[formerkrogemp]

> Food is not a limiting factor.

Food and more importantly, as you would know if you googled depleted aquifer, water are limiting factors. Always. You will always need those two. Most of our agricultural practices are unsustainable across multiple measures, especially water.

> China is a net exporter of food in a country of 1.4 billion on about 1.1 million km^2 of arable land.

Saudi Arabia used to be a net exporter of wheat until about 5 years ago. Our arable land, the topsoil so vital to it, and the fresh water we overuse so much faster than it can be replenished worldwide are all hitting bottlenecks in the coming years. Egypt and Jourdan are fighting over the Nile. The Sahar and deserts in China are expanding despite great efforts otherwise. China is imposing its will in Thailand and Vietnam over their control of the headwaters of the Mekong. The Europeans are worried about the Po and Rhine being lower than usual with glacier meltwater being depleted faster and faster with rising temps and milder winters. Aquifers built over thousands or millions of years are being pumped at rates unrecorded for agriculture and residential use. Ogalalla and western US aquifers are sinking the land and running out. Encroachment of freshwater systems by erosion and saltwater from rising sea levels and fierce storm surges are threatening ecosystems and coastal farming. A pernicious side effect of a hotter atmosphere is increased vaporization of water from lake reservoirs causing water loss exceeding water use of cities and populations. The outlook and ongoing crises in places like California are grim, but there's a lot we can do. Price water more closely to its real cost. Build desalination plants. Implement water saving tech into manufacturing and households. Water loss from reservoirs and recording depletion rates of aquifers can give us better data of the scale and rate of the depletion to inform the urgency. More data can be collected. Swale water runoff and improve land management techniques to retain water. Implement drip irrigation and water efficient and drought resistant crops. Build cisterns and modify reservoirs to improve water storage and retention. Chinampas can be built. Many other efforts and policies can be implemented, but they are all costly and take time. Perhaps that's why this issued has been ignored for so long, because we turn on the tap and the water always comes out. Until it doesn't anymore. We've certainly been warned. Hydrologists have been warning about this for almost a century.