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I'm curious what relief will look like. When the population increases at alarming rates I'm wondering if there is any sustainable solution other than relocation

I'm curious what relief will look like. When the population increases at alarming rates I'm wondering if there is any sustainable solution other than relocation places to areas with more water. Are there any clever ways to permanently increase the water supply?

eggnet 17y ago
If there is no water you have to pipe it in. The only other thing I can think of is to suck it out of the air.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  desalination plants & water trucks ?
ajju 17y ago
Rainwater harvesting. As @sridharvembu pointed out, even areas with heavy rainfall suffer water scarcity.
patio11 17y ago
When the population increases at alarming rates I'm wondering if there is any sustainable solution other than relocation places to areas with more water. Import water in the form of crops. The amount required by humans to drink, bathe, etc is literally a drop in the ocean next to the irrigation required for agriculture. If you import a ton of wheat from Kansas rather than growing it locally, that is essentially equivalent to importing 1,300 cubic meters of water, in a form factor which is conveniently transportable and storable. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_water http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_water
aasarava 17y ago
I remember hearing about the Q Drum several years ago: http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/q-drum http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/q-drum Basically, it's a low-tech solution to the problem of cheaply transporting water with manual labor. Granted, it's not a large-scale solution for a city the size of Bhopal. (It seems like it works best at the family/village level.) But I love how ingenious the solution is. It's not high tech. It's not Web related. People overuse the phrase "thinking outside the box," but I've got say this is truly an example of it. It's a good reminder that sometimes silicon isn't the solution to everything and that we need to consider other ways to hack.
DaniFong 17y ago
I'd like to see a ballpark figure for how much water these small villages could use. The recovery of quite clean water from the moisture in the atmosphere is a useful byproduct of the compressed air energy storage system we're developing; on the order of .5 to 1 liters per kwhr. Each person in the USA uses about 30 kwhr per day, but I wonder what the water/electricity balance looks like in India?
GeneralMaximus 17y ago
Curbing water pollution should solve most water problems. There is plenty of rainfall, and there are plenty of rivers. But eventually, all this water becomes completely unusable.

eggnet 17y ago

If there is no water you have to pipe it in. The only other thing I can think of is to suck it out of the air.

jacquesm 17y ago
desalination plants & water trucks ?

ajju 17y ago

Rainwater harvesting. As @sridharvembu pointed out, even areas with heavy rainfall suffer water scarcity.

patio11 17y ago

When the population increases at alarming rates I'm wondering if there is any sustainable solution other than relocation places to areas with more water. Import water in the form of crops. The amount required by humans to drink, bathe, etc is literally a drop in the ocean next to the irrigation required for agriculture. If you import a ton of wheat from Kansas rather than growing it locally, that is essentially equivalent to importing 1,300 cubic meters of water, in a form factor which is conveniently transportable and storable. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_water http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_water

aasarava 17y ago

I remember hearing about the Q Drum several years ago: http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/q-drum http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/q-drum Basically, it's a low-tech solution to the problem of cheaply transporting water with manual labor. Granted, it's not a large-scale solution for a city the size of Bhopal. (It seems like it works best at the family/village level.) But I love how ingenious the solution is. It's not high tech. It's not Web related. People overuse the phrase "thinking outside the box," but I've got say this is truly an example of it. It's a good reminder that sometimes silicon isn't the solution to everything and that we need to consider other ways to hack.

DaniFong 17y ago

I'd like to see a ballpark figure for how much water these small villages could use. The recovery of quite clean water from the moisture in the atmosphere is a useful byproduct of the compressed air energy storage system we're developing; on the order of .5 to 1 liters per kwhr. Each person in the USA uses about 30 kwhr per day, but I wonder what the water/electricity balance looks like in India?

GeneralMaximus 17y ago

Curbing water pollution should solve most water problems. There is plenty of rainfall, and there are plenty of rivers. But eventually, all this water becomes completely unusable.