Before It’s News – by Susan Duclos
A recent report from NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences confirms that 11 cities across the US could completely run out of water as they are “stressed” with demand for water that exceeds their natural supply.
Those cities are:
Salt Lake City, Utah – Lincoln, Nebraska – Cleveland, Ohio – Miami, Florida – Atlanta, Georgia – Washington DC – El Paso, Texas – San Antonio, Texas, San Francisco Bay Area, California – Houston, Texas and Los Angeles, California.
Abstract from the original report:
Here, we assess current stress in the freshwater system based on the best available data in order to understand possible risks and vulnerabilities to regional water resources and the sectors dependent on freshwater. We present watershed-scale measures of surface water supply stress for the coterminous United States (US) using the water supply stress index (WaSSI) model which considers regional trends in both water supply and demand. A snapshot of contemporary annual water demand is compared against different water supply regimes, including current average supplies, current extreme-year supplies, and projected future average surface water flows under a changing climate. In addition, we investigate the contributions of different water demand sectors to current water stress. On average, water supplies are stressed, meaning that demands for water outstrip natural supplies in over 9% of the 2103 watersheds examined. These watersheds rely on reservoir storage, conveyance systems, and groundwater to meet current water demands. Overall, agriculture is the major demand-side driver of water stress in the US, whereas municipal stress is isolated to southern California. Water stress introduced by cooling water demands for power plants is punctuated across the US, indicating that a single power plant has the potential to stress water supplies at the watershed scale. On the supply side, watersheds in the western US are particularly sensitive to low flow events and projected long-term shifts in flow driven by climate change. The WaSSI results imply that not only are water resources in the southwest in particular at risk, but that there are also potential vulnerabilities to specific sectors, even in the ‘water-rich’ southeast.
All cities and all businesses require water, yet in many regions, they need more water than is actually available, and that demand is growing,” said Upmanu Lall, director, Columbia Water Center told the Business Insider. “The new study reveals that certain areas face exposure to drought, which will magnify existing problems of water supply and demand.”
More in the video below:
The prospect of water wars being the next conflict type is definitely looming large.
I note New York isn’t on the list but that is because the city has the most amazing and quite old aqueduct and feeder reservoir system and probably the most extensive on the planet that not only waters the city but provides water distribution along its route for arable use, perhaps these other cities need to look at New York’s way for themselves.
This kind of information explains the Great Lakes water situation Ventura’s show was talking about….if you believe that. The one thing I know, is that I really don’t know…it’s all very confusing. Anyone out there who likes Coast to Coast am, listen to the 12.7.13 show with Douglas Dietrich and John B. Wells on Peril Harbor….it’s just astounding. The information Dietrich puts out there will make your head spin……People are easy to fool, but try to convience the people that they have been fooled….that’s a different story…just sayin’.
i listen every night. Last nights show was pretty good. I liked the part about FDR taking us off the gold standard by issuance of the federal reserve note based on debt and seizing private metal holdings.
Yes. The whole show on Pearl Harbor as well as other things Dietrich talks about is astounding….We truely live in the matrix.
where’s Vegas? maybe if we stopped letting in fat bean eaters holding dual offspring this wouldn’t be a problem.( sound of anchor baby…bloop, blub blub blub bloop bloop……..bloop)
sorry(no disrespect to Mark W) but any writer that seriously refers to global warming, I mean climate change as a factor in anything immediately discredits themselves- no mention of geo-engineering- this is a propaganda piece-setting up to tax your water
these are the people who are your enemy
I just tried to post on the site Common Dreams and my comment was not allowed
check out About Us on their site- see any common threads?
the line between people in the .alt media and communists is many times unclear. some bloke agrees cops are out of line and the WTO is evil- then he’s touting Ocommiecare or freaked about global warming, I mean climate change
we as conservatives hate fascists- so do commies- but what they don’t say is they hate you 2 as (free mkt. capitalists)
hey people go to Alternet or Common Dreams and sword fight with these psychopaths
man I can’t stand those f#@kers with those scrunched down brown glasses
see them and you know 95% you’re dealing with the enemy
remember them- analyze their weaknesses and styles- they are the enemy
bulk dump over and out
Government will do everything it can to hold back free enterprise and innovation to make sure these and more cities do run out of clean water.
Cleveland? They suck right from Lake Erie! That’s a natural supply right there. The only way they dry up is if they shut the water plant off line.
Not surprised El Paso is on the list–considering they get the lion’s share of water from the farming/ranching areas between the various mountains of the Big Bend and the Limpia and other large creeks north of the Park…in a huge area that also has about 10,000 people who believe it or not also use water every now and then…in other words, far west Texas, which gets on the average 20 inches of rain a year and where ranches have acres per cow, not cows per acre…why folks ever decided to put large cities near deserts (Chihuahan in this case) is beyond me.
And why isn’t Phoenix on this list? Or Tuscan? Or Vegas?
Cleveland, Ohio is not going to run out of water in my lifetime. For your information, Cleveland is located on the south shore of Lake Erie for god’s sake!
Hmmmm, with that said, I feel better now!
Just marvelous.
We always manage to make just about every bad scenario list out there.