Whether caused by Global Warming or simply changing regional and global climate changes, it is an undeniable fact that many regions across the USA which have been the focus of much development and expansion in the last decades, are running headfirst into a confrontation with the resource limits of their regions, especially with regards to water....
This article from todays Sunday NYT's make this case clear... Their are few easy or simple answers...
Quote from article by Pat Mulroy, the head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority
"We have an exploding human population, and we have a shrinking clean-water supply. Those are on colliding paths. This is not just a Las Vegas issue. This is a microcosm of a much larger issue.” Americans, she went on to say, are the most voracious users of natural resources in the world. Maybe we need to talk about that as well. “The people who move to the West today need to realize they’re moving into a desert,” Mulroy said. “If they want to live in a desert, they have to adapt to a desert lifestyle.”
What effect will this have on growth and development patterns, with regards to efficiency...
Does it make sense to grown in regions where there is not enough resources to support growth....Technology and public infrastructure are not a sure solution.....
My opinion is that it all depends on how much infrastructure you're prepared to build and how much you're willing to change the natural environment. 20 million people can live in 7 fairly dry counties in Southern California because of vast works of engineering that have largely transformed natural systems in the areas where people are concentrated, but that 20 million are fairly densely concentrated (believe it or not) relative to the Greater Atlanta area, where things are much more spread out.. and there are still large conserved watersheds above those areas where people are. I think what concerns me about Atlanta is not that it's grown so quickly and that there are so many people there, but that it has grown in a way that sprawls further and further out, consuming more land, and correspondingly increasing the cost of the infrastructure (in this case aqueducts, reservoirs etc) needed to cover that area. Plus, all of those people require water for landscaping, etc, as well as potable uses.. and then there's the vast amount of water used for cooling (air con etc), exacerbated by non-green building design and urban settlement patterns.
I think the future will be about conservation, building with the constraints of natural systems in mind, and large-scale infrastructure urbanism -- how to concentrate people in fairly discrete areas where it's fairly easy to manage the aggregation, distribution and rationing of valuable resources (through the market, through government action, or whatever).
Given our country's high birth rate, I don't think that population by itself is avoidable. The US will have well over 500 million people by 2060, even without taking immigration into account... and, personally, I believe in both the freedom to reproduce and the freedom to immigrate.. if the people don't wind up here, they'll be somewhere else less well equipped to deal with large numbers and high densities than this country (with its wealth and innovativeness) is.
btw, if you look at the numbers, household water efficiency in the southeast can probably improve 50% (reducing the residential consumption of water by 50%) without any real change to quality of life, aside from not having any more green lawns... and still be in line with the more water-efficient regions of the country or Canada. Per household water use in Vermont is less than half that of parts of the Southeast, despite the fact that Vermont has plenty of water.
The other issue is farming. Farming nationally needs to be concentrated into areas where there are adequate water reserves. Those massive sprinkler rigs you see everywhere south of Macon are really bad news... as bad as people who insist on growing rice and cotton in California's Central Valley. Farming uses vast amounts of water, and really should be done in places where it is efficient to do so Unfortunately, Federal crop susidies encourage totally irresponsible behavior... people who use cheap water to plant crops that they basically throw away....
Actually this is exactly what some want to do...
In fact Bill richardson has made it part of his campaign promise...to bring water from the Great Lakes to the South West via a huge and very expensive pipeline....
This article notes however, that the environmental and infratsructure costs fro such a project would likely be prohibitive....
@ Urbanist...
With regards to effeciency...
Yes, farming should only occur in regions where it is sensible but tell that to the farmers...
Semi-related watering our lawn actually takes up a lion-share of water resources anywhere in the USA...Got to be green and non-useful....
Finally with regards to effeciency....
There is this quote from the article....
He makes a persuasive case, however, that there are immense opportunities — even in cities like Las Vegas, which has made strides in conservation — to reduce both consumptive and nonconsumptive demand for water. These include installing more low-flow home appliances and adopting more efficient irrigation methods. And they include economic tools too: for example, many municipalities have reduced consumption by making water more expensive (the more you use, the higher your per-gallon rate). The United States uses less water than it did 25 years ago, Gleick points out: “We haven’t even paid too much attention to it, and we’ve accomplished this.”
My question is at what point does effeciency gains lose out to population growth....
the basic underlying issue for me is the same as that related to Federal homeowners insurance for people who build in flood plains and coastal barrier islands....
these places are naturally in flux.. and are unstable over the long term, and living in these regions makes no more sense to me than does trying to grow a metropolis in the Dessert....
However, i don't think we will ever get to a situation where any goverenment; state, federal or local tells people they can't move here or there etc......
Socal metro area is bigger then metro Georgia- just riverside county alone, is half the size of the peach state (okay, maybe not). What makes SoCal habitable is the three major water pipelines that connect the district almost 500miles to the north (feather river/sacramento river) via the California Aqueduct, 200 miles to the north east to Owens Lake via the LA Aqueduct (the chinatown pipe), and 150 miles to the colorado. These three pipes have worked great up untill now because they tap into several different snowsheds and distinct climate regions. But the best case scenario for the next 50 years is a 70% reduction of the sierra snow pack and the rockies aren't expected to have even that much snow. SoCal is bound to do an anastazi disappearing act if we don't tame carbon emissions. Short term solutions are to cut agricultural irrigation and increase reclamation and reuse of water instead of flushing it out to sea.
[Shameless plug] I have an essay on this subject appearing in the upcoming book Infrastructural City expected out this winter.[/shameless plug]
The South needs the great lakes water (but lake superior was at an all time low this summer down 6 inches) so we don't have any water to spare up here.
So dixie is doomed since they will never build the infrastructure and their ain't no water left anyways... (or except that you now live in a desert and get rid of the lawns.)
Hey, sleepy monster in the sand
Time to get up and have a drink
Pacific rim has a tank that thinks
That she is really something grand
Let me tell you about
When I was hanging out
Just in my dothi
Running in the dawn
Right across my lawn
I saw a coyote
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
See the water fall
And hooray, hooray the sky is falling
Down on bradburys mall
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
All waxed in pride
Ive got a comfortable ride
And man, she could take us
Out across the salts
Right out of these faults
And on into vegas
So slept a monster in the dune
Woke him up and then he drank
Pacific rim has a think tank
But does she have iq for the moon?
The concrete of the aquaduct
Will last as long as the pyramid of egypt
Or the parthenon of athens
Long after joe harriman is elected major of los angeles
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
See the water fall
And hooray, hooray the ants are crawling
Down in bradburys mall
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
Yeah, its quite a sprawl
And hooray, hooray the sky is falling
Down on bradburys mall
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
Ole
My parents live in North Carolina, and like Atlanta, they're facing the prospect of running out of water (as in: turn on the faucet and nothing comes out) by January if they don't get a major rain event. Earlier in the year they were saying it would take four tropical storms to get the water levels back up where they should be, but I don't think they got one this season.
Pathetic part is, even with the possibility of running out of water, most of the people down there are still vehemently opposed to any sort of mandatory restrictions on development or water usage. "I don't want no stinking government telling me I can't water my lawn and wash my Hummer whenever I want!" Looks like they're in for a rude awakening in a couple months.
A few years ago people were predicting that the "Rust Belt" cities of the north would be all but emptied out, and that all the population growth would be in the Sun Belt. I think those predictions will turn out to be way off-base when people realize that most of the Sun Belt cities are built upon an environmental house of cards.
Never underestimate the myopia of the public when it comes to luxuries they enjoy everyday. Just as most people see the shrink wrapped steak in the supermarket...and not the cow it came from, most give little thought to where that water they use everyday comes from.
One look at Las Vegas pretty much sums up how wrecklessly wasteful we've all been.
Oct 23, 07 2:45 pm ·
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Effect of Drought on Planning and Growth of South-Western-Eastern USA.
Whether caused by Global Warming or simply changing regional and global climate changes, it is an undeniable fact that many regions across the USA which have been the focus of much development and expansion in the last decades, are running headfirst into a confrontation with the resource limits of their regions, especially with regards to water....
This article from todays Sunday NYT's make this case clear... Their are few easy or simple answers...
Quote from article by Pat Mulroy, the head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority
"We have an exploding human population, and we have a shrinking clean-water supply. Those are on colliding paths. This is not just a Las Vegas issue. This is a microcosm of a much larger issue.” Americans, she went on to say, are the most voracious users of natural resources in the world. Maybe we need to talk about that as well. “The people who move to the West today need to realize they’re moving into a desert,” Mulroy said. “If they want to live in a desert, they have to adapt to a desert lifestyle.”
Link here
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=magazine
What effect will this have on growth and development patterns, with regards to efficiency...
Does it make sense to grown in regions where there is not enough resources to support growth....Technology and public infrastructure are not a sure solution.....
Thoughts.........?????
all ya do is divert the water. like in chinatown...
My opinion is that it all depends on how much infrastructure you're prepared to build and how much you're willing to change the natural environment. 20 million people can live in 7 fairly dry counties in Southern California because of vast works of engineering that have largely transformed natural systems in the areas where people are concentrated, but that 20 million are fairly densely concentrated (believe it or not) relative to the Greater Atlanta area, where things are much more spread out.. and there are still large conserved watersheds above those areas where people are. I think what concerns me about Atlanta is not that it's grown so quickly and that there are so many people there, but that it has grown in a way that sprawls further and further out, consuming more land, and correspondingly increasing the cost of the infrastructure (in this case aqueducts, reservoirs etc) needed to cover that area. Plus, all of those people require water for landscaping, etc, as well as potable uses.. and then there's the vast amount of water used for cooling (air con etc), exacerbated by non-green building design and urban settlement patterns.
I think the future will be about conservation, building with the constraints of natural systems in mind, and large-scale infrastructure urbanism -- how to concentrate people in fairly discrete areas where it's fairly easy to manage the aggregation, distribution and rationing of valuable resources (through the market, through government action, or whatever).
Given our country's high birth rate, I don't think that population by itself is avoidable. The US will have well over 500 million people by 2060, even without taking immigration into account... and, personally, I believe in both the freedom to reproduce and the freedom to immigrate.. if the people don't wind up here, they'll be somewhere else less well equipped to deal with large numbers and high densities than this country (with its wealth and innovativeness) is.
btw, if you look at the numbers, household water efficiency in the southeast can probably improve 50% (reducing the residential consumption of water by 50%) without any real change to quality of life, aside from not having any more green lawns... and still be in line with the more water-efficient regions of the country or Canada. Per household water use in Vermont is less than half that of parts of the Southeast, despite the fact that Vermont has plenty of water.
The other issue is farming. Farming nationally needs to be concentrated into areas where there are adequate water reserves. Those massive sprinkler rigs you see everywhere south of Macon are really bad news... as bad as people who insist on growing rice and cotton in California's Central Valley. Farming uses vast amounts of water, and really should be done in places where it is efficient to do so Unfortunately, Federal crop susidies encourage totally irresponsible behavior... people who use cheap water to plant crops that they basically throw away....
@ Vado....
Actually this is exactly what some want to do...
In fact Bill richardson has made it part of his campaign promise...to bring water from the Great Lakes to the South West via a huge and very expensive pipeline....
This article notes however, that the environmental and infratsructure costs fro such a project would likely be prohibitive....
@ Urbanist...
With regards to effeciency...
Yes, farming should only occur in regions where it is sensible but tell that to the farmers...
Semi-related watering our lawn actually takes up a lion-share of water resources anywhere in the USA...Got to be green and non-useful....
Finally with regards to effeciency....
There is this quote from the article....
He makes a persuasive case, however, that there are immense opportunities — even in cities like Las Vegas, which has made strides in conservation — to reduce both consumptive and nonconsumptive demand for water. These include installing more low-flow home appliances and adopting more efficient irrigation methods. And they include economic tools too: for example, many municipalities have reduced consumption by making water more expensive (the more you use, the higher your per-gallon rate). The United States uses less water than it did 25 years ago, Gleick points out: “We haven’t even paid too much attention to it, and we’ve accomplished this.”
My question is at what point does effeciency gains lose out to population growth....
the basic underlying issue for me is the same as that related to Federal homeowners insurance for people who build in flood plains and coastal barrier islands....
these places are naturally in flux.. and are unstable over the long term, and living in these regions makes no more sense to me than does trying to grow a metropolis in the Dessert....
However, i don't think we will ever get to a situation where any goverenment; state, federal or local tells people they can't move here or there etc......
urb-
Socal metro area is bigger then metro Georgia- just riverside county alone, is half the size of the peach state (okay, maybe not). What makes SoCal habitable is the three major water pipelines that connect the district almost 500miles to the north (feather river/sacramento river) via the California Aqueduct, 200 miles to the north east to Owens Lake via the LA Aqueduct (the chinatown pipe), and 150 miles to the colorado. These three pipes have worked great up untill now because they tap into several different snowsheds and distinct climate regions. But the best case scenario for the next 50 years is a 70% reduction of the sierra snow pack and the rockies aren't expected to have even that much snow. SoCal is bound to do an anastazi disappearing act if we don't tame carbon emissions. Short term solutions are to cut agricultural irrigation and increase reclamation and reuse of water instead of flushing it out to sea.
[Shameless plug] I have an essay on this subject appearing in the upcoming book Infrastructural City expected out this winter.[/shameless plug]
The South needs the great lakes water (but lake superior was at an all time low this summer down 6 inches) so we don't have any water to spare up here.
So dixie is doomed since they will never build the infrastructure and their ain't no water left anyways... (or except that you now live in a desert and get rid of the lawns.)
Related Article
Inch by Inch, Great Lakes Shrink, and Cargo Carriers Face Losses
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/nyregion/22oswego.html
Hey, sleepy monster in the sand
Time to get up and have a drink
Pacific rim has a tank that thinks
That she is really something grand
Let me tell you about
When I was hanging out
Just in my dothi
Running in the dawn
Right across my lawn
I saw a coyote
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
See the water fall
And hooray, hooray the sky is falling
Down on bradburys mall
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
All waxed in pride
Ive got a comfortable ride
And man, she could take us
Out across the salts
Right out of these faults
And on into vegas
So slept a monster in the dune
Woke him up and then he drank
Pacific rim has a think tank
But does she have iq for the moon?
The concrete of the aquaduct
Will last as long as the pyramid of egypt
Or the parthenon of athens
Long after joe harriman is elected major of los angeles
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
See the water fall
And hooray, hooray the ants are crawling
Down in bradburys mall
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
Yeah, its quite a sprawl
And hooray, hooray the sky is falling
Down on bradburys mall
Ole, ole, ole for mulholland
Ole
is that frank black or Cris Reed of Stoss?
FB
Anyone else?
My parents live in North Carolina, and like Atlanta, they're facing the prospect of running out of water (as in: turn on the faucet and nothing comes out) by January if they don't get a major rain event. Earlier in the year they were saying it would take four tropical storms to get the water levels back up where they should be, but I don't think they got one this season.
Pathetic part is, even with the possibility of running out of water, most of the people down there are still vehemently opposed to any sort of mandatory restrictions on development or water usage. "I don't want no stinking government telling me I can't water my lawn and wash my Hummer whenever I want!" Looks like they're in for a rude awakening in a couple months.
A few years ago people were predicting that the "Rust Belt" cities of the north would be all but emptied out, and that all the population growth would be in the Sun Belt. I think those predictions will turn out to be way off-base when people realize that most of the Sun Belt cities are built upon an environmental house of cards.
Related
from NYT today.....
Article
New to being Dry the South Struggles to Adapt....
“It’s been develop first and ask questions later,” said Gil Rogers, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/us/23drought.html?hp
Never underestimate the myopia of the public when it comes to luxuries they enjoy everyday. Just as most people see the shrink wrapped steak in the supermarket...and not the cow it came from, most give little thought to where that water they use everyday comes from.
One look at Las Vegas pretty much sums up how wrecklessly wasteful we've all been.
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