Scientists discover massive freshwater reserves beneath the oceans

According to a news release from Flinders University, researchers have found massive reserves of freshwater beneath oceans, offering new chances to prevent an emerging global water crisis. They discovered that approximately 500,000 cubic km of low-salinity water are hidden beneath the seabed on continental shelves around the globe.

The water has been found off Australia, China, North America and South Africa.

“The volume of this water resource is a hundred times greater than the amount we’ve extracted from the Earth’s sub-surface in the past century since 1900,” noted lead author Vincent Post of the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training and the School of the Environment at Flinders University. “Knowing about these reserves is great news because this volume of water could sustain some regions for decades.”

Source

Post said that an estimated 500,000 cubic kilometres (120,000 cubic miles) of low-salinity water had been found buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves off Australia, China, North America and South Africa.

According to Post, groundwater scientists previously believed that freshwater under the seafloor only took place under special conditions, but the new research reveals that freshwater aquifers beneath the oceans are actually commonplace.

The freshwater reserves were developed over the past hundreds of thousands of years when on average the sea level was a lot lower than it is today.

“So when it rained, the water would infiltrate into the ground and fill up the water table in areas that are nowadays under the sea,” Post said.


This may help some of the water problems that exist globally but....

They know that drilling for the water will be expensive and that they must not contaminate the water in the process. Also Post warned that it is a precious source and should be used wisely. Once gone, they won't be replenished until the sea level drops again, which is not likely to happen for a very long time.

And the way Man is in general, those sources will be fought over and used up in no time if not careful.
We are a very greedy, wasteful species




[Did a search using 2 different titles, and nothing came up. Please remove if duplicate]

This is great news, you are right fresh water will be fought over one day.

Here is a good link showing how much we have.

ga.water.usgs.gov...

reply to post by boymonkey74

One of the coolest facts I learned in school: The volume of water on Earth, over the past 4.5 billion years ... has barely changed.

There's a substantial difference between freshwater and "low salinity water" as quoted.
Given that it is beneath the sea floor it would need to be some sort of end of times, global drought that pressed us to overlook the plentiful supply of water still available on the surface of the planet itself.

Solar powered reverse osmosis and the fact that the earth is very efficient in storing water in its three forms (solid, liquid or Gas) means that we would need to be in very dire straits for the necessity to drill for water under the sea bed to ever become feasible.

Although we use more water today than ever; this water isn't "lost" within a geological timeframe..it doesnt float off into space and it doesn't evaporate (significantly) beyond the earths atmosphere meaning the majority of water the planet has ever had, is is still there; we just need to improve the ways in which we recycle it.

I firmly believe that the "Oh My God, WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF WATER" crap that we hear is propagated by Governments and big business who want to control / tax rain water. In some places this has already started and people are being taxed on rain water tanks and such like.

Just another dog and pony show to take money from Mums and Dads to give to the wealthy.

Water is still available, we just have to reuse it wisely in some areas.

Technology abounds to purify water but big business needs to use some magic, show how really expensive it is and then BILL YOU FOR IT!

P

boymonkey74
This is great news, you are right fresh water will be fought over one day.

Here is a good link showing how much we have.

ga.water.usgs.gov...

fighting for water.......that would be a frightening world.

reply to post by pheonix358


Exactly...most places on earth that dont have enough accessible water have a lot of harvest-able solar energy exposure.
Most places that dont have enough solar energy exposure to generate the required electricity have a lot of water.

Straight swapsies...international pipelines piping fresh water one way and solar derived electricity the other; problem solved.

If we can pipe oil half way round the world and connect countries via wires ( the Internet) it seems like most of the work has already been done.

reply to post by snarky412


Oh boy, now the oceans have another problem coming their way. Actually its way - there is only one "ocean", people just toss different names onto it to nationalize them (Indian Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, The Great Falkland Island Sea) - because when water is scarce the Big Water boys (formerly Big Oil) will try and own it.

Hasn't someone come up with an easy large-scale desalinization process yet? A portion of military spending could be diverted to good drinking water.

As for much of the already clean water, once again meateating vs. nonmeating comes into play, as the corn and soy used to feed cattle (as much as 90% of corn and soy production in some countries) sucks up water like a sponge.

And remember this picture? It represents all the water on earth - not only fresh water - if it had packed up and moved to Colorado:

reply to post by pheonix358

Water is still available, we just have to reuse it wisely in some areas.

That's the key phrase....'to use it wisely'

Much water is wasted on irrigation and other excessive mis-use.

For example, the Ogallala Aquifer, which is one of the world's largest aquifers, located beneath the Great Plains [U.S] is slowly being depleted. More water is being used than the rainwater can replenish. And when, not if, the time comes that it runs dry, scientists claim it will take thousands of years to get back right.

Many of the farmers have agreed to cut back on the amount of water used for irrigation in order to help preserve what water is in there.

But still, in the United States alone, the biggest users of water from aquifers include agricultural irrigation and oil and coal extraction.

Not now, but possibly 100 years from now some areas will be in trouble.

of course you all know that of all the 300 million trillion gallons of water that the planet has... this huge amount of water is also a constant cycle right? evapotranspiration, condensation, precipitation and runoff and... rinse and repeat... so... that little bubble there... even if its right, its infinite.

reply to post by snarky412


Another thorn in the sides of the 'Oh - but we're running out of resources..oh - we have too many people' crowd.

Far from running out of anything, we have enough fresh water to last 10,000 years plus or minus, and that is without the fresh water from the normal, natural, everyday water cycle (sea water turned to fresh by evap and condensing by sun action).

And that is 10K years worth of fresh water, without even designing efficient systems to desalinate sea water directly.

The future is wet.

snarky412
reply to post by pheonix358

 

Water is still available, we just have to reuse it wisely in some areas.

That's the key phrase....'to use it wisely'

Much water is wasted on irrigation and other excessive mis-use.

For example, the Ogallala Aquifer, which is one of the world's largest aquifers, located beneath the Great Plains [U.S] is slowly being depleted. More water is being used than the rainwater can replenish. And when, not if, the time comes that it runs dry, scientists claim it will take thousands of years to get back right.

Many of the farmers have agreed to cut back on the amount of water used for irrigation in order to help preserve what water is in there.

But still, in the United States alone, the biggest users of water from aquifers include agricultural irrigation and oil and coal extraction.

Not now, but possibly 100 years from now some areas will be in trouble.

T. Boone Pickens is buying up as much Texas real estate as possible for this reason. He gets the water rights to what is beneath him. He's been pumping stuff out of the ground for years. Even if water were "infinite", it would take a VERY long time to refill the Ogallala. Meanwhile, everyone is buying T. Boone brand water, although Texas doesn't really have much of aquifer under it. Colorado barely has any of it under their borders and wants to pump it like mad for their water shortages due to unanticipated population growth.
Nestle co. is trying to buy the Great Lakes and sell them back to you one plastic bottle at a time. The city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia, again, due to its unanticipated population growth, have been in court for years trying to get more water rights. Lake Havasu City, AZ...you can build a house, but don't plan on getting a permit for a water meter...they cannot support more, so you have to buy a current resident's.
It's a problem of population distribution and redistribution of resources. But we all know that cuts into profit margins...

II would say, leave that water source (if really exist) alone. It is belong to the newer generation of mankind.

Stop the abuse, pollution and stupidity of our generation NOW and there will be enough water for everyone for centuries to com.

It seems I read this book ... It was a nice little sci-fi by Stephan Baxter called Flood.

Maybe we should just let well enough alone for the time being. Deep well drilling has caused enough problems for the time being.

ketsuko
It seems I read this book ... It was a nice little sci-fi by Stephan Baxter called Flood.

Same here, you beat me to it (not as good as Xeelee though).....
The great thing is he actually puts references in his sci-fi books, which tells us that this has been at least slightly known about since 1992.

Fiction aside, I can't see us needing to drill under the ocean for water when it would be far easier to just distill the sea water or something - which would be really easily done, given that you could use solar power to do the boiling for you.

reply to post by Aleister

Hasn't someone come up with an easy large-scale desalinization process yet?

Yeah...Mother Nature.

Sea water is evaporated..turned to vapour and rises until it condenses, forms liquid water again and falls as rain etc...it's a most efficient system, probably the most efficient.

It's been cycling endlessly, all powered by the Sun.

The same water has cycled and recycled around on this planet of ours for millions and millions of years.

The water that makes us and every other living thing, the water in the seas and oceans, the ice covering mountain tops, the clouds in the sky even in the air we breathe...all used to be the water making up the bulk of the dinosaurs.

Water is practically everywhere, with a few very basic materials and a little know-how, anyone can get water, even in the middle of a roasting desert..and by basic materials, i mean basic..a plastic sheet and a few stones and a collecting cup, or bag or bucket or anything else that will collect and hold on to water is all you need.

This can be done on an industrial scale of course, but there's no will to do it.

That is interesting. I never really understood the "water crisis" idea. I suppose it is because of the water cycle. Water never really disappears. It often times just ends up back in circulation in one form or another, in one place or another. And on top of that, just look how much water is in the ocean. It would be extremely easy to desalinize water for human consumption, with a virtually endless supply. Hey, and maybe this would solve the "rising sea levels" as well, lol.

I understand that desalinization can be expensive, but I predict that some new technology will increase productivity while decreasing costs sometime in the future. Plus, couldn't every household just have their own personal desalinization units capable of supplying an entire house with freshwater? Surely such an invention has been created already. Evaporating and the condensing water is a tried and true desalinization method, and I don't see why rather large units couldn't be created.

in the near future fresh water will be worth more than oil.

reply to post by snarky412


GREAT find. Excellent summary and comments. Thank you. ...I agree that men seem to fight over resources without respecting them.

MysterX
reply to post by Aleister

 

Hasn't someone come up with an easy large-scale desalinization process yet?

Yeah...Mother Nature.

Sea water is evaporated..turned to vapour and rises until it condenses, forms liquid water again and falls as rain etc...it's a most efficient system, probably the most efficient.

It's been cycling endlessly, all powered by the Sun.

The same water has cycled and recycled around on this planet of ours for millions and millions of years.

The water that makes us and every other living thing, the water in the seas and oceans, the ice covering mountain tops, the clouds in the sky even in the air we breathe...all used to be the water making up the bulk of the dinosaurs.

Water is practically everywhere, with a few very basic materials and a little know-how, anyone can get water, even in the middle of a roasting desert..and by basic materials, i mean basic..a plastic sheet and a few stones and a collecting cup, or bag or bucket or anything else that will collect and hold on to water is all you need.

This can be done on an industrial scale of course, but there's no will to do it.

Shush! they dont want people to know that! Then they can charge HUGE amounts of money for it.