[dohboi]

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-com ... water-wars

A Thirsty, Violent World

The result of continued inaction is clear. Development experts, who rarely agree on much, all agree that water wars are on the horizon.

That would be nothing new for humanity. After all, the word “rivals” has its roots in battles over water—coming from the Latin, rivalis, for “one taking from the same stream as another.”

It would be nice to think that, with our complete knowledge of the physical world, we have moved beyond the limitations our ancestors faced two thousand years ago.

But the truth is otherwise; rivals we remain, and the evidence suggests that, until we start dying of thirst, we will stay that way.

[Synapsid]

dohboi,

Want to get a head start on your neighbors, with regard to this water-war thing? Here's a helpful factoid:

The main supply of fresh water for the whole of Iraq, and for much (maybe all) of Syria, is the flow of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The headwaters of both are in Turkey. Turkey already has some large dams on those rivers.

The rest is to be worked out by the reader.

[dohboi]

More Than Half of San Jose's Guadalupe River Is Gone
http://www.weather.com/climate-weather/ ... california

[dohboi]

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles ... de-drought

Suicide By Drought
How China is Destroying Its Own Water Supply

Since the 1950s, 27,000 rivers have vanished from China

[Lore]

Big El Niños only happen every 15 to 20 years and this one won't end the drought. What is California's population going to do for water in between? Pray for Bill Starbuck, rainmaker to show up?

[Cid_Yama]

Right, that's why central valley taps ran dry. Are you playing with a full deck?

God, the deniers on here are getting old. Can't tell if it's psychological, ideological or what. But anybody still denying at this late date has definitely got something wrong upstairs.

[Cid_Yama]

Entire communities. Where were you?

Hundreds Of Californians Have No Tap Water Due To Drought, Receiving Bottled Water Rations

Reuters Photographer Lucy Nicholson travelled to southern California to document the struggle faced by people whose water supply has run dry. In one of the towns hardest hit by California’s drought, the only way some residents can get water to flush the toilet is to drive to the fire station, hand-pump water into barrels and take it back home. The state’s three-year drought comes into sharp focus in Tulare County, the dairy and citrus heart of the state’s vast agricultural belt, where more than 500 wells have dried up.

link


At Least One California Town Is Now Bone Dry as Megadrought Continues

At least one California town has gone dry, and many are expected to follow soon. East Porterville, in Tulare County is now without water, as the wells that feed it have dried up. Residents, according to Yahoo! News, now have to drive to the local fire station to get water to drink, bathe, and flush the toilet. And ironically, the town is near what was once the largest freshwater lake in California.

Tulare County, which relies heavily on the agricultural industry, is parched. The some 500 wells that feed its residents and farmers have gone dry. And the county says that it may be years and cost $20 million before a new groundwater management program goes into effect.

The county is named for Tulare Lake, which was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. It was drained for regional agricultural purposes, begining in the early 20th Century. The lake basin is now some of the most fertile soil in the Central Valley, the most productive agricultural region of the United States.

link

[vtsnowedin]

October 2014 date on that link. Pretty old news.

[dohboi]

A question was asked about what happened in the past, and you are criticizing the answer because it indicates what actually did happen in the past...

Hmmmmm.

[Tanada]

A question was asked about what happened in the past, and you are criticizing the answer because it indicates what actually did happen in the past...

Hmmmmm.

The fact that they went dry but are no longer dry is certainly relevant to a fuller picture of what is going on.

[dohboi]

You're right. It's no big deal to go without water for hours or days or weeks or months. The human body is perfectly adapted to go for many months without drinking any water. As long as it eventually comes back, there is clearly no problem at all.

[Tanada]

You're right. It's no big deal to go without water for hours or days or weeks or months. The human body is perfectly adapted to go for many months without drinking any water. As long as it eventually comes back, there is clearly no problem at all.

Most (but sadly not all) human beings I have met are smart enough to leave a place where survival is unlikely.

[dohboi]

Most (but sadly not all) human beings I have met are smart enough to leave a place where survival is unlikely.

Tell me about it. My otherwise very intelligent in-laws just sold their safely-inland house and moved permanently (until they are washed away) to a home a few feet above sea level on Chesapeake Bay.

It's a beautiful spot, but:

>>The mid-Atlantic is one coastline where slr is predicted to rise fastest because of shifts in currents
>>The whole area is slowly sinking
>>Storms and storm surges are just going to be getting more and more intense...

On the one hand, there is of course no perfectly safe place, but just in terms of real estate assets that they might want to leave to their kids and grandkids...I can't imagine that this house is going to be worth much on the market within a few years as consequences of accelerated GW and slr become so apparent even Americans will avoid investing in such doomed properties.

/off-topic rant

ETA at least their not living here: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ?CMP=fb_us

[Tanada]

On the one hand, there is of course no perfectly safe place, but just in terms of real estate assets that they might want to leave to their kids and grandkids...I can't imagine that this house is going to be worth much on the market within a few years as consequences of accelerated GW and slr become so apparent even Americans will avoid investing in such doomed properties.

/off-topic rant

ETA at least their not living here: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ?CMP=fb_us

Whomever applied for a building permit on the ocean side of that street needs their head examined, but the agency that issued the building permit is even worse! It appears that the entire embankment is just compacted soil, even a very modest sea level rise will cause it to erode back until it hits a more solid footing or forms a very gradual slope. There are many places on the western shores of Lake Erie with that type of soil, you can wade out hundreds of meters into the lake before you lose your footing because the slope is very gradual. even now at high tide there can't be much gap between the emplaced rocks and the soft cliff face above.

[Lore]

A lot of these places are still dry for all intent. Just piping into new supplies is robbing Peter to pay Paul. California water backup is coming from private wells that to this day are declining at a rapid rate. Rationing water will be the norm at every level.

As to the future in places drying out. The major loss of agriculture due to water shortages is no little thing. I mean what could go wrong without food?

The assumption that some other area is going to pick up the slack is bogus since these places are also under severe crop and livestock production threats themselves.

[clif]

Whomever applied for a building permit on the ocean side of that street needs their head examined, but the agency that issued the building permit is even worse!

Kinda harsh, given that the buildings were build 55-60 years ago, when the ocean would have been possibly 100ft further out.

I base this on the fact we NOW know;

of the coastline of California retreated at average rates of 2 to 6 feet (0.6 to 1.8 m) annually

http://www.dbw.ca.gov/PDF/Reports/Beach ... Bluffs.pdf

Almost all of what we know now comes from academic studies done after the buildings were built.

Much more all along that coast is at risk, these are just the most visible to the media talking heads.

This situation in California is analogous to the problem Florida has with sea level rise,

In both cases far too much has been built before the effects of the earths eco-systems were fully understood.

[dohboi]

We will see many more scenes and stories like this.

But the image is kinda iconic for the position of our whole civilization--propped on a precarious perch that is rapidly being eroded because of our own stupidity, short-sightedness and systemic greed....