Question for the scientific masses...

[unionrights]

I have for a great time been trying to find information on a subject of interest. This topic is the deminishing water supply of the world. I have put alot of thought into it and have come up with a sort of hypothosis. Given the fact that many scientists say(and their research confirms) that we only have so much water on this planet, and that the amount only veries by slight degrees. My question and hypothosis are one in the same....Could the fact that we bottle billions of gallons of water cause the depletion of water else where....as in could our bottling of water cause a small town in africa go without water because that water is no longer accessible to the overall enviorment?

 

I put this under pseudoscience and speculation because I have no idea if I could be right, but wanted to ask around to more knowledgeable people to find the answer or to get derections toward an answer....

 

Thank you for all and any help in this matter..

[iNow]

I think the answer might be yes, but then again, we bottle it, then drink it, then release it from our bladder back into the system. So, while we are certainly redistributing water, it's still conserved.

 

This is just my own speculation, so let me apologize ahead of time if I'm wrong and created any confusion.

 

Btw... welcome to SFN.

[Sisyphus]

I'm going to say no. The amount of water we store (remove from the environment) at any given time is many orders of magnitude less than the overall supply, i.e. the oceans. Any shortages caused by overuse would have to be local only.

[mooeypoo]

I think the answer might be yes, but then again, we bottle it, then drink it, then release it from our bladder back into the system. So, while we are certainly redistributing water, it's still conserved.

 

This is just my own speculation, so let me apologize ahead of time if I'm wrong and created any confusion.

 

Btw... welcome to SFN.

 

Don't forget sweating and drooling.

 

Water is overall conserved on Earth, we don't really lose much to the "outer" environment (space). The main issue with water conservation is usually sweet-water - hence, water for drinking, and that usualyl stems for our tendency to take more than is available or more than returns to the specific location we are taking from (hence, drying lakes).

 

The oceans are full of water, we just can't drink them the way they are. We need to treat them first, and companies seem to put more efforts in taking already-sweet water (less available) and put less effort and money into treating saltwater to have it either for drinking or vegitation.

 

For example, Israel is a relatively dry country, its supply come MAINLY from a single lake in its territories that has sweet water. Now that lake is in dire troubles because it's getting dry from all the pumping.

There are plans to build another treatment plant (Israel already has one), but they're - so far - plans only.

 

If a treatment plan is built, most of the water problems will be solved in Israel (Not all). The problem with water is the SWEET water, not all water.

 

~moo

[swansont]

As has been pointed out, there's lots of water, but it's fresh water that is in short supply. Coastal areas have problems if they take too much water from the ground, as seawater will diffuse in and contaminate the aquifer. (Saltwater intrusion)

 

http://www.olemiss.edu/sciencenet/saltnet/

http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/gwrp/saltwater/

 

But this is a local phenomenon. Depletion at one point will not cause this problem at a remote location.

[unionrights]

But this is a local phenomenon. Depletion at one point will not cause this problem at a remote location.

 

 

So, in essence your saying that depletion of a water source would only effect that location and no other? I can't see how that could be. If water in maine, on a very small scale even; say a pin drop, were to evaporate there winds would carry it out to the Atlantic atleast. Then again if the water is not there to evaporate and get put back into the system to produce more rain..what then....no rain? droughts?..and this would go for sweet water and salt water....sure the oceans will hopefully never dry up....hope..hope....hope... but the system ultimately deprived of water from bottled water and the boat loads of other sources in every grocery store across america (and many other countries) could feel the impact. I mean for just a moment, even though I would never feel right saying this, walk into your local wal-mart or costco. How many products have water in them? Now multiply by 3000 or more. Now go to England, Russia, Turkey, Canada, or Brazil. Every nation of the world has bottled water. I know no where near as much as the U.S. , but they have some. Now with billions of gallons of water not doing it's job of evaporating then finding a nice cloud to flow out of (yeah I know it's not sound scientific language), what has the end product become? Is this just a local problem? god I hope I'm wrong...but to me this seems like an epidemic. To me it seems like it will never get better, water is in high demand across the globe. Now where did all that sweet water go that was so plentiful years and years ago, I know the population has risen 10 fold in less than 200 years, and this isn't helping matters any. Now I'm just rambling on so I will leave you with those points to discuss. Thanks and I will be glad to hear your responses later.

 

P.S. Thanks for the welcome sign and also to the many who have posted, this is a work in progress so the debate shall go on.

[YT2095]

a Counter should be presented also, there is in fact water that has been Added recently (last few 100 years) by the combustion of fossil fuels, for every part CO2 that is released 1 part of water is also released (with a little bit extra for alkanes).

[swansont]

But this is a local phenomenon. Depletion at one point will not cause this problem at a remote location.

 

 

So, in essence your saying that depletion of a water source would only effect that location and no other? I can't see how that could be. If water in maine, on a very small scale even; say a pin drop, were to evaporate there winds would carry it out to the Atlantic atleast. Then again if the water is not there to evaporate and get put back into the system to produce more rain..what then....no rain? droughts?..and this would go for sweet water and salt water....sure the oceans will hopefully never dry up....hope..hope....hope... but the system ultimately deprived of water from bottled water and the boat loads of other sources in every grocery store across america (and many other countries) could feel the impact. I mean for just a moment, even though I would never feel right saying this, walk into your local wal-mart or costco. How many products have water in them? Now multiply by 3000 or more. Now go to England, Russia, Turkey, Canada, or Brazil. Every nation of the world has bottled water. I know no where near as much as the U.S. , but they have some. Now with billions of gallons of water not doing it's job of evaporating then finding a nice cloud to flow out of (yeah I know it's not sound scientific language), what has the end product become? Is this just a local problem? god I hope I'm wrong...but to me this seems like an epidemic. To me it seems like it will never get better, water is in high demand across the globe. Now where did all that sweet water go that was so plentiful years and years ago, I know the population has risen 10 fold in less than 200 years, and this isn't helping matters any. Now I'm just rambling on so I will leave you with those points to discuss. Thanks and I will be glad to hear your responses later.

 

 

I was referring specifically to saltwater intrusion as a local phenomenon. Depleting an aquifer in New Jersey in the US is not going to cause intrusion in a coastal area of Africa, AFAIK.

 

As others have pointed out, water is not being destroyed; it gets cycled back into the ecosystem. One issue is that there are more people, which causes problems, and if you overburden the system it can cause problems. Adding parking lots and roads causes more runoff and less absorption, which affects aquifer replenishment. However, I think you are underestimating how much the oceans serve as a source for evaporation, and aren't appreciating how much water that represents. Bottled water represents a tiny fraction of the overall, and it was water we were going to drink anyway.

[Sisyphus]

Yeah, if there's one thing we don't have to worry about, it's the oceans receding.

[iNow]

We are, however, quickly depleting fresh/drinking water supplies, and should spend more money and effort into desalination technology.

[Dak]

what would we do with the salt?

[iNow]

We could put the hygroscopic salt into the air above to the oceans which will help to generate stratocumulus cloud formation and increase the albedo effect.

 

I saw it on a Discovery special yesterday called Project Earth.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/lab-books/brighter-world/brighter-guide2.html

[unionrights]

Thanks for all the wonderful posts, I am going to research this further and try to come back with more info in support of my hypothesis....or my ultimate demise of the thought on this. Comment as much as you'd like to on this and please remember I am no scientist... I am just someone who has a thought and wants to clarify it or have it dispelled....I am not a nut job who thinks I am right no matter what, and if you can disprove me I have no problem saying I am wrong, and I also have no problem saying I am right either....right now I know I am niether for I have no facts to back it up or no facts to disprove it. I will be back.....

Edited September 14, 2008 by unionrights
spelling mistakes...might be more

[Sisyphus]

I am not a nut job who thinks I am right no matter what, and if you can disprove me I have no problem saying I am wrong, and I also have no problem saying I am right either....right now I know I am niether for I have no facts to back it up or no facts to disprove it. I will be back.....

 

Your attitude is definitely appreciated, but what would it take to convince you you're wrong? You definitely are: the only common source between, say, the water in the carton of orange juice in my refridgerator and the water supply of some village in Africa is the ocean, and the oceans aren't receding (I promise you. I saw it yesterday. Still there.) Even if the amount of water "stored" was significant compared with the oceans (and it isn't - the total volume of the oceans is about 370,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons), it still wouldn't matter, because it's totally cyclical and constantly replenished.

 

Check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cycle

[JohnB]

Welcome unionrights. (Another bloody lefty.)

 

I agree with the others, bottled water doesn't deplete the available resources. A quick Google came up with "Bottled Water Production in the United States". This points out that bottled water production in the US for 2001 was 5.34 billion gallons, which while a lot is only 0.01% of the total fresh groundwater withdrawals. (27,600 billion gallons.)

 

I wouldn't be worried, if I were you.

[unionrights]

I wouldn't be worried in the least if consumption all over the globe was only 5 billion gallons....but consumption all over the world is at 41 billion gallons.....and supply is probably far over that number..guess would be around 50 billion gallons...probably more....but around there....I have found this number at more than one site but here is one that I found it at.

 

 

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update51.htm

 

and those numbers are for 2004.....always climbing

[Sisyphus]

If it's 50 billion gallons, that's still 1/7000000000th of the oceans.