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In Wake of Paris Climate Accord, White House Advocates for Water Conservation

A side effect of the Earth's rising temperature is water shortages, so the White House intends to increase research funding to boost water usage efficiency and water-saving technologies.

(TNS) -- The White House followed Sunday’s landmark climate pact in Paris with a push Tuesday on water conservation and efficiency, as top administration officials warned that water shortages are among the biggest consequences of rising global temperatures.

Following the same model it used to push solar power, the Obama administration seeks to use federal research, better data collection and private-sector incentives to boost water-saving technologies, Ali Zaidi, associate director of natural resources, energy and science at the Office of Management and Budget, said at a White House round table on water innovation.

“This is a proven playbook,” Zaidi said.

Competition for water

White House science adviser John Holdren and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the plan is to find ways to squeeze more water from existing systems through new technologies.

Congress is no longer funding the giant dams like those built in the last century that led to the development of the West, Jewell said, while Holdren warned that climate change is reducing the available freshwater supply even as higher temperatures increase demand.

Population and development pressures “are catching up to us,” Jewell said, pointing to California as an example of how shrinking supplies lead to clashes among human users and put enormous stress on the “natural landscapes and habitats that vie for the same water everybody else wants.”

Jewell called for more water storage but made no mention of five huge dam projects under consideration in California. Instead, she pointed to a little-known reservoir completed five years ago in California just north of the Mexican border. The Warren Brock Reservoir was built in two years, she said, and can capture runoff from extreme rain on the Colorado River. The reservoir prevents such floodwaters from “escaping” to Mexico.

Holdren said humans already take 42 percent of the planet’s total freshwater runoff, with more than 70 percent of that going to farms. Counting the water used to grow food and make consumer goods, the average American uses 528,000 gallons a year, he said, about twice what the average Italian uses.

Higher temperatures increase evaporation from the soil, reservoirs and rivers, he said, even as plants and people demand more water.

Holdren said the U.S. loses 16 percent of its freshwater to leaks, which could be prevented by better sensors and new pipe materials. Existing water recycling technologies need to be deployed more widely, he said.

But “no one technological bullet” can solve water shortages, he said. Desalination remains four times more expensive than traditional water sources, he said. It uses three times more electricity and contributes twice the greenhouse gas emissions, he said. Ocean intake valves disturb marine life, and disposal of the concentrated waste brine remains a problem, he added.

Desalination “has to sync with our climate change objectives,” Jewell said.

Summit set for March

The White House has scheduled a water summit for March 22. Jewell announced a new Natural Resource Investment Center to coordinate water research and private investment in water conservation and habitat protection. The center will attempt to expand water markets using as a model California’s Central Valley Project, in which cities and farms buy water during droughts from farmers who grow lower-value crops.

To relieve drought stresses on ecosystems, she called for “mitigation banking” as a way to protect larger landscapes. Such a concept would allow a developer, for example, to improve habitat in one place to offset the damage done by construction in another place.

©2015 the San Francisco Chronicle Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.