The Future Of Water

The world has many issues with water and it's a issue and a note for all
to understand we all are in the same boat in low water!

~~~~~Cape Town is parched. Severe drought and high water use have collided in South Africa’s second largest city, and unless the drought breaks, residents may run out of water in the next few months when there simply isn’t enough water left to supply the drinking water taps.

Cape Town is not alone. Water crises are getting worse all over the world. The past few years have seen more and more extreme droughts and floods around the globe. California just endured the worst five-year drought on record, followed by the wettest year on record. São Paulo, Brazil, recently suffered a severe drought that drastically cut water supplies to its 12 million inhabitants – a drought that also ended in heavy rainfall, which caused extreme flooding. Houston was devastated in 2017 by Hurricane Harvey, the most extreme precipitation event to hit any major city in the United States.

Severe droughts and floods. Water rationing. Economic and political disruption. Urban taps running dry. Is this the future of water?

Many regions of the world, as in Cape Town, have reached “peak water” limits and find their traditional sources tapped out. Many rivers are dammed and diverted to the point that they no longer reach the sea. Groundwater is over pumped at rates faster than nature can replenish. And massive long-distance transfers of water from other watersheds are increasingly controversial because of high costs, environmental damages and political disagreements.

On top of this, the climate is no longer stable. It is changing because of human activities, and among the expected and observed impacts are changes to the frequency and intensity of extreme events, with impacts on both water supplies and demands.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-gleick-cape-town_us_5a7cac75e4b08dfc93019ac2?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

~~~~~With a mere 0.5 per cent of the world's population, Canada has jurisdiction over 20 per cent of the global water supply – a vast and valuable resource that is largely taken for granted by those who depend on it.

Yet, according to the first national assessment of Canada's freshwater ecosystems in decades, there is plenty of cause for concern. Each of the country's 25 major watersheds is facing multiple environmental threats, while the data needed to track changes and guide policy makers are surprisingly inaccessible or simply non-existent.

"We don't know the facts," said David Miller, president of World Wildlife Fund-Canada, the environmental advocacy organization that conducted the assessment. "It's a recipe for inaction."
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canada-fresh-water-review-1/article35262579

I am sure you see the point of treating people fair. Whatever the buyout is or who 
for what you need to know all of those things really does not matter with no water. 
We all are in a mess.

There are options in looking at the ocean for drinking water but with that how 
long will it take us to mess up the ocean, kill all the fish... Never a good day!

I see it as we all ho have to work on getting water from the ocean but also to put
a balanced replacement back into the ocean. To watch the oxygen levels putting
it back where it is needed. You see the point more work is needed.
For everyone's water know "No man is an island."

~~~~~New material can remove salt and metal ions from seawater
Scientists have developed a new, more efficient way to filter salt and metal ions from water. The method relies on metal-organic frameworks, a unique material with an expansive internal surface area and crystals capable of trapping chemical compounds dissolved in water.

Currently, reverse osmosis membranes are responsible for the majority of desalinization efforts. The membranes also serve as the last stage of filtration in most municipal water systems. Unfortunately, the membranes aren't very energy efficient.

A team of researchers from Monash University in Australia and the University of Texas in Austin found metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, can be designed to selectively filter both salt and ions.

The differently sized nanoscale substructures inside the unique materials serve to trap and transport different types of ions.

In addition to making seawater potable, MOFs could also be used to filter lithium from mining wastewater. The rise in popularity of lithium ion batteries has made lithium a valuable and sought-after -- but increasingly rare -- natural resource.

"Instead of relying on the current costly and energy intensive processes, this research opens up the potential for removing salt ions from water in a far more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable way," Huanting Wang, a professor at Monash, said in a news release.

"Also, this is just the start of the potential for this phenomenon," Wang said. "We'll continue researching how the lithium ion selectivity of these membranes can be further applied."

The findings -- detailed in the journal Science Advances -- suggests MOFs could also be used for municipal water filtration systems.
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/02/09/New-material-can-remove-salt-and-metal-ions-from-seawater/9631518206859