Expert: Water is a different kind of resource
Photo courtesy of Jim Brekke.
Brad Udall: People tend to think of conservation in the same terms, be it energy or be it water. And conservation couldn’t be more different between water and energy.
Brad Udall is Director of the U.S. Western Water Assessment. He believes water managers should take the fundamental difference between water and other resources into account when deciding how and when to conserve it.
In other words, when you burn a piece of coal, it’s gone. But water down the drain isn’t “consumed” in the ordinary sense. Instead, water can be used and reused many times. Udall said that much of the water used for cropland irrigation runs off to streams and rivers or soaks back into the groundwater supply. What water is used by plants later goes into the atmosphere as water vapor. Still later, it returns as rain or snow.
So for example, city reservoirs can only hold so much water. Then, it might be appropriate to lift water restrictions in short periods of heavy rainfall – even after several previous years of drought.
In the years to come, as water becomes a more precious resource to Earth’s burgeoning population, we’ll need a more thorough understanding about the fundamental difference between water and other resources.
Our thanks to:
Brad Udall
Director
CU–NOAA Western Water Assessment
NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
