Click image to enlarge. Legend: Red = Physical water scarcity, Yellow = Economic water scarcity, Blue = Little to no water scarcity, White = No estimates

With the Dead Sea dying, the City of Venice sinking, and Las Vegas’s desert oasis faltering, it’s pretty easy to find examples of our mismanagement of water.

Considering that we are ourselves about 60% water and that the leading cause of death worldwide is water-related, it’s surprising that we don’t devote more time to managing this major natural resource.

In each of the cases listed above, the solution governments are posing seem far more complex than the simple, more direct solution: Draining the Red Sea to fill the Dead Sea (as its tributary, the Jordan River, gets sucked dry for irrigation and drinking water). Build massive water gates to defend against the “rising water” (as the people continue to deplete the underground aquifer for drinking water.) Blah blah.

Usually, the best design solutions are simple. Not to say they are easy. Reaching simplicity is often far greater of challenge.

One thing’s for certain – we are good at changing our environment, but not always to suit our needs.

Water, water everywhere
Nor any drop to drink. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

PBS Link on Venice sinking
BBC YouTube video on Dead Sea drying

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See Also: Top Chefs Say Goodbye to Bottled Water,Solar Water Purification,“Water Filters for the Third World”,

This entry was posted by Jessica Pfund on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 5:42 pm and is filed under Environment, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.