The Reliance School

1,000 Words / 4 min. Read

‍Freshwater

Freshwater is a fundamental building block of life; without it we’d only have a few days to live.¹ The average American uses over 80 gallons every day,² for drinking, cooking, showering, bathing, brushing our teeth, washing our dishes and clothes, and watering our gardens.

We depend on rainfall and irrigation to grow our crops and raise livestock,³ and over 80% of the world’s electricity is generated by water-cooled plants (everything from coal to nuclear).⁴ We need it to run the data centers that host the internet,⁵ and it’s essential to the manufacturing of many renewable technologies, including solar panels⁶ and lithium batteries.⁷

At the same time, we're drawing down our freshwater reserves faster than they're being replenished. Nearly half of the wells in America have declined over the past 40 years,⁸ and of 40 major aquifers in the country, 38 are declining in supply.⁹

The Ogallala Aquifer (which provides a third of the water used for agriculture in America) has seen its levels drop by 150 feet over the past century,¹⁰ and may be mostly depleted within 50 years.¹¹ Western states have become embroiled in water rights negotiations over the dwindling Colorado River,¹² while Arizona has begun limiting the construction of new housing due to groundwater shortages.¹³

The pressures of climate change - increased temperatures and evaporation,¹⁴ decreased snowpack,¹⁵ and saltwater intrusion¹⁶ - will only accelerate these threats. With 36% of cities set to face a water crisis as soon as 2050,¹⁷ many believe that water may become as precious as oil in the geopolitical landscape. In 1995, Ismael Serageldin famously stated that:

“If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.”¹⁸

For all these reasons, we strongly advocate for cities and regions that receive at least 30” of rainfall each year, are situated next to large bodies of freshwater, and/or draw from aquifers that are being recharged at sustainable rates. Abundant rainfall and groundwater makes ecosystems more resilient,¹⁹ makes it easier to create self-sustaining food systems,²⁰ and ensures that towns, cities, and industries don’t run short of this essential resource.

Living in wetter areas does have some drawbacks; as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme rainfall,²¹ flooding will present a threat to many communities.²² This can be mitigated by choosing homesites at higher elevations (and out of the path of rivers and floodplains),²³ choosing cities which have invested in effective flood infrastructure,²⁴ and situating yourself at least 150 miles inland to buffer the effects of hurricanes.²⁵

With higher humidity comes an increased chance of lethal wet bulb temperatures,²⁶ making latitude a more important consideration. And lastly, wetter areas have a greater prevalence of insect-borne disease (such as Lyme and West Nile),²⁷ although future vaccines may mitigate that risk.²⁸

That said, we believe that the value of freshwater access outweighs those concerns, and that areas with abundant rainfall are the safest bet for surviving the future.

Farmland

Growing your own food is an essential part of climate resilience; it helps build food security,²⁹ it improves your health,³⁰ and when done correctly, it’s an integral part of increasing the biodiversity and resilience of our landscapes.³¹ We’re big advocates for self-sustaining food systems (like perennial vegetables, berry bushes, and fruit and nut trees)³² that require less input than traditional gardening methods.³³

At the same time, growing all of your own food is a tall order, even using permaculture techniques. And if you live in a city or suburb, you likely won’t have enough land to become fully-self sufficient.³⁴ As such, we recommend a hybrid approach to food security; grow as much food as you can on your own, and supplement with staple crops (such as grains, legumes, and root vegetables) from local farms.

Prior to the discovery of fossil fuels, the historical landscape was made up of densely-clustered towns and cities bordered by agricultural hinterlands.³⁵ This developed largely out of necessity; in an age when long-distance trade was limited to luxury goods,³⁶ towns and cities had no choice but to be locally self-sufficient. In Europe, many towns and cities have preserved this structure, prioritizing density, efficiency and walkability over private space.³⁷

In America, most of the places we call home developed during the postwar period.³⁸ A massive surge in prosperity,³⁹ cheap access to fossil fuels,⁴⁰ and a rapidly expanding highway system⁴¹ led to the creation of car-dependent suburbs.⁴² As goods could now be easily transported over long distances, local self-sufficiency was no longer a concern, and millions of acres of farmland were paved over in favor of urban sprawl.⁴³

Low-density development comes along with a host of environmental⁴⁴ and societal costs,⁴⁵ but it’s particularly concerning from the perspective of resilience; without access to arable land, cities may not be able to feed themselves in a decarbonized future.

As such, we highly recommend looking for towns and cities that have chosen to limit sprawl and preserve the agricultural land around their borders. Green belts, growth boundaries, and conservation easements⁴⁶ have been effectively used to limit urban development in several US states and cities.⁴⁷ Just as cities depend on farms, farms depend on cities, and separating the two over long distances doesn’t benefit either.⁴⁸ We firmly believe that areas with close proximity to nature and agriculture will be best-placed to survive over the coming decades.

Now that we've built a foundation of resilience, let's look into how to keep ourselves safe from fires, floods, and other climate-fueled catastrophes. >> Climate Havens, Part 4: Natural Disasters

Footnotes & References

1. Rule of threes (survival) (Wikipedia)
2. WaterSense Statistics and Facts (EPA)
3. Irrigation & Water Use (USDA)
4. Power Plants Use Water, But We Have No Idea How Much (Leah Schleifer, Tianyi Luo, World Resources Institute)
5. A new front in the water wars: Your internet use (Shannon Osaka, The Washington Post)
6. Solar cell makers should consider another (potentially) renewable resource: Water use (Renewable Energy World)
7. Why water will determine the future of battery production (Andrew Hodgkinson, Advisian)
8. America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow (Mira Rojanasakul, Christopher Flavelle, Blacki Migliozzi, Eli Murray, The New York Times)
9. Groundwater Decline and Depletion (USGS)
10. Groundwater use in the United States (Ben Mandler, AGI)
11. Farmers are depleting the Ogallala Aquifer because the government pays them to do it (Matthew Sanderson, Burke Griggs, Jacob Miller-Klugesherz, The Conversation)
12. States near historic deal to protect Colorado River (Joshua Partlow, The Washington Post)
13. Arizona Limits Construction Around Phoenix as Its Water Supply Dwindles (Christopher Flavelle, Jack Healy, The New York Times)
14. Climate Change Will Boost Global Lake Evaporation - with ‘Extreme’ Consequences (Yale School of the Environment)
15. Climate Change Indicators: Snowpack (EPA)
16. Saltwater Intrusion (USGS)
17. Future global urban water scarcity and potential solutions (Chunyang He, Zhifeng Liu, Jianguo Wu, Xinhao Pan, Zihang Fang, Jingwei Li, Brett Bryan, Nature Communications)
18. Water (Ismail Serageldin)
19. Global vegetation resilience linked to water availability and variability (Taylor Smith, Niklas Boers, Nature Communications)
20. Permaculture Design Starts With Water (Mary Ann Lieser, Eco Farming Daily)
21. Climate change impact on flood and extreme precipitation increases with water availability (Hossein Tabari, Scientific Reports)
22. How Is Climate Change Affecting Floods? (Elena Shao, The New York Times)
23. What is a flood map? (FEMA)
24. Cities are scrambling to prevent flooding (Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review)
25. Hurricane Impacts (Weather.gov)
26. How hot is too hot for the human body? Our lab found heat + humidity gets dangerous faster than many people realize (W. Larry Kenney, Daniel Vecellio, Rachel Cottle, S. Tony Wolf, The Conversation)
27. Projecting the risk of mosquito-borne diseases in a warmer and more populated world (Felipe Colón-González, Maquins Odhiambo Sewe, Adrian Tompkins, Henrik Sjödin, Alejandro Casallas, Joacim Rocklöv, The Lancet)
28. A vaccine for Lyme disease is in its final clinical trial (Bill Chappell, NPR)
29. America’s Patriotic Victory Gardens (Laura Schumm, History.com)
30. Backyard gardening: grow your own food, improve your health (Heidi Godman, Harvard Health Publishing)
31. How to Rewild Your Garden (Anne von Osterhausen, Mossy Earth)
32. What is a Food Forest? (Geoff Lawton, Permaculture News)
33. Perennial Power: Why You Need Them in Your Garden (Ben Falk, Chelsea Green Publishing)
34. How Much Land Do You Need to Feed Yourself? (David the Good, The Grow Network)
35. Early Sprawl (Robert Bruegmann, University of Chicago Press)
36. How Ancient Trade Changed the World (Heather Whipps, LiveScience)
37. Why Are European Cities So Dense? (Andrew Small, Bloomberg)
38. Demographic and economic trends in urban, suburban and rural communities (Kim Parker, Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Anna Brown, Richard Fry, D’Vera Cohn, Ruth Igielnik, Pew Research Center)
39. Post-War America Hitches Up and Heads for the 'Burbs (Tyson Freeman, WealthManagement.com)
40. Crude Oil Prices - 70 Year Historical Chart (Macrotrends)
41. Highways gutted American cities. So why did they build them? (Joseph Stromberg, Vox)
42. How American Car Dependent Suburbia Is Designed To Keep Everyone Poor And Bored (Matt Hew, Rational Motoring)
43. Farmland is being consumed by expanding urban areas (John Piotti, The Hill)
44. The Detrimental Impact Of Suburban Sprawl On The Environment (Jaclyn Pahl, OWP)
45. How suburban sprawl causes segregation and isolates the poor (Ben Adler, Grist)
46. The Use of Green Belts to Control Sprawl in the United States (Thomas Daniels, Planning Practice & Research)
47. Green belt (Wikipedia)
48. Urbanization Issues Affecting Food System Sustainability (Nicolas Bricas, Designing Urban Food Policies)