Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
lessons from the australian drought
Peter Gleick and Matthew Heberger at the Pacii c Institute in Oakland,
California, view the decade-long drought in Australia that ended in 2010 as a
“wake-up call” for the American West. h e Australian drought, the worst in
that country's recorded history, had exceptionally low river l ows, agricultural
collapse, catastrophic i res, and blinding dust storms. h e drought-prone West
has many lessons to learn from Australia, a similarly semiarid to arid region.
Gleick and Heberger point to some of the strategies adopted by Australians
during their drought, including steps that individuals can take to conserve,
such as converting to water-ei cient washing machines, toilets, showerheads,
and faucets, all of which can save an enormous amount of water per year.
Recycling and reusing treated wastewater (or gray water) has also been suc-
cessfully adopted by Australians, including treatment of this water to a level
safe enough for drinking. h ese strategies led to a 37 percent decline in water
used per person between 2002 and 2008 in Australia.
Other strategies for water conservation include rainwater harvesting sys-
tems that allow individual homes or oi ce buildings to capture rain that
falls on roofs and transfer the water to above- or below-ground cisterns or
storage tanks for use at a later time. h e construction of desalination plants
may also be a partial solution along the coast. Australia spent $13.2 billion
to build desalination plants in its i ve largest cities in 2011 in preparation for
future droughts.
reducing our water footprint
Another important step in water conservation is to improve societal aware-
ness of the “embedded,” or virtual, water in foods and products. Dubbed our
“water footprint,” ecologists and economists have recently dei ned this con-
cept so that people living in the western United States can learn how much
water they actually consume in their daily life. h e water footprint is analo-
gous to the more familiar carbon footprint in providing an accounting of the
total amount of water used to produce a crop or product. Keeping track of
our water footprint will ultimately help individuals, companies, regions, and
even countries practice more intelligent water usage.
h
e water footprint of beef is a telling example for the American West.
h
is region celebrates wide-open spaces and the iconic cowboys on horse-
