Issue 83: A water crisis?

That we call our planet "Earth" reveals more about its names than it does about its geography. After all, the great oceans occupy nearly three-quarters of the globe's surface. To an alien or an astronaut, water, not earth, is the definitive characteristic of the planet.

Freshwater supplies are minuscule compared with the oceans, but they literally are vital: neither humans and other animals nor plants can survive for long without water. Moreover, fresh water meets a variety of lesser needs—transportation, recreation, energy, mining and manufacturing, agricultural irrigation, waste disposal, fish and wildlife habitat, and esthetic enjoyment.

Nature has endowed the United States with prodigious amounts of fresh water. Excepting Alaska and Hawaii, the nation averages thirty inches of precipitation each year, or some 4,200 billion gallons every day. Lakes and streams are many, and vast underground aquifers contain thousands of trillions of gallons. Yet, despite the boggling numbers, demand is crowding supply from New York to California, and an arsenal of contaminants threatens to place some water off limits for the indefinite future. Americans once saw clean and inexpensive water as a kind of national entitlement; the resource, it seemed, was all but inexhaustible. Now water has become relatively scarce, both absolutely and economically, and conflicts among its users are common.

In the mid-1950s, when a permanent agenda was being set for the newly founded Resources for the Future, a program on water resources was one of the first to be established. That foresight has continued over the ensuing thirty years, as is illustrated by this issue of Resources, which offers a sampling of recent research findings and views on water-related problems.

How and why did the United States move from a condition of low-cost, abundant water supplies to one of climbing costs and growing scarcity? Kenneth D. Frederick leads off the issue with a historical essay that puts "the water crisis" in perspective. Extending the view, Edith Brown Weiss follows with an article in which she argues that water users today must respect the needs of future generations.

Walter O. Spofford, Jr., moves the focus from quantity to quality by addressing a new manifestation of an age-old scourge—waterborne disease. Henry M. Peskin questions common assumptions about the locus of responsibility for federal efforts to control some forms of water pollution. And Richard W. Wahl proposes an innovative, economic approach to preventing further pollution of California's notorious Kesterson reservoir.

Today's water problems do not constitute a crisis. Not yet. But they are far from trivial, and dealing with them successfully will require new patterns of use, backed up by new policies.

— Kent A. Price