic to learn more about how much water it takes to produce that product. Compare a variety of products to see how much water is involved in their production. Lastly, try out this Water Footprint Calculator to estimate how much water you use and what aspects of your life are responsible for most of your water consumption. Where is most of your water consumption taking place? What steps are recommended to help you reduce your water footprint? A Program Motivated by Demographic Goals, Tempered by Experience The competition between people and wildlife for water is intensifying in many of the most biodiverse regions of the world. Of the 25 biodiversity hotspots designated by Conservation International, 10 are located in water-short regions. These regions—including Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, the western United States, the Mediterranean Basin, southern Africa, and southwestern China—are home to an extremely high number of endemic and threatened species. Population pressures and overuse of resources, combined with critical water shortages, threaten to push these diverse and vital ecosystems over the brink. In a number of cases, the point of no return has already been reached. China China, home to 22 percent of the world's population, is already experiencing serious water shortages that threaten both people and wildlife. According to China's former environment minister, Qu Geping, China's freshwater supplies are capable of sustainably supporting no more than 650 million people—half its current population. To compensate for the tremendous shortfall, China is draining its rivers dry and mining ancient aquifers that take thousands of years to recharge. As a result, the country has completely overwhelmed its freshwater ecosystems. Even in the water-rich Yangtze River Basin, water demands from farms, industry, and a giant population have polluted and degraded freshwater and riparian ecosystems. The Yangtze is one of the longest rivers in Asia, winding 6,300 kilometers on its way to the Yellow Sea. This massive watershed is home to around 400 million people, one-third of the total population of China. But the population density is high, averaging 200 people per square kilometer. As the river, sluggish with sediment and laced with agricultural, industrial, and municipal wastes, nears its wide delta, population densities soar to over 350 people per square kilometer. The effects of the country's intense water demands, mostly for agriculture, can be seen in the dry lake beds on the Gianghan Plain. In 1950 this ecologically rich area supported over 1,000 lakes. Within three decades, new dams and irrigation canals had siphoned off so much water that only 300 lakes were left. China's water demands have taken a huge toll on the country's wildlife. Studies carried out in the Yangtze's middle and lower reaches show that in natural lakes and wetlands still connected to the river, the number of fish species averages 100. In lakes and wetlands cut off and marooned from the river because of diversions and drainage, no more than 30 survive. Populations of three of the Yangtze's largest and most productive fisheries—the silver, bighead, and grass carp—have dropped by half since the 1950s. Mammals and reptiles are in similar straits. The Yangtze's shrinking and polluted waters are home to the most endangered dolphin in the world—the Yangtze River dolphin, or Baiji. There are only around 100 of these very rare freshwater dolphins left in the wild, but biologists predict they will be gone in a decade. And if any survive, their fate will be sealed when the massive Three Gorges Dam is completed in 2013 [the dam was considered completed and fully functional by 2012, but even before that the Yangtze River dolphin was declared "functionally extinct" in 2006]. The dam is expected to decrease water flows downstream, exacerbate the effects of pollution, and reduce the number of prey species that the dolphins eat. Likewise, the Yangtze's Chinese alligators, which live mostly in a small stretch near the river's swollen, silt-laden mouth, are not expected to survive the next 10 years. In recent years, the alligator population has dropped to between 800 and 1,000 [and is now believed to be below 150]. China's water demands have taken a huge toll on the country's wildlife. The massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River delivers electricity and agricultural water throughout China but has left little for species such as the Yangtze River dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer), which was declared "functionally extinct" in 2006. The Aral Sea The most striking example of human water demands destroying an ecosystem is the nearly complete annihilation of the 64,500 square kilometer Aral Sea, located in Central Asia between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Once the fourth largest inland sea in the world, it has contracted by half its size and lost three-quarters of its volume since the 1960s, when its two feeder rivers—the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya—were diverted to irrigate cotton fields and rice paddies. The water diversions have also deprived the region's lakes and wetlands of their life source. At the Aral Sea's northern end in Kazakhstan, the lakes of the Syr Darya delta shrank from about 500 square kilometers to 40 square kilometers between 1960 and 1980. By 1995, more than 50 lakes in the Amu Darya delta had dried up and the surrounding wetlands had withered from 550,000 hectares to less than 20,000 hectares. The unique tugay forests—dense thickets of small shrubs, grasses, sedges and reeds—that once covered 13,000 square kilometers around the fringes of the sea have been decimated. By 1999 less than 1,000 square kilometers of fragmented and isolated forest remained. The habitat destruction has dramatically reduced the number of mammals that used to flourish around the Aral Sea: of 173 species found in 1960, only 38 remained in 1990. Though the ruined deltas still attract waterfowl and other wetland species, the number of migrant and nesting birds has declined from 500 species to fewer than 285 today. Plant life has been hard hit by the increase in soil salinity, aridity, and heat. Forty years ago, botanists had identified 1,200 species of flowering plants, including 29 endemic [native only to that area] species. Today, the endemics have vanished. The number of plant species that can survive the increasingly harsh climate is a fraction of the original number. Most experts agree that the sea itself may very well disappear entirely within two decades [now predicted as possible by 2020]. But the region's freshwater habitats and related communities of plants and animals have already been consigned to oblivion. Lake Chad Lake Chad, too, has shrunk—to one-tenth of its former size. In 1960, with a surface area of 25,000 square kilometers, it was the second-largest lake in Africa. When last surveyed, it was down to only 2,000 square kilometers. And here, too, massive water withdrawals from the watershed to feed irrigated agriculture have reduced the amount of water flowing into the lake to a trickle, especially during the dry season. Lake Chad is wedged between four nations: populous Nigeria to the southwest, Niger on the northwest shore, Chad to the northeast, and Cameroon on a small section of the south shore. Nigeria has the largest population in Africa, with 130 million inhabitants. Population-growth rates in these countries average 3 percent a year, enough to double human numbers in one generation. And population growth rates in the regions around the lake are even higher than the national averages. People gravitate to this area because the lake and its rivers are the only sources of surface water for agricultural production in an otherwise dry and increasingly desertified region. Although water has been flowing into the lake from its rivers over the past decade, the lake is still in serious ecological trouble. The lake's fisheries have more or less collapsed from over-exploitation and loss of aquatic habitats as its waters have been drained away. Though some 40 commercially valuable species remain, their populations are too small to be harvested in commercial quantities. Only one species—the mudfish—remains in viable populations. As the lake has withered, it has been unable to provide suitable habitat for a host of other species. All large carnivores, such as lions and leopards, have been exterminated by hunting and habitat loss. Other large animals, such as rhinos and hippopotamuses, are found in greatly reduced numbers in isolated, small populations. Bird life still thrives around the lake, but the variety and numbers of breeding pairs have dropped significantly over the past 40 years. A Blue Revolution As these examples illustrate, the challenge for the world community is to launch a "blue revolution" that will help governments and communities manage water resources on a more sustainable basis for all users. "We not only have to regulate supplies of freshwater better, we need to reduce the demand side of the equation," says Swedish hydrologist Malin Falkenmark, a senior scientist with Sweden's Natural Science Research Council. "We need to ask how much water is available and how best can we use it, not how much do we need and where do we get it." Increasingly, where we get it from is at the expense of aquatic ecosystems. If blindly meeting demand precipitated, in large measure, the world's current water crisis, reducing demand and matching supplies with end uses will help get us back on track to a more equitable water future for everyone. While serious water initiatives were launched in the wake of the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa, not one of them addressed the water needs of ecosystems. There is an important lesson here: just as animals cannot thrive when disconnected from their habitats, neither can humanity live disconnected from the water cycle and the natural systems that have evolved to maintain it. It is not a matter of "either or" says NWF's Krchnak. "We have no real choices here. Either we as a species live within the limits of the water cycle and utilize it rationally, or we could end up in constant competition with each other and with nature over remaining supplies. Ultimately, if nature loses, we lose." Consider This Define the concept of a "blue revolution" and speculate about reasons the topic of ecosystem destruction—rather than human consumption—has been left out of summit talks and water initiatives. By allowing natural systems to die, we may be threatening our own future. After all, there is a growing consensus that natural ecosystems have immense, almost incalculable value. Robert Costanza, a resource economist at the University of Maryland, has estimated the global value of freshwater wetlands, including related riverine and lake systems, at close to $5 trillion a year. This figure is based on their value as flood regulators, waste treatment plants, and wildlife habitats, as well as for fisheries production and recreation. The nightmarish scenarios envisioned for a water-starved not too distant future should be enough to compel action at all levels. The water needs of people and wildlife are inextricably bound together. Unfortunately, it will probably take more incidents like the one in northern Kenya before we learn to share water resources, balancing the needs of nature with the needs of humanity. Adapted from Hinrichsen, D. (2003, January/February). A Human Thirst. World Watch. Retrieved from http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EP161A.pdf 5.4 Water Conservation and Management There is a growing consensus among water experts that the "supply-side" approaches to water management that dominated the 20th century—building dams, diversion systems, and other infrastructure to increase supply—will need to give way to a new approach in the 21st century. This new approach is more focused on the "demand side" and emphasizes water conservation and making the most of the water supplies we already have. In the following article by Elizabeth Royte of National Geographic Magazine, we see that some places, such as Albuquerque, New Mexico, have already embraced a demand-side approach with great success. Further progress in conserving water and reducing demand, especially in the agricultural sector, will depend as much or more on appropriate policy and economic incentives as on technological breakthroughs. The situation that faced Albuquerque was similar to the bank account analogy used in the introduction to section 5.1. The city was withdrawing water from its underground aquifer faster than it was being replenished by rainfall and snowmelt, and so it was on track to run out of water from that source. Demand-side, or "soft-path" approaches have reduced Albuquerque's residential per capita water use from 140 to 80 gallons per day, but it is still using water faster than it can be replenished. In order to bring water use under control, attention has now shifted to agriculture, the largest consumer of water in many regions. In addition to helping farmers adopt water-saving technologies, such as precision irrigation, there is also a recognition that water policy needs to change, especially with regards to pricing this resource. Currently, the price of water for agriculture is heavily subsidized throughout the U.S. southwest, and so farmers have relatively little incentive to conserve. Unless greater progress can be made in bringing water demand under control and improving the efficiency of water use in agriculture and other sectors, we may be forced to resort to desalination (removal of salt and other minerals from water) and/or greater reuse of wastewater. Both of these options can be expensive and energy-intensive, but in some regions they may represent the only option available to meeting water demand. For more information on some of the water conservation techniques and approaches described in this article, see the Working Toward Solutions section at the end of this chapter. Likewise, the Additional Resources section at the end of the chapter features other case studies of communities and groups around the world finding ways to prevent water pollution and make more efficient use of this resource. By Elizabeth Royte Living in the high desert of northern New Mexico, Louise Pape bathes three times a week, military style: wet body, turn off water, soap up, rinse, get out. She reuses her drinking cup for days without washing it, and she saves her dishwater for plants and unheated shower water to flush the toilet. While most Americans use around a hundred gallons of water a day, Pape uses just about ten. "I conserve water because I feel the planet is dying, and I don't want to be part of the problem," she says. Consider This Describe the primary differences between a supply-side or hard-path approach to water management and a demand-side or soft-path approach. You don't have to be as committed an environmentalist as Pape, who edits a climate-change news service, to realize that the days of cheap and abundant water are drawing to an end. But the planet is a long way from dying of thirst. "It's inevitable that we'll solve our water problems," says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, a nonpartisan environmental think tank. "The trick is how much pain we can avoid on that path to where we want to be." As Gleick sees it, we've got two ways to go forward. Hard-path solutions focus almost exclusively on ways to develop new supplies of water, such as supersize dams, aqueducts, and pipelines that deliver water over huge distances. Gleick leans toward the soft path: a comprehensive approach that includes conservation and efficiency, community-scale infrastructure, protection of aquatic ecosystems, management at the level of watersheds instead of political boundaries, and smart economics. The Case of Albuquerque Until the mid-1980s, the city of Albuquerque, some 60 miles southwest of Pape's home in Santa Fe, was blissfully unaware that it needed to follow any path at all. Hydrogeologists believed the city sat atop an underground reservoir "as big as Lake Superior," says Katherine Yuhas, conservation director of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority. The culture was geared toward greenery: Realtors attracted potential home buyers from moist regions with landscaping as verdant as Vermont; building codes required lawns. But then studies revealed startling news: Albuquerque's aquifer was nowhere near the size it once appeared to be and was being pumped out faster than rainfall and snowmelt could replenish it. Duly alarmed, the city shifted into high gear. It revised its water-use codes, paid homeowners to take classes on reducing outdoor watering, and offered rebates to anyone who installed low-flow fixtures or a drip-irrigation system or removed a lawn. Today Albuquerque is a striving example of soft-path parsimony. Across the sprawling city, a growing number of residents and building owners funnel rainwater into barrels and underground cisterns. Almost everyone in town uses low-flow toilets and showerheads. These efforts have shrunk Albuquerque's domestic per capita water use from 140 gallons a day to around 80. The city "anticipates another 50 years of water, economically and sustainably supplied, even with a growing population," says Yuhas. After that there's the option to desalinate brackish water nearby and new technologies such as dual plumbing: one set of pipes to deliver highly treated potable water and another to recycle less treated water for flushing toilets, watering lawns, and other nonpotable uses. Albuquerque already uses wastewater—from treatment plants and from industry—to irrigate golf courses and parks. Other municipalities have gone a step further and collect wastewater— yes, from toilets—filter and disinfect it to the nth degree, then pump it back into the local aquifer for drinking. There are similar schemes worldwide: Beijing reportedly aims to reuse 100 percent of its wastewater by 2013. [While there is no evidence that Beijing has come close to achieving this ambitious goal, they are a global leader in municipal reuse systems.] Industry, too, is adapting to less certain water supplies. Frito-Lay will soon recycle almost all its water at its plant in Casa Grande, Arizona; Gatorade and Coca-Cola remove the dust and carton lint from beverage containers using air instead of water; and Google recycles its own water to cool its giant data centers. Water Demand for Agriculture This is all reassuring—until you remember that irrigated agriculture accounts for 70 percent of the fresh water used by humans. Given this outsize proportion, it seems obvious that farmers have the greatest potential to conserve water. Standing on the banks of a trickling ditch, Don Bustos—sunbaked and thickly bearded—demonstrates how he irrigates 130,000 dollars' worth of produce on 3.5 acres north of Santa Fe. "I lift this board"—he points to a plank that forms a gate in the ditch—"and I shove in a stick to hold it up." Gravity does the rest. For 400 years farmers in the arid Southwest have relied on such acequias—networks of communityoperated ditches—to irrigate their crops. The acequia diverts water from a main stream, then further apportions the flow through sluiceways into smaller streams and onto fields. "Without the acequia, there would be no farm," Bustos says. He's also built a water tank with drip-irrigation hoses that feed some of the acequia water directly to the plant roots—and cut his water use by two-thirds as a consequence. © Maxvis/iStock/Thinkstock Agricultural advances in water efficiency, such as drip irrigation, have helped to conserve water in the face of increasing stress on the world's freshwater supplies. Elsewhere, forward-thinking farmers have replaced flood irrigation with micro-sprinkler systems, laser leveled their fields, and installed soil-moisture monitors to better time irrigation. In California, says the Pacific Institute, such improvements could potentially conserve roughly five million acre-feet of water a year, enough to meet the household needs of 37 million people. Unfortunately, most farmers lack the incentive to install efficient but expensive irrigation systems: Government subsidies keep farm water cheap. But experts agree that more realistic water pricing and improved water management will significantly cut agricultural water use. One way or another, the developed world will get the water it needs, if not the water it wants. We can find new supplies—by desalinating water, recycling water, capturing and filtering storm water from paved surfaces, and redistributing water rights among agriculture, industry, and cities. Cheaply and quickly we can slash demand—with conservation and efficiency measures, with higher rates for water wasters, and with better management policies. Hope for the Future? What about the rest of the world? In places lacerated by poverty, the problem is often a lack of infrastructure—wells, pipes, pollution controls, and systems for disinfecting water. Though politically challenging to execute, the solutions are fairly straightforward: investment in appropriately scaled technology, better governance, community involvement, proper water pricing, and training water users to maintain their systems. In regions facing scarcity because of overpumped aquifers, better management and efficiency will stretch the last drops. Farmers in southern India, for example, save fuel in addition to water when they switch from flood to drip irrigation; other communities landscape their hillsides to retain rainwater and replenish aquifers. Still, the time is coming when some farmers—the largest water users and the lowest ratepayers—may find themselves rethinking what, or if, they should plant in the first place. In the parched Murray-Darling Basin of Australia, farmers are already packing up and moving out. It is hardly the first time that water scarcity has created environmental refugees. A thousand years ago, less than 120 miles from modern-day Santa Fe, the inhabitants of Chaco Canyon built rock-lined ditches, headgates, and dams to manage runoff from their enormous watershed. Then, starting around A.D. 1130, a prolonged drought set in. Water scarcity may not have been the only cause, but within a few decades, Chaco Canyon had been abandoned. We hardly need reminding that nature can be unforgiving: We learn to live within her increasingly unpredictable means, we move elsewhere, or we perish. Adapted from Royte, E. (2010, April). The Last Drop. National Geographic Magazine, 217(4), 172–177. Retrieved from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2010/04/last-drop/royte-text. Apply Your Knowledge Consider issues of water supply and demand in your own community. Start by determining where your water actually originates. Does it come from a municipal source or your own well? Is it from surface water (such as reservoirs) or groundwater deposits? How far does it travel to get to your home or apartment? Most municipal water authorities provide a lot of this information on the Web. Next, what do you think are the major users of water in your community? Is it agriculture? Industry? Golf courses and residential watering? How much is water an "issue" in your community? Is water expensive and in short supply? Lastly, draw up a basic management plan for what your community might do, like Albuquerque, to reduce its water use. How would you attempt to implement this plan? Who would you focus your efforts on and how might you gain their cooperation? 5.5 Case History—Water, Conflict, and Cooperation in the Middle East One region of the world facing significant water challenges is the Middle East, and in that region the case of the Jordan River is of particular interest. The waters of the Jordan are shared by Israel, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinian territories. Given the history of conflict in the region and increased demands for freshwater from residents, it's not surprising that the Jordan River has come under significant stress. In this article by Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, we learn of the challenges facing the Jordan River and a unique approach to restoring it that combines environmental efforts with initiatives to build trust among usually distrustful factions. The Jordan River, just like the Colorado River (and other once-great rivers), barely reaches the sea anymore. Consumptive/extractive uses are so great that the river has been reduced in some months to barely a trickle. Complicating the management and restoration of the Jordan is the political situation in the region, with the different countries involved essentially diverting water for their own use as well as attempting to prevent its use by others. Against this difficult backdrop an effort is underway to help restore the Jordan. What's most interesting about this effort is that it combines an environmental objective with initiatives to help build trust and promote peace among groups that have traditionally been at odds. Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian communities are working together to conserve water and educate themselves about the importance of the river. In addition, the groups involved are working at the national level to improve water policy and reduce large-scale diversions of water from the river. Such an approach—referred to as environmental peacemaking—is based on the recognition that dependence on the environment and the services it provides can be a unifying point. After all, regardless of what nationality or religious group you belong to, everyone needs access to freshwater. While this case study offers some hope of the possibility of shared solutions to addressing the water crisis, it may not be enough. Climate change is already worsening water shortages in some regions of the world, and population growth combined with water pollution and overuse is further exacerbating this problem. As such, serious conflicts over water supply and distribution are likely to grow in the decades ahead. In this sense, environmental issues and national security concerns become clearly connected, and efforts at water conservation and pollution prevention take on enormous political importance. By Gidon Bromberg The River Jordan has flowed freely for thousands of years, its name immortalized in the Hebrew Bible and its lush upper reaches once known as the gates to the Garden of Eden. This summer [2008], however, large sections of this storied river were reduced to a trickle, the water so low that grass fires spread freely across the Jordan Valley between Israel and Jordan. Steadily drained over the past half century to quench the thirst and grow the crops of the people of Israel, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinian territories, the Jordan River has been dealt a deathblow recently by a severe drought and by yet another tributary dam, this one on the Jordanian-Syrian border. age fotostock/SuperStock The Jordan River has been a source of multiple conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, including the 1967 "Six-Day War" (one element of dispute involved diversion of the Jordan River) and the 2006 Lebanon War (Israel had been angered by Lebanon's diversion of Wazzani River water to border villages). In recent years, all that saved much of the lower Jordan from becoming a desiccated channel has been the agricultural runoff, raw human sewage, diverted saline spring water, and contaminated wastes from fish farms that have been pumped into it. But now even that effluent barely restores a flow to the Jordan, the river where Jesus Christ was baptized and which has long been a vital stopover on the migratory pathway of tens of millions of birds en route between Europe and Africa. The degradation highlights the failure of the governments of Israel, Jordan, and Syria to take serious steps to rescue a 205-mile river that has deep meaning for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Although these governments have paid lip service to bringing the Jordan back to life, they have in fact encouraged water withdrawals—mainly for irrigated agriculture—that have led to its near-disappearance. This ecological catastrophe has been overshadowed by decades of war and regional conflict. Indeed, for the past 60 years, much of the river—a fenced and mined border zone between Israel and Jordan—has been off-limits, enabling its draining to take place out of sight and out of mind. The governments of the region have blamed the conflict for their lack of action, but as the citizens' group I help run—EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East—has shown, international cooperation to resuscitate the Jordan is possible. Working with local communities, my Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli colleagues are striving to restore water to the river. The goal of our group—the region's only multinational organization—is to become a catalyst for comprehensive water policy reform. We are aided by an unexpected phenomenon: In a region where people often feel helpless after years of turmoil, our efforts at environmental peacemaking offer an opportunity for constructive action, dialogue, and cooperation. Exploitation of the Jordan River The story of the depletion of the Jordan is hardly unique. Around the world, human activity has pulled so much water out of great rivers—the Indus on the Indian subcontinent, the Yellow in China, the Rio Grande along the U.S.–Mexico border—that they now either disappear before reaching the sea or contain long sections that seasonally run dry. The underlying reason is always the same: We view rivers not as valuable in themselves, supplying vital "ecosystem services" to people, fish, animals, and plants, but rather as merely tools for humans and economic development. That was certainly the case in the early days of the formation of Israel, when the dream of nation building was to "make the desert bloom." In the 1950s, that dream was married to advanced engineering as Israel's National Water Carrier diverted about a third of the original flow of the Jordan to Tel Aviv and the farms of the Negev Desert. Subsequent Israeli water withdrawals, coupled with scores of dam and canal projects on tributaries in Syria and Jordan, claimed the rest of the river's water. For ages, the Sea of Galilee has fed the longest stretch of the river, the lower Jordan, but today not a drop of fresh water flows out of the sea into the river. The largest tributary to the lower Jordan, the Yarmouk River, has similarly had all its waters diverted by Syria and Jordan. As these insults to the Jordan have accumulated, water disputes in this rain-starved region have grown ever more contentious, with unequal water allocations—coupled with violence and occupation—becoming a powerful human rights issue and an additional source of animosity. Just as the Jordan is hitting bottom, another troubling development is unfolding. The World Bank has selected two consulting firms to study the feasibility of pumping water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, the terminus of the Jordan River, via a massive and staggeringly expensive pipeline. Because of the Jordan's catastrophic reduction in flows—from a historic level of 1.3 billion cubic meters annually to only about 70,000 cubic meters now—the surface area of the Dead Sea has shrunk by a third in the past 50 years and the level of the sea, the world's lowest point, is dropping by a meter a year. Rather than tackling the root problem destroying the river and draining the Dead Sea—which would require restoring flows to the Jordan—the World Bank, supported by Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, is throwing its weight behind a huge public works project that could easily cost $5 billion to $10 billion and will likely have damaging ecological consequences. A Different Approach The so-called Red-Dead project would be rendered obsolete if nations bordering the Jordan would begin putting water back into the river. But with regional governments taking little action, Friends of the Earth Middle East has stepped in to push for measures that will gradually return water to the Jordan. Our approach is two-pronged: The first is a program called Good Water Neighbors, in which we work with nine river communities—four Jordanian, three Israeli, and two Palestinian, all located on opposite banks—to conserve water and educate people about the value of the Jordan and its wetlands. The second, and more challenging, task is to persuade national leaders to make the tough choices that will revitalize the Jordan: charging more for water, removing large subsidies to agricultural water users, and adopting large-scale conservation programs. Our group has made progress because we are a grassroots, multi-national effort with Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian staff members working inside their own communities while simultaneously reaching out to nationalities across the river. One of our core beliefs is that the region will never achieve a lasting peace until we begin talking directly to each other. Tackling a crucial environmental challenge that affects us all is a good start. In each community, a staff person from Friends of the Earth Middle East, who is a local resident, has pushed an ambitious agenda with adults and youth. The teams have begun water conservation and rainwater harvesting programs in schools and other buildings. They have publicized the plight of the river and have gathered 15,000 signatures on petitions that were presented to elected officials. They have persuaded Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian mayors from both banks to sign memoranda of understanding, committing themselves to help bring the river back to life. Recently, members of the different communities have been visiting each other to see their towns and water conservation programs. Last year, officials in Jordan and Israel agreed to create a Peace Park at the confluence of the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers that will include a bird sanctuary, eco-lodges, a visitor's center, and nature and heritage trails. And given the river's importance in religious history, we're enlisting representatives of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths in the campaign. Rehabilitating the Jordan has become much more than an environmental crusade; it's now an international project backed by school children, community leaders, and scientists. Consider This Given the scale and magnitude of the problems facing the Jordan River, are the efforts of Friends of the Earth Middle East going to have any significant impact? Are there other things this group and others should be doing than those described in this reading? These are small steps, but set against the backdrop of widespread hostility—and the absence of similar regional initiatives—our programs take on greater meaning. What is needed now is action from the Israeli and Jordanian governments, hopefully to be joined in the near future by Syria. They could start by creating an international commission to manage the Jordan, similar to the commissions that govern North America's Great Lakes and Europe's Rhine River. Regional governments and international donor states, including the U.S., also need to take a hard look at the proposed Red Sea–Dead Sea canal, a potential boondoggle that could cause major problems, including mixing the marine water of the Red Sea with the fresh water of the Dead Sea, which could change the composition of the Dead Sea and cause algal blooms. The wiser, and far cheaper, alternative is to revive the Dead Sea by restoring its main source of water—the Jordan River. For decades now, conflict and human arrogance have been responsible for the demise of the Jordan. Cooperation in search of peace and sustainability is the only hope to restore it to health. Adapted from Bromberg, G. (2008). Will the Jordan River Keep on Flowing? Yale Environment 360. Copyright © 2008 Gidon Bromberg. Retrieved from http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2064. Reprinted by permission of the author. Summary & Resources Chapter Summary Of all the water on this blue planet of ours, less than 1 percent is accessible and fresh enough to be used. What is remarkable is that, due to the hydrological cycle, this tiny sliver of the overall water resource can be constantly recycled and purified and reused provided we utilize this resource sustainably. As was suggested earlier in this chapter, we can think of this available, renewable water supply as a bank account that's replenished on a regular basis. If we choose to live within our means and withdraw water at a rate that's equal to or less than the rate of replenishment, we will not go broke. While helpful, the bank account analogy oversimplifies the situation a little and requires us to consider a few other points. First, we can think of the renewable freshwater supply as a single account, but in reality this resource is distributed in different locations throughout the world and in vastly different quantities. Some remote and sparsely populated regions of the world receive massive amounts of freshwater in the form of rain and snow, while other densely populated regions receive very little. In other words, some regions have very little cash coming in but a lot of expenses to meet while others have a lot of cash but few expenses. Second, we need to budget some of the funds in our freshwater account for other species and for critical ecosystem functions. Were humans to appropriate all of the world's available freshwater supplies, we would trigger an ecological collapse that would ripple through our own economy and society. As it stands, we currently appropriate over half of the global freshwater supply, and this already has detrimental impacts on other species. Third, some regions of the world find themselves with a type of ecological inheritance in the form of groundwater aquifers created over thousands of years ago. Because these ancient aquifers are not being replenished, "fossil water" is nonrenewable; nevertheless, they have still been tapped and overpumped in many regions. For most of the 20th century, our approach to water management has been to find ways to divert more funds into the freshwater account. We have dammed rivers, created large-scale diversion projects, overpumped from aquifers, and essentially replumbed large sections of the global water cycle. With population still growing and global climate change already worsening water issues in some areas, there is now recognition that for all of these efforts there is still only so much fresh water to work with—and that in many regions withdrawals from the account exceed deposits. As a result, greater attention is being paid to demand-side or soft-path approaches that focus on getting our water expenditures under control. If more funds cannot be added to our global water account, then we'll need to learn to make use of what is available far more efficiently. Just as some regions of the world have relied on nonrenewable "fossil water" to meet some or all of their water needs, we currently rely on nonrenewable "fossil fuels" to meet the bulk of our energy needs. The next chapter will examine the ways in which we use these fossil fuels and other nonrenewable minerals and the implications of our dependence on them. Working Toward Solutions Because the water cycle does not recognize or respect national or political boundaries, managing water as a shared global resource presents a serious challenge. According to journalist Fred Pearce (2012), more than 40 percent of the world's population lives in river basins that cross international borders, and many of the world's great rivers flow through multiple countries. Yet there are few successful cases of water sharing or management agreements between nations. Instead, there seem to be more and more cases of upstream countries threatening to dam or otherwise alter river flows in ways that could damage or disrupt water supplies to downstream communities. A United Nations treaty designed to address this problem, the 1997 Convention on the Non-Navigable Uses of International Watercourses, does not yet have enough signatories to come into force. In addition to the legal, political, and diplomatic efforts to improve global water management, there are many organizations working on the ground at the local level to address issues of water shortages, water pollution, and sanitation. Among the most prominent of these organizations are: Water.org—http://water.org/ World Water Council—http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/ Global Water—http://www.globalwater.org/ Global Water Partnership—http://www.gwp.org/ UN Water—http://www.unwater.org/ International Rivers—http://www.internationalrivers.org/ Many of these organizations work directly with communities in water-scarce regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America to help them secure safe and reliable water supplies. They generally favor solutions that are low-cost, locally managed, and sustainable, rather than trying to impose expensive, top-down, and highly technical approaches. The importance of these efforts is illustrated in this short, four-minute video from the Circle of Blue network (http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2009/world/video-noreason/). At the national level, water quality in the United Stateshas benefited tremendously since passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972. The Clean Water Act sets standards and limits on the amount of pollutants that can be discharged into rivers, lakes, and other waterways. Many in the environmental community would argue that no other single piece of environmental legislation has had as big of an impact on the quality of our lives and health than the Clean Water Act. You can learn more about the Clean Water Act and its importance in maintaining our water quality here and here. While water quality issues are being effectively addressed through the national Clean Water Act, water quantity and management issues still make for heated controversies in some areas of the United States. Nowhere is this more so than in the U.S. southwest where limited water supplies and rising populations have set up conflicts between competing water users. A number of organizations in the United States are working to settle these conflicts and improve water management practices, including: American Rivers—http://www.amrivers.org/ River Network—http://www.rivernetwork.org/ The Nature Conservancy—http://www.nature.org/ The Pacific Institute—http://www.pacinst.org/ Growing Blue—http://growingblue.com/ There are also many organizations working at the local level to address issues of water quality and management, including an entire network of groups known as Riverkeepers or Waterkeepers (http://www.waterkeeper.org/). Likewise, many local and municipal water authorities are active in taking steps to protect their water supplies and ensure an adequate supply of clean water for their customers. One of the best examples of this is the efforts of New York City. Most of the city's drinking water originates from reservoirs located over 100 miles away in the Catskill region of upstate New York. When agriculture and land development practices upstate began to degrade water quality in those reservoirs, the city was faced with the prospect of spending billions of dollars on water treatment systems to ensure water quality. Instead, working with local, state, and federal government agencies as well as environmental and community groups, the city opted to spend significantly less money on "source protection" efforts. These efforts are designed to protect water quality in the first place, rather than building expensive water treatment systems after water quality has already been degraded. You can learn more about New York City's efforts and source protection programs in other parts of the country here: http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/drinkingwater/sourcewater/protection/casestudies/index.cfm http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/drinkingwater/sourcewater/protection/casestudies/upload/SourceWater-Case-Study-NY-NY-City-7-Upstate-Counties.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/index.shtml http://growingblue.com/case-studies/freshwater-for-the-big-apple/ At an individual level there are a number of things you can do to reduce your own water footprint, conserve water, and become more educated about local, national, and global water issues. Start by reviewing this list of 10 things you should know about water (http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2009/world/infographic-ten-things-you-should-know-aboutwater/). Next, review these sites that provide information on the most common ways water is wasted and techniques for conserving this critical resource: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=top-10-water-wasters http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fresh-water-conservation http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/ freshwater/top-ten/ Lastly, you can find out more about water and how to get involved in solving water problems in your own community or around the world by visiting these pages: http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/home http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/ environment/freshwater/ http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/ environment/freshwater/resources/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=get-involved-in-fresh-water-conservation/ http://www.alexandracousteau.org/ http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/ http://www.internationalrivers.org/world-rivers-review/world-rivers-review-%E2%80%93-december2012-focus-on-citizen-science Key Ideas The hydrological cycle or water cycle is the continuous movement of water on, above, and below the surface of the Earth. While roughly 80 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water, only a tiny fraction of this water is fresh enough and available for human use. Because freshwater resources are distributed unevenly across the Earth's surface, millions of people worldwide lack access to adequate water supplies. Between five and ten million people, mostly children, die from water-related diseases each year. Groundwater, or water found below the Earth's surface, is a critical source of freshwater for billions of people. However, not all groundwater deposits are renewable or recharged from surface infiltration, and over-pumping and pollution of groundwater supplies is a growing problem worldwide. Human water use is typically broken into extractive or non-extractive categories. Extractive uses include water consumed directly for agricultural, commercial/industrial, or residential purposes. Non-extractive or instream uses include water for navigation, fisheries, recreation, dilution of pollutants, and protection of biodiversity. Humans currently expropriate or use over half of all available freshwater from rivers, lakes, streams, and aquifers, leaving less than half for other species and ecosystem functions. Roughly two-thirds of this consumption is used for agriculture. Overuse of water, pollution, and destruction of wetland ecosystems is already putting water supply at risk in places like China, the Aral Sea Basin, Lake Chad in Africa, and the American southwest. Supply-side or hard-path approaches to water management involve developing new supplies of freshwater through dams, pipelines, and other projects. In contrast, demand-side or soft-path approaches involve making more efficient use of and conserving the water supplies we already have. The Jordan River is one of many rivers around the world that suffers from overuse, pollution, and habitat alteration. Because it is located in a region of limited water supplies and political instability, its management is a potential source of conflict between nations. Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions In essence, all of the water that is currently on the planet is all that there ever was and all there ever will be. Since water is "recycled" through the hydrological or global water cycle, it would seem that we could never "run out" of water or encounter freshwater shortages. Based on what you have learned in this chapter, how can you explain the concern that so many water experts have over future supplies of fresh water? What specific forms of water are these experts most worried about, and what human activities and actions are the greatest source of their concern? The construction of dams is one way to capture and store water for future use, a feature that is especially important in parts of the world where rainfall is irregular and highly seasonal. However, the construction of dams can be expensive, and dams can alter aquatic ecosystems and displace human populations. Suppose you were asked to lead a research team charged with completing an environmental and social impact assessment of a proposed dam project on a river in your community. What kinds of information would you want to start compiling in order to complete this assessment? What sorts of costs and benefits would be the focus of your analysis? What kinds of groups might you encounter who would tend to be in favor of or opposed to this project? What is the connection between wetland loss and water supply? Why are wetlands important in maintaining both water quantity and water quality? The examples of water management in China, the Aral Sea, and the Lake Chad region all tell a similar story—overuse and over-exploitation of water supplies for short-term economic development followed by potentially catastrophic changes to aquatic ecosystems on which people depend. Are there other alternatives to this type of development that might avoid these catastrophic outcomes? Or are we doomed to only learn after we have made mistakes? Considering the high percentage of water use (70 percent) attributed to agriculture, what solutions need to be implemented for farmers to better conserve water? What possible ideas do the Albuquerque example and the Jordan study offer about government responsibility and participation in this effort? To what extent do you agree with the approach taken by Friends of the Earth Middle East to use people's common dependence on freshwater supplies as a way to bridge their differences over religion or politics? Could this approach be used in other regions or with other resources? Key Terms Click on each key term to see the definition. aquifer An underground bed or layer of porous rock, sediment, or soil that yields water. desalination The removal of salt and other minerals from seawater to make it suitable for human consumption and/or industrial use. evapotranspiration The process by which water is transferred from land to the atmosphere through evaporation, or the process of water converting to water vapor, from the soil and other surfaces and by transpiration, or the process of giving off water vapor, from the leaves of plants. hydrological cycle The continuous movement of water on, above, and below the surface of the Earth; also known as the water cycle. semi-arid region A region characterized by low annual rainfall that is subject to frequent and prolonged droughts. water table The uppermost level of an aquifer, below which the ground is saturated with water. Additional Resources If you would like more information about the topics presented in this chapter, click here. References: Bensel, T., & Turk, J. (2014). Contemporary environmental issues (2nd ed.). Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu
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