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If this were actually a serious issue, we would be discussing NAWPA again for real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https

If this were actually a serious issue, we would be discussing NAWPA again for real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power... The original blueprint used nukes to dig the trenches, but conventional explosives work just fine.

ergothus 7y ago
> If this were actually a serious issue, we would I fail to see how the choice of response (or not) determines seriousness of the issue. We've seen plenty of people stick their head in the sand in the past.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  It also sounds like a false dichotomy.
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
Is that the origin of the villain's name in 'Tank Girl'?
halfeatenpie 7y ago
Actual water resources researcher focusing on climate change here. My job is focused on what can we do to continue to deliver water to society under future scenarios (and what steps we can take to get there) from policy to infrastructure investments. The article doesn't present anything new for us but the problem is that the general public isn't informed. While we're the oldest engineering discipline, remember that even until around the 80s people didn't think or know about groundwater contamination. They've always thought that sticking contaminated water back into the ground would filter it naturally like magic. In the late 80s more and more people started to understand that's not how it works. Even then, these policies and ideas are still in the process of being accepted in developing countries almost 40 years later and even then "what else can we do? My son needs water now and he could get hit by a car tomorrow so this is a problem I'll deal with later." The problem (as the article states) is that the issue is so distributed. We're talking about traditionally individualized solutions for a problem that needs a more coordinated solution. However, noone is willing to pay for that or considers other investments as "more critical" than major water projects (also many environmental groups aren't as risk averse as water utilities). I mean the biggest cost in water isn't the actual product but the transportation costs. We have water, we just don't have enough funds to deliver them everywhere in a sustainable manner at a price that people are willing to pay. NAWPA idea was conceived even before we understood our environment. It's the wrong solution. I mean even 10 years ago we had a landmark article that changed the paradigm of how we decide policy and build infrastructure[0]. I'd never take NAWPA for anything now than the "grandiose-ness of the 50s", especially since that was during a "water resources renaissance" in the United States where even crazy ideas were taken seriously. [0] https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/CLEE/Milly_2008_Science_StationarityIsDead.pdf https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/CLEE/Milly_2008_Science_S...
- quotemstr 7y ago
  Why are so many water researchers opposed to letting the price of water vary and drive market-based conservation?
  - drablyechoes 7y ago
    Presumably because they do not want huge segments of the human population to die because they are unable to afford access to the literally most basic necessity for life on this planet.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      Food costs money; why should food and water be managed differently? (Presumably, with subsidies or such as needed)
      - halfeatenpie 7y ago
        Funny thing. There's a research topic called virtual water that focuses on the trade of water through food or other "products". Look it up! It's really interesting! It talks about the trade of water most commonly through food products! (How transporting an apple from California to Pennsylvania means you're exporting and importing water!) It's a new topic that's only really taken shape and impact in the last two decades!
  - halfeatenpie 7y ago
    Great question! There's really no simple answer to this unfortunately also I don't think I'm the best person to answer this question, but I'll try my best! Water is a basic human right. In most countries, water is a public good that the government subsidizes and, to some extent, the market is adjusted to allow vulnerable households to afford the resource as well. If we have a 100% free market-based solution then in many locations the poor and underprivileged have a considerably less access to this vital resource (some won't get any). An example of this can be seen in India. Many districts there suffer from intermittent water supply (where the local piped water comes at irregular intervals instead of continuously). These people might not be able to shower regularly and they aren't given a schedule of when the water will come, so they can't schedule their day or week. Many of these people might even have to leave work for a day (losing that income and economic productivity) and jump out to fill up their water tanks in their homes. As they don't know when the water comes (no regular scheduling), this uncertainty can be nerve racking and (even if you're trying to stretch it out to last) may not be enough to last your family until the next "supply". In these cases, you call in a water tanker to refill your tank but even then you don't know if it'll come. On the tanker truck company's side, they don't want irregular domestic clients, they want more regular commercial clients (because the total customer value is much higher, you get more money from those clients than a household that needs a one-offer). So those companies aren't really incentivized to service residential clients. So if another call comes in, those commercial clients would take higher priority than those vulnerable households. Those solutions don't really help this problem, and this problem is just going to grow for the foreseeable future. Not exactly what I'm talking about, but IWA recently published an article about how many cities are shifting from 24/7 to intermittent water supply solutions [0], and if this becomes irregular and the system starts to fail, then this will just keep that problem growing. One of the projects I'm involved in works on trying to solve this exact problem and we recently got some support from the US National Science Foundation as well as the Gates Foundation. However, there's still a long way to go. (Sidebar: Anyone want to give us more funding or help? Send me a message!) [0]: https://iwa-network.org/running-out-of-water-cities-shifting-from-24x7-to-intermittent-water-supply/ https://iwa-network.org/running-out-of-water-cities-shifting...
downrightmike 7y ago
Any nukes proved too dirty to be feasible, which is why we never used them in this manner. There were a lot of good ideas that sounded good in the 60's, but they had no real idea how much of a pain contamination, cleanup and thousands of years of storage of that material would be. Then they finally did and these ideas went away.

ergothus 7y ago

> If this were actually a serious issue, we would I fail to see how the choice of response (or not) determines seriousness of the issue. We've seen plenty of people stick their head in the sand in the past.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
It also sounds like a false dichotomy.

SuoDuanDao 7y ago

Is that the origin of the villain's name in 'Tank Girl'?

halfeatenpie 7y ago

Actual water resources researcher focusing on climate change here. My job is focused on what can we do to continue to deliver water to society under future scenarios (and what steps we can take to get there) from policy to infrastructure investments. The article doesn't present anything new for us but the problem is that the general public isn't informed. While we're the oldest engineering discipline, remember that even until around the 80s people didn't think or know about groundwater contamination. They've always thought that sticking contaminated water back into the ground would filter it naturally like magic. In the late 80s more and more people started to understand that's not how it works. Even then, these policies and ideas are still in the process of being accepted in developing countries almost 40 years later and even then "what else can we do? My son needs water now and he could get hit by a car tomorrow so this is a problem I'll deal with later." The problem (as the article states) is that the issue is so distributed. We're talking about traditionally individualized solutions for a problem that needs a more coordinated solution. However, noone is willing to pay for that or considers other investments as "more critical" than major water projects (also many environmental groups aren't as risk averse as water utilities). I mean the biggest cost in water isn't the actual product but the transportation costs. We have water, we just don't have enough funds to deliver them everywhere in a sustainable manner at a price that people are willing to pay. NAWPA idea was conceived even before we understood our environment. It's the wrong solution. I mean even 10 years ago we had a landmark article that changed the paradigm of how we decide policy and build infrastructure[0]. I'd never take NAWPA for anything now than the "grandiose-ness of the 50s", especially since that was during a "water resources renaissance" in the United States where even crazy ideas were taken seriously. [0] https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/CLEE/Milly_2008_Science_StationarityIsDead.pdf https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/CLEE/Milly_2008_Science_S...

quotemstr 7y ago
Why are so many water researchers opposed to letting the price of water vary and drive market-based conservation?
- drablyechoes 7y ago
  Presumably because they do not want huge segments of the human population to die because they are unable to afford access to the literally most basic necessity for life on this planet.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    Food costs money; why should food and water be managed differently? (Presumably, with subsidies or such as needed)
    - halfeatenpie 7y ago
      Funny thing. There's a research topic called virtual water that focuses on the trade of water through food or other "products". Look it up! It's really interesting! It talks about the trade of water most commonly through food products! (How transporting an apple from California to Pennsylvania means you're exporting and importing water!) It's a new topic that's only really taken shape and impact in the last two decades!
- halfeatenpie 7y ago
  Great question! There's really no simple answer to this unfortunately also I don't think I'm the best person to answer this question, but I'll try my best! Water is a basic human right. In most countries, water is a public good that the government subsidizes and, to some extent, the market is adjusted to allow vulnerable households to afford the resource as well. If we have a 100% free market-based solution then in many locations the poor and underprivileged have a considerably less access to this vital resource (some won't get any). An example of this can be seen in India. Many districts there suffer from intermittent water supply (where the local piped water comes at irregular intervals instead of continuously). These people might not be able to shower regularly and they aren't given a schedule of when the water will come, so they can't schedule their day or week. Many of these people might even have to leave work for a day (losing that income and economic productivity) and jump out to fill up their water tanks in their homes. As they don't know when the water comes (no regular scheduling), this uncertainty can be nerve racking and (even if you're trying to stretch it out to last) may not be enough to last your family until the next "supply". In these cases, you call in a water tanker to refill your tank but even then you don't know if it'll come. On the tanker truck company's side, they don't want irregular domestic clients, they want more regular commercial clients (because the total customer value is much higher, you get more money from those clients than a household that needs a one-offer). So those companies aren't really incentivized to service residential clients. So if another call comes in, those commercial clients would take higher priority than those vulnerable households. Those solutions don't really help this problem, and this problem is just going to grow for the foreseeable future. Not exactly what I'm talking about, but IWA recently published an article about how many cities are shifting from 24/7 to intermittent water supply solutions [0], and if this becomes irregular and the system starts to fail, then this will just keep that problem growing. One of the projects I'm involved in works on trying to solve this exact problem and we recently got some support from the US National Science Foundation as well as the Gates Foundation. However, there's still a long way to go. (Sidebar: Anyone want to give us more funding or help? Send me a message!) [0]: https://iwa-network.org/running-out-of-water-cities-shifting-from-24x7-to-intermittent-water-supply/ https://iwa-network.org/running-out-of-water-cities-shifting...

downrightmike 7y ago

Any nukes proved too dirty to be feasible, which is why we never used them in this manner. There were a lot of good ideas that sounded good in the 60's, but they had no real idea how much of a pain contamination, cleanup and thousands of years of storage of that material would be. Then they finally did and these ideas went away.