Drinking From Your Neighbor’s Glass

In honor of World Water Day, here’s an interesting riddle: There are two kinds of water sources for a town, surface and underground. In times of adequate rain, that water can be used for human activities from farming to consumption to mining and so on.

But let’s say the rain stops for a long time.

"The delicate fingerprints of water imprinted on the sand. The #StoryOfWater."  Image: Kjell Lindgren/NASA via Instagram

“The delicate fingerprints of water imprinted on the sand. The #StoryOfWater.”
Caption/Image: Kjell Lindgren/NASA via Instagram

Fortunately, the town also has an underground lake. And during the drought, the town uses the water from the underground lake. The town can pump and pump and pump water from the underground lake, but – in spite of no rainfall – the water level never seems to diminish. It’s like a magic glass that never empties.

Where is the water coming from?

The map below shows how much water would cover dry land if all hidden aquifers were suddenly above ground.

The lightest shade of blue indicates a depth of one meter or less, a depth through which most adults could easily wade. It might look like the planet is awash in potable water. But it’s not.

Darker blue would create lakes, while the darkest blue points to very deep water. Almost 95 percent of underground water is very deep water that hasn’t seen the light of day for anywhere from decades to eons, is probably saltier than the seas and could contain heavy in toxic minerals.

A map of the Earth's groundwater by University of Victoria’s Tom Gleeson, and colleagues from the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Gottingen, and the University of Calgary. Credit/Caption:

A map of the Earth’s groundwater by University of Victoria’s Tom Gleeson, and colleagues from the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Gottingen, and the University of Calgary.
Credit/Caption: Gleeson, et al/Nature Geoscience via Christian Science Monitor

 

Back to the riddle of the ever-full aquifer. In the case of Needles, California (pop. 4800), the answer would be:

From the underground seepage of the nearby Colorado River, which is counted as a separate surface water system from the aquifer beneath Needles. Also, the Colorado River is in a different state, and thus subject to different water distribution regulations than the aquifer beneath Needles.

In the past, surface water from various regions and underwater aquifers have all been counted as separate water sources.

Which is to say, the water that flows in the Colorado River has been counted as distinct from underwater resources in adjoining regions.

In the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park near the Colorado River. Image: NASA

In the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park near the Colorado River.
Image: NASA

As it turns out, however, many of these water resources are interconnected. So the never-ending underground lake beneath Needles is, in fact, depleting the Colorado River.

35 percent of water used by humans comes from underground aquifers; more in times of drought. In California, those numbers are usually around 40 percent – during the drought, it’s gone up to 60 percent. All that water has to come from somewhere.

Water accountancy has long been a contentious issue, both in the American Southwest and elsewhere.

The water we see or can pump doesn’t always represent what’s really available. But laws and ownership rights have been based on accounting for water as if what we see is what we can get.

A recent study mapped levels of underground water basins around the world from 2003-2013. Satellites were able to chart changes in aquifer levels as they flew overhead because water is so heavy that it exerts a pull on orbiting spacecraft.

Groundwater storage trends for Earth's 37 largest aquifers from UCI-led study using NASA GRACE data (2003 – 2013). Of these, 21 have exceeded sustainability tipping points and are being depleted, with 13 considered significantly distressed, threatening regional water security and resilience. Caption/Credits: UC Irvine/NASA/JPL-Caltech

Groundwater storage trends for Earth’s 37 largest aquifers from UCI-led study using NASA GRACE data (2003 – 2013). Of these, 21 have exceeded sustainability tipping points and are being depleted, with 13 considered significantly distressed, threatening regional water security and resilience.
Caption/Credits: UC Irvine/NASA/JPL-Caltech

Results of this study show that 13 of the world’s 37 largest underground reservoirs were being emptied with no signs of replenishment.

Some of the most overstressed water supplies were in the world’s driest areas: Arabian Aquifer System, an important water source for more than 60 million people; the Indus Basin aquifer of northwestern India and Pakistan, and the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa.

Many of these aquifiers lie directly beneath political and cultural borders that are already flashpoints of hostility.

If California is any example (and when it comes to drought and water challenges, the state is a proverbial coal mine canary), then water is interconnected in more ways than one. But Needles, at least, is only drawing water from a sister state in the same union. The same can’t be said of other places around the world.

Water sustainability doesn’t just mean a good supply of water.

It means a supply of human activity, of food, and of peace.

World Water Day.

Fountainhead Reflections

There are several old public fountains in the villages that surround mine, and I pass them on my runs. Our village dismantled its fountain many years ago for reasons unknown to me – I do know, however, that the former mayor uses the former stone fountain trough in his garden as decoration.photo 2

Be that as it may, all the fountains around here have a sign above them that says ‘Eau non potable’ – Non potable water.

I’ve often wondered why the water is labeled unsuitable for consumption, since we live along a river that is, in fact, used as the area’s main water source. The water here is excellent, for the most part, and tasty.

Photo:  Olivier Le Queinec

Photo: Olivier Le Queinec

I found a French forum that discussed just this topic. I learned that there are a variety of reasons the water may be labeled non potable. It might be untreated, the village might not have the funds to have it regularly tested (I suspect this is the case in our area), or it might be polluted (sometimes the case further down the Rhône River).

Some fountains, rather than having a ‘Eau non potable’ sign, have instead a sign which reads ‘Eau non surveillé’ – unsupervised water. Which means, more or less, that nobody is saying the water is good or bad. Drink at your own risk.

One of the commenters on the French water forum said (loosely translated): “Our water should be alive, light, wild and untamed, impossible to have under surveillance and, on occasion, capricious. Thus, ‘unsupervised water’ is exactly what water should be.”

There is speculation that there are vast amounts of water in places hitherto unsuspected. A massive aquifer was recently discovered under an ice sheet in Greenland. There are untold oceans far beneath the earth’s surface. The water might not be fresh water, water that is potable. It floats our tectonic plates, it impacts volcanic activity. But it is, at least for now, more or less unsupervised.

An iceberg melts in Greenland. Photo: John McConnico/AP

An iceberg melts in Greenland.
Photo: John McConnico/AP

I like this idea of unsupervised water finding its own way.

But the fact is, only 2% amount of the water on the surface of the planet is fresh water, water we can drink. Even less is water we can access – and what we can access, we don’t seem to care for in the way we should, considering its intrinsic necessity to our survival.

Probably need to have this water under more supervision, or at least, more careful supervision, rather than less.

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Today is World Water Day. The theme for 2014 is the utilization of water to generate energy around the world.