Faith Brings

Poisoning Ourselves Slowly

Many of us have media at our fingertips, knowledge of the future splashed across the

cyber net. Is our water disappearing, are we going to have an arid planet? I personally dont

believe water is scarce, just stressed by our faulty agriculture methods.

Many people believe that water is becoming a scarce resource, believing the pollution of

pesticides, untreated human wastewater, and industrial waste leaching into underground aquifers,

transforms a renewable resource into a non-renewable resource. Why I believe this to be only

water stress is in your first and second world countries, much of your water flows down drains to

be used again. In the U.S., most of your wastewater from houses, flow to treatment plants, its

cleaned and then released to rivers or lakes that are likely someone elses water source. I know

that not everything can be treated, we could put an immediate stop to our agriculture practices

that are polluting our water with chemicals. Our government would have to step in and forcibly

remove pesticides and insecticides from shelves and handle the new pressure on organic foods.

There will not be a surplus of bug protected foods anymore to handle the growing masses. When

handling this aspect of our future, we have to find the sustainability line that balances water and

food. Enforce the correct policies that wont hinder agricultural growth and presumably go

organic.

Another popular standpoint is that our fresh water is disappearing due to our inefficient

methods of agriculture. That in 2003 to 2010, parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran along the

Tigris and Euphrates rivers lost 34.5 cubic miles of stored freshwater due to the rearing of crops
that cant survive on their own, is cause for global concern. Agriculture in India, China,

Australia, Spain and the United States, is reaching their water resource limits. This belief

comes from people growing plants like cotton where they wouldnt survive on their own, the

Arid Sea wouldn't be less than half its size if we didnt grow cotton in that area, problem solved,

just grow hemp. Also, it's a lot easier for governments to pull from nonrenewable groundwater

reservoirs than to fix our infrastructure, easier to increase supply than to increase efficiency; like

trying to reallocate water. In the face of water security and climate change, we look towards our

institutions and governance, our water availability, timing, and temperature are only stresses.

Your livelihood depends on how countries and communities handle the dependency, depends on

the governance of policies. Imagine having two farmers, one pumps his water from an

underground aquifer next to an irrigation canal, the other draws his water from the canal. If you

were to line the canal, removing leakage, you may be helping the second farmer to the detriment

of the first. Means, this problem has to be handled with finesse.

Another leading argument is that fossil groundwater is a finite resource, so using it is

fundamentally unsustainable. That in the face of this drought, farmers have resorted to

pumping out groundwater and at least 75% of farmers rely on groundwater and have been

pumping out 70% faster than they have in the 1990s. Water used for irrigation is being

consumed in a watershed, meaning that its used and cant be immediately reused. You would

think this means a lot of water is being taken from watersheds, its not; irrigated agriculture is

concentrated. 75 percent of water consumption by irrigation occurs in just 6 percent of all the

watersheds in the world. Often water that has been used is fed back into the watershed and

reused. When we look at the watershed, where we see the depletion we recognize as water-
limited are the seasonally depleted watersheds. We are viewing only nine percent of watersheds

who are facing these regular periods of shortage. Only twenty-one percent of watersheds deplete

in dry years, these places are easy to believe theres plenty of water to do what we like, yet

people still struggle semi-regularly with periods of shortage. That leaves sixty-eight percent of

watersheds to have very low depletion; these watersheds experience water stress: from lack of

access, equality, and governance. There had been no moderately depleted watersheds: defined as

only using up half their water on a given year. Granted, these watersheds are heavily depleted

with months when nearly all the water is consumed and months when little is used. Meaning we

have water stress, not so much of water scarcity.

Lastly, we come to an end, the understanding of where we stand with water being a

scarce or a stressed resource. The finality in knowing our governments should be applying fitting

policies revolving around agriculture is detrimental to having a bright foreseeable future. Now

its up to you with what you do with this information.

Bibliography
Goldenberg, S. (2014, February 08). Why global water shortages pose threat of terror and war.
Retrieved February 14, 2017, from
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/09/global-water-shortages-threat-terror-war

Kate Brauman Lead Scientist Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota. (2017,
January 23). We're (not) running out of water -- a better way to measure water scarcity.
Retrieved February 14, 2017, from http://theconversation.com/were-not-running-out-of-water-a-
better-way-to-measure-water-scarcity-58699

Lem, P., & C. (2016, May 04). Could a Lack of Water Cause Wars? Retrieved February 14,
2017, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-a-lack-of-water-cause-wars/

Water Scarcity. (n.d.). Retrieved February 14, 2017, from

http://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/water-scarcity