Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The area of agricultural land that will require irrigation in future could be up to four times larger than currently estimated, a new study has revealed.
Research by the University of Reading, University of Bergen and Princeton University shows the amount of land that will require human intervention to water crops by 2050 has been severely underestimated due to computer models not taking into account many uncertainties, such as population changes and availability of water.
The authors of the study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, argue forecasters and policy-makers need to acknowledge multiple future scenarios in order to be prepared for potential water shortages that would have huge environmental costs.
[...] "If the amount of water needed to grow our food is much larger than calculated, this could put severe pressure on water supplies for agriculture as well as homes. These findings show we need strategies to suit a range of possible scenarios and have plans in place to cope with unexpected water shortages."
[...] The new research suggests that projections of irrigated areas made by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation and others have always underestimated the amount of irrigation required in future by basing them on other assumptions.
The study highlights that the potential global extension of irrigation might be twice, or in the most extreme scenario, even four times larger than what has been suggested by previous models.
[...] Agricultural land where crops cannot be supported by rainwater alone is often irrigated by channelling water from rivers or springs, sprinkler systems, or by controlled flooding. Increased irrigation in future would mean more water consumption, machinery, energy consumption and fertilisers, and therefore more greenhouse gas emissions.
Journal Reference
A. Puy, S. Lo Piano, A. Saltelli. Current Models Underestimate Future Irrigated Areas, Geophysical Research Letters (DOI: 10.1029/2020GL087360)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Wednesday May 06 2020, @05:53AM (5 children)
There are all sorts of areas in TFA that deserve discussion, but at the root it's about water. Having grown up in the US Southwest, I have rather strong opinions about the water situation: it's a mess. For historical reasons, namely, the fact that water used to be "free" and people claimed rights over the free stuff and retain those rights today, even though they are no longer appropriate. So you have some agricultural concerns growing rice, or almonds, or other insanely water-intensive crops in the desert. Meanwhile, you have other people who can't get enough water to do perfectly sensible things.
The solution is actually quite simple: de-regulate water. Annul water rights and simply declare that water belongs to the person whose land it falls on (precipitation). Let capitalism work: let the price float to where it should naturally be. Want to pump water out of a river? You owe money to the people upstream. If water actually costs money, California's vast almond groves will die - as they should: water intensive crops do not belong in the desert. Huge golf courses in Arizona will turn brown - because you can't afford to water huge golf courses don't belong in the desert. People will actually want low-flow showers and toilets, because water will be expensive.
Meanwhile, in areas with plenty of water, such as the Pacific Northwest, water will be cheap, agriculture will be easy. As it should be, because water is plentiful. Or maybe they'll make a buck by shipping their water to the desert - which is also fine.
What shouldn't exist is the current system, where people with old water rights waste the stuff, and do, because they can't even re-sell the water at anything like its real value.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 06 2020, @05:14PM (4 children)
Since I live right by what is easily the nation's largest supply of fresh water, the Great Lakes, I have a very different perspective.
The main reason I can't walk from Ohio to Ontario directly is because of the Great Lakes Compact, a bi-national and multi-state/province government body that has consistently gone to bat to ensure that water isn't removed from the lake basin in the face of numerous proposals to do exactly that. Without it, proposed schemes to supply the southwest of the US and California with water pumped from the Great Lakes would in relatively short order pump the whole area nearly dry. How do I know this? Because that's exactly what happened to the Colorado River: A century ago, there was so much water flowing in it that both the government and industry thought there was no possible way that we'd ever run out, and now the river doesn't even reach the ocean.
How exactly do you intend to enforce that without government action? Also, what about situations where the area upstream isn't populated - is the human who happens to live up in the Sierras now suddenly a water baron making gajillions and deciding which farms will fail as everyone in the Central Valley fights over who is getting enough water?
Also, is it fair for the apartment-dweller who uses a few gallons a day for a shower, a few toilet flushes, and cleaning is competing for that water with farmers who are using it to water crops that should never have been grown in a desert? Wouldn't some tiered pricing make sense so a Walmart shelf-stocker isn't paying the same price for water as someone who recently decided to grow almonds?
I agree that there's lots of bad decisions going on in the southwest around water supplies: There should be no golf courses in Arizona. The increase in nut farming in places that can't grow trees without massive water imports is insanity. I'm not convinced that unfettered capitalism solves your problem.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 06 2020, @09:59PM (2 children)
You mean that California interests can't dominate local interests? Who knew that would happen. There's a reason that California was able to get the water from the sparsely populated Colorado River and completely failed to get water from a bunch of other places (Great Lakes, Pacific Northwest, and Yukon/Alaska). Because there's enough people there to resist their interests and the impracticality of the water delivery systems (the one feeding [wikipedia.org] from the Yukon would require 6 nuclear plants just to pump water - similar power would be required for Great Lakes schemes).
It's not some magic governmental body that prevents LA from walking over the rest of North America, but the fact that there's a lot of people who would be effected, if LA tried anything. LA just doesn't have the political power to make such megaprojects possible.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:07PM (1 child)
A few years ago, a municipality nearby to but not quite in the Great Lakes watershed wanted to use Great Lakes water for their municipal water supply, because their current one was drying up. However, the main reason their current supply was drying up was a bottled water plant had been expanding substantially over the last few years, selling their city water at huge markups because they'd put it into a bottle. It was the Great Lakes Compact that told them they couldn't do that, and defended that in court, and while that limited that company's profits it also protected the water supplies of millions of people.
Sure, it helps that the Compact and the well-being of the lakes themselves enjoy a great deal of public support. It also helps that there are legally binding agreements and rules so that if one state changes its mind due to, say, large campaign donations from a company expecting to profit substantially from sending that water somewhere else, they still don't get their way. Because, as we both know, just because the vast majority of the public wants something doesn't mean that's what the government actually does.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:40PM
From what? [freshwaterfuture.org] It's not a significant draw of water.
Sorry, I see instead yet another poorly thought-out regulatory body obstructing human progress. It's one thing to protect against California draining the Great Lakes (which was successfully done long before the Compact was a thing). It's another to protect again a 70k city (Waukesha, Wisconsin) that happens to lie just outside the drainage boundary. Again from the above link, they discussed this second case a little:
Funny how we need all these powerful organizations to stop non-problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @05:44PM
Why do several of you guys keep mentioning Arizona? They don't have water problems! Even after drought conditions for 19 straight years!!!!!!!!! And stop mentioning golf courses too. They are totally insignificant compared to the water usage of all the pools in the area, which were only required to have a cover (installed NOT used) about 15 years ago. You hardly ever see a pool covered and they evaporate like CRAZY! Think 1ft of water level in one day during summer months. Also most golf courses used reclaimed water not river/aquifer water. There are quite a number of man-made lakes using reclaimed water too. Fly over Phoenix sometime and try to count how many pools are covered. It's hard to find even a couple among the tens of thousands of pools.