Did you know that agriculture uses 70 percent of the world’s fresh water every year? I didn’t. A new study out of Cornell University is urging farmers to get serious about water conservation, and fast.
In parts of Arizona, water from major aquifers is now being withdrawn
more than 10 times faster than it can be recharged by rainfall. In
California, agriculture accounts for about 3 per cent of the state’s
economic production but consumes 85 per cent of the fresh water.… Pimentel cites the massive Ogallala aquifer, under parts of Nebraska,
South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas, that
supplies water to a fifth of all irrigated land in the country.The underground water source has dropped 33 per cent since 1950 — half the volume of Lake Erie."
Interestingly, researchers suggest that farming in the future may have to be concentrated in areas that receive high amounts of rainfall, like the U.S.’s pacific northwest. Or, if we extrapolate that geography a little bit, the fertile and rainy lower mainlaind around Vancouver … where developers are clamoring for local governments to take land out of the agricultural reserve.
"Frankly, I think wars will be fought over water. There are already
border disputes in some parts of the world between countries over
water."
I’m afraid agree. Oil schmoil, we ain’t seen nothing yet. My beloved and peaceable Canada, reservoir of the lion’s share of the world’s freshwater, will find itself a very desirable piece of geography for the water-hungry U.S. in a generation or two.
POLLENATRIX 