Issue 5

Will We Have Enough

by Garnet Bass

It takes only a few inches of water to float a kayak. That’s one reason I like them. I can scoot back into shallow coves and slide over downed trees visible just below the surface. Yet there I sat, stuck on a mudflat in the middle of Falls Lake, the primary water source for Raleigh, NC. In 2005, for the second time in 4 years, summertime drought had dropped the lake level more than 7 feet, leading the city to impose conservation measures—and leaving me high and, if not quite dry, exceedingly muddy. Was this a portent of things to come?

Fifteen miles south of where I sat, a team with the SRS Southern Global Change Program has been studying that very question. Led by project leader Steve McNulty and research hydrologist Ge Sun, they’re creating computer models that will help local officials across the South understand the potential for water shortages in the coming decades.

“If you realize that time after time you’re going to have these severe water shortages, now is the time to start measures to try to prevent them—whether it’s developing networks to move water from other areas, building reservoir systems, or starting water conservation measures to try to reduce the water demand during those stress periods,” says McNulty. “Those are options municipalities can have open, if they’re given enough time to prepare for it. Part of what we do here is to give them that time by developing models that accurately predict what will happen in the future.” (...continued...)