The Carolina's and Georgia and Florida and Alabama have water problems why?

Question

I know we have ways to take salt water and make fresh water out of it and all we have to do is build large salt water plants that filter the water and the water shortage is over and yes I know its expensive but we always find money for the stupid stuff we dont need.

Answer 1

Yes, global warming and over-use are parts of the problem, as is lack of storage capacity.

With global warming we actually have more total rainfall (including snowfall). But it appears to be distributed differently. Instead of being spread out in both geographic areas and in terms of time, we are seeing severe prolonged drought interspersed with rainfall that can be devastating floods. To provide for our water needs we would have to be capturing those flood waters, and providing for a distribution system.

People who think primarily of urban water use and see lawn irrigation as the ultimate waste of water (which it is) should not make the mistake of thinking that irrigation of food producing land is in the same category. If we do not plan to have enough water for agricultural irrigation, our food supply can, literally, dry up.

So we have to get away from a mindset of keeping water only for urban use (because after all our having a drink is the most important use even if we starve), and design and build storage that will allow society also to feed itself.

The scale of flooding and drought events will be an indication that we need to act. But how extensively  we act will depend on our expectation of the length and severity of future droughts. Because we are always expecting a repeat of what has happened in the past, we are most likely to build less than we would need in a developing series of droughts.

Even as we have had drought, our rivers have still had water flowing to the oceans. Better efforts to reclaim could reduce the severity of drought.

However, concern about ocean pH is just a crock.

The total amount of water leaving the oceans, by rainfall or desalination will not exceed the total return of water, be it down rivers or by rainfall.

When we remove water, leaving behind the salts, there is a minor increase in pH (more alkaline), but  that does not take account of the return of water to the oceans.

We could be using salt water to provide for cleaning uses if we had a way to return the salt water, through filtration, back to the ocean, thus saving some potable water. Too little benefit for effort.

We take water out of the ocean, but it will always get back there unless it forms part of a glacier, or remains in the air.  But desalination per se will not contribute to lodging water in glaciers or in the air, and will not meaningfully alter ocean pH.

What will alter ocean pH is carbon dioxide in the air, and acid rain.

We can also draw air from above the oceans, refrigerate it to extract water, recycle the heat energy derived from that to power the process.

Is this even possible? Yes, our weather systems do this all the time. It is energetically viable.

Answer 2

Well, your idea is always the first priority.  How are you going to deliver the water? Remember, the drought stricken areas are 100's of miles from the coast.

Answer 3

They are in drought caused by prolonged dry weather.

Not to be associated with climate change.

Answer 4

The southern states of the US are in, what the Army Corps of Engineers describes as, a Stage 2 drought (4 being the most severe).  There are many theories regarding the cause, some of which pertain to the over use of water stores and the lack of those stores ability to re-supply, and some of the theories have to do with the lack of rain fall in those states caused by global warming.  

Most scientists agree that, while droughts are part of a natural cycle, that they are greatly caused by a combination of over use and global warming.  

To remove salt water from the worlds oceans opens a whole new can of beans.  When water is removed from the oceans and desalinated, the pH balance of the oceans changes.  If enough salt water is removed, it can change the natural way that the Earth's oceans regulate themselves, and also the natural thermal patterns of the ocean, which could actually lead to another ice age.  

Water learned water conservation techniques are a more permanent fix instead, rather than a stop-gap for attempting to keep up with unnecessary and un-sustainable demands for fresh water.

-J

http://badhuman.wordpress.com