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.

Comments

Alaska

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Alaska

[NicBenjamin]

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.

Re:Alaska

[hawguy]

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.

Re:That's messed up

[Anonymous Coward]

some corrupt bastard is mucking up the works.

Why would you think they would be any fewer in 2040?

Re:That's messed up

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:That's messed up

[hawguy]

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.

Re:That's messed up

[kenwd0elq]

Any major change in rain patterns will likely cause water shortages in SOME places and water surpluses in others.The desert Southwest of the United States was probably fertile and green 700 years ago; after all, the Anasazi had a civilization of SOME sort then, and there hasn't been any water around in the last few hundred. Everything goes in cycles; don't expect that every change will be a bad one.

Re:That's messed up

[fustakrakich]

I'm assuming you're talking about desalination.

There is that. The bigger issue is transportation. There's plenty of water, just not where we need it at the moment. And we have to restore contaminated water. Time to build some big-ass, nuclear powered tunnel boring machines, and pipe it around like oil, gas, and battery acid. And after bailing out the bankers, I don't want hear anybody crying that we don't have the money. There's plenty of that also, just not where we need it at the moment...

Re:That's messed up

[MightyMartian]

And what if that rainfall change leads to greater rainfall on one side of a national border and far leads arable conditions on the other? Imagine of large swathes of the Midwest are rendered unsuitable for large scale agriculture, because rainbelts have moved into Canada. Suddenly the United States' food security is in a foreign country's hands.

There are serious geopolitical ramifications of male changes in rainfall patterns.

Re:That's messed up

[MightyMartian]

Read about the water wars in California and neighboring states when the Colorado River was tapped to turn desert into oasis. Any jurisdiction that imagines it is just going to wholesale grab another jurisdiction's water is likely in for a rude surprise. Now imagine if those jurisdictions are in different nations.

More Fearmongering

[LordLucless]

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.

Re:More Fearmongering

[barc0001]

Weather *is* cyclical you know, and with climate change some places are going to be hit with even more aggressive patterns.

Or there could be other problems brewing. I'm not sure what the water table usage in Australia is, have you looked into it? It's one of those things that can be really bad when the water runs out but nobody thinks about because it's out of sight, out of mind. Just look at California - they've been drawing way more out of the aquifers than can possibly be replenished for decades and it's causing the actual ground to sink. One day not too far off those aquifers will be dry and then their entire agricultural sector will be screwed.

Re:More Fearmongering

[LordLucless]

Some rural areas might rely on aquifers, but the vast majority of Australia relies on man-made dams. I *know* weather is cyclical - as does everyone who's lived in Australia for more than a decade. Poems have been written about the juxtaposition of our "droughts and flooding rains". That's why I get cynical when people start screaming that the sky is falling, because we're in a part of the cycle they're not enjoying.