Water shortage

[Stan]

Can there really be one? can you destroy water? I thought it has a natural cycle and could not be destroyed in the long run..

One day they will talk about water shortage, next day they talk about waters rising and too much water.

thoughts?

[Dr. Shane]

There can be a fresh water shortage. Most of the world's water is salt water. Of course this is the fault of global warming. Although if the globe gets warmer more ice will melt and more ocean water will evaporate which means more clouds and more rain and thus more fresh water. But that probably also means too much water in some places and not enough in others.

[Bravus]

Yeah, there are a few related issues: as Shane has said, we have loads of water, but only a tiny proportion of it is fresh. And even some of that is polluted and can't be used for drinking or irrigation.

The big problem with climate change is that the fresh water won't be where it's needed. For example, the glaciers in the Himalayas store fresh water and release it over the summer, which keeps the rivers flowing across China on one side and India on the other. Then the glaciers are replenished in winter. If temperatures rise and the water falls as rain instead of snow, there will be floods when it rains, and then all the water will run away and the rivers will dry up over the summer, leaving 2.4 billion people without enough fresh water. So although there might be just as much precipitation, without the glaciers as reservoirs to spread it out across the year and across the years (in particular between La Nina and El Nino cycles and other longer-period cycles), there is indeed likely to be serious shortages of fresh water.

[Dr. Shane]

That is why there will continue to be work for the construction and engineering sector.