Gelare
Academy Faculty
Citizen of Nerianti of Wolfshire
Dean Gelare of the Academy
Posts: 138
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Post by Gelare on Jan 11, 2010 8:29:44 GMT -5
When the amount of water available is less than the amount necessary for survival, there are, as I see it, two options:
Option 1: Technological advances. Expensive techniques to extract water from unlikely sources must be available to put into practice to get to the point where people can survive. Alternatively, find a substitute for water itself that will keep people alive.
Option 2: Chaos. When an entire population finds themselves in competition with each other for basic survival, it gets very ugly, and the government quickly finds itself in no position to enforce any policies whatsoever. So really our time may be best spent finding ways to prevent this situation than deciding what to do once there's nothing more we really can.
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Post by Rook on Jan 17, 2010 11:42:46 GMT -5
So from this conversation I can garner that our Water Shortage S.O.P is roughly:
Prevention, prevention, prevention.
Revolutionize water infrastructure with dedicated gray water and reclaimed water irrigation systems from residential and business shower and sink use.
Maintain adequate reserves and have the technology and facility to extract water from unlikely sources in the event of a shortage (such as have desalination plants in operation at minimal cost and productivity with a potential capacity to begin filling deficits.)
Practice water use awareness an ensure the population is aware of how their water use impacts the water supply in the case of a shortage so that they will be better equipped to adjust to a decreased water availability.
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Regulate the amount of water used for cosmetic purposes as the water shortages being to effect agriculture.
This is the one I'm still not sure about. Which would be a better approach? Increasing the cost of the water to a prohibitive level, or simply shutting off the gray water systems to the lawns and garden hoses and car washes. Either way the business will be destroyed. One allows the population their choice, technically they could tap a vein to water their garden if they wanted. The latter of course creates less margin for error and ensures that the water makes it to critical areas like potable drinking water and irrigation for food stuffs. Is there a middle ground?
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Post by Mira O'Halloran on Jan 17, 2010 23:42:49 GMT -5
Limit it to drinking, cooking and agriculture. Another things is using reverse osmosis on the grey water that doesn't come from toilets, and using self composting, water free "drop dunnies" to solve the toilet problem. The average 4 person household uses nerly 100,000 litres of water a year, flushing a toilet...
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Post by Rook on Jan 28, 2010 11:06:12 GMT -5
Prevention, prevention, prevention.
Revolutionize water infrastructure with dedicated gray water and reclaimed water irrigation systems from residential and business shower and sink use.
Support alternative toilet use procedures. Encourage households to maintain water free toilet alternatives to use in place of the standard in times of great emergency.
Maintain adequate reserves and have the technology and facility to extract water from unlikely sources in the event of a shortage (such as have desalination plants in operation at minimal cost and productivity with a potential capacity to begin filling deficits.)
Practice water use awareness and ensure the population is aware of how their water use impacts the water supply in the case of a shortage so that they will be better equipped to adjust to a decreased water availability.
Regulate the amount of water used for cosmetic purposes as the water shortages begin to effect agriculture. This can be done in two stages. In the beginning, when water is getting short and we're beginning to take a number of these emergency measures the price of water will simply increase proportional to the amount of extra work being generated to produce the water. That will, initially, discourage over use. If skyrocketing water prices, coupled with all the preventative, alternative and water wise habits fail to solve the problem than rationing and water system control will need to come into effect. Grey water systems that are connected to the reclamation plants will be shut down: no water to the toilet or garden. That should free up enough water that's being used by those who are still paying for it so that an effective rationing system can be put in place.
The most extreme response, and I'm not sure we'd ever have to get to that point, would be to shut down water infrastructure entirely and send water trucks into communities to distribute a rationed amount of water to each household.
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Thoughts?
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Artz
Denizen
Posts: 54
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Post by Artz on Jan 28, 2010 12:56:15 GMT -5
Why don't we build an artificial lake? Use it for recreational purposes (such as water sports and fishing) when not needed, which will gather supportive income to fund projects. Then, if we get into a sudden shortage, we can use reserves from the lake, filter it and use it for drinking and agriculture. Rationed, of course, until we hit a rainy season.
Also, encourage people to collect rainwater for personal use. Deposit and teach cleaning methods, including school visits and activities so that the public can find their own water for washing and the such, if the country turns to rationed measures.
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Gelare
Academy Faculty
Citizen of Nerianti of Wolfshire
Dean Gelare of the Academy
Posts: 138
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Post by Gelare on Jan 28, 2010 17:15:30 GMT -5
I think the broad theme of these discussions is "information is important". Which is a very encouraging thing. I hope that keeps up.
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Post by Rook on Jan 28, 2010 22:12:58 GMT -5
I like adding rain water collection to the list of precautionary measures taken into the daily maintenance of a house, especially if it's made easy enough to do, or built as part of houses and apartments so it's easier to do it than not to.
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Post by Colum I on Jan 29, 2010 3:05:45 GMT -5
Living in a country that currently has no real issue of water shortages makes it difficult to pull from experience good suggestions. In the few times where a water drought has been declared in Britain, we have simply issued Hose-Pipe bans. I was young when this happened, and don't know the extent of its effectiveness, or how well it was monitored (likely a neighbourhood watch scheme), but we got through it, and as far as I know, haven't had to issue one for years. We also have massive reservoirs that, and one of the best water-filtering systems in the world (so much so that it was once poisoned, and was only discovered, due to the poison building up on the filters). If the stores are large enough to anticipate for the lengthiest periods of drought for the area, then we could effectively gather water during the wetter times of the year, and during drought, you have reserves large enough to cope. If we are also located near the sea, irrigation and canals may also become an option for providing water to agriculture that is separate from the domestic water supply. You would need systems in place to make the water suitable for the purpose, but its an option. This does require below sea level canal systems, but I'm sure its not the first time that its been put into place before. Sorry if my ideas don't seem as well thought through or perhaps obvious, but just thought I'd try and help
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Post by Rook on Jan 29, 2010 11:17:07 GMT -5
No they are good, and they concur with a lot of what has been recommended already, which is good. Duplicity in opinion means that it's something worth implementing.
Also, something we haven't really addressed yet is agriculture. At what point do we start cutting off the water to farms, or making it too expensive to water farms. How much do people in their homes need to suffer to keep farms with water. I believe that as long as people have enough water to survive, even if that means unhappily and they have to go to the water truck for their daily ration, agriculture should still be running at 80% water capacity if need be. A dry season may come and go but once there's no food...there's another problem entirely.
The other side of that coin is allowing the farms to dry up after a certain point, allowing the people their water back, and just paying more to import food later. What do you think?
- And in order from severity, as a crisis proceeds I have: (again any thoughts and opinions encouraged)
Prevention, prevention, prevention
Maintain large educational campaigns on water use and conservancy.
Make water wise home systems such as rain collection and water free toilet procedures freely available, affordable and easy enough to be worth using.
Establish a revolutionary infrastructure that creates a 'reclaimed' and 'purified' water lines. Reclaimed water lines would be re-cycled garden water and sub-potable water that's still useful for irrigation. Purified water lines would be re-cycled and high purified waste water form inside homes and businesses.
Establish and maintain healthy reservoirs with filtration and rain collection system. Have them re-evaluated and expanded regularly if needed by expanding population.
Maintain alternative water production facility, such as sea water desalination or fresh water lake purification, running at minimal cost and production until additional output is needed. Artz, I can see environmentalists unhappy with draining a lake, killing all the life and ecosystem that has grown in it. An alternative use for a man made lake would be for power generation, like what Castaic and Pyramid lake do. In the morning they drain a set amount of Pyramid lake (which is on higher ground) down into Castaic lake generating electricity to make up for the morning rush with everyone waking up and turning on their lights and cooking breakfast etc. Then in the middle of the night, when the constant rate power plants are pumping out energy no one's using while they are asleep they pump all the water from Castaic back up into Pyramid. Both Pyramid and Castaic are recreational lakes with boating, fishing and swimming. Neither destroy ecosystem or life because they rise and fall at a set rate at set times, thus creating an intertidal zone type ecosystem that animals can cope with.
Raise prices in the face of water shortage to discourage frivolous water consumption.
Have the infrastructure in place to be able to forcibly shut down cosmetic water use such as sprinklers, showers etc. Distribute personal hygiene items such as wet wipes to compensate.
Shut down the water system entirely and send trucks out to ration water according to household and availability of water.
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Post by Mira O'Halloran on Jan 31, 2010 7:52:11 GMT -5
Waiting for the rain is all good and well, but what about droughts? We're in the 18th year of one of the worst droughts seen in Australia.
Attaching rainwater tanks to all houses is a really good idea - Legislation was brought in when I was 13 (year 2000) that all houses built after 2000 must have rainwater tanks attached.
I think that removing flushing toilets is a really good idea - cuts down on council matinence, and environmental pollution. Also, no one will ever have a blocked drain again!
I think that water is something that should be free - it's essential to live. But, again, I come back to the issue of it being used to water lawns, wash cars, and other things that are a waste.
An example of living on recycled water - the town of Toowoomba in Queensland (in Australia's north east) has been doing it for at least two years now. It goes through about 7 filtering processes before being released into a dam, then pumped back through the towns water treatment plant, being filtered again before going to any homes.
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Post by Rook on Jan 31, 2010 10:45:55 GMT -5
Agreed, water is essential for life, but what you're paying for is not the water but the labor involved in getting the water to you. I would never allow a public river or well to be a toll river or well if you wanted to go draw your own water. Likewise I adimantly oppose a movement of the government here in California to declare the water table government property and charge people with wells on their land for the water they use. The water is free.
Pumping the water, transporting it in trucks, a 7 filtration process is not free though.
Now, I can see a problem with eliminating flush toilets completely. Many people would find it disgusting and primitive. Having all homes built with a non-flush toilet alternative easy to access is different.
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Post by Rook on Sept 28, 2011 14:19:01 GMT -5
This is pretty much resolved, but I need to go back through the threads and really finish it like I did the Minimum Ages SOP. Which also gives people some time to add additional or new thoughts.
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Post by Mira O'Halloran on Oct 8, 2011 13:33:51 GMT -5
After 15 months in the country, relying on nothing but our water tanks to get us through, I think I've got enough experience to comment on the matter: Infrastructure is so important. Water tanks catch an amazing amount (our tanks keep on overflowing, and as we're halfway through spring I'm thankful for it) Let me put it this way: A house of 4 adults were able to get by on what was in our tanks, and when they ran dry, we only needed 6,000L to get us through the remaining two months of summer. However, if we'd has one more tank with a minumun capacity of 11,000 litres, we probably would have survived fine.
Ah, toilets. I find the flushing kind primitive and disgusting. All the national parks in the east have these amazing toilets - they're self composting, the only thing you have to do is remember to leave the lid down, and there is no drama with them. And they never clog up. Never spring a leak. Never overflow. I need to stop now, I'm starting to hate my own toilet! And they save thousands of litres a year.
Thats all I can think of.
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