Flooding Death Valley With Seawater, And Other Drought-Survival Ideas

As the West struggles through a historic drought, experts agree that technological innovation will be an important source of relief.

After all, it does not look like rainfall will fix the problem anytime soon. "NASA is now predicting a 'mega drought' as early as 2050 that might last 30 or more years and transform a broad swath of the United States into an arid Dust Bowl," the Washington Post recently reported.

New technologies are expected to help the U.S. weather the dry years to come. Some ideas that seem off-the-wall now could later develop into important tools. The Washington Post recently made a list of "radical water technology innovations" that could be useful in the coming years.

One avenue of innovation attempts to modify weather patterns.

"Ever since Beijing used cloud seeding techniques to prevent rainfall over the city during the 2008 Summer Olympics, people have been fascinated by the idea of 'weather modification.' China, in fact, was the first nation to create a Weather Modification Bureau. Currently, 24 countries practice some form of weather modification," the Post reported.

The U.S. is among the countries practicing weather modification. It has investigated ways to reduce the impact of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, the Post reported.

Applying weather modification to drought may seem impossible, but the prospect is being explored.

What would that look like? "Flooding Death Valley with seawater via a canal from the Pacific Ocean or wrapping Greenland with blankets to capture freshwater ice," among other possibilities, the report said.

Another promising avenue of innovation calls on citizens to act as "micro-entrepreneurs" and take parts of the water delivery system into their own hands, the report said.

"For example, America’s water utilities could rip a page from the playbook of the emerging world, where notions such as micro-loans for micro-entrepreneurs first took off. Using a similar approach, Drinkwell has pioneered a 'micro-franchise' model for turning the rural poor in nations such as India, Laos and Cambodia into water micro-entrepreneurs. Water is no longer a 'utility,' but simply a business model that can be franchised out to entrepreneurs," the report said.

Other innovations include the Internet of things, the use of agricultural drones, desalination, and recycled wastewater.

For more on drought preparation, visit Water Online's Water Scarcity Solution Center.