Water
The world is not running
out of water.
A shortage of inexpensive
clean water has become a problem in some areas because population growth
has caused the demand for fresh water to increase to the point where lifestyle
changes
and government
intervention
are needed
to prevent crisis.
Drought is a regional problem, and one that can be solved through technology
and civil engineering.
The earth will never experience a real water shortage
because over 70% of the earth's surface is covered by the oceans of the
world—the
average ocean depth exceeds two miles. The volume of water in the
oceans is large enough to cover the world's continents with seawater
to a depth of five miles (of course the oceans would then be nearly empty,
and gravity
would not allow such a thing, but the image does prove the point).
With modern desalination technology, solar energy, man-made aqueducts and
giant solar pumps, human civilization will never run out of water.

References:
Seawater Desalinization
Solutions to Membrane Fouling
Visit these web sites:
U.S. Desalination and Water Purification Research Program
73 million-gallon-per-day
reverse osmosis Yuma Desalting Plant
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