James Hoar Portfolio

     Humans are running out of water. People tend to think of water as a reusable, replenishable resource that they will never run out of, but around the world, there is a water crisis occurring that threatens global water security, environmental stability, and food production systems. A major cause of this crisis is the frivolous unchecked overuse of our precious water by the agricultural industry. Threats to humans and our world caused by this overuse include the ramifications of groundwater depletion, ecological degradation, and socio-economic disparities. Through the observation and analysis of these components of this crisis, humanity can find a way to provide solutions for the development of sustainable strategies to address the exploitation of water resources by the agricultural industry by changing the way we think about, use and store water.

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     The over-extraction of groundwater for agricultural irrigation is a significant contributor to water scarcity. According to David Molden in A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management In Agriculture, “About 1.6 billion people live in water-scarce basins, where human capacity or financial resources are likely to be insufficient to develop adequate water resources” (10). Much of the water in the world goes to the agricultural industry to grow crops in order to feed animals; in fact it is estimated that about 70 percent of the water used by humans is used for irrigation by the agricultural industry (Molden 5). Growing crops to feed animals, as done in its current state by the agricultural industry, is horribly unsustainable and inefficient. To put it in perspective, the average person drinks about 2-5 liters of water a day to live, but “to produce enough food to satisfy a person’s daily dietary needs takes about 3,000 liters of water converted from liquid to vapor—about 1 liter per calorie.”(Molden 5). This overuse of water is unsustainable and many countries are finding ways to obtain their exorbitant amounts of water to maintain their agricultural systems. One example of this as shown in David Barkin’s Mexico City’s Water Crisis: Mexico City is built on an aquifer and is literally sinking as they drain the aquifer of its water causing infrastructural damage (5). This highlights the disparities caused by the overexploitation of groundwater in a tangible consequence.

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      With cities sinking this might seem like a daunting or unsolvable problem, but many critical thinkers have proposed solutions to this seemingly inevitable crisis. One such thinker is David Molden, expert in water resource management, who proposes many solutions to addressing the water crisis, the most noteworthy being that we must “change the way we think about water and agriculture.”  He proposes two main changes: changing where investments are made to increase human and institutional capacity and improve management and infrastructure  and abandoning the divide between irrigated and rainfed agriculture (Molden 19).  Similarly Malin Falkenmark, a Swedish hydrologist best known for her work and expertise on the sustainable use of water resources, agrees in her article Growing Water Scarcity in Agriculture: Future Challenge to Global Water Security that there must be “a paradigm shift in the further conceptual development of water security” (1). An obstacle to further development of water infrastructure is the investment in water’s monetary value but not into development of water infrastructure. Current investors are betting on water companies because they know water is going to become a scarce resource sometime in the near future due to its increasing scarcity, but instead of trying to exploit this for profit it is important to invest in other more critical solutions. Investing in human infrastructure and increasing human capacity to store and utilize water efficiently is key for agricultural and rural development and crucial to addressing our water crisis. Breaking the divide between irrigated and rainfed water would exponentially increase the sustainability of water use and be a huge milestone in humans' fight against the water crisis. Using renewable rainwater sources and repurposing waste water would cut back on or eradicate the need to exploit groundwater and is a highly unexplored and underutilized method to fighting the water crisis. 

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     Another method of fighting the water crisis is changing the way humans store water. A large proponent of this idea is Bridget Scanlon an Irish and American hydrogeologist known for her work on groundwater depletion and groundwater recharging. In her work “Groundwater Depletion and Sustainability of Irrigation in the US High Plains and Central Valley” she shows the importance of changing land usage and storage patterns to optimize water use. She argues that by using groundwater sources instead of surface water humans are decreasing the recharge rate of water as rainfall is captured more efficiently by surface water sources (Scanlon 5). Humans’ primary water sources should be limited primarily to surface water as to help increase recharge rates of water therefore not only creating a more reliable sustainable water supply, but also decreasing the unsustainable groundwater depletion. A method of increasing surface water sources could be digging canals to create man made bodies of surface water, however doing so could result in economic and environmental obstacles due to the obvious barriers of building large canals. 

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     While humans have these proposed solutions, how do they translate into real world application? David Barkin is a distinguished professor of economics at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico. In his work “Mexico City Water Crisis” he gives insight on the real world problems caused by Mexico City's groundwater depletion and the steps that they are taking to fix it. As previously stated, the city's over-extraction of groundwater has led to infrastructure damage and sinking, highlighting the pressing need for a shift in water management practices. Barkins, Similarly to Molden, suggests the importance of adopting sustainable strategies and rethinking water and agriculture. He too believes that emphasizing investments in human capacity and infrastructure can help to bridge the gap between irrigated and rainfed agriculture (Barkin 5). However in Mexico City no real actions have been taken yet to help to change the way we think about and use water. It is of utmost importance that not only governments implement policies to help turn these necessary proposals into actions, but also for the people to rise up and fight for sustainable water use. It is clear that waiting for change will not lead to any changes, as most big political decisions are economically driven so a radical change must be made which will benefit the future of our world instead of human pleasure right now.

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     In conclusion, the global water crisis poses a daunting challenge that needs to be addressed urgently. Despite our preconceived notion of water being an infinite resource, the reality of it’s scarcity poses a real threat to humans well being and ecological balance. This crisis is propelled by the overuse of water by the agricultural industry, manifesting in groundwater depletion, ecological degradation, and socio- economic disparities. Solutions to this crisis come in many different shapes and sizes such as changing policies and investments made around development of water storage, and usage by the agricultural industry as proposed by Molden and Falkenmark. Another proposed solution as shown by Scanlon would be changing the way that we physically utilize and collect water through increasing surface water usage instead of groundwater. However, the translation of these proposals into real world application requires the efforts of not only governmental organizations, but also individuals. As shown in the case of Mexico City’s water crisis, elucidated by Barkin, where people are quick to think of solutions but not driven to utilize and implement said solutions due to corporate greed and institutional lack of forward thinking. Humans must rise against the short term wants and look forward to building a better tomorrow for future generations and our planet.

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Works Cited

Barkin, David. “Mexico City Water Crisis.” Ebsco Host, Ebsco, 1 July 2004,

web-p-ebscohost-com.libraryproxy.tulsacc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=5b91a7ef-fd3a-4314-aa4b-61cbd371cea4%40redis. 

Falkenmark, Malin. "Growing Water Scarcity in Agriculture: Future Challenge to Global Water Security"

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, vol. 371, no. 2002, 2013, p. 20120410. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2012.0410

Molden, David, editor. "Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management

in Agriculture." Earthscan, 2007. https://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/assessment/files_new/synthesis/Summary_SynthesisBook.pdf.

Scanlon, Bridget R., et al. "Groundwater Depletion and Sustainability of Irrigation in the US High Plains and

Central Valley." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 24, 2012, pp. 9320-9325. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1200311109.