Life in the Rear-view Mirror

Precious Water

Water is a precious resource that most North Americans take for granted because we have been blessed with a disproportionate amount of it. But not everybody is as fortunate as us.

Data from the World Water Council tell a sad story. Of the 7 billion people on earth, 1.1 billion, or about 16%, live without clean water. About 1.4 million children die every year from waterborne diseases. While North Americans consume domestically about 350 litres of water per person per day, Europeans consume 200, and Africans between 10 and 20. Not all countries in the world have their fair share of the world's water supply. Africa and the Middle East face the direst shortages of clean water in the world.

The world consumes about 5 trillion cubic metres of water per year, of which, two thirds is for agriculture, 10% for household use, 20% for industrial use, and about 4% is lost due to evaporation. These percentages are averages for developed countries, but there are considerable variations from region to region.

Canada is an exception. Despite our large agricultural production, industrial water usage accounts for two thirds of all water consumption, while agriculture accounts for a bit more than 10%. Canada consumes a lot of water in mining and petroleum extraction. Fortunately, we have been blessed with large lakes and rivers and lots of precipitation to replenish them.

The gap between demand and supply is of major concern in China and India, which account for one third of the world's population. As China has become the global manufacturer, its share of industrial water consumption has increased well above the global average, and will continue to rise well into the future. Water is clearly the natural resource that will ultimately limit our capability to feed significantly more than seven billion people.

Canada is so well endowed with fresh water supplies, we don't even think about water shortages as ever being a problem. Ontario, in particular, is part of the Great Lakes Basin and we seem to have an endless supply of fresh water. The Greater Toronto Area is home to more than 5 million people and they all depend on Lake Ontario for clean water. It's hard to imagine that Lake Ontario could one day dry up and leave us all scurrying for clean water.

But it could happen: either through natural causes, or through human intervention. Lake Ontario is fed by the Niagara River, which is fed by Lake Erie. If, for whatever reason, the Niagara river stops flowing, lake Ontario would slowly dry up, depriving Toronto, and all other cities and communities along the lake and the Saint Lawrence River, of their water supplies. The consequences would be disastrous, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't happen.

Muynak, located on the south shore of the Aral Sea, was once a thriving town. Not unlike many of our coastal towns, it had a fishing-based economy. It had the largest port on the sea and enjoyed the benefits of being a shipping centre. All that started to change in 1960, when Russia diverted the rivers that fed the Aral Sea. The Russians used the diverted water to irrigate large cotton fields. Since then, the sea has been steadily drying up; and, with the exception of a part in the north and one in the west, there is nothing left of it. Its surface area of nearly 70,000 square kilometres has been reduced to less than 14,000, about one fifth of what it was.

What was once a mighty lake, the fourth largest in the world, is now a salt desert. The port city of Muynak now finds itself hundreds of kilometres away from water. Its fishing vessels are strewn all over the seabed, rusting away. That single human intervention has impoverished the entire region, depriving it of its freshwater supplies, its fishing industry, its shipping, and its recreational use of the lake. Moreover, the regional climate has changed: summers are hotter and drier and winters longer and colder. Furthermore, the health of the people living in the area has deteriorated, not only through lack of clean water, but also through dust storms that pick up toxic materials from the dry lake bottom and spread them to the surrounding countryside.

Can the same thing happen to Lake Ontario? The answer should be a categorical no, but, with political corruption still on the rise, all I can say is, "I hope not". The Great Lakes, and the Saint Lawrence Seaway, are managed by an international commission, which is empowered to protect lake levels, so one could assume that they are in safe hands. However, if parts of the U.S., particularly the south, run out of drinking water, it's not inconceivable that they would take it from the Great Lakes. If push comes to shove, the Americans have more power, and international commission be damned.

Parts of the U.S., like California, are already experiencing a water crisis. Others may soon follow. America's largest source of fresh water, accounting for about 20% of agricultural irrigation, is the Ogallala Aquifer, which stretches between Texas and South Dakota. This aquifer is being depleted and no one really knows how soon this large area will start to experience water shortages.

To the south of Texas is Mexico City, built on top of another large aquifer. The city is actually sinking due to the large quantity of water being pumped out. At the time of the Aztecs, the city was on an island in the middle of a lake. The area around it was replete with lakes and forests, which, over the centuries, have disappeared due to urban sprawl. When will the citizens of this huge metropolis, one of the largest in the world, start to experience water shortages? Probably sooner than anyone expects, as the basin is being pumped out at about twice the rate it is being replenished.

Nigeria, the largest populated country in Africa, already has a severe water shortage. Half of its population has no access to clean water. It's no wonder that mortality rates, especially among children, are so high in African countries, where they die mostly from waterborne diseases. They lack the one thing North Americans have been taking for granted, at least until recently.

It's inevitable that severe water shortages in the future will lead to wars between have and have not countries.

Increasing consumption of beef and other animal proteins is causing an even greater increase in water consumption. To grow one kilogram of wheat and one kilogram of rice it takes about 1,000 and 1,400 litres of water, respectively. As one litre of water weighs one kilogram, it takes more than one thousand times as much water as the weight cereals, just to grow them. That's a lot of water! I had never looked at it that way before. But it's nothing compared to how much water cows consume so that we can have meat in our diet. It takes about 13,000 litres of water per kilogram of beef we consume. To put that in perspective, when we eat 100 g of bread, we are responsible for the consumption of 100 kg of water; and when we consume 100 g of beef, we are responsible for 1,300 kg of water. Meat protein comes with a big price!

Not only is a vegetarian diet healthier, it also puts less stress on limited fresh-water supplies and the biosphere. Yes! Cows are also a significant source of greenhouse gases.

Would people consume less beef if they knew the impact it has on water consumption and climate change?

It's hard to say, but there is definitely a lack of education on this subject. The media are too focused on telling us what special interests want us to hear, rather than telling us what is in the best interest of society and Mother Earth; and governments at all levels have turned a blind eye. The California Government is now beginning to realize that it can no longer look the other way. There, the proverbial s#/t has already hit the fan!