Structural Adaptivity, Rebalancing by Watersheds - Part I

 

One of the applications of structural adaptivity that I have presented is re-balancing our nation by major watersheds.  The benefits would be two-fold:  (1) growing our nation into urban regions where each would have resilient economic and adaptivity capacities; and (2) tying the regions to ample sources of fresh water by linking them to regional U.S. watersheds.

 

Because it would be such a large departure from recent trends and because I could discover no literature showing its possibility or desirability, I sought to perform an exercise to demonstrate its possibility.  In doing this, I am setting aside my own considerable shortcomings.  I am assuming that criticism of my arrogance in attempting such an exercise is less important than taking a step in a much-needed new direction.

 

Here is a summary of my investigations and a resulting concept plan based on my own unsophisticated methods.  I am presenting it in two parts.  Following is Part I.

 

Introduction.  The purpose of this Exercise is to explore the possibility of re-balancing the population concentrations in our nation, over the long-term future, and to do so based on a similarly important need, the necessity for sustainable supplies of fresh water.

 

In setting up a strategy to achieve a re-balancing, I believe the most logical one is one linked to our watersheds – the element of our natural environment that can ensure us fresh water.  Existing patterns of development apparently were not based on watersheds.  So the outcomes are becoming more and more problematic.  Many large cities and mega-center concentrations are having an increasing number and severity of problems in meeting their freshwater needs. 

 

Some of the largest concentrations of population and economic activity are located in relatively small watersheds, and/or are located more towards the headwaters of the watershed than the base/mouth.  Many have to commandeer water from neighboring watersheds.  Even this solution sometimes is insufficient.

 

This requisite for freshwater is likely to become even more important with climate change.  Moreover, regardless of wishful thinking, it is unlikely that our scientists and environmentalists are capable at this time of predicting the effect that global warming will have on thermal and precipitation changes. 

 

We need concept plans to chart our course, to give us reference points to which we can return to see where we are trying to go.  This type of proposal is not something that we need to rush out to implement.  It is a type of guide that is intended for strategic implementation over many decades.  

 

The plan included herein is for demonstration purposes only.  I am hoping others, with the knowledge and expertise needed, will conduct the proper technical research and will reformulate the conclusions for a Watershed-based Rebalancing Concept Plan that will serve us well. 

 

Watersheds in the US.  Water evaporates, forms clouds of moisture, clouds are blown or drawn from one area to another, and then releases their moisture in the form of rain, snow, or sleet onto the lands below.  No water is ever actually lost.  It always returns via the continuous water cycle that our world and all its life depend on.

 

 

         THE WATER CYCLE

On land, rainwater and other precipitation runs off in the direction that gravity takes it.  Over many millions of years, the runoff, itself, creates well-defined runoff patterns.  These include rivers, streams and creeks that carry the water away to oceans, or other stable bodies of water, and watersheds or catch basins that slope towards the rivers, streams and creeks.  Each river, stream, or creek develops a watershed from which it receives its water.

 

Some of the precipitation does not runoff the land and instead is absorbed into the earth.  It supplies our ground water.  However, even much of the groundwater eventually flows (underground) to the rivers in the watershed and, again, becomes part of the water cycle. 

 

Because there are so many watersheds in the nation, they have been organized and identified in systems of watersheds, with the smaller rivers having small watersheds but also flowing into bigger rivers that have even vaster watersheds.

 

Our geologists have systems for identifying all of these.  They have identified 18 different major regional watersheds in our country (in the 48 contiguous states) as the largest and as the beginning point for identifying and organizing all the smaller watersheds. 

 

Within the largest of these watersheds, the Mississippi River watershed, the experts have divided it into a few major regional tributary watersheds (e.g. the Missouri River Watershed, the Ohio River Watershed, etc.) of a size that provide the most useful scale for analysis and management.  In addition, for the coastal areas the geologists have established somewhat arbitrary divisions that split them into sizes generally compatible with the other identified watersheds (e.g., the Mid-Atlantic Watershed, the South Atlantic-Gulf Watershed, etc.). Some of the regional watersheds extend well beyond the borders of the United States.  The Great Lakes Watershed extends generally just as largely into Canada as in the U S and serves several large Canadian metropolitan areas.  There are other examples as well.

 

MAJOR US WATERSHEDS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For my purposes, these 18 major watersheds work very well as a starting place. 

 

Review of Key Planning Elements.  In the full version of this Exercise, I present a rather lengthy review of the information I learned.  This includes many different aspects of watersheds and how they could be approached as a foundation for rebalancing our nation.  The facets that seemed most important to me and that I tried to investigate and summarize were:

 

·        

Sources of freshwater in the US (including: rainfall/precipitation and river “flows”);

·        

Uses of freshwater in the US (including evaporation, people/public water supplies, irrigation and agriculture, and power plants);

·        

Contingencies and mitigating possibilities (including climate change, desalination, recycling the use of water, ground water and aquifers, water storage/reservoirs, canals/aqueducts/diversions); and

·        

Other considerations (including legal and institutional, pollution, and impact on food production).

 

Of interest here, I present several tables.

 

TABLE I

U. S. WATER BUDGET

 

	Each day In cubic miles	As % of water in atmosphere each day	Each year In cubic miles
Water in atmosphere (over the 48 states)	36.5	100%
Portion, of above, falling as precipitation	3.9	10.7%	1,430
Amount, of total, that evaporates	2.7	7.5%	1,001
Amount that remains, on/under ground	1.2	3.2%	429
Groundwater storage	15,100		15,100
Soil moisture (top 3 ft.)	150		150
Water stored in the Great Lakes	5,540		5,540
Stored in other freshwater lakes (*)	4,560		4,560
Water stored in large reservoirs	142		142
Water within stream-channels	12		12
Water reaching the oceans	1.12		409

 

(*)  Also includes some of the water in the Great Lakes.

Source:  WATER BUDGET IN THE UNITED STATES.  (1)

 

Table I reveals some interesting information.  For example, at any one time only about 10% of the moisture in the atmosphere over our country is actually falling onto our lands; and, of the moisture/precipitation that falls, about three fourths of it evaporates before being absorbed into the ground or it runs off into drainage ways.  Further, the amount of water stored underground is much larger than in soils, in the Great Lakes, in all other lakes, in reservoirs, in the stream channels, and in reaching the oceans each day, combined.

 

I also looked at the amount of water withdrawn from the streams and the ground each day. 

 

TABLE II

WATER WITHDRAWALS, BY USE, FOR THE UNITED STATES

 In billions of gallons per day (and % of yearly total)

(Includes some salt water/brine within the withdrawals)

 

Withdrawals, by Use Category	1950	1975	2000	2005
Public supply	14 (8%)	29	43	44 (11%)
Rural domestic & livestock	4 (2%)	4.9	6	6 (1%)
Irrigation	89 (49%)	140	139	128 (31%)
Thermo electric power (*)	40 (22%)	200	195	201 (49%)
Other	37+ (21%)	45+	30	31 (8%)
TOTAL	180	420	413	410

(*) These amounts especially include saline water, averaging about 1/3 of their total.
Source:  U.S. Water Withdrawals and Consumptive Use per Day; (2)

 

NOTE:  In the table above and in other statistics found, there is a problem in the continuity of various definitions, categorizations, geographies, and similar factors.

 

Note that if the amount of total water use in the US were divided by the number of people in 2005, the result would be that people and their communities withdraw/use approximately 1,400 gallons per capita per day or 500,000 gallons per year per capita. 

 

Also noteworthy in the above table is the amount of water withdrawn for uses other than the public water supply.  More than 80% of all water withdrawn is extracted by or for irrigation and the cooling processes required by power plants. 

 

Sometimes there is confusion resulting from the two words withdrawn and used.  When it comes to “use” of water, some statistics seem to suggest that all water that is withdrawn is used.  However, we know that it is not really “used” in the sense of “used up.”  It is simply withdrawn for a purpose, and then presumably “used” for such purpose, and then much of it is returned to its source, or to a similar source generally within the same watershed. 

 

Global warming comes into this when we look towards the future.  The current assessment seems to be that for our continent, if any projections were to be made, they probably would be:

 

• ·         All areas will experience an increase in average temperature (and thus, probably evaporation). 
• ·         From 2010 to 2039, average temperature is expected to increase from 1 to 3 degrees C.  Later in century, it is expected to increase 2-3 degrees C across western, southern, and eastern continental edges and more that 4-5 degrees C at high latitudes.
• ·         Projected warming is greatest in winter at high latitudes and greatest in summer in the southwest.
• ·         Storm impacts are likely to be more severe, especially along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.
• ·         Rising temperatures will diminish snowpack, e.g. especially in the west; in snowmelt-dominated watersheds; more runoff will come in winter and less runoff in summer.
• ·         Annual-mean precipitation is projected to decrease in the south-west but increase over the remainder of the continent (but that may be offset by higher rates of evaporation)
• ·         Expected changes in precipitation extremes are larger than the changes in mean precipitation.  Changes will result in more periodic flooding and more droughts.
• ·         Coastal areas will be greatly impacted by sea level rises, and especially by combinations of sea level rises with heavy river flows, high tides and storm surges.
• ·         Uncertainty is still the predominate conclusion, even about the above.

 

[Above is summarized from: Working Group II Report “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability;” – Fourth Assessment Report; (3)]

 

Summary of Selected Findings.  My conclusion is that rebalancing by watersheds will have some difficult conditions to overcome but that such conditions are not intrinsic to watershed circumstances.  They are situations that have resulted by ignoring the bigger pictures in our country, our society, and our environment - in the same manner as our problems with our existing man-made environment have resulted.  They are the consequence of people, businesses, government and various organizations pushing their obstacles out of the way, for others to solve (later), so they themselves can move forward in their competition with each other for their individual greatest success.

 

To summarize regarding all elements explored for this Exercise:

 

• ·         Evaporation is our biggest physical problem, not lack of precipitation.
• ·         Evaporation within the irrigation process can be greatly reduced; and the water withdrawn for irrigation can and should be retained in each watershed.  It can and should become part of the overall recycling of fresh water throughout the area for multiple uses. 
• ·         Evaporation within the power plant cooling process can be greatly reduced; and the water withdrawn in the process can and should be retained in each watershed. 
• ·         Evaporation of water being held in storage can be greatly reduced.  Additional storage facilities can be constructed.  Not all such facilities need to be located within natural valleys.  Up-ground reservoirs offer many more opportunities.  Storage in aquifers is even a better solution.
• ·         Ground water and water in our aquifers needs to be continually replenished.  Ground water and water in our aquifers is the ideal, and probably necessary, approach to water storage.  New systems of aquifer storage and recharge techniques are rapidly being established and proving effective.  Large-scale water storage will always be required to even-out the inconsistencies in day-to-day and year-to-year precipitation. 
• ·         Diversion of water (by aqueducts, canals, etc.) from one watershed to another is often a solution only when there are no others.  Even if it is working OK so far, however, it is likely to continue increasing stress on individual, community and state property rights.  It also greatly increases each area’s vulnerability to both intentional and unintentional negative events (disasters).
• ·         Technological advances are coming along quickly and more are likely – maybe even great ones. 
• ·         Within the water realm, there are quite a number of immense adaptivity resources.  Underground/ aquifer storage, for example, allows for a multitude of uncertainties to occur while still being able to meet our needs in a multitude of locations.  It provides adaptivity in the sense of adapting to changing needs over time but it also provides some adaptivity as regards location. 
• ·         Desalination, although very expensive, high energy demanding and environmentally problematic, has potential to meet the hardships of areas where and when no better solutions exist.  Mostly the potential is located near the seacoasts.  Desalination combined with power plants is another innovative possibility. 
• ·         Becoming too dependent on diversion sources of water can be a constraint on adaptivity.  At the same time, there are many uses for diversion that increase adaptivity.  We mostly need to deem it as just a temporary or backup solution to meet emergencies.  It also has good adaptivity benefits for small watersheds along seacoasts.  There need to be inexpensive ways to divert water from one small watershed along a seacoast to another without any locale becoming dependent on it.
• ·         Water recycling has adaptation possibilities for meeting hundreds of different future scenarios.  Considerable recycling is already being performed all over our country (and even more in other countries).  It must be included within detailed plans for each area.

 

Then there is the issue of water being held (or not being held) and dispensed/used/withdrawn as a Public Trust for the benefit of all the residents of our nation.  It is similar to most all issues of the common good, the general welfare, the public conscience, etc., as they are critical to most all modern problems.  In our rapidly changing and unknown future, they are likely to be even more critical. 

 

Historically the guiding legal principles have been mostly oriented to the immediate needs and desires of people most directly involved.  They have included a myriad of local or state criteria such as:  common law, legal precedent, prior appropriation (whoever started drawing the water first), absolute dominion (in a few cases), riparian rights, the “reasonable use” doctrine, various additional state regulations, certain federal regulations (regarding pollution, navigation, etc.), interstate compacts, international compacts, etc.  There is no comprehensive set of uniform regulations and no specific authority for how much use/withdrawal is allowed. 

 

There is an obvious need for comprehensive, uniform water management regulations based on the public trust doctrine that rests with each state and with the country as a whole.  The doctrine must consider the fair use and withdrawal of water as it affects everyone in our country and as it does so for now and for far into the future.

 

 

FOOTNOTES:

 

(1)  Source:  WATER BUDGET IN THE UNITED STATES.  Northwest River Forecast Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US Department of Commerce (“Provided by Corps of Engineers – Portland District”).  Accessed at: (http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/info/water_cycle/hydrology.cgi )

 

(2)  U.S. Water Withdrawals and Consumptive Use per Day; Table 371, Sep 30, 2011 (a compilation from a variety of U. S. Census reports).  Accessed at:

http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/387_u_s_water_withdrawals_and_consumptive.html

 

(3)  Working Group II Report “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability;” – Fourth Assessment Report; International Panel on Climate Change; at: www.ipcc-wg2.gov/publication/AR4/index.html. 

 

 

William Schnaufer