Water Woes

1. Water Woes Mississippi River, USA Colorado River Basin, USA Aral Sea, Soviet Union Three Gorges Dam, China Wolf Creek Dam, USA

2. Great Flood of 1993 In 1993 the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers brazenly displayed the power of Mother Nature The Great Flood lasted from April to October 6 months of rain! 6 months of flooding!

3. Great Flood of 1993 80% of the levees failed They simply were not design to hold back 6 months of nearly constant rain

4. Great Flood of 1993 An area covering an astounding 20,000,000 acres was flooded off and on for half of a year The areas in the purple hues mark where flooding occurred The darker the hue, the longer the area was flooded

5. Great Flood of 1993 The flood was among the most costly, and devastating to have occurred in the U.S.A. $15-20 billion in damages 50 deaths At least 75 towns were completely inundated 50,000 homes were destroyed or damaged 54,000 people had to be evacuated from flooded areas at some time during the flood

6. Great Flood of 1993

7. Water Woes Mississippi River, USA Colorado River Basin, USA Aral Sea, Soviet Union Three Gorges Dam, China Wolf Creek Dam, USA

8. Colorado River Basin The few permanent rivers that cross desert regions, such as the Colorado River in the western U.S. and the Nile River in Africa, originate outside the desert, often in well-watered mountains The Colorado River starts in the Rocky Mountains

9. Colorado River Basin The Colorado River is a river in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico This major river is approximately 1,450 miles (2,330 kilometers) long and drains 242,900 square miles (629,100 square kilometers) of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado Plateau The natural course of the river flows into the ocean at the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California) in Mexico

10. Colorado River Basin The Colorado River drainage basin drains portions of seven U.S. states: Wyoming Utah Colorado New Mexico Nevada Arizona California

11. Colorado River Basin The Colorado River basin area is famous for many national parks and deep canyons

12. Colorado River Basin It is also the subject of a bitter water disputes between Mexico and the U.S., between California and Arizona, and other states

13. Colorado River Basin In 1922, the Colorado River Compact was adopted, which apportioned 7.5 million acre-feet of water per year each to the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) and the Lower Basin No provisions were made for Mexico, into which the river ultimately flows One acre-foot is the amount of water required to cover one acre to a depth of one foot, or about 300,000 gallons

14. Colorado River Basin In 1944 Mexico and the U.S. signed a treaty that gave Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year from the Colorado River There were no stipulations concerning water quality

15. Colorado River Basin During the 1950s, heavy water use in the U.S. had led to a reduction in both water flow and water quality By 1961, the Colorado River water reaching Mexico contained up to 2700 ppm TDS The water was so salty, that partial crop failure resulted In 1974, the U.S. government agreed to build a desalination plant to reduce the salinity of Mexico’s small share

16. Colorado River Basin At times no water reaches Mexico The once-wet delta is now cracked mud

17. Colorado River Basin It has now been shown that the stream flow measurements made on the Colorado River for the 1922 Colorado River Compact, were grossly inaccurate and were made during an unusually wet period There is normally not enough water to meet the current needs of the seven U.S. states and Mexico Worse, the region is now in a drought

18. Colorado River Basin The greatest ecological disasters to befall the Colorado River was the completion of the Glen Canyon Dam in 1963, which created the Lake Powell Reservoir The same faulty water data used in 1922 was used to promoted the dam Guess what!

19. Colorado River Basin The reservoir is drying up!

20. Colorado River Basin Two-thirds of the water in the reservoir is gone

21. Water Woes Mississippi River, USA Colorado River Basin, USA Aral Sea, Soviet Union Three Gorges Dam, China Wolf Creek Dam, USA

22. Aral Sea The Aral Sea lies on the border of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the former Soviet Union

23. Aral Sea The Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world, with a surface of over 66,100 square kilometers (161,000 square miles) It is a landlocked “sea” that does not drain into the oceans

24. Aral Sea The Aral Sea was an oasis of life in an arid climate The lake was teaming with fish and the local fishing industry was very productive

25. Aral Sea The Soviet Union decided in 1918 that the two rivers that fed the Aral Sea, the Amu Darya in the south and the Syr Darya in the northeast, would be diverted to try to irrigate the desert, in order to grow rice, melons, cereal and cotton Between the 1930s and the 1960s, a series of irrigation canal were built that literally diverted all of the water that normally flowed into the Aral Sea for irrigation

26. Aral Sea Many of the irrigation canals were poorly built, letting from 30% to 70% of the water leak out or evaporate By 1960, somewhere between 20 and 50 cubic kilometers of water were going each year to irrigation instead of the sea Also, by 1960, the Aral Sea was obviously beginning to die, in what has been called the greatest man-caused ecological disaster in human history

27. Aral Sea

28. Aral Sea 80% of the water is gone The salinity of the water is now 23% The climate has become dryer and dust storms are frequent High concentrations of salt from the bed of the former sea now blows through the air during the sandstorms It gets into the drinking water, the soils and ultimately into the bodies of the people

29. Aral Sea The blowing salt is a health disaster More than 90% of the local population have anemia caused by the salt, which prevents their bodies absorbing iron Cancer rates are among the highest in the world, also because of the salt Because of the anemia, deaths of mothers and babies in childbirth are endemic

30. Aral Sea The fishing industry was destroyed and thousands lost their jobs and livelihood

31. Aral Sea Virtually every species of fish and aquatic life unique to the Aral sea are now extinct

32. North Aral Sea 2006 Work is being done to restore in part the North Aral Sea Irrigation works have been repaired and improved to increase its water flow By August 2005, a concrete dam was completed, separating the two halves of the Aral Sea Since then the water level of the North Aral has risen over 25 feet (7-8 meters), and its salinity has decreased Meanwhile, the South Aral Sea has been abandoned to it fate...

33. South Aral Sea 2006

34. Water Woes Mississippi River, USA Colorado River Basin, USA Aral Sea, Soviet Union Three Gorges Dam, China Wolf Creek Dam, USA

35. Three Gorges Dam China, with a population exceeding 1 billion, has large power needs The Yangtze River is the world’s third largest and has a tragic history of flooding In the 20th century alone, over half a million people died in floods of the Yangtze In 1992, the Chinese government announced it would dam the Yangtze River at the Three Gorges area to control flooding and generate hydroelectric power

36. Three Gorges Dam The Three Gorges Dam is now the largest hydroelectric dam in the world

37. Three Gorges Dam As a size comparison, it is 5 times larger than the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River

38. Three Gorges Dam The dam is 185 meters (600 feet) high and 2.3 kilometers (1.4 miles) wide It has 26 hydroelectric power generators with a collective generating capacity of about 18,000 megawatts (the average nuclear power plant generates about 1000 megawatts)

39. Three Gorges Dam The Chinese began filling the reservoir in 2003 When filled to capacity, the reservoir will hold 22 cubic kilometers of water

40. Three Gorges Dam As with any engineering project of great magnitude, there are serious problems The reservoir will eventually stretch over 600 kilometers (375 miles) in length It will submerge 125,000 acres of prime farmland

41. Three Gorges Dam 1,900,000 people were forced to relocate, many against their will Entire cities have been abandoned Over 1200 historic areas are being flooded

42. Three Gorges Dam Three spectacular river gorges, called Qutang, Wuxia, and Xiling, worthy of being national parks, are being flooded

43. Three Gorges Dam Officials report that the cost is within its US$25 billion budget and insisted early on that the project would pay for itself through electricity generation However, the project is thought to have cost more than any other single construction project in modern China, with unofficial estimates of US$100 billion or more

44. Three Gorges Dam The Great Wall of China probably cost more

45. Water Woes Mississippi River, USA Colorado River Basin, USA Aral Sea, Soviet Union Three Gorges Dam, China Wolf Creek Dam, USA

46. Wolf Creek Dam The Wolf Creek Dam is on the Cumberland River in Kentucky Construction of Wolf Creek Dam was authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1938 and the River Harbor Act of 1946 and it was completed in 1950

47. Wolf Creek Dam The primary purpose of the dam was to generate hydroelectricity and prevent flooding, but is better known for creating Lake Cumberland, which has become a popular tourist attraction and is the largest man-made lake east of the Mississippi River

48. Wolf Creek Dam In 1968, signs of seepage problems within Wolf Creek Dam's earthen embankments and foundation were discovered The problem is that the dam is built on limestone and water dissolves limestone A short-term solution of grouting the existing seepage channels was employed immediately Grouting in the dam foundation ran from 1968 to 1970, and is credited with “saving the dam”

49. Wolf Creek Dam Continuous monitoring of the dam shows that seepage problems have continued and have become much worse In late January 2007, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers placed the dam under a 'high risk' for failure designation To temporarily reduce the current stresses on Wolf Creek Dam, and thus the risk, the Corps is lowering Lake Cumberland and plans to spend $314 million on repairs over the next 7 years

50. Wolf Creek Dam A wall built inside the earthen portion of the dam in the 1970's (black line) didn't stop the leaks A new barrier (red line) will extend longer and deeper than the old one