BS: Does population effect the water balance

Subject: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: cryptoanubis
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 04:34 AM

The human body is made up of 75% water:
There are now 6.5 billion of us:
The earth has a closed water system:
All the water that is here now has always been here and all ways will be here:
So if we have more people now surely we have less water available , which explains the drought , that of course unless i've got it wrong which i suppose i might have.....

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Gurney
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 06:13 AM

Judging by your name, this is important to you.

Have you considered other factors, most obviously the ecological change we wreak just BECAUSE there are so many of us? More land cleared for intensive agriculture, more greenhouse-gasses from more fossil fuel consumption, etc.
But, the more humans, the less other lifeforms around. Swings and roundabouts.

It is estimated that the water in the carafes in the House of Lords has passed through several sets of kidneys since it fell as rain, and that is kid-stuff compared with the Rhine.

Replace the water filter regularly.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 06:49 AM

Depends what you mean by "water". Water reacts with other things and then isn't water. Hydrogen and oxygen react and then they are water. Hydrocarbons are burned and produce water - and so on.....

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 10:10 AM

Drought is caused by many factors, not just population.

Obviously in some places the water supply IS limited enough that population is very important. Not in the Amazon basin so much, but in the United States, the Colorado River is about the only way certain areas of the West get water for irrigation and drinking. Serious legal battles go on constantly as those downstream complain that those UPstream are using an 'unfair' amount.

The Earth has plenty of water....just not fresh water. Water is only one aspect of the 'carrying capacity' of the land...that is, how many people can live in an area comfortably. But water is one of the most important issues.


The answer is...population affects EVERYTHING.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 10:36 AM

Not directly.

As noted above though, the way we change the land, and thanks to CO2, the whole climate is altering the water cycle, from the amount of water in the ice-caps, to precipitaition (rainfall, etc) patterns and temperatures worldwide.

You're not from that Aussie outback town on R4 this morning, which hasn't seen rain for 5 years, are you?

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 01:05 PM

Gad! I'll to drink my Scotch straight!

That's not a bad thing, mind you.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: terrier
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 02:58 PM

I'm not of a scientific background, but it seems to me that when I look at Google Earth, I can see lots of water in the oceans and lots of land but I find it difficult to see where the 6.5 billion people are. I think that if the earth's population grew tenfold overnight, it would still only be a 'drop in the ocean', so to speak......

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 03:10 PM

It's not so much water per se as it is potable, clean, fresh water. We could a lot better job of using water, and I mean world-wide. For instance, an in-house settling tank could permit "gray water" to be used for flushing and lawn-watering (which, done correctly, puts the water back into the aquifer). Even "black water" can be treated and reused.

We have the technology (what do you think they do in the ISS?), we lack the will because we don't see the need -- yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 10:19 PM

You failed to factor the great deluvian.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 10:47 PM

" What's next -- yeastburgers?"....Soylent Green

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 10:49 PM

terrier...

most of those 6 billion plus are crammed into the few areas which can be farmed...and a lot are in cities within those areas.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 10:50 PM

Deaths, cannibalism....

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 10:57 PM

put "Donora, Pennsylvania" into Google...and "Ethopia famine"

the rule needs to be "ALWAYS err on the side of caution and be conservative."

When you only have one planet, you can't afford too many "ooops!"

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 11:21 PM

Warning: pedant alert.

The population does NOT CAUSE (effect) the water balance. The population does CHANGE (affect) the water balance.

The "water content" of the total of all the bodies in the population is a pretty trivial amount, so that's not a big effect (result) in changing the water balance. The use of potable water by additional persons in the population has a very significant bearing on the availability of adequate amounts of potable water in the "right places" to support a growing population.

There are virtually no locations in the US where the availability of adequate supplies of potable water is not a major concern at present, and of course predicted needs in the near future are far in excess of what is available for a great many places. Unfortunately, increasing the water availability in one place generally means taking water from another place with an equal need.

On the other side of the problem, nearly all locations have major problems with "disposing of the throughput." Dumping raw sewage anywhere is in effect adding it to the water resource, so that the next place "downstream" has to clean it up before it's useful. Many places in the US have been forced to limit growth because the soil and streams can't accept additional waste water without producing major pollution problems.

Extreme restrictions and/or moratoriums on new housing in Phoenix, Colorado Springs, Denver, and several other places have already been in place for decades, because there's no place for any more people to shit. (Described by the technologists as "limited percolation capacity" of the soils in most areas?)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 02:20 AM

Interesting poster campaign in the UK (well, London at least) at the moment. It features a toilet bowl full of bottles of mineral water and the request that we 'think before we flush', suggesting that we might not want to flush the loo every time we 'go' in order to save good drinking water.

Bit more thought provoking than 'if it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down'.

Bring back the Rev Moule's Earth Closet!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 02:23 AM

Bummocks, the link failed.

Rev Moule's Earth Closet!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: autolycus
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 05:25 AM

Trouble is all the people who could run
things better are too busy cutting hair
and driving taxis. (Anon)


    Pedant alert. Title should read
'Does population Affect etc.'

    Any dictionary will explain.




    Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 07:52 AM

Liz -

Isn't the "earth closet" what our "children" call a litter box?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 07:56 AM

The person who started this thread posed an interesting question. It's a pity that some of the people who responded (though by no means all)chose to preach rather than to answer it.

Here's another interesting question: Why does any important issue, such as the state of the environment, for example, always seem to bring out the 'holier-than-thou' brigade?

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 09:50 AM

Why not start a different thread for that question?

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Rumncoke
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 10:37 AM

We might have increased in numbers, but so many other living things have become extinct, or have reduced - trees, for instance, that I would have thought the total amount of water contained within living things would have reduced.

Plus the burning of fossil fuels releases water, but also greenhouse gasses, the effects of which are melting the ice caps and causing permanent flooding of low lying land.

There is also the effect of global warming on the permafrost which now seems to be belieing its name and melting - though it has done fairly well as it has kept any number of animals and lots of plants fairly fresh for a very long time. Now it is all going mushy and the water is seeping out, along with some fairly foul odours, and more greenhouse gasses.

I don't think there is a drought worldwide - some places are getting higher rainfall/snowfall than average. It is just that the climate is changing.

I now have ripe black grapes in the garden for the first time in 15 years - the same vine was there but never ripened any grapes. I seem to be one of the lucky ones living where the effects of climate change are pleasing, but I am only too aware that there are people suffering where the alteration is far from kind.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 11:50 AM

In the area of Kansas where I used to live, and where John still does, we used to have what looked like an almost unlimited supply of good water by tapping the Equus beds, a natural underground 'storage' area.
   But that resource is now in delicate balance.

"Since the 1950's, water levels in the aquifer have dropped 40 feet because water rights and pumpage exceed the aquifer's natural recharge rate of six inches per year. Because of this over-usage, saltwater from the southwest and oilfield brine from the northwest are threatening to pollute the aquifer. Recharging the aquifer will create a natural barrier keeping contaminants from entering the water supply."

In far Western Kansas, they have the Ogallala aquifer, which has similar issues. The use, while 'regulated', still exceeds the recharge rate. It is like use of the Colorado River water mentioned above...people simply WANT to use more of the supply than naturally is produced.
   In drier areas of the world, the limited water supply is VERY serious business!

Archeology/Anthropology seems to show us that entire past civilizations have changed or disappeared due to draughts. Sometimes the villan is Nature...sometimes Mankind...

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 06:43 PM

Very true, Bill D. But those were civilisations that didn't have the abilty to shift major rivers. Modern engineering can do almost anything. If it is sensible or cheap to do so is another question, but it can be done.

Of course, the expense of such things is such that it might be cheaper to get people to be more sensible with what they do have...

In Britian, at some point we are going to build a large pipe down from the Scottish borders to the South Eas, 2-300 miles, to keep 20-30 million people going. It's been going to happen at some point soonish for 20 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Joybell
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 06:52 PM

I think it's an interesting idea. Isn't the key point here that we take in and retain usable water?
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 07:02 PM

The water table has dropped everywhere I know of.

The new breakthroughs in desalinization plants will probably become the next industry to rival the petroeum industry.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 07:19 PM

There is a Scandiwegian composting toilet that I saw some years ago. It is built into the basement of houses on sloping footings, and the waste, human and kitchen, goes in 'dry'. There are serious vents up through the roof! The stuff builds up until it slides down to the lower part, by which time it is soil, and is shovelled out onto the garden. I wonder if they are still around?

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 04:13 AM

Guessing the volume of water in a human as 20 litres (it's more than 1 and less than 100), and using the UN Environment Program's estimate of the volume of water in the Earth's oceans, freshwater and icecaps as about 1.4 billion cubic kilometres, the human population contains about one ten billionth of the water on Earth. So, in terms of direct water content, no. So the sensible answers above are answers to the sensible question that wasn't asked.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 12:24 PM

Litter box (which I must get round to changing.. even the lodger cat is complaining) is what cats use... an open box full of Fullers earth, an absorbent material.

Earth closet is a closed system that utilises soil from the garden, sifted and dried. The used product can be spread as a fertiliser which kitty litter cannot.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 08:01 AM

When I was 10 years old - in fifth grade, we were told about "The Great Artesian Basin" in Australia. We were told that the water there has flowed there from where it fell as rain on The Great Dividing range, and the water had been there for millions of years. We were also told that there was so much water there, it could never run out, and that the pressure was thus so high, it spurted from the ground without pumping.

Being a precious little sod, I knew that if the plug was pulled on the bathtub, and the water drained out faster than the taps could replenish it, the tub would empty!

I thus asked the obvious question: "if we take it out faster than the rain replenishes it, won't the level drop to the point that there won't be much useable water left?"

I was ridiculed.

For some years, there has been a Government Project to shut off the bores and stop the water being "wasted", as the level has fallen to such a level that some areas can't get water without deep pumping.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Rumncoke
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 09:10 AM

You can't consider the water on/in the land in isolation - because it is all part of the bigger cycle.

Human intervention takes the rain water, makes it dirty and then hurridly pipes it to the sea, rather than it trickling down through soil, over bedrock, evaporating out of lakes and rivers or transpiring out of the leaves of plants.

Just because the water tables on land are falling it doesn't mean there is less water - it is still on the planet, just making the seas deeper.

The melting permafrost is oozing a rich soup of old vegetation and decaying mammoth which is cutting little streams and accumulating into rivers, and creating deltas out to sea when it hits the precipitating ions in sea water. The water which used to sit on top of the permafrost and be sucked up by the trees is going with it, and the trees are falling over because they can't hold themselves up on the molten goo and their roots are rotting anyway, attacked by the yeuchy stuff from microbes which like to eat mammoth gloop.

Oh and then there are the effects of acid rain down wind of fossil fuel burning industrial boilers and domestic fires.

The polar ice caps really are melting, so raising sea levels and the Arctic Circle now has rivers moving the products of errosion to the edges of the land, rather than them being carriage away in icebergs to be deposited gradually in deeper waters.

Low lying areas will be covered by the sea, rivers will become tidal further inland, or sea defences will be breched, bore holes will become saline, so, coupled with the lack of drinking water falling from the sky, there will, eventually, be fewer Humans to hold water, one way or another.



No need to worry then, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 09:53 AM

Or the melting ice around the North Atlantic makes the thermohaline circulation switch modes, and we get the next glacial episode starting a bit early.

What Geologists and similar scientists know of climate variations in the current geological period can be summed up as follows:
It's been both hotter and colder than it is now. It can switch between them fast. There are lots of feedback loops, so cause and effect are rather hard to define. High CO2 will do something.
And that seaside retirement cottage we've always talked about is going to be a reasonable distance above current sea level....

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Cod Fiddler
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 10:01 AM

Rumncoke makes a really important point that is too frequently ignored: Imagine the percentage of land now covered by concrete or drained, particularly in heaviliy populated areas such as the UK. All rain falling in such areas goes straight into a drain and out to sea. Firstly, this water not replenish the water table, which is an ecological time bomb. Secondly, during heavy rain, the huge volume of water falling does not percolate slowly through rocks and soil. It rapidly hits the drainage system, which may be overwhelmed, causing flooding.

Drainage systems and leveés are bad news in the long term and exacerbate flooding by concentrating flood waters, rather than letting them dissipate over flood plains. As more land is concreted over, the risk that leveés and drainage systems will be overwhelmed in the future increases. There are some big lessons to learn. Flood plains and marshes are vital, and there are too many people on this planet.

Richard.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 01:40 PM

Richard....New Orleans just learned much of what you say...the hard way.

Subject: RE: BS: Does population effect the water balance
From: Joybell
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 05:37 PM

The ice-caps are melting
Oh ho ho ho
All the world is drowning
Oh ho ho ho ho
The ice-caps are melting
The sea is rushing in
Isn't it a lovely way to wash away the sin?

Come along everybody let's all sing along....

There! A music thread.