Troubled water
No, there is no river underground. In the old days people thought that underground water came from a nondepletable underground river. These days we know that that is not true. We also know that our planet holds fabulous water supplies but most of these are not readily available for us to consume. Freshwater, it turns out, is a depletable resource. When thinking about using freshwater, we must think of the different alternatives where it can be used. Does it make more sense to use it to irrigate crops, irrigate lawns, household consumption, etc. Of course, there is no right answer because it all depends on how we value each different alternative use. But how many of us think about those when we consume the water that comes out of the tap? Almost everything we consume in some way or other uses water as an input, so the demand for water is not just a direct demand for water but also a derived demand, that is a demand that is created because we demand products that use water.
Our water is in trouble, can we get it out of it?
October 29th, 2007 at 9:14 am
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