Planning For Water Damage On A Global Scale

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There are many serious and long term water problems that face the world. With the advancements and full weight on technology to solve all of our problems, it's time to start looking toward the future, and protecting what is right underneath all of our homes and cities.

The world faces a wide range of serious, complex, and long-term water challenges, from shortages to contamination to local and regional disputes over water to long-term climate changes. But there are other challenges that are short-term, emergency situations that could also be addressed by some new thinking and new technology.

We’ve seen the headlines recently: Earthquakes have destroyed the water systems of Haiti and part of Japan. Typhoons or hurricanes have contaminated or destroy water delivery capabilities, as in New Orleans and elsewhere. Droughts are, as we speak, leading to serious water emergencies in Tuvalu and Tokelau and Texas. When water is short, people and economies suffer.

Yet we always seem surprised, and our responses are typically hurried, ill-considered, and very expensive. We airlift bottled water to disasters, which permits bottled water companies to claim great humanitarian benefits, but is an extraordinarily expensive and unsustainable response. We send in small-scale desalination equipment, which is also costly, technically complex, and limited in capacity. These kinds of responses are sometimes necessary, but it is time to add to our arsenal of options.

First, we need to take water disaster planning seriously. In California, for example, it has long been understood that the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the “Delta”) region, with major water infrastructure, is vulnerable to earthquakes, levee failure, and sea-level rise, among other threats.  [Indeed, most of the state and its water systems are vulnerable to earthquakes.] A large fraction of California’s water deliveries originate in the Delta. Despite this understanding, there is still no serious emergency response plan in place.

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