### A new paper from [Nature released yesterday](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature20584.html) shows the long term changes of surface water on Earth. More of the earth is covered with water. Some countries have more water to use, while other have less. Some of the resources of the future are shifting to other locations on the planet.

Irrigation and dam building seems to be a large factor in the shifting water locations. Changing climate is always a factor that occurs since there was weather on the planet. Egypt didn't used to be mostly a desert. But we are certainly creating effects into our environment that change things, often not for the better.

<center><h3>Geographic and temporal coverage of the Landsat 5, 7 and 8 LIT archive between 16 March 1984 and 10 October 2015</h3><br/><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/earth-water-supplyd69ab.jpg" alt="earth-water-supplyd69ab.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature20584.html)</em></center>

[Jean-François Pekel](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/J-F_Pekel) and his colleagues at the Joint Researh Center, used AI to analyze the Landsat archive of 3 million satellite images from 1984 up until now.

Since 1984, the area of land with water has increased by 3%. Many of them are from dams, but some are from mountain or glacial ice melting and forming new lakes, like in Tibet. In total, there are 184,00 km² of new water coverage.

Some of countries that are drying up are the US and Australia, as has been reported these past few summers in places like California, along with other countries int he Middle East and Central Asia. They are part of the 90,000 km² of lost water area since 1984, equaling the size of Lake Superior. And most of this water loss comes from the Middle East / Central Asia, in five countries: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Human factors are the most to blame in these cases, with river diversion and irrigation as primary contributors, along with the usual drought factors. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan share a common Aral Sea and have almost lost it all. Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan have lost 30-50% of their surface water. The US has also been hit, with 6,000 km² water loss.

<center><h3>Surface water changes for the Aral Sea</h3><br/><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/Aral-Sea343e8.jpg" alt="Aral-Sea343e8.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature20584.html)</em></center>

Humans are using more water from their environment, then the ecosystem is able to put back into th environment. It's a cash flow problem from a business perspective. We aren't managing our resources properly. Currently, it's estimated we need half of the water in every river ont he planet to produce food for 7 billion people, according to [Wayne Meyer](http://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/wayne.meyer) at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

To understand how to better manage our finite resources on the planet we seem to want to continue to grow and consume on, we need to look at what we have to see what the limits of our growth can potentially be. Then we can avoid a severe "black swan" event on humanity and the planet itself.

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# Earth's Water Data

<center><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/Earthae330.jpg" alt="Earthae330.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](http://pics-about-space.com/planet-earth-surface?p=1)</em></center>

### Big blue has a lot of blue, covering 71% of the planet's total surface area! That's a lot, right?

<center><h2>71% Surface Area</h2><br/><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/save-watere4306.jpg" alt="save-watere4306.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](http://www.slideshare.net/Zareen15/save-water-13943499)</em></center>

### Looking at everything, it sure looks good for the water situation, right? 

### But, looking closer, there is a difference between ```Saltwater``` we can't drink, and ```Freshwater``` we can drink. 

<center><h2>Surface Area of the Earth</h2><br/><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/water-surface-area44e35.png" alt="water-surface-area44e35.png" border="0"><br/><em>[source](http://chartsbin.com/view/wwu)</em></center>

### Things aren't looking so bright now. That's a small sliver of light blue freshwater compares to the darker blue saltwater.

### It turns out, that even if we could drink all the water we had, compared to the size of the planet itself, we don't have that much water to begin with:

<center><h2>Water in, on and above Earth</h2><br/><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/worlds-water-globee7526.jpg" alt="worlds-water-globee7526.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html)</em></center>

### The smaller water drop is the freshwater total, and the smallest one is the total freshwater from lakes and rivers.

### For the size our our big blue planet, the only one we have found, we have less water compared to the ratio of the planet, than the moons of Europa or Titan!

<center><h2></h2><br/><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/Earth-Europa-and-Titand570e.jpg" alt="Earth-Europa-and-Titand570e.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](http://aspokastorias.yolasite.com/earth.php)</em></center>

### In perspective, 71% of the Earth is covered in water, true. But of that, 97.5% is saltwater! Only 1% of the total water on Earth, is drinkable! That 71% figure doesn't seem so big anymore, does it?

<center><h2></h2><br/><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/world-waterbec75.jpg" alt="world-waterbec75.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](http://www.farm-zero.com/water-resources-earth/)</em></center>

### From that 1% freshwater of the 70% total water surface on earth, the rivers, lakes, groundwater, glaciers and rain is how we can get our freshwater. 

### Most of the water we get to drink comes from glaciers, ending up in our water table for us to collect locally.

<center><h2></h2><br/><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/freshwater21c22.jpg" alt="freshwater21c22.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](https://tmacauley.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/week-10-water-resources-geology-nonrenewable-mineral/)</em></center>

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# Conclusion 

Of all the water, 52% of the surface water is located in North America, home to less than 5% of the planet's population. Asia, however, has 60% of the planet's population, while only having 9% of the water. 

The future is going to get pretty harsh andnasty unless we work together, with more people, scrambling for more limited resources, while the common people, then and likewise now, don't think much about these issues as they infatuate themselves with their focus on enjoyment, gratification and pleasure, screwing like rabbits and popping out kids for government socialism to take care of.

This is how [Idiocracy](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/) came about:

<center><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/idiocracy-reproduction53d9f.jpg" alt="idiocracy-reproduction53d9f.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](https://tvflight.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/idiocracy/)</em></center>

<center><img src="http://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/12/08/idiocracy-shits-all-retardeddcec1.jpg" alt="idiocracy-shits-all-retardeddcec1.jpg" border="0"><br/><em>[source](https://www.pinterest.com/donbarnwell/idiocracy/)</em></center>

#### A focus on pleasure, with little to no higher order consciousness thought and evolution going on. Is this where we want to end up? How much of a hold does the pleasure trap have on your consciousness?

----
#### Thank you for your time and attention! I appreciate the knowledge reaching more people. Take care. Peace.

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References:
- [High-resolution mapping of global surface water and its long-term changes](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature20584.html)
- [Mapping system shows dramatic changes in surface water over past 32 years](http://phys.org/news/2016-12-surface-years.html)
- [Many of world’s lakes are vanishing and some may be gone forever](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2079562-many-of-worlds-lakes-are-vanishing-and-some-may-be-gone-forever/)

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@krnel
2016-12-08, 10:54am