Water Purification and Civilization
Water: the most valuable resource on earth. Wars have been fought over it, religions worshiped it. It has influenced civilization, migration patterns and resources. Now the question of purification is one of the most vital scientific and social sciences.
An estimated one-eighth of the world population suffers from a lack of clean water. Disease, filth and pollution lower the quality of life. Droughts follow the deforestation and devastation of progress, industry, mining and war.
New advancements are being made every day. Fundraisers are held to buy pumps and purification units for isolated villages. Chemicals, organics and microbes are studied to see if maybe they hold the key to the world’s biggest danger.
One such advancement is in the discovery of the purifying properties of the Moringa Oleifera tree. The seeds, crushed and suspended in water, killing 90-99.99% of bacteria in previously untreated water. Besides the purifying effects, Moringa Oleifera also provides firewood, oil, food and fertilizer. Yet this tree is mostly unknown, despite its usefulness, adaptability and tolerance for drought.
Other methods of purification are pH adjustment, flocculation, sedimentation and filtration. Chlorine and ozone can be used to disinfect the water, ultra-violet and portable filtration systems provide a wide range of options. However, most of these methods have either harmful side-effects, or are expensive/not suitable for high population density or sensitive areas.
Water is the basic building-block of almost any universe. In a world-building exercise, whether for Science Fiction or Fantasy, the role of water must be considered. But not only the course of rivers, the placement of lakes, and the rise and fall of the tides can be touched on.
The purity and availability of water is of the utmost importance. A city will not be able to function if its only water source is highly contaminated or cut off.
An ancient tactic in war was to cut off or poison the water sources. Babylon was felled when the river was diverted and the Persian troops entered through the river channel. Many cultures have used dead livestock—or the bodies of their victims—to poison wells, lakes and rivers.
How does this specifically apply to writers? How can we use this in our worlds and stories?
- The water is cut off to a city, planet, or station. The protagonist, facing dehydration, is severely weakened at a critical moment, or derailed from her mission in the immediate necessity of finding water.
- A black-market ring comes into control of all water reserves.
- There is no more water on Earth, and NASA turns its attention to the ice caps on other planets.
- The mining, transportation, purification and storage of those supplies is at such high cost that many people are forced to substitute blood for water.
- As vegetation is depleted on earth, the water situation worsens. Wars break out for control of water. Alternatively, water and water spirits become the basis of a new religion.
- The farming of Morinda Oleifera trees becomes a major industry, leading to the rise and advance of third-world nations. The balance of power is radically changed.
- Magic is discovered, but it requires water to work. Science and belief come head-to-head again over the use, preservation and importance of water.
Might want to remove that black-market one, if there was only one source remaining of something as vital as water anyone controlling it would either be legitimate or quickly taken over by one. The only products that are only available on the black market are illegal ones.
While it didn’t deal with a water scarcity issue on Earth, the term “water brother” from Stranger in a Strange Land was certainly something that originated from a water scarcity on Mars. The result was a sincere and ritualized bond between those that shared water on Mars (and subsequently on Earth).
Really good job pointing out the significance of it, as well as providing valuable links and information about the issue.
Two of your suggestions struck me as maybe needing some edits – if water is gone on Earth, what are we using to keep humanity alive while NASA or its replacement goes and finds some for us?
Subsituting blood for water? It sounds a little … scary first of all, but secondly, what uses would there be for blood that could replace water? Poor lubricant over time compared to other resources, clogs up machinery, making sticky/rusty and totally not drinkable
Water can be easily distilled or centrifuged from blood though, that’s what the Fremen of Frank Herbert’s Dune did. I can also picture human blood as a source of black market water, similar to “organlegging” in Larry Niven’s Known Space.
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Great topic.
There’s no doubt about water’s importance: its properties as a solvent are unique; it’s integral to planetary geology and climate control; the earth and its lifeforms are mostly water. Additionally, three things have significantly increased human life expectancy: vaccines, antibiotics… and clean water. To say nothing of its significance in culture and history, as you outlined so well. Water, or its lack, has also played a significant role in SF, from Cat’s Cradle to Dune to all the stories set on Mars or generational starships.
Water makes us, at many (most) scales.
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Oh! I can’t believe I had forgotten about the stilsuits and the harvesting of water from blood in Dune… one of my favorite series. I just got my younger brother the Prelude to Dune Trilogy ;D Another sci fi fan in the making muahahaha…
But in all seriousness, its possible but so gruesome. I believe there would have to be a serious lack of social mores left for this to happen (especially in space, where any groups will be necessarily small).
Jonathan
In fact, I believe that the Fremen squeezed the dead bodies for their water which “belonged to the tribe”. Besides blood, we are 70% water. Good water, too, with nutrients and electrolytes.
Which brings us to space journeys. The starships must be self-sustainable. This means that their crews will have to do all kinds of things that were part of other cultures but have become unpalatable to the First World middle class. A couple are mentioned in Nathalie’s post Cooking Pasta on Mars: water reclaimed from urine, for example. Burying the dead in gardens to recycle their nutrients, a common custom in pagan cultures, will also be among these requirements.
Yep, that’s a big one: what do we do with our dead in an artificial biosphere. NASA doesn’t even like to talk about sex in space — it’s gonna have an even tougher time talking about how to recycle the dead in an artificial biosphere.
I’d think that possibly a better/easier source for extraterrestrial water would be ice in asteroids — as long as you had a big enough mass driver to bring ‘em to Earth. Pulling it out of the ice cap of other planets — well, which planets? Just Mars, really. But it would also cost a bit to boost it up out of Mars gravity well.
On the other hand, the asteroids are further out & would also have a significant energy cost. So what’s the math on that? Would ice be cheaper from Mars, or from asteroids?
You’re thinking of a stationary planet or space station, Mel. The idea of towing icy comets or asteroids to replenish Earth water has been floated. The concept is analogous to towing icebergs to water-deprived equatorial locations, and has overlapping pros and cons.
However, starships would spend most of their time crossing a near-void (and coming near an asteroid belt at even low speed could cause annihilation; forget the acrobatics shown in SF films — even tiny rocks could be lethal at high speeds).
Athena wrote: You’re thinking of a stationary planet or space station, Mel.
Air quotes around “stationary.”
Yes. I was responding to this suggestion in the original post:
There is no more water on Earth, and NASA turns its attention to the ice caps on other planets.
Crossing interstellar space — well, to my mind this is closely related to the question in the next post on Cooking Pasta on Mars. Assuming you could figure out a safe way to cross interstellar space without getting tiny-rocked into oblivion, you’d have to have a CELSS, right? (For those who don’t know the acronym: closed ecological life support system.) I.e., an artificial biosphere that would take care care of all the stuff that our big planetary biosphere takes care of — including food growing, waste management, and so on — carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, water cycle, the whole gamut. A physico-chemical life support system, which is all that we’ve used in outer space so far, would not last out the years.
Hehe! Yes, “stationary” and equally yes to the closed system. The ideas and technologies that make it possible for us to continue living on earth will also make arcship voyages possible.
The ideas and technologies that will make it possible for us to continue living on earth will also make arcship voyages possible.
Yes! I’ll tell you, since starting to research CELSS, it’s made me all the more appreciative of the intricacy of a natural biosphere, & how what we learn from trying to design artificial biospheres will (hopefully) lead us to taking better care of the one we’re living in now.
I’ve been having a sort of a conversation with a guy who tells me that if you were living on the Moon & had a disagreement with the people you lived with, all you’d have to do would be to hop in your “moon buggy” & drive 45 minutes away & dig a hole for a new house. Ah… right. Guess there must be a Chrysler moon buggy plant in the next crater over. Not to mention a ready supply of breathable air & all the necessaries to recycle it when you exhaust all the oxygen in it….
Let me guess — he’s an extreme libertarian! *laughs*
Hahaaa you hit it bang on the nose. He attempted to educate me on the “science” in science fiction with a reading/film list that began with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress & the Sean Connery movie “Outland.” His email ended with this sentence: “SF tends to be
highly libertarian, and there are sound engineering reasons for that.” In between, he gave me all kinds of false analogies in an attempt to disprove my contention that certain resources like breathable air & food are scarce in outer space.
E.g. there are plenty of inhospitable environments on
Earth. The European settlers that landed on the shores of Virginia
were starving until the Indians showed them the technology of what to
eat and what to plant. They still did poorly until they converted
their communism to private property and free enterprise.
Even supposing this to be true… something (possibly the use of my brain) makes me think that there will be no Squanto to teach us the best way to plant corn on the Moon. Duh.
I haven’t yet had the excess energy to waste on answering this guy. Even though I live in a biosphere that has plenty of free air, I don’t actually enjoy wasting my breath.
SF highly libertarian? He must have stopped reading at Heinlein.
I will also venture to guess that he’s a member of Robert Zubrin’s Mars Society. I was the keynote speaker in one of their early conventions and The Mars Direct plan is actually clever and sound, but some members are, let’s say… unclear on several concepts.
“Even though I live in a biosphere that has plenty of free air, I don’t actually enjoy wasting my breath.”
Heh heh heh.
Well, I dunno if he actually pays much attention to actual space science enough to be in the Mars Society. The conversation began in a non-SF/non-science context — to be specific, on a list that has to do with one alternative for consensus-style governance (which is also relevant to my novel-in-progress). In order to explain a question I had, I gave a little background on some of the assumptions of my story universe. He then wrote to me privately to critique my story universe. He appears to believe that any society based on consensus-style governance is just a fancy name for “majority rule” which he appears to equate with “tyranny.”
Well, yeah, we all know about the tyranny of the majority. But he kinda skips a few steps in equating govt. by consent with tyranny. William Hickman & other sociopaths may disagree.
‘He then wrote to me privately to critique my story universe. He appears to believe that any society based on consensus-style governance is just a fancy name for “majority rule” which he appears to equate with “tyranny.”’
Delete!
Dropped a word there! “that will make it possible for us”
I grew up in a desert, and the water conservation habits I learned there have permanently shaped my outlook. I get cranky at the sight of a golf course.
Now, when I write, some part of me is always thinking, “Where is the water from? How did it get here? What’s in it?” Even if I don’t mention water in a given story, thinking about water helped me design the spacesuit/that protected the girl/who saved the station/that housed the last intact seed bank/without which life on Earth would have perished entirely in a recent catastrophe… Or something along those lines.
I like to think that because we’re bags of mostly water, so should our stories be (even if it’s in a round-about way).
This made me look differently about water. I found the tree to be very valuable to life. I also did not know about it. Thanks for the info.
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