Blog 07

Water was a common theme this week in the classes and presentations. With a growing global population and a shifts in the balance of water extraction, water is becoming the new oil. That is, clean fresh water safe enough for drinking and other uses. Many indigenous societies seem to be losing their water supply as others who have to means to extract the water are doing so. But it doesn't even seem like advanced societies have a sustainable water supply. Many of the largest U.S. cities are struggling to maintain levels in their aquifers and water sources.

Even more scary, some water sources could be gone in a second. For example, Los Angeles and its entire metro area population of almost 17 million people receive a lot of their water from Owen Valley, an aquifer north of Los Angeles. This underground lake lies directly over a fault line, and if a large enough earthquake were to occur, millions of tons of magma would mix with the lake water, rendering this entire water source useless. Los Angeles currently does not have another large scale alternative for their water sources.



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