Listen here on Spotify | Listen here on Apple Podcast
Episode released on November 14, 2024
Episode recorded on July 15, 2024
Peter Gleick is President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at at the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California, which he co-founded in 1987.
Highlights | Transcript
The Colorado River is in the news a lot recently because of decadal megadrought and renegotiation of allocations to the states and Mexico in 2026. The Law of the River was established in 1920 which was a wet period in the region, resulting in overallocation, that is amplified by climate change now.
California had been taking too much water before Arizona constructed the Central Arizona Project aqueduct. In early 2000s, California enacted the Quantitation Settlement Agreement to reduce water demand from the Colorado by transferring ~ 1 maf (1.2 km3) of water from irrigated agriculture to urban areas.
California considering non-traditional water sources:
- water conservation and efficiency, saves water and energy used to collect, treat, and move the water.
- Wastewater reuse: currently 18% of wastewater (728,000 acre-feet/yr, AFY) could increase by 1.8 to 2.1 maf/yr (Cooley et al., Pacific Institute, 2022).
- Desalination: most expensive, energy intensive, capital intensive.
“Three ages of water, prehistoric past, imperiled present, and a hope for the future”
First Age of Water: formation of Earth (Big Bang) to emergence of human civilization, ~ 12,000 yr ago. Role of water and climate on evolution of Homo Sapiens. As populations grew, they started to control water by building dams and aqueducts to support early agriculture. Movement from hunter gatherer to intentional and irrigated agriculture (Mesopotamia, Indus Valley). Tigris Euphrates, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yangtze River.
Second Age of Water: humans learned to control water cycle for their benefit, dams, aqueducts, treated wastewater, irrigated agriculture. Now in this age, includes intellectual and technology revolutions and exponential increase in population. Hard path of water delivery, impaired rivers, overexploited aquifers.
Third Age of Water: hope for the future, soft path for water, human right to water, protects ecosystem health, improves social wellbeing, and increases available water sources.
Water volume on Planet Earth has not changed; therefore, we are not literally running out of water. But we are running out of water in some places and at some times. Floods and droughts, too much, too little, and too polluted. Water contamination is also an issue.
We are misusing or misallocating water or not pricing it appropriately.
Agriculture began 32,000 years ago.
First Age of Water: Floods during biblical times and before that.
Yangtze River, 9,000 – 12,000 yr ago, rice domestication 10,000 yr ago. Early millet, N China, 9,500 – 11,000 yr ago.
Humans in N America, 15,000 yr ago.
Chapter 6: Controlling Water:
Liangzhu culture, Yangtze River, 5,300 – 4,300 y ago, large and small dams
Jawa, 100 km NE of Amman, Jordan, terraced gardens and fields, Jawa dam, 50 m long, 9 m high, ~ 3,500 yr BCE.
Qanats in Iran, Karez in Afghanistan and China, gravity fed underground stone pipes or aqueducts, kms long, NE Iran, one dated 3,500 – 4,200 yr ago
Survey in Iran in 2014: 37,000 acitve qanats delivering 10% of country’s groundwater supply to Tehran, bringing water from 20 km from Elburz Mtns.
Greek aqueducts, some still providing water to Rome. Pont du Gard in S France, huge aqueduct.
First to Second age of water: Populations outgrew water resources. Science, technology and engineering expanded.
Building engines, using artificial energy to move water, pumps, hydroelectricity.
Water treatment for cholera, dysentery, and typhoid. First treatment plant Jersey City 1909. John Snow, cholera. Chlorinating water in London in 1916.
Chris Colles from Ireland, water distribution system for New York.
Water poverty: ~ 2 billion people don’t have access to safe water or sanitation.
UN Millenium Development Goals, initiated in 2000 with target for 2015, cutting in half the proportion of people without access to safe water or sanitation.
UN Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 6: focused on water with 2030 target to provide everyone on the planet with safe water and sanitation.
California: 200,000 – 300,000 people in Central Valley no access to safe running water or adequate sanitation facilities.
UN Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program: 2.2 billion people without safely managed drinking water, 3.5 billion without safely managed sanitation
Peter visited S Africa in 1994 to work with the new Government under Nelson Mandela, helping with National Water Act 36 of 1998.
Clean India Mission (Swachh Bharat Mission, SBM) stop open defecation by 2019.
Bottled water industry: Bottled and Sold, the Story Behind our Obsession with Bottled Water by Peter Gleick: outgrowth of need for convenience, plastics industry, failure to invest in drinking water systems, loss of trust, advertising. $300 billion industry, 1000s of times more expensive than tap water. Half of bottled water may be coming from tap water. There should be mandatory recycling program.
Water Conflict Chronology (Pacific Institute):
- Trigger of conflict
- Casualty of violence
- Weapon
1600 entries
Recent release shows dramatic jump in 2023 incidents. Violence over water resources increased dramatically in 2023, with 150% as many incidents as those recorded in 2022 (347 events versus 231) and only 22 such incidents in 2000. These events include attacks on water systems, unrest and disputes over the control of and access to water, and the use of water as a weapon of war. (Pacific Institute, 2024)
Many conflicts are subnational: e.g., farmers and pastoralists in N Africa.
Water and food nexus: Blue Green Revolution, recognizes importance of irrigation to increase food production globally. Irrigation: 90% of water consumption, 70% of water withdrawal, depleting aquifers in some regions.
California: Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
Third Age of Water: Soft path for water in contrast to hard path or engineering infrastructure.
Wastewater reuse, new sources that don’t impact ecosystems, price water properly, consider ecological value of water, more cooperative institutions.
Restoring ecosystems, removing some dams, nature based solutions, constructing new wetlands.
Windhoek, Namibia, wastewater reuse since the 1980s.
