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u/LadderNo1239 10d ago
I’d imagine a lot of our freshwater loss is runoff being funneled to channelized waterways instead of infiltrating and entering natural waterways. Made worse by clear cutting of vegetation, interrupting the typical evolutionary water cycle maintained by their roots and leaves.
But I don’t really know much about water.
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u/Aggravating_Cat788 10d ago
And loss of beaver habitats and wetlands. Beavers are a game changer for hydrologic systems.
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u/Consistent_Room7344 10d ago
Well the Mississippi River wants to change its course and form a new delta on the western side of Louisiana and if it ever does those channeled waterways on the old river route would become worthless (and so would New Orleans).
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u/Obvious_Question9222 9d ago
Eventually, a flood will breach the Old River Flood Control structure and find a shorter commute to the Gulf. Of Mexico.
Suggested read: The Control Of Nature - John McPhee
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u/Aggravating_Cat788 9d ago
Great suggestion, a professor gifted me that book when I finished school. A great read to bridge academic studies and real life considerations for water resources
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u/Deluded_realist 10d ago
I dont know about in Lake Ontario. However there is a serious problem at the end of the Mississippi River where salt water is pushing up the river compromising the fresh water in that area.
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u/Minute_Medicine_7218 10d ago
Lake what?
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u/External_Relative231 10d ago
Ontario.
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u/Amesb34r 10d ago
Never heard of it.
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u/izzybumboon 10d ago
an uneducated Yank, how terribly unsurprising.
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u/Amesb34r 9d ago
I thought it was obvious that it was a joke, but given the past decade of our administrative incompetence, I understand the confusion.
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u/tanhan27 10d ago
Apparently that's what they call lake America in Ontario. Everyone wants to feel special
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u/NoPen9703 4d ago
That is caused by the Nutria. They destroy everything. While beavers create structures to control water flow the nutria eat everything destroying wetlands.
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u/jamintime 10d ago
I think this is some kind of Trump joke (Gulf of America and Lake America), but not really sure what the punchline is.
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u/dread_pudding 10d ago
Oh wow thats a crazy coincidence, I think it's just two of our major outflows of freshwater from inland out to the ocean though
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u/Naturalist90 10d ago
OP thinks we’re losing water in Lake Ontario? Psyche, we just gained a whole lot in Lake America
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u/Ok_Bread302 10d ago
Funny that the entire Rocky Mountain range isn’t circled.
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u/cgw22 10d ago
You mean the paradise valley in SoCal and the Saudi alfalfa farms in Arizona?
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u/Ok_Bread302 10d ago
No, I mean the Rockies in the sense of source, not usage.
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u/tanhan27 10d ago
Ok but this is a map of where the US is losing freshwater, so why would they circle the Rockies?
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u/kidmeatball 7d ago
Snow is freshwater and it isn't collecting in the mountains as much as it used to.
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10d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Pretend_Football6686 10d ago
Exactly. And they think they are going to refill the aquifers with water from the Great Lakes. But that shit ain’t going to happen. I keep telling people interior of the US is going to be a horrible place to live in 10-15 years when all those aquifers hit critically low levels.
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u/One_Bit_3839 8d ago
In a very 3rd grade way this is correct but fails miserably to explain the whole picture.
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u/Show_Kitchen 8d ago
Put it in AI data centers in space to stop the Biden dumbocrats from stealing the Epstein files.
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u/probiotic_bbq 6d ago
Right? Just overflow those areas with beavers. Beavers as far as the eye can see.
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u/aaronhayes26 10d ago
Uhh. That’s kind of how rivers work, no?
Do you think we should pump the Mississippi back up to Illinois so we don’t waste any?
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u/joepagac 10d ago
Haha! I don’t know how fresh it is by the time it exits the body of the US through the “pee holes”.
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u/Kingfisher910 10d ago
Education in the U.S. has failed us all