Water As Eco-Renewable Resources

Perhaps more than any other category, the most important part of sustainable development will be preventing conflict over fresh water. Whether that means protecting existing supplies from being contaminated or making the most efficient use of fresh and waste water, sustainable development seeks to find fully renewable ways to run water desalination plants in much of the world.

Fresh Water As Eco-Renewable Resources

Fresh water has become a scarce commodity in many areas already hit by climate change. Areas that have counted on spring and summer rains have been hit by drought through what should be reliably wet years of a solar minimum.

Sustainable development seeks to encourage water conservation as well as delivering sustainably collected fresh and clean water to areas where the local water supply has already been impacted by drought or pollution. Even in areas where fresh water is plentiful, preventing agricultural or sewage contamination during storms is a major and growing concern.

Oceans And Seas In Relation To Eco-Renewable Resources

The state of the oceans is inextricably linked to the state of the planet as a whole. The state of the oceans and the potential impacts of the on-going catastrophic collapse of ocean ecosystems are reaching a pitch that we haven’t seen on any other environmental issue other than the build-up of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

As the polar ice caps continue to melt away into the oceans, a massive amount of heavier and very cold freshwater is being dumped into the ocean. This not only raises sea levels, but also can interfere with the currents that keep the ocean well-oxygenated and productive. The vast dead zones now spreading out from our coastlines appear to be largely the result of the vast rivers of chemicals, fertilizer runoff and sewage we’re pouring into the sea.

But most troubling of all is ocean acidification, the result of relying on the oceans to absorb the CO2 that we spew into the atmosphere. There is increasing evidence that the problem of ocean acidification is worsening rapidly, foreshadowing potential impacts that could be catastrophic for all life on Earth.