Posted by & filed under Consumerism, Deforestation, Desertification, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss.

by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute


















































11 Responses to “Peak Water: What Happens When the Wells Go Dry?”

  1. Scott Reimers

    I live in a desert area where we’ve been building a water management plan for 30 years. We limit well drilling and even pump water into aquifers to keep them healthy. In fact we use our aquifers as intentional water storage by pumping in water during the wet seasons and drawing it out during dry ones. Our regions water plan includes meeting the water needs of the worst drought on record plus 50% without tapping our aquifers (below the extra “stored” water)

    I’m incredibly proud to be in a community with so much foresight in this area, but as awesome as that is, our climate is not conducive to most commercial crops. I’ve looked toward permaculture about what it would take to feed my family if the water challenges progressed to the point of food scarcity.

    In the end I have plans and evidence they might work… and a complete emotional avoidance of the issue of quality of life if I had to use them…

    I love my life. I love getting to eat the vast selection of foods available to me now from so many parts of the world. I recognize that I am contributing to the problem everytime I do so, but I just can’t convince myself that doing anything more than “just in case” preparations is a good life choice. I see people on this website happy to be living “carbon neutral or household footprint” lives and I’m just not there.

    I could try to defend my “greencred”, but the fact of the matter is I’m incredibly common in modern society… I’m a GILA monster. Good Intentions Little Action. I want to be sustainable, but I don’t want to give up my job, my faith or my entertainment.

    I see so much un-necessary waste in the structure of my culture; low hanging fruit that we could pick by simply assigning these changes value. Ironically the poster boys/girls of the permaculture movements seem to create lives with these inefficiencies built in. Most permies I know choose to build small homesteads like 1800’s farms rather than forming larger communities with lots of people to take advantage of economies of scale ensuring minimum necessary travel and low personal cost for daily maintenance, composting, food & energy production and waste recycling.

    Most people are GILA monsters and there are few good options for us. I’m not willing to become a farmer from 100 years ago unless I absolutely have to, but I would gladly be who I am, living in an intentional community, helping with chores, plantings and harvests during peak times and sitting on my laptop creating websites, writing and whatnot the rest of the time.

    What does this have to do with a post on water?

    People will not change unless they want to. Our water will continue to be used in these absurd ways because there is a LOT of good intention tied with unwillingness to go without so that someone else can take what you don’t. Oil and water are to our society what trees were on Easter Island.

    History has shown an extreme willingness to sacrifice if the whole community is sacrificing together (WW1 America, WW1+WW2 Germany and UK). However, VERY few people will stop over-consuming if they feel they are “missing out” on something other people still have, because of mere “ideals.”

    The problem is not how to grow your own food, build a composter, rocket stove, chicken coop or all of these other “figure out how to survive/thrive on your own farm.” The problem is: How do we implement changes to the majority of persons lives in order to align our regional, national and worldwide culture closer and closer to sustainablity without people thinking they are sacrificing the lifestyles they enjoy so that other people can squander those same resources instead.

    If we find solutions to that problem, our challenges with oil, water, food and equality will improve at exponential rates and we could have a sustainable culture living a high quality of life within my Daughters lifetime.

  2. Gloria Cole

    Wow! I am so impressed with this article and the previous comment.

    I am reminded of the line from the old song: Where Have all the Flowers Gone? “When will they ever learn?”

    How will we ever learn, that is the question. All our lives and those of our children are in jeopardy.

    But, I wonder if trees might not be the solution–the trees we have cut, thinking they needed to be gone to make room for people.

    Many years ago I was working on an archeological project in north Alabama (USA). The project was to recover the archeological remains for an area within the drainage of the Tennessee River. To build a reservoir, TVA (The Tennessee Valley Authority) had confiscated the proposed construction area. Trees and farm sites were bulldozed in preparation for the reservoir construction.

    Our crew arranged to stay at one of the confiscated farm sites for the duration of our project. The displaced owner said, we have a new well, you will find this a wonderful place to stay.

    Within a few weeks after our crew moved in, the well went dry.
    Our supervisor hired a well digger to extend the depth of the well. We found out from this man that all the wells in the confiscated area were going dry.

    The wells were going dry because the trees hold the level of the groundwater. When the trees were bulldozed, the level of the ground water receded below the level of the wells.

    So Im wondering if ground water depletion might not be reversible if the trees/forests could be restored.

  3. Rosie

    This wonderful article and Scott and Gloria’s comments are making me feel incredibly depressed and powerless. I’m living in the Indian desert where the only ambition, it seems, is to buy some land, put down a tube well and use the water, together with a whole heap of chemicals to grow fantastic lush crops, sell them to a dealer and burn the field residues. How, how, how can I even start to tell people it is better to go the other way? Put a fence around your small area to keep the free range grazing animals off, construct swales to catch the rain, mulch heavily to preserve the water in the soil and just grow your own food. Both Gloria and Scott are right. How can you convince people to keep the trees? they are in the way of progress. How can you ask poor people not to try to get rich when it looks so easy, when everybody else is doing it?

  4. linnie lambrechtsen

    Yes… what a depressing article, indeed. I will pass it onto all my CSG-fighting warrior friends as more fuel for our cause against that particular insanity!

    Rosie, I hear you, people most often prefer the easy way out, and, yes, how do you ask poor people to watch others getting wealthy without adopting that path themselves?

    I am on 30 fertile acres and still have done only the smallest amount towards self-sufficiency. We’ve made a definite start, regenerating the land, and fruit trees planted long ago now bear fruit… but we can do very much better. this site reminds me of that, and the email updates send me scurrying out to weed that patch and get it ready for replanting, etc.

    I remember two things which inspired me very much; one was the passionate planting of many edible species at my best buddy’s place, decades ago, which made me drool with longing, and helped decide me to relocate and start planting my own food (not that one needs to relocate, as this worthy website makes clear.) The other was watching Bill Mollison’s “global gardener DVD” (for memory), where he filmed an Indian gentleman doing just that very swale thing, and, in what seemed a remarkably short time, making magic, against the odds.

    I think that seeing the harvest of your efforts, with their own eyes, may make a huge difference to people. It is true that fool’s gold speaks with an over loud voice, but food, in front of one’s eyes, must surely also speak to a hungry belly?

    Many blessings to you.

  5. donald mcpherson

    I am responding to Scott’s comment in particular, but in the context of the actual article written by Lester Brown. I make this point because as I was reading Scott’s long comment I realized that Scott’s approach was emblematic of some part of the problem. It’s like going on a first date and instead of engaging with the other person you stick to what seems comfortable: talking about yourself. I live in Berkeley, CA with all of its privileges it’s good intentions and it’s wasteful obliviousness. Consider protein. Cow eating is not cool. Eating tempeh is cool (I make my own so I must be cool too.) but if you buy it in a store is it cool that it is manufactured in a factory across the state, using grains grown who knows where, with water derived from some unknown place? As a hope and as a snare complexity reigns in the kingdom of diminishing everything. Isn’t that the issue here? We have no control over the “big picture” so we need to focus on the really tiny local. This is my roundabout way of disagreeing with Scott’s comment, cutnpasted below:


    I think that the list of “not how to’s” is exactly what we need to do, but in our own little seemingly meaningless way in the suburbs, the city center, the farm. This is how revolutions start and more importantly how conscience behavior morphs out of inaction and impotency. We don’t implement changes to the majority of persons lives, we just seem to all finally get it and change, because that is how it works. I would rather be the change and set an example and talk it up and be supportive of the change and do it all out in the open. Making major social changes “without people thinking they are sacrificing the lifestyles they enjoy” doesn’t seem very open to me. I say we all lay out the situation as plainly as we can, using Lester Brown as an example of how to explain complexity without coming across as detached. We lay it out to friends and strangers alike, but to be effective you have to be doing the tiny little things that Scott dismisses.
    I am not trying to rag on Scott, but this is a subtle and important detail. Maybe my viewpoint is less effective because it is slow, but I think it is really how it works.

  6. Glenn

    Great article. I have long since lost the will to ‘persuade’ other folk of anything. It is not my place to do so, hardly ever works, is emotionally draining, and at time is disempowering to assume we/I know what is best for others. The answer is always’it depends’ and is a matter of perspective.

    IMJ it is far better to simply go about your business, doing what you can, in your little circle of influence, and at the same time, leaving the door wide open for others to take a lookie:-)

    In reality, the numbers coming out on water scarcity are like time bombs waiting to go off. I think history would probably give us a fair idea as to how this may play out.

    Peace and good bowel movements,

    p.s. As an after thought, the literature coming out these days doesn’t even support a grain based diet. Thus, as already mentioned, maybe it’s time more of us tried our hand at horticulture. Tree, tree and more trees.

    I think we also need to relearn how to nurture our emotional wellbeing, thus becoming more reslient by nature. Maybe linking up with other like minded folk, you know the old way face to face!?

    Big thanks again for this somewhat scary article.

  7. Scott Jackson

    Great article. I was expecting to see some mention of Argentina, which is where I live. Argentina is one of the “Big Five” soy producers, and the results of this form of monocropping (with its concurrent deforestation, unsustainable irrigation, application of toxic pesticides, etc…) is also turning huge swathes of Argentina into good old fashion barren desert. Why? So the minority (landholding wealthy) can sell GM soy to china’s pig farmers. Many everyday Argentines like to take some kind of token pride in the soy-based GDP of their country, but the reality is the soy farmers are devastating the future and present prospects of the entire country and the consequences in terms of water are already here and getting worse.

    In the province of Córdoba the people are left to pick up the tab in the form of drought, higher food prices and dependence on tanker-trucks which supply houses in many regions with drinking water. Right now in Córdoba the price of bread and many other foods are becoming hyper-inflated because of failed harvests (drought) and the decreasing production of wheat for local consumption, and of course the rising costs of petroleum, etc. Lots of “peaks” all it once.

    There are towns near where I live where the municipal water is perpetually intermittent, and thus the only immediate option for most people is to pay for the trucked-in water to fill their tanks. This has resulted in a situation where their monthly water bill is equal to or greater than their rent or mortgage payment!

    Anyway, it’s obvious that massive reforestation has to occur, along with policy changes, public education, and of course, permaculture design to provide sustainable strategies at all scales.

    I teach Urban Permaculture here in the city of Córdoba, and this is something that we are talking about and doing (looking at the city’s vast roof area as a huge collection of water-catchment infrastructure, and also doing inter-urban reforestation to promote and regenerate micro-regional water cycles). It’s not easy, though, when entire generations have been brought up totally unaware of the consequences of rampant growth and depletion of natural resources. Most adults are already hard-wired into whatever delusions they’ve been brought up to believe. We need to work with the kids, so that they can teach their parents.

    Thanks again for the article. Keep up the good work and the good comments. Let’s do the work.

  8. Scott Reimers


    I’m hearing you say that you feel the solution is to make the very same changes in our personal lives that it sounded like I was dismissing?

    Believe it or not I agree. I do strongly believe that it is better for each person to make these changes. I wasn’t saying that these solutions are a waste of time. I was saying that the key problem facing us as a western culture is the challenge of motivation. How do we maintain motivation and willingness to sacrifice when the people around us just seem to increase their waste as a result?

    I have had this happen with my refrigerator. I had roomates and we purchased snacks. I am the kind of person who will slowly consume a small amount of each “treat” so that I don’t run out of it before the next trip to the store. They didn’t do that. They’d eat what they wanted, when they wanted to.

    After a couple times of me getting little to none of the treats, I automatically started to join them on the “snack-fest.” When I did that THEY started feeling that I was taking their share of the snacks. It got so that grocery day was a disgusting orgy of consumption followed by 2 weeks of snack famine!

    In the end our households parted ways, and my current household honors limitations on our snacking. My roomates all agree to limit what we use and none of us feel we are missing out. In fact our whole household consumes 1/10th of the junk food of the old one and we consistently still have snacks in the fridge as we’re making the shopping list.

    This exact situation is the dynamic happening worldwide as a lack of consistent conservation agreements are leading everyone into an orgy of wasteful consumption of our oil, water, environmental capital and anything else that isn’t nailed down. All due to a fear of “missing out.”

    I truly respect and honor the people who make the sacrifice to consume less, be more self-sufficient and improve our ecology. I think that is the future and is a necessary behavior. I also admit that I’m not enlightened enough to be willing to sacrifice to live what I consider to be a lower quality of life when my peers aren’t doing so.

    I’ve seen the problem and I’ve seen only TWO solutions. One solution I saw was to make and keep consumption limits equally. Another was to go without and let everyone else have all the goodies. I didn’t like the second in my household, and I’m doing the EXACT SAME THING in regards to my lifestyle. I recognize that I’m in the middle of the “I want mine before it’s all gone” mindset, but I don’t see a good solution being offered. However, I believe other solutions exist if we can find them.

    I’m hoping that by sharing my perspective on the problem, we may shift our focus toward finding solutions to this problem in our local regions and our local consumption patterns. Luckily unlike oil, water is regional. Each region can make their own agreements concerning water… just like the Truckee Meadows Water Authority did. They are buying up ALL water rights as fast as they can and they are working to ensure an equal price for all users based on availability and tiers of consumption.

    Everyone gets a basic amount of water very cheap and the more you use the more you have to pay per gallon. If you want to use more than your “fair share” you’re going to pay a LOT and subsidize everyone else’s share. That structure feels fair and I’m ok with the heavy users lowering my costs for my low usage.

  9. Scott Reimers

    wow… writing that last article about the regional nature of water, I just realized one solution to absurd worldwide consumption of oil would be oil protectionism.

    If a couple producer countries became convinced that oil is a precious resource that we need to horde instead of selling, it would trigger a chain reaction where each region and country would start to horde it as well. The price would spike incredibly, and the economy would shatter because consumption patterns would disconnect from the cycle of “getting my share while it’s good.”

    If we were smart enough to do that now while it’s still cheap, it might be that “shared sacrifice” I was mentioning that would lead us to conserve these resources for a few generations.

    When there is plenty and it is socially acceptable to waste, rich and powerful people can get away with absurd things, but as soon as a culture decides that it isn’t ok to waste that resource, the rich and powerful become constrained due to the monitoring behavior of the masses.

    I can see how this could apply to oil since we already see it as a valuable resource. I only wish we could find a way to apply it to things like the massive Environmental Damage of the Soy Farming in Argentina that Mr. Jackson mentioned.

  10. Jackie Smith

    I live in the Palm Spring CA desert where most everyone expects to see green and lush gardens. There are several thousand swimming pools plus, water falls and fountains. We sit on an aquafer that cannot be measured and we are taking more water out than is going back in. One water district is selling their water to Nestles. This Coachella Valley is home to many acres of farming and most of that water is brought in from the Colorado River. Now that the housing market is turning around I’ll bet the builders will be lining up to start huge complexes of homes.
    Jackie Smith

  11. Rosie

    Where I live, in Jaisalmer city in the Indian desert the water supply comes through the pipes in the street for 2 hours every second day. In that time you fill your storage tank, wash your floors and whatever else you want to do. The rest of the time the pipes are dry. My underground tank fills automatically so I always have plenty of water but some of my neighbours don’t have tanks. They come to the outlets in the street with their buckets and take water home by carrying it on their heads then they store it there for two days and use it frugally until the water comes again.

    This is desert, water is precious. And yet there are no shut-off taps on the pipes. When water is flowing it is free for anyone to take but if no-one wants it it just flows away down the gutter. Good, clean drinking water babbling away over the cobblestones, hundreds of gallons at a time. Nobody cares apparently,except me.


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