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Climate change effects on agriculture essay
Climate change impacts on agriculture
Water crisis topic
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“Water is the driving force of all nature.” Leonardo da Vince once said. Water is a huge part of life, and everything that lives requires water to make it through its days on earth. A lot of people think that the world has massive amounts of water available for use; therefore, most roll their eyes when conserving water is mentioned. After all, 71% of the earth’s surface is made up of water. However, the truth is that only 2.5% of that is clean, drinkable water, and two-thirds of that percentage is unavailable because it is stuck in ice caps and glaciers (water). The water ordeal in America is bigger than many realize, and the United States needs to begin looking at how we can solve this issue. The U.S. needs to acknowledge the impending dangers and help the states that are already suffering by putting water conservation methods in place and investing money into research for alternatives.
Although the United States is secure for now in our water sources, there could be trouble in our distant future. The USGS water science school website states, that as of 2013 Rhode Island has the most water out of all of the states in the US with 17% of the state being made up of water. New Mexico has the least water at 0.2%. Due to the geographical position of the US, this is a historical pattern in America; the Western half in general has less water than the Eastern half. Places like New Mexico, California, Nevada, and the western part of Texas have had to enforce strict water conservation and cut back drastically on their uses of water. These acts have been essential in order to ensure they have enough water for simple necessities. The sources of these trials in the west are largely contributed to two factors, climate change and fracking. Clim...
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...ach State That Is Water. United States Government, 26 Aug. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
Lavandera, Ed. "Desperate to Drink, West Texas Turns to Wastewater." CNN. Cable News Network, 11 Aug. 2011. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Mercer, Dave. "Desal Or Not To Desal? The Desalination Debate In Australia." Geodate 21.2 (2008): 5-7. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
Merrill, Thomas W. "Four Questions About Fracking." Case Western Reserve Law Review 63.4 (2013): 971-993. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Nov. 2013.
Rinat, Zafrir. "Israel Finds Secret to Water Conservation: Drought Tax." Haaretz.com. Haaretz Daily Newspaper, 30 May 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Satija, Neena. "With Prop 6 Approved, Plans Remain Uncertain." The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune, 13 Nov. 2013. Web. 16 Nov. 2013.
"Water Wranglers." Discover 32.10 (2011): 48-53. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
Humans need water. In a world that is overpopulated, we use a lot of water and other natural resources. Currently, in our world, clean water is getting scarce. Recently, for example, Flint, Michigan, had a water crisis. In early 2016, the water was discovered to be tainted with lead and other toxins. Long before that, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and Governor Rick Snyder along with his council, knew about the lead, but to save money for the city of Flint in early 2014 Snyder had changed the city’s water source to the Flint River which had corroded pipes, causing people of all ages to be sick from the high amounts of lead
Long ago, the middle of the North American continent was a treeless prairie covered by tall grasses and roaming buffalo. When European settlers came, they called this area the Great American Desert. Today, this "desert" is covered with fields of wheat, corn, and alfalfa made possible by center-pivot irrigation. My grandfather used to sell center-pivot systems and when my family drove to my grandparent's home in Nebraska, we would count how many "sprinklers" were watering each section of land. At the time, I didn't know that this water was being pumped from somethng called the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground water supply. Throughout the years, this aquifer has made the Great American Desert one of the best farming areas in the world. Unfortunately, the Ogallala Aquifer's future as a valuable resource is in jeopardy, unless citizens of the Plains states reduce their water consumption.
What we have seen in late January has proved that the city of Phoenix needs one more water treatment facility. The tax revenue that will be lost if a water crisis every happen again will pay for the building of the new facility. The water department has known of this problem for years but has chosen not to rectify the hazard. City officials chalked up the high levels of sediment in the water to Mother Nature, but they acknowledge that a series of decisions by water officials could have worsened the problem. (Villa, Fehr-Snyder, 1) The water department knew and Frank Fairbanks knew that maintenance was required on rotating bases, on each facility and chooses to take two offline during the “winter” or “rainy months”.
Conflict between residents in northern Nevada and SNWA has risen (Brean, 2015). In 2012 the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced its support of SNWA wanting to build a pipeline from rural Nevada to Las Vegas, rural Nevada being primarily in the northern portion of the state (Larsen et al., 2015). Residents including farmers who depend on water for their crops argue that redirecting water supplies would harm the environment and wildlife that inhabit northern Nevada (Brean, 2015). There is also an issue of oversubscription, this is due to the Colorado River not only supplying water to Nevada but neighboring states which include “Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah” (Wockner, 2014). Both Arizona and California are expecting water shortages in the future as they too depend on the Colorado River (Wockner, 2014).
5. "What Is Fracking and Why Is It Controversial?" BBC News. BBC, 27 June 2013. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
Texas, with its abundances of natural resources, is facing a new demon, one that doesn’t even seem possible, a shortage of water. Water, without it nothing can survive. Texas is the second largest state for landmass in the nation and ninth for water square miles. Within the borders of Texas are more than 100 lakes, 14 major rivers, and 23 aquifers, so why has water become such an important issue for the state? Politicians and conservationists all agree that without a new working water plan, the state could be facing one of the most damaging environmental disasters they have ever seen. The issues that shape the states positions are population growth, current drought conditions, and who actually owns the water.
---. “The Clean Water Act—Is it Successfully Reducing Water Pollution?- Final Draft.” UTSA: WRC 1023, 11 Apr 2014. Print.
The Water Crisis in California has been a major problem in the United States. California
For about five years California has experienced above average temperatures and a lack of rain. This lack of rain and snowfall has caused California to become increasingly dry, starting arguments over whose right to water is more important and who needs to be more mindful with their use of water. Farming in California truly began during the gold rush when water was redirected to land where food was grown for those looking for gold (Siegler, 2015). The farmers that have stayed on that land now have senior water rights (“Water wars”, 2015). Farmers that settled their land before 1914 are those with senior water rights (Terrell, 2015). Governor Jerry Brown has called for a cut in water use by one-quarter percent to people living
Water, a colorless, transparent, odorless, tasteless liquid that forms seas, lakes, rivers, rain, and is the basis of the fluids of living organisms. Something we all desperately need is now facing a shortage; with the vast majority of resources Texas has, this is something that seemed impossible. Many factors contribute to this are, rapid population growth drought and ownership are three of the main causes. With more than 100 lakes, 23 aquifers and 14 major rivers, water shortage was never a question until now.
The water levels in the Colorado River continue to fall as the seven states that rely on it for water grow. With this growth, we must stop wasting water or we will see the water supply drop to even more alarming levels. Some states have started to implement rewards to residents who remove their grass lawns or put strict rules on their water usage, however, even if we slow our consumption and waste, we are using our water at an unsustainable rate. Global warming, in combination with our current drought, has made this an issue for our generation and not the next.
"Water Crisis & Solutions." Water Crisis & Solutions. Water For People, 2011. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. http://www.waterforpeople.org/extras/crisis/water-crisis-and-solutions.html
Freshwater is quite scarce, but it is even scarcer than one might think: about seventy percent of all freshwater is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland and is unavailable to humans. Most of the remainder is present as soil moisture or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater. It is not economically feasible to extract this waster for use as drinking water. This leaves less than one percent of the world’s fresh water that is available to humans. It includes the water found in lakes, reservoirs, groundwater that is shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. These freshwater sources are the only sources that are frequently replenished by rain and snowfall, and therefore are renewable. At the current rates of consumption, however, this supply of fresh water will not last. Pollution and contamination of freshwater sources exacerbate the problem, further reducing the amount of freshwater available for human consumption. Something must be done if humans want to even survive in the near future: the lack of clean drinking water is already the number one cause of disease in the world today. The first step is worldwide awareness of the water crisis: governments and the citizens they govern worldwide need to know about this problem and be actively involved in solving this problem.
Miller, Debra A. Will the World Run out of Fresh Water? Detroit: Greenhaven, 2007. Print.
Rogers, Peter. 2008. "Facing the Freshwater CRISIS. (Cover story)." Scientific American 299, no. 2: 46-53. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 4, 2010).