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The Nations That Will Be Hardest Hit By Water Shortages By 2040
merbs writes: Water access is going to be one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century. As climate change dries out the already dry areas and makes the wet ones wetter, we're poised to see some radical civilizational shifts. For one, a number of densely populated areas will come under serious water stress—which analysts fear will lead to strife, thirst, and even violent conflict. With that in mind, the World Resource Institute has assembled a new report projecting which nations are most likely to be hardest hit by water stress in coming decades—nations like Bahrain, Israel, Palestine, and Spain lead the pack.
If you're gonna divide it up like that the Great Lakes bit of the Midwest should have no shortage, either. The prairie bit of the Midwest is in much bigger trouble because the Oglala Aquifer is being drawn down too much, and the Mississippi is probably gonna be schizo with more evaporation (ie: lots of heat meaning more evaporation, and some years the rain'll come down within the Mississippi valley and they'll have too much, and others it won't and they'll have too little). The Pacific Northwest should also be fine.
I suspect the South, Southwest, and Cali will have the biggest problems.
No idea about the Northeast.
I love how Alaska gets included with the rest of the nation even though we have nothing close to a water shortage with all the glaciers up here. We should have been grouped with Canada.
Did you read the headline? The Nations That Will Be Hardest Hit By Water Shortages By 2040. Unless Alaska has somehow seceded from the union, I don't see how they could group Alaska with Canada.
There are plenty of other US state drought maps that you can use if you really care about a single state's water, but don't complain that a global representation of drought was not local enough for you.
I'm assuming you're talking about desalination. That requires a lot of energy, and there's no way short of a revolution in fusion technology that you could use that to produce enough water for irrigation of any significant amount of stable land. And you're still left with the problem may users of aquifers are suffering; way to much salt.
A succinct change in rain patterns will almost certainly turn land now under cultivation into semi arid lands, without sufficient fresh water to reverse the problem.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Christ will this lying meme ever fucking die?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
By 2040 we should have all that crap sorted out. If there are any shortages, it's because some corrupt bastard is mucking up the works. There is absolutely no longer any technical reason to suffer shortages of any kind anywhere.
It can take a decade or longer to do an environmental review, get permits, and build a large desalination plant (and decades more to build a nuclear plant to power it). Building a dam or large reservoir can take even longer (and still needs time to fill).
While some progress will be made, don't count on the problem being solved in 25 years.
Uh-huh. Here in Australia, we had one of these guys screeching about the perpetual drought Australia was going to be enduring. The government poured billions into building the biggest desalination plant in the country. Then the drought ended, the dams filled, and the desal plant is idling along, producing nothing, but costing half a million a day.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face