What can we do?: Complexities of the Global Water Crisis

By Enrique P. Sanchez

Source: The Copernicus Organization 

It’s hard to talk about a “water crisis” just two years after hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina and when we are still working on major reconstruction from it. It’s hard to talk about a “water crisis” after the last 4-6 weeks of atypical storms pounding us, unexpectedly, as if we were living in the tropics. It’s hard to talk about a “water crisis” when water is the most abundant and the essential element for life on earth.

The difficulty begins with taking water for granted and not talking enough about it. We turn on a faucet, drink a glass of water, wash our food, turn on the washer and the dishwasher, flush the toilet, live our urbanized lives without thinking a second about the complex systems that make those daily actions possible. Yet clean, reliable water is becoming one of the defining environmental and public health challenges of the twenty-first century--worldwide.

In January, the United Nations University released an in-depth, peer reviewed report about the global water crisis. The magnitude of the problem can be appreciated by a few selected statistics of worldwide trends:

• 4 billion people (nearly half of humanity) face severe water scarcity for at least one month every year; 3 billion of them live in areas where total water storage is declining or unstable
  

• 25% of humanity draws their fresh water from large lakes, while half of these lakes have lost water since the 1990s
  

• 50% of domestic water usage and 40% of water used in agriculture is drawn from aquifers and groundwater, while 70% of the world aquifers have experienced long-term declines for decades
  

• Over the past fifty years, natural wetlands, swamps and marshes across the world have lost an area almost as large as the entire European Union.

The first point shrinks our hearts for the poorest of all, who are the most affected by this crisis; it moves us into empathetic efforts --much needed and justified— to alleviate their misery.  But the last three points also merit our attention because they highlight the key sources of living waters that often escape the headlines. But it is not only a scarcity issue. It is also an issue of access, quality, infrastructure, pollution, climate, lack of governance, new uses demands, all of which explain the alarming title of the United Nations report: the Global Water Bankruptcy.

Multiple factors are attributed to have caused this water bankruptcy: increasing population and urban development, economic development, industrialized agriculture, industrialization, pollution, climate change -- all are feeding into an unprecedented, vicious cycle, accelerating the rapid depletion of the most critical resource for life on the planet. Moreover, this depletion is aggravated by decades of irresponsible discharge of industrial chemicals, PFAS, and pollutants like microplastics and illegal garbage going into our rivers and streams. This interaction resulted in major losses of ecosystems (as per the World Wildlife Foundation), massive migration of both animals and humans, increasing water-borne diseases, and increasing stress in populations and areas not affected directly by these conditions.

More recently, the outlook for water sources has worsened by the exponential demand for water brought by datacenters, crypto mining and AI. The Energy Studies Institute of Singapore estimates that a large datacenter can use 5 million gallons of water a day, and 80% of it is evaporated. This is equivalent to the water used by a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people. (Hendersonville’s population is 15,000).

In the U.S. water battles are best illustrated by the years (decades?)-long negotiations between the seven states of the Southwest over the use of water from the Colorado river basin. THIS VIDEO (below) helps to understand the dispute and the weak temporary agreement recently reached.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjrW88M58jA

For us in Western North Carolina, it’s hard to fully comprehend the global impact of water bankruptcy. But, with the abbreviated background described above, we can look at and better appreciate the water issues in our own area. Fortunately, we have two local organizations with a long record advocating and defending the living waters in our beautiful mountains: Mountain True and Conserving Carolina.

After the 2014 discharge of 39,000+ tons of coal-ash released by the rupture of Duke Energy’s pipes into the Dan River, Mountain True became a leading organization in the clean-up efforts, as well as in the clean-up of the mismanagement of coal-ash from Duke’s Asheville plant. Its long-standing River Keepers program has cleaned more than 3 million pounds of trash, and now Mountain True leads a $10 million multi-year effort to clean up the trash and debris caused by Helene.

Conserving Carolina has a strong program protecting and managing wetlands, attempting to mitigate the damage of the more-frequent storms. Watch THIS trailer (below) in advance of an upcoming educational program that we’ll bring to Trinity soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHi9guJNAvo

We can also be good water stewards with our personal behavior:

• Learn where your drinking water comes from

• Reduce unnecessary water consumption 

• Protect local rivers and streams

• Prevent pollution at the source

• Report any anomalies to the right authorities or to advocate organizations

• Support infrastructure and responsible regulation

• Support watershed organizations

The Earth Caring Ministry will be sharing more information about how water affects our wildlife and how we can reduce our freshwater usage on the bulletin board (outside the atrium) and our table (in the narthex).

The water crisis is global, but its solutions begin locally —in the choices we make at the kitchen sink, at a factory, a farm, a city council meeting, and a riverbank.

Ultimately water connects us all and it is vital for life on earth. Treating it as an unlimited commodity is inconsistent with our mandate to care for creation. (Genesis 2:15). 

—Enrique

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 * My gratitude to Cindy Anne Bowers and Norie Sanchez for their valuable feedback on this complex issue.