Planck Foundation




GLOBAL FUTURE ANALYSIS


WATER | TRANSPORT


As watersupply changes due climate changes (regardless the causes of that: climate change is as old as the world: the climate is a living/dynamic system), waterdemand rises both in civil areas (cities and villages) and in rural areas (increase water use in the food production by agriculture) and (due the investment level of all off this) people and companies are not nomadic anymore, the need for water transport will rise in the 21st century severely. In flat and cold countries this will be done by digging canals, in not flat and warm countries this will be done by water pipelines. The huge advantage of water pipelines is that they our relatively low pressured and thereby can be made out of cheap concrete. The largest human made construction is the underground water infrastructure in whole Libya, feed by the huge underground sweet water reservoir right under the Libyan desert, which is formed a few thousand years ago when the Sahara was a green oasis, something that has been changed by the fact mankind used to much wood as energy source and erosion gets grip on this huge region. The need to invest in a complete new water infrastructure comes not at a right time: the municipals and national governments have more and more a problem with funding due their budget deficits, balance sheets and the Credit Crisis. The need for huge new energy and water investments will or lead to currency watering or to abandon the Central Banks based system of money supply. Governments will take the system of money supply in their own hands when they can not fund themselves by the current loan based money creation model 'guarded' by the Central Banks. Municipals will face quadric huge infrastructural investments: 1) water import infrastructures from other regions to their village/city 2) local water purification installations 3) local clean water infrastructures 4) local waste water infrastructures and 5) local waste water purification installations. The current local infrastructures for both clean water and waste water are in almost whole the western world outdated. In some countries even 25% of the clean water put into the system reach endusers, the rest leaks out this 'closed' infrastructure. This also gives the same times huge pollution risks by a this leaks are the water pressure sometimes drop for a moment. Also the waste water infrastructures are old and leaking severely polluted water into the groundwater. This can rune complete groundwater reservoirs for generations to come and only lazy local governments doesn't address this threat to the future of their economy.


Author: Gijs Graafland


Back to Water Index


Download the full Global Future Analysis report in PDF


Planck Foundation