At H2Bid, we enjoy telling our readers about new challenges in water management, innovative technologies that could address the planet’s water needs and issues that relate to wastewater management. To start 2012, however, we’d like to expose our readers to a new topic – water in space. The search for water on Mars has been in the news a great deal in the pat few years with NASA’s twin rovers looking for evidence of ancient lakes and oceans on the red planet. In the context of Mars, finding water is critical to understanding if life could have once existed on Mars. Mars is only one facet in the broader search for water in space, however.

Worldwide, the major space agencies are actively looking for water in space. The reason is fairly simple: water is critical to all life, as we know it. Understanding where water exists provides scientists with a clue as to the potential frequency of life in the universe and also a roadmap to find search for that life. Beyond the academic search for life far outside our solar system, understanding where water exists in Earth’s own neighborhood allows for more freedom when it comes to human exploration of the solar system in the coming decades. If we had to take our water with us wherever we went, our journeys would likely be limited to near-Earth orbit and the moon.

In that spirit, and considerably closer to home than Mars, scientists are scouring Earth’s own moon for water. The moon is a logical staging point for future exploration and identifying resources available on or just below its surface would reduce the risk of basing humans on the moon. In 2009, NASA crashed the LCROSS lunar impact probe into a permanently-shadowed crater near the moon’s south pole. A small satellite remained in orbit to observe the impact and analyze the debris kicked up in the process. Based on these observations, NASA estimates that there are likely one billion gallons of water in that crater, alone. With several other permanently-shadowed craters dotting the moon’s surface, it’s likely that the moon holds a significant amount of water.

Scientists believe that the water has existed as ice for billions of years, possibly originating from comet strikes and other impacts. Currently the Europeans and the Japanese are joining with NASA to probe the moon further for water, metals and fuel sources that could further sustain a human presence. In addition, these same agencies are looking at asteroids for water and metals, as well. It may well be that our solar system is a much wetter location than we previously assumed it was.

A bit further out, past the moon and the asteroid belt, is Jupiter’s moon Europa. Space probes that have flown by this moon have been able to photograph and analyze Europa’s surface. Indications are that, under a layer of ice that comprises its surface, Europa may be home to a liquid-water ocean. Scientists theorize that the constant pull and tug from Jupiter’s gravity likely heats this inner ocean and lets it stay in a liquid state. NASA and other agencies are currently conceptualizing an unmanned mission to Europa to determine if a liquid ocean does exist and to probe that ocean, should it be present. Space agencies are looking at lakes buried under glaciers, such as Lake Vostok in Antarctica, as suitable testing sites for refining the probes that may eventually travel to Europa.

Even further from Earth, NASA has discovered what may be the largest, most ancient body of water in the entire universe. The water is in a cloud around a huge black hole that is in the process of sucking in matter and spraying out energy, and the waves of energy the black hole releases have been making water by mixing hydrogen and oxygen atoms together in the waves. NASA estimates that the volume of water in orbit is over 140 trillion times as much water as exists in all forms on Earth. That’s a stunning amount of water that is difficult to even imagine! This water won’t help solve Earth’s water woes, however; at 12 billion light years from our planet, it is unlikely that humans will ever visit this “ocean in space”.

While humans may never visit the ocean orbiting a black hole billions of light years from our home, the fact that such water is detectable and present does give us confidence that water may be very prevalent in our universe. The recent findings on the moon and the possibility of an ocean under Europa’s ice indicate that water may, in fact, be everywhere. If that were the case, long term human space exploration and eventual pilgrimages to the stars may become a reality instead of science fiction. In the meantime, however, there are plenty of near term problems to be solved right here, on planet Earth.

The State of Oregon recently established the strictest guidelines for water pollution in the United States. The revised standards are aimed to protect people who consume fish as a large portion of their diet. Oregon’s Native American population is partly behind the push to decrease tolerance for contaminants in water; most tribes in the area have a long tradition of fishing that predates the settling of the area by Europeans.

Oregon’s existing water quality standards are built on an assumption that people eat 17.5 grams of fish a day, relatively small amount and typical of assumptions in most states. The proposed standard increases the assumed fish consumption to 175 grams a day, typical of a diet where most protein comes from fish.

The change would significantly tighten Oregon’s human health criteria for a large number of pollutants, including mercury, flame retardants, PCBs, dioxins, plasticizers and pesticides. The stricter standards could increase the costs for industries like paper mills and for municipal sewage treatment plants, increasing consumer sewer rates. On the flipside, the new rules should also lower the health risks for those who eat large amounts local fish; it is estimated that 100,000 Oregonians, including 20,000 children have a primary diet based around fish, according to a committee set up to consider the health effects of the new standard.

In the neighboring state of Washington, environmentalists and Native Americans are taking note of the proposed Oregon law; the Lummi tribe, specifically, is advocating for similar strict clean water laws. Their position is that selecting “safe” toxin levels based on a significantly lower intake of fish compared to what the native population actually consumes defies common sense and puts their health at a disproportionate risk.

The Environmental Protection Agency has already approved Oregon’s new standards and Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality will implement them as water quality permits come up for renewal. While some may find these new rules to be too strict, those that consume fish on a routine basis likely support the rules overwhelmingly.

Water planners and managers do their best to plan for water usage patterns but there are often many assumptions that have to factor into those plans. Specifically, how will private wells be used, and how will farmers use natural water sources such as streams and rivers adjacent to their land? How robust is the aquifer? What is the recharge rate of that aquifer relative to rainfall patterns? A poor assumption relating to any of these questions can unhinge a well-crafted plan. Now, planners may have a new tool for evaluating water sustainability – satellite imagery.

Scientists at the University of California have a project called GRACE which stands for “Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment” and the project appear poised to redefine the science of hydrology. The project team looks for small variations in the Earth’s gravity to identify trouble spots where people could be making unsustainable demands on groundwater. Jay S. Famiglietti, director of the University of California’s Center for Hydrologic Modeling, says that GRACE can detect changes in ice, snow, surface water and soil moisture.

In an article in the journal Nature, the GRACE team identified and evaluated a region in northwest India. Indirect evidence had been mounting that groundwater was being consumed faster than it was being replenished but no direct evidence was available. The team used changes in observations from the NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment to show that groundwater was being depleted at a mean rate of 4.0cm annually over the Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, including Delhi.

The Indian government suspected that this was happening, but there had been no regional assessment of the rate of groundwater depletion. The GRACE team used terrestrial water storage-change observations and simulated soil-water variations and what they found was startling. During the period from August 2002 to October 2008, the groundwater depletion was equivalent to a net loss of 109 km3 of water, which is double the capacity of India’s largest surface-water reservoir. The detected depletion was especially significant given that the annual rainfall was close to normal throughout the period which removes abnormal weather as a possible culprit.

After using the GRACE data to look at the complete picture, the team ruled out significant changes in soil moisture, water volume in fresh water bodies, glaciers and biomass that could have otherwise accounted for the water use. Based on these facts, the team concluded that human consumption was the only factor that could account for the drop in groundwater levels. Although the observation period was relatively brief, the available data indicates that an unsustainable rate of consumption is present and in the absence of measures taken to address the issue, problems could manifest including a reduction of agricultural output.

GRACE has also been used to show similar patterns of consumption in the western United States, African nations and elsewhere. In contrast to the reaction in India, where the data was viewed as a confirmation and reinforcement of what was already suspected, findings in other regions have been viewed with some suspicion. California water managers, for example, were skeptical of data that showed from 2003 to 2010, aquifers under the state’s Central Valley were drawn down by 25 million acre-feet. Additionally, Greg Zlotnick, a board member of the Association of California Water Agencies, said that the managers feared that the data could be used to demand a reallocation of the region’s freshwater resources.

As with many new technologies, there will be a learning curve with this emerging science and healthy skepticism many lead to improvements in the science or greater understanding of its limitations. Such skepticism, however, should not be used as a singular reason to dismiss findings. Rather, efforts should be made to directly confirm or challenge the GRACE findings. We should acknowledge that the entire water community is searching for the same set of answers and new methods such as the GRACE project may offer valuable tools in the quest to obtain those answers.