Let’s start thinking about water!

Predictions of household water affordability under conditions of climate change, demographic growth, and fresh groundwater depletion in a southwest U.S. city indicate increasing burdens on the poor

It is often said that poor people will feel the brunt of climate change. We already see this in the impacts of increased flooding and more severe droughts. And water is already getting more expensive. As Heyman and friends note, water and city services in the United States have increased at 2.5 times the inflation rate, placing more of a burden on the poor to obtain essential services. With a growing population, decreasing water supplies, and climate change, this is only expected to worsen. Hayman et al. looked at these issues for El Paso as local water supplies become rarer and more expensive. To do this, they looked at 50-year water plans and a regional conjunctive use model with climate scenarios.

Climate models suggest that inflows to Elephant Butte Reservoir may decline between 23 and 60% over the next 50 years (and an earlier study led by Mayer suggests the freshwater in the Hueco Bolson may fully deplete in a few decades). Regardless, the authors assumed that replacement water would come from desalinated brackish water or imported water, both of which are more expensive. Cost for water is expected to increase by two times by 2070 without climate change, with climate change expected to further increase costs minimally (using desalination) to 33% (using groundwater import and depletion of the Hueco Bolson) with upwards of 30% of households paying more than 5% of their income on water and 10% of households paying more than 10%.

The declining Ogallala Aquifer and the future role of rangeland science on the North American High Plains

West Texas cotton fields. Credit: Hank+Tank, stock.adobe.com

Studies suggest that the Ogallala Aquifer will be mostly depleted over the next 100 years, which prompts the question: What’s next? Rhodes and co-authors note that, while many assume a transition to dryland farming, about 25% of the soils on the High Plains may not be viable for crops without irrigation. Given this and climate change, it’s likely that these lands will be converted back into rangeland, and thus an opportunity for rangeland scientists (every cloud has a silver oxide lining…). Conversion to rangeland includes soil erosion threats, but also opportunities for ecosystem services, livestock grazing, carbon sequestration, and playa restoration, among others. Ideally, managing this conversion involves considering socio-economic impacts and opportunities and using the best available science and understanding.

Tracking the post-disaster evolution of water infrastructure resilience—A study of the 2021 Texas winter storm

If you’re an avid reader of this column, many papers have been published recently on Winter Storm Uri, and here’s yet another one. If you recall, one of the significant water infrastructure issues during the storm was a lack of preparation in responding to outages, with operators finding their backup generators inoperable or not knowing how to operate critical emergency response equipment. Tiedmann and pals look at resilience and its aftermath through in-depth interviews to answer the question: Are our systems better off today than Valentine’s Day 2021?

In short, they found the utilities have made substantial progress in advancing water infrastructure resilience since Uri, especially with governance and infrastructure. However, the authors found less progress in the economic and social areas, as well as in aging infrastructure, private-side vulnerabilities, and electric grid stability.