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Development of the U.S. Post Peak Water was a period spanning from 2060 to 2100 when the United States underwent radical political, cultural, and technological changes due to a national clean water shortage promoted by urbanization and global warming. After the turn of the twenty-first century, global warming became rampant as increased greenhouse gas emissions led to a 3.8-degree increase in temperature worldwide by 2080 compared to pre-industrial levels thus causing severe weather and glacier melting. During this time, the United States faced grave difficulties in all sectors due to the extreme weather patterns accompanying the temperature increase such as large-scale destructive storms along the coasts and widespread droughts in the breadbasket of the country. A national water crisis emerged as it became increasingly difficult to obtain water from glaciers and existing bodies of water because both sources were being depleted at an exponential rate. The U.S. government had to radically alter their perception and approach to address these environmental issues, thus resulting in the establishment of stricter water conservation laws and policies to attempt to amend this scarcity.

Cause of Scarcity

The national water shortage was a direct result of environmental factors and urbanization reducing the quantity and quality of the available water within aquifers and other water bodies. Due to rising temperatures, the increase rate at which glaciers were melting caused the global average ocean level to rise by one meter from 2000 to 2070 thus leading many countries to experience significant shoreline recession. This was only enhanced by the increased amount of runoff due to less soil retention as urbanization led to fewer parks and more parking lots. As the sea level rose, coastal cities were swallowed by water and frequent severe hurricanes made power outages and flooding more common, thus causing local populations to migrate. The country’s Midwest also experienced pressing weather conditions in the form of extended droughts resulting in regular forest fires and crop failure. Drinkable water became scarce in the heart of the country as rain rarely fell throughout the year and frequent storms along the coast made it difficult to transport drinkable water to devastated individuals.

Many scientists in 2020 predicted the unfolding of a similar chain of events while analyzing the consequences of global warming. Some believed “that climate change [would] lead to increases in the runoff ratio” worldwide because of a large decrease in trees due to forest fires which would, in turn, increase the frequency of water shortages. Others felt that urbanization was going to be the primary source of drinkable water scarcity as urban water demand would drastically rise, thus putting pressure on the resource. However, it inevitably was a mixture of these events that led to a widespread water crisis in the United States as well as other international countries.

Government Response

Flooding in Miami after Hurricane Carter in 2063

The United States government began to completely shift their priorities towards water management after traumatic events occurred such as massive storms along the coast and droughts within the Midwest. The main incident happened in 2063 where a lack of government action during Hurricane Carter led to thousands of Miami citizens being trapped in their homes without safe drinkable water. The government initially perceived the water shortage as a temporary local issue, so they only passed minor political policies such as subsidizing bathroom companies that limited the average water usage of showerheads, faucets, and toilets. However, soon it was apparent that the water shortage was becoming an increasingly pressing issue, thus causing the government to begin the construction of several reverse-osmosis plants along the coast in order to reduce scarcity and increase current water quality. Although these plants were economically expensive and energy intensive, they produced enough water to keep the entire coastal population from completely relocating. During this period, the United States government had few interactions with other countries as each was dealing with pressing domestic issues, thus marking the time as one with a limited number of notable international affairs. Also, candidates for political positions during the period attempted to incorporate policies which sought to fix the pressing environmental and water related issues in order to bolster public support for themselves. Some proposed radical suggestions such as extracting water from asteroids or making underwater aquatic domes to protect citizens from coastal storms.

Some other grave environmental catastrophes that occurred during this period that led to political action include the Drought of 2075 and the winter storms of 2090. The Drought of 2075, otherwise known as the Devil's Fire, was a strong drought that occurred in the Midwest where a maximum temperature of 143 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded, thus making it the hottest U.S. temperature to be measured at the time. Affected citizens were forced to evacuate for safety reasons and most of the crops grown in that region quickly withered. The winter storms of 2090 were a series of sudden snow storms that caused several of the northernmost states to be inaccessible via air travel from October 26th, 2090 to February 5th, 2091 due to the strength of the storms. Many people were trapped within their homes due to intense snowfall thus leading the government to send trucks of supplies to those trapped. Both of these incidents pushed the issue of climate change to the forefront of politicians' focus because these events forced the government to take quick and effective action in order to avoid people potentially getting hurt or dying due to natural environmental conditions.

Agriculture and Food

Due to the national water shortage and a 30% decrease in arable land because of urbanization and widespread drought, food production was put under immense pressure to support the growing population. Since many former farms within the heart of the country were gradually swallowed by the expanding desert, groups of farmers had to relocate in order to keep producing crops. Primary hubs for moving farmers mainly consisted of states such as North Carolina, Ohio, Minnesota, and Oregon. These areas were not as influenced by coastal storms, so they remained relatively arable and fruitful. There was also a large shift in food production in the country from 2035 where 36% percent of the food calories produced in the United States were from animal products to only 11% percent in 2061 due to water shortage. Along with the increase in prices of bottled water, the cost of beef and other meats also drastically rose since the average cow would intake 31 gallons of clean water daily. This caused the amount of meat produced domestically to fall from 94.4 million cows in 2018 to 20.3 million in 2067. In order to replace this decrease in calorie production, green foods such as fruits and vegetables that were more water-efficient were favored because of lower cost and easier maintenance.

Technology

Solar Panels

Due to the abundance of sunlight in deserts throughout the countries, solar panels became a primary source of energy since they provided energy throughout the day with relatively little effort. The heat capturing element used within these concentrated solar power systems gradually shifted from mainly water-steam to molten-salt within the solar power towers due to it being cheaper and more water efficient. Since most solar power plants have high water-consumption wet-cooling systems, a large push occurred during this time to develop other mechanisms to produce energy from heat, thus leading scientists to develop better air-cooled condensers for facilitating heat transfer.

Reverse Osmosis

Purification unit within reverse osmosis plant, Naples FL

Several reverse osmosis plants were constructed by the U.S. government in an attempt to ease water shortages occurring nationally. These construction projects were successful in reducing the severity of the scarcity, yet these plants were still extremely expensive to build and maintain in terms of both money and energy. Since these plants were built along several coastlines, they had immense effects on the local coral reefs and marine life as they required the pumping of gallons of water out of the ocean in order to obtain drinkable water. The most harmful environmental effects that they had resulted from the production of brine and pumping it back into the ocean. This extremely warm salty water led to the average salinity of the water surrounding the main output pipes to nearly triple and the average water temperature to be raised by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

Problems

A major problem with both solar power and reverse osmosis plants is that they both required a coolant usually in the form of cold water obtained from either ground or surface water sources. Yet, during a time of water scarcity, this was highly impractical, so an immense amount of research was put into producing new cooling systems for these plants to improve water conservation. Also, the destruction of marine life accompanying the pumping of brine into the oceans caused the beaches near California and Florida to be unusable for recreational purposes by local inhabitants because of the increased amount of dead marine life, salt, and trash. Even though it is widely agreed that these plants were damaging fragile local ecosystems, the difficulty in shutting them down or reducing their quantity in operation stemmed from their ability to produce clean drinkable water for the nation.

Innovation

In order to allow people to live in the desert in the heart of the country, highly efficient moisture capturers were developed to allow individuals to obtain clean water while traveling through the dunes. These capturers were usually located near cave entrances where the cool air from the cave would allow for an increased level on condensation on the captures. This technique allowed individuals to remain apart from a steady source of water for weeks as long as they could locate these capturers and extract the stored water.

Economics

Prices

During this period of water shortage, several products dependent on clean water saw significant price increases. As the scarcity ensued, the price of bottled water rose dramatically along with meat and fish. The price of real estate also significantly increased as swarms of people flocked to areas largely unaffected by the environmental issues. These regions, which mainly consisted of the northwestern and eastern states of the United States, were areas that were in high demand, thus leading to overpopulation. In order to best utilize the desirable land, more area-efficient apartments were constructed in high skyscrapers within major cities instead of more traditional sprawling suburbs.

Jobs

There was a significant shift in the national job market during this period in American history since large populations of people were forced to migrate to more environmentally stable regions. As the national desert in the heart of the country expanded, many farmers were left without arable land to grow crops, thus forcing them to change their occupation to other careers more suitable for the current state of the country. Occupations related to making skyscrapers design and construction were popular because many cities were tightly packed with millions of people. Due to the prevalence of solar and reserve osmosis plants, cooling also became a major issue because plants weren't able to draw cold water from the ocean for wet-cooling systems since continuous pumping led water temperature to rise near these plants' intake pipes. Therefore, research in designing better coolant was highly emphasized during this time, thus making heat-transfer specialists highly demanded. Due to overpopulation in several major regions, workers were in high supply but relatively low demand, thus resulting in a 10% increase in the national unemployment rate.