Saturday, December 14, 2013

It looks as if oil and gas is not the only natural resource we explore

How many times, on radio, TV, this blog have we looked at water as our most important resource?  How many times have we speculated on providing clean water to seven billion plus inhabitants of our incredible planet?

The good news is, there's lots of brilliant people investing time and money into finding new sources of clean water.  Here's an article that captures some pretty amazing technology of exploring fresh water reserves below the Australian oceans.  Incredible but fascinating and empowering as well.  

We'll follow up on the radio side and reach out for an interviews with lead author, Vincent Post of Flinder's University.  In the meantime please make sure you conserve and treat fresh water, wherever you are in the world, as our most precious resource:

Image Credit: Flickr / gnews pics

By: Amanda Froelich,
"Many organizations are working hard to ensure that the 1 billion inhabitants still without water may someday have easy access to the life-giving compound. While this form of physical water scarcity is a concern for many, it is not the only type of shortage the world needs to be concerned with, however.
Economic shortage of aqua is an ever increasing issue as more and more people continue to put demand on limited supplies. In effect from the growing population (which has not yet implemented sustainable methods to support it’s growing numbers) cost and effort to build or even maintain access to water will increase. This means water’s importance to political and social stability will also grow with the crisis.
Individual action to curb non-essential use of the precious resource will greatly aid balanced disbursement of water, but the projected shortage is still a concern that will eventually affect all. Thankfully, a new freshwater supply has been discovered with the potential to sustain future generations.
Earlier this month, Australian researchers established the existence of vast freshwater reserves which are trapped beneath the ocean floor.
The lead author, Vincent Post from Australia’s Flinders University, said that an estimated 120,000 cubic miles of low-salinity water had been found buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves off Australia, China, North America, and South Africa. “The volume of this water resource is a hundred times greater than the amount we’ve extracted from the Earth’s sub-surface in the past century since 1900,” reported Post of the study, which was published in the latest edition of Nature.
All agreed that this was an exciting find. “Freshwater on our planet is increasingly under stress and strain so the discovery of significant new stores off of the coast is very exciting. It means that more options can be considered to help reduce the impact of droughts and continental water shortages.”
As irrigated agriculture and production of meat have increased, water demand has almost doubled in the last century, according to the United Nations’ water agency. Pollution of oceans, lakes, and rivers is also a growing concern in maintaining freshwater. And finally, those with easy access to water rarely think twice about curbing their use, an additional contributing factor to the shortage..."


Read more http://www.trueactivist.com/new-finding-of-freshwater-could-supply-future-generations/

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