Water Harvesting: Preserving the Earth’s Soul (Part 2)
Written by Tanny PC
“When we feed the Earth with rain, we feed its heart. But when we harvest the rain, we conserve the Earth’s soul for the future. So, let’s preserve and reserve the priceless treasure (rainwater) with all our pleasure.”
Adopting Rainwater Harvesting
The question, “What is Rain?”, to a kid will immediately fetch a prompt reply from them with ease and minimal thought – “Pitter-patter raindrops, falling from the sky.” Rain is the droplets of water that fall from the sky onto our rooftops, gardens, water bodies, or anywhere on Earth’s surface. This phenomenon is caused because of liquid precipitation, which is one of the three stages of the ‘Water Cycle’ in which the water falls from the sky when clouds become saturated (or filled) with water droplets, and they cannot contain them anymore. The water cycle is a hydrological cycle that describes the continuous movement of water – on, above, and below Earth's surface – in three stages: evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. As water from the rivers, lakes, and oceans gets heated up due to Sun’s rays, it changes to water vapor (gas) and rises upward in the atmosphere (a process called evaporation). These water vapors are also considered ‘greenhouse gases’ and they keep the Earth warm to sustain life. As water vapors condense, clouds are formed (a process known as condensation). As millions of water droplets in clouds collide, they condense and combine with one another, thus growing bigger, heavier, and denser. When these droplets become too heavy to float or stay suspended inside the clouds, they fall (or precipitate) on the Earth as Rain (a process known as precipitation).
Now, the next important question is, “Why do we need to harvest or save the rainwater that showers upon us?” Well, it’s not required to churn one’s mind to realize and understand that rainwater harvesting (henceforth will be denoted as ‘RWH’ in the article) is very crucial in today’s world as we are still unable to generate artificial water for our everyday use, and the freshwater sources are depleting or overused every year. Rainwater or rainfall is sporadic, meaning it is infrequent and unpredictable. With the immense population boom on Earth and subsequently increasing demands to suit our modern-day lifestyle, it has become a necessity for every household and business organization to adopt a rainwater harvesting/collection system, which can catch the downpour, filter it, and make it fit for human use as well as irrigation, sanitation, and toilet requirements. I believe, the major concern in today’s world should not be ‘to set foot on Mars;’ in fact, it should be ‘to solve the water crisis,’ ‘to adopt water conservation techniques,’ and ‘to create awareness about global warming.’
‘Water’ has always been the primordial source of life. A simple answer to the question, “Why does only Earth bear life out of all the other planets of the solar system?”, is because only Earth holds the blue gold – water. Without this, there will be no life. Out of 3% of freshwater resources on Earth, only 0.5% is currently available for human and animal use. The frozen Antarctic Ice Sheet holds about 90% of freshwater on Earth’s surface. Now, to understand and start thinking vividly about ‘why’ and ‘how’ sooner should we consider adopting RWH, it’s important to show you some instances of ‘what will happen’ if we delay the process. Some of you might gather realistically thoughtful questions such as, “Can we ‘tow’ icebergs from Antarctica to the water-starved cities in the world?” or “What are the possibilities of converting ‘salty’ waters of seas and oceans into drinking water?” and so on. Yes, I thought about them too, and a few other queries and suggestions knocked on my mind’s door! Let’s get to understand the ‘real, big deal’ here…
The Real Icy Deal
Enthusiastically, I would like to add here that understanding the real-world’s water crisis situation, the idea of ‘towing’ a giant (minimum 3-kilometers-long) frozen hill from the Northern icy pole to the areas of water scarcity (say, South Africa) has been pondered upon and researched a lot lately. Imagine the view… a rare, spectacular sight! However, is it really, practically possible?
While curiously questing my thoughts, my eyes glanced upon this article, Oceanus, where I read about a WHOI scientist and geologist, Alan Condron, who is working on all possibilities to simulate and calculate the time, effort, and problems to make this ‘science fiction’ become a pragmatic reality. This proposition is not something entirely new – the RAND Co. already developed a detailed report for the National Science Foundation titled “Antarctic Icebergs as a Global Freshwater Resource” in 1973. A long time ago, two Russian tugs, the Almaz and Kigoriak, prevented a disastrous and costly collision involving a 1.5-billion-ton gigantic blue-tinged iceberg, which was headed straight for an offshore drilling platform in the Kara Sea off Western Siberia. After a painstaking, time-consuming effort by the Russian vessels, finally they managed to drag it slightly off course, where the Arctic currents took over.
However, the real challenges to be faced are entirely different – nudging an iceberg is one thing, but transporting it a thousand miles to arid areas to quench people’s thirst is another. What if the iceberg completely melts before reaching the destination? Or how to curtail the rapid melting of ice caps or use the entire iceberg efficiently as a freshwater resource before it becomes polluted or cuddles with seas and oceans? How would towing a massive iceberg across the Southern Ocean affect marine wildlife ecosystems? What will be the real obstacles to deal with? Will this process be viable and sustainable? It will be really difficult and expensive, eh?
Presumably, with prolonged and programmed planning, ship operators could minimize impacts on wildlife in Antarctica. But the end question will be: “How might such a huge amount of freezing fresh water affect marine ecosystems farther north, where habitats are warm and salty?” To this, Condron replied, “Understanding how cold and fresh an iceberg makes the water, and whether it’s something we should be worried about would be critical.”
But Condron is still holding his hopes high as he puts his faith in the current, modern, and sophisticated computer technologies and AI. He believes that with the ongoing innovations and upgrades in the tech world, soon he and other scientists can put forward a revolutionary, ground-breaking solution of accurately simulating a long-distance iceberg tow to Cape Town. Condron says, “Large icebergs could be used to alleviate drought and supply a city with water. One of the nice things is you wouldn’t have to treat the water with chemicals. It’s pure and fresh. As far as I’m aware, this is the first appraisal of the feasibility of towing icebergs using the latest iceberg and climate models. It’s intriguing that you could move something from a polar region and suddenly be able to see it out on the horizon from a tropical beach. It would be quite the juxtaposition.”
Water, Water Everywhere; Nor any Drop to Drink
The above lines extracted from ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Coleridge can be put forward now while the entire world continues to struggle for freshwater treasure. So, based on the crisis, can we still consider this idea: “Can we convert and use the salty water from seas and oceans as drinking water resources?”
The answer is both ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ The ‘distillation desalination’ process dates back to ancient Greeks and other civilizations including ship traders who used this technique to convert seawater to drinking water while on their long journeys in vessels. It’s one of mankind’s earliest innovations, which is still prevailing in many arid areas of the world, and this technology is also used for treating water that is fouled by natural and unnatural contaminants. Another process, ‘reverse osmosis,’ is conducted by allowing water (containing dissolved salt molecules) to pass through a semi-permeable membrane (filter) in which larger salt molecules do not pass through the filter, but the smaller water molecules do.
The basic process of ‘distillation’ involved here to convert ‘salty water’ to ‘desalinated water’ is based on mimicking Nature’s ‘water (hydrologic) cycle’ phenomenon. The Sun’s energy heats up the water in lakes, rivers, and oceans, which creates water vapors. These vapors while coming in contact with cooler air (as they rise up), re-condense and form dew or rain. Manmade distillation plants work in a similar manner by additionally applying artificial heating and cooling procedures to refine and speed up the process, and by evaporating water under lower air and vapor pressure, which significantly reduces its boiling point.
Although the process seems easy, the entire procedure involves a lot of energy to break the chemical bonds as salt dissolves easily in water. Also, this technique requires huge investments to set up and operate a desalination plant – labor and energy costs, land prices, environmental protection, financial agreements, and even the salt content of the water. It is estimated that to produce 1 cubic meter (264 gallons) of desalted water from the ocean, the cost can be anywhere from $1 to $2 (approx.). Moreover, sea life is endangered during this process as they can get sucked into desalination plants, thereby harming small ocean creatures (baby fish and plankton) and upsetting the food chain. The huge quantities of salt extracted from the process are left over as a very concentrated brine, which can affect aquatic life if discarded back into oceans. However, these impacts can be reduced with proper planning and execution, involving a great deal of investment, which will soon be necessary given the increasingly high costs of freshwater reclamation and transportation to the water-stressed areas.
With the prevailing scarcity of freshwater resources, some countries in the Middle East (mainly, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain – use about 70% of the worldwide capacity of desalinated water), North Africa (mainly, Libya and Algeria – uses about 6% of worldwide capacity), and USA (mainly, California, Texas, and Florida) have continued to be the most important users of desalinated water as per The International Desalination Association reports. The potential and behemoth demand for desalination procedures is still on the rise as the world continues overpumping groundwater, building more dams than acceptable, and tapping off nearly all freshwater resources. However, if you turn the tables, the biggest and easy solution explored to continue receiving freshwater in our taps is RWH (rainwater harvesting) – as compared to desalination or reverse osmosis techniques, or even towing an iceberg, as RWH procedure is environmentally sustainable, inexpensive all around the globe, economically feasible, and viable in almost all places.
Accept a ‘better’ change for a ‘greater’ good
Water holds the vitality of the Earth by nurturing all the living organisms on it and creating a sustainable environment. The pioneers who adopted the RWH technique (Brad Lancaster and Andrew Millison, for example) are constantly preaching and helping others to understand that the ‘water crisis’ is real, just like global ‘climate change,’ and RWH is an easy, one-time solution to many water problems in the world. We, the people, and the government should start focusing on this vital problem if we want to survive on this planet – the issue that was once a molehill has now turned into a mountain. We will learn more about the pioneers, the benefits of RWH, and how India and other countries have adopted the RWH methods and realistically solved the water crisis to a greater extent in many arid areas in our next blog.
Without water, life will be at a standstill, and rain is one of the primary sources of water on Earth. When rainfall occurs, it enriches the mountains, water bodies, soil, and microorganisms with beneficial elements (such as iron, calcium, and other compounds). These elements were looped into the clouds via evaporation and (then) precipitation. This is one of the many processes that helped Life to emerge, reproduce, grow, and nurture on Earth by following the path of evolution. We, humans, have made this planet our Home, and now it’s our duty to revere her rich resources, maintain a harmonious balance between all life forms on Earth, and save all the natural resources that exist on the planet, instead of taking them for granted, so that all living organisms can dwell happily here for generations to come.
How can we achieve this? One such step is RWH conservation as it has many economic, social, and environmental benefits. The website TheWorldCounts.com mentions Professor Benjamin Sovacool from Aarhus University who concludes in one of his research papers, “There will be no water by 2040 if we keep doing what we’re doing today. There’s no time to waste. We need to act now.” With the frightening increase in the world’s population, escalating climate change, and dwindling freshwater resources, the economic wave may soon turn in favor of RWH. In this context, we are left with no other choices other than adopting measures for RWH and recharging groundwater, which is, by far, the best strategy to implement and solve the global freshwater crisis.
