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"The drought that gripped the Southeast from 2005 to 2007 was not unprecedented and resulted from random weather events, not global warming, Columbia University researchers have concluded. They say its severe water shortages resulted from population growth more than rainfall patterns," the New York Times reported October 1, 2009.
Water scarcity grows in urgency in many regions as population growth, climate change, pollution, lack of investment, and management failures restrict the amount of water available relative to demand. The Stockholm International Water Institute calculated in 2008 that 1.4 billion people live in "closed basins"-regions where existing water cannot meet the agricultural, industrial, municipal, and environmental needs of all….Signs of scarcity are plentiful. Several major rivers, including the Indus, Rio Grande, Colorado, Murray-Darling, and Yellow, no longer reach the sea year-round as a growing share of their waters are claimed for various uses. Read the full story from Worldwatch Institute.
Water shortages, which used to be limited to the dry western states, now plague just about the entire United States. Even regions that once seemed to have limitless supplies of water are facing predictions of shortages and imposing water restrictions on residents.
In "Immigration and Drought", Bonnie Erbe asks “Here in the United States, the doubling of the U.S. population during the past five decades - driven largely by massive legal and illegal immigration and the children of legal immigrants - is putting particular strains on the water supply. Why is no one discussing the relationship between these two phenomena?”
Read the full story here.
