The importance of water is often forgotten since we use it regularly every day.

But what
happens when water runs out? It will definitely change the way you live your everyday life. You
might be thinking how can water run out? Well, a drought can cause water to runout even on
first world countries. Due to climate change droughts have increase on frequency and power, this
makes them more dangerous than ever. That is why its important to be educated on the
importance of water and droughts. I will be advocating for a mandatory presentation on droughts
and water on school on desert areas in order to decrease the power of droughts.
As Steward stated in the PBS documentary Global weirding (2012), climate change has
had important effects in our weather. One of the most important effects is the increase on power
and frequency of natural disasters (0:10). This had led to droughts becoming really dangerous.
The United State Congress (2014) stated that we could face droughts as devastating as the Dust
Bowl. Not only are they more powerful but they are also more frequent. The Drought Monitoring
map (2015) shows that most of the West is either facing abnormal dryness or drought conditions.
The worst thing about droughts is that they happen slowly and it takes a long time to recover
from them. El Paso is a great example of this as it faced a drought at 2003 and even after 9 years,
the effects of the drought could still be seen as the price of water keeps increasing. This can be
observe in the graphs made by me with the data from El Paso Water Utilities

Gallons of Water Pump (in Millions)

Gallons of Water Pump (in Millions)
40,000
38,000
36,000
34,000
32,000

40,000
38,000
36,000
34,000
32,000

Water Customers Retail

200,000
190,000
180,000
170,000
160,000
150,000
140,000

This graph shows how El Paso faced a drought in 2003 and the price of water has been
increasing ever since. El Paso Water Utilities. (9/3/13). Past and Present Water Supplies.
Retrieved from http://www.epwu.org/water/water_resources.html

Droughts have become so dangerous that the government has started taking action on the
issue. Many things have been implemented to cope with droughts, such implementations include
further researching on droughts and plants. But the most effective implementation right now is
shown by Mark Somma (1994) when West Texas was facing a drought, implementations were
done to promote and educate people on water conservation and this prove to be successful (53).
Knowledge is the key to many things. It had changed us from hunters and gatherers
struggling to survive into settlers that have enough free time to have hobbies, from close minded
racist into open minded and tolerant, from cruel and naive into compassionate and
understanding. Knowledge has help us all through history and to day knowledge can also help
us. We all know that children are our future, they will live the life we leave behind and they will
be able to do things we couldnt. For that I am advocating for a mandatory presentation on the
importance of water and droughts, in desert areas. This will not only be a quick way of dealing
with droughts but it might also spark an interest in the mind of children to further research

droughts and maybe find a solution we cannot. We are only guest on this world so lets dont
leave a mess for the ones to come. For more information on droughts and what you can do about
them visit drought.unl.edu.

Bibliography
Drought Monitor. (9/3/15). U.S. drought monitor. Retrieved from
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Global weirding. Stewart, D. and Films Media Group (Directors). (2012).[Video/DVD]
New York: Films Media Group. Retrieved from http://0digital.films.com.lib.utep.edu/ PortalPlaylists.aspx?xtid=52477&aid=12400
El Paso Water Utilities. (9/3/13). Past and Present Water Supplies. Retrieved from
http://www.epwu.org/water/water_resources.html
Somma, M. (1994). Local autonomy and groundwater district formation in highplains west Texas. Publius, 24(2), 53-62. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3330721
United States.Congress.Senate.Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
(2014). Drought, fire, and freeze :The economics of disasters for america's
agricultural producers : Hearing before the committee on agriculture,
nutrition and forestry, united states senate, one hundred thirteenth congress,
first session, february 14, 2013. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office.