{"id":6112,"date":"2011-10-26T10:47:17","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T14:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=6112"},"modified":"2011-10-26T10:47:17","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T14:47:17","slug":"imagining-a-smarter-water-future-in-worlds-water-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2011\/10\/26\/imagining-a-smarter-water-future-in-worlds-water-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagining a smarter water future in World\u2019s Water 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA Communications Officer<\/em><\/p>\n

\"map<\/a><\/p>\n

Unequal wealth<\/strong>. Worldmapper.org contorts the shapes of world territories to reflect the relative proportions of the world\u2019s freshwater resources<\/a> found within their bounds. \u00a9 Copyright SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).<\/h6>\n

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How much water do humans use? And how much water do ecosystems need? At the heart of water management research are simple questions that we can\u2019t answer, said Peter Gleick, McArthur fellow and president and founder of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California, in Washington to talk about his latest biennial report on water, world-wide, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress is very concerned with the budget. I actually think Congress and everybody in the world should be concerned with the five letter word spelled w-a-t-e-r,\u201d said Wilson Center president Jane Harman, introducing Gleick on October 18th. Harmon left her own congressional seat to take up leadership of the Wilson Center\u00a0 in February 2011.<\/p>\n

Released this October by Island Press, The World\u2019s Water Volume 7 dips into fossil fuels and water quality, the boom in Chinese dam development, Australia\u2019s efforts to cope with severe drought, corporate social responsibility, and US water policy reform. It tackles the basic questions of use, supply, and demand, bringing to bear new tools, like satellite observations of groundwater depletion measured through slight changes in gravity<\/a>. It projects future trans-border water conflicts as the world\u2019s climate changes.<\/p>\n

Water has a long history as prize, weapon, and victim of war. Gleick and colleagues chronicle water\u2019s violent history<\/a> with an emphasis on the interdependencies of our essential resources. They also discuss success stories, \u201ccase studies that might help us to move from where we are to where we want to be,\u201d said Gleick, pointing to a 2008 Canada-U.S. compact on Great Lakes<\/a> water use as an imperfect but encouraging example.<\/p>\n

When we don\u2019t take connected resources into account in policy decisions, he said, we get bad regulations and bad consequences. Water does not conform to territorial boundaries. It can\u2019t be separated from our demands for food and fuel. The dynamic between energy systems and water systems is a particular interest of the Pacific Institute.<\/p>\n

Heating, moving and purifying water demands energy, and producing energy demands water. Hydraulic fracking, an increasingly popular method of natural gas extraction, uses large volumes of water to crack rock and release gas. Extraction of oil from tar sands is also exceptionally water-intensive compared to more traditional fossil fuel exploitation. Alternative fuels use water too. Encouraging corn ethanol production to cut oil imports, exacerbated high food prices worldwide and put new demands on limited water supplies in the Midwest. Solar-thermal generation of energy can consume large amounts of water if regulators do not insist on dry-cooling systems.<\/p>\n

With existing technology, urban areas could reduce water consumption by a third<\/a> and keep the same standard of living, the Pacific Institute calculates. Agriculture has the potential to use 10-15% less water. \u201cIt\u2019s not enough just to look at the cost of water to determine if efficiency measures are worth it,\u201d said Gleick, arguing that we need to add benefits to energy consumption and ecosystem protection to the equation to see the full value of investing in water conservation.<\/p>\n

Washing machines and dishwashers, for example, not only use water, but hot water. Investment in newer machines can make a real difference in combined energy and water savings, compounded across an urban area. \u201cI want my water company and my energy company working together,\u201d Gleick said. \u201cI want rebate incentives from both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making that happen requires concerted political action. More than 20 federal agencies deal with water, said Gleick, \u201cand they don\u2019t play very well together.\u201d Gleick doesn\u2019t know how to energize Congress to take on water policy reform, but he\u2019s pushing for cultural change.<\/p>\n

Gleick, who wrote a book about bottled water last year, said he likes to think that a recent deceleration in the consumption of bottled water reflects a change in social mores and not just recessionary penny-pinching. From her seat in the front row, Harman pointed cheerfully at the water glass dripping condensation onto the podium. \u201cNote the glass of water.\u201d Gleick meant to mention that, and took time to heap praise upon his hosts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe days when [institutions] could get away with inviting Peter Gleick to give a talk and then putting bottled water on the podium \u2014 are not yet over, but those who do are increasingly embarrassed,\u201d he said. Moderator Geoffry Dalbelko smiled, looking pleased to have had the foresight not to be embarrassed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlong those lines, I bring my own tap water wherever I go,\u201d Gleick announced, brandishing a red aluminum bottle, challenging water consumption culture, one seminar at a time.<\/p>\n

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Watch a webcast of Gleick\u2019s talk<\/a> \u201cMoving to a Sustainable Water Future\u201d at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars<\/p>\n

Read excerpts from The World\u2019s Water Volume 7<\/a> from the Pacific Institute<\/p>\n

See a map of world water consumption<\/a> at worldmapper.org<\/p>\n

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This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA Communications Officer Unequal wealth. Worldmapper.org contorts the shapes of world territories to reflect the relative proportions of the world\u2019s freshwater resources found within their bounds. \u00a9 Copyright SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan). \u00a0 How much water do humans use? And how much water do ecosystems need? At…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1114],"tags":[60,414,524,465,18,70,22,636],"class_list":["post-6112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology-about-town","tag-climate-change","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-great-lakes","tag-groundwater","tag-management","tag-policy","tag-water","tag-water-resources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}