Water crises a hemisphere apart

Strange weather, or strange climate? Not for me to say, but in Trinidad and China, there are water crises pending. The one in Trinidad might be partly poor public planning, but the one in China is a genuine nasty drought. On that side of the Pacific, given what's been happening in the Murray-Darling river system in Australia, one has to start wondering if this is an anomaly or a new pattern -- i.e., the "new normal". If that's the case -- and it certainly might not be -- but if it is, then it's a preview of that climate change societal disruption that the "alarmists" have been talking about.

So Trinidad does have a problem, but it also has some desalination plants coming online. Now, desalination uses lots of power, but they are near Venezuela, so maybe that's not a problem. But here's the perspective:

Water crisis takes turn for the worst (WASA is Trinidad's Water and Sewage Authority)

"Ellen Lewis, during a media conference at WASA’s head office in St Joseph. Lewis said the situation “had taken a turn for the worst,” with the water reserves dropping substantially to approximately one-third of what they should be. She said Arena dam had fallen to 40 per cent, Navet dam to 48, and both Hollis and Hillsborough to 50 per cent."

They're going to try conservation. "[Allan] Poon-King and Lewis commended the public’s support of WASA’s water conservation programme, but said more efforts were needed to preserve reserves. Lewis could not say how long the reserves would last, but added that it was up to the public to determine, and urged consumers to practise all conservation guidelines."

Here's the desalination news:

"A desalination plant would be commissioned in April at Point Fortin, which would have the capacity to produce 1.2 million gallons of water. She said the plant would then be expanded by August to have the capacity to produce 4.6 million gallons.
Another long-term plan being implemented by WASA in the next 18 months would be the establishment of two other desalination plants, one in La Brea and the other in Cove, Tobago. She said the La Brea plant would be able to produce 20 million gallons and the Cove plant five million."

My question: what's that going to do to their balance of payments when they have to power up all these desalination plants?

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And now for China:

Drought to get more serious (this is from China Daily, so they probably mean it)

The drought, the worst in a century, has had a serious impact on the life of the locals and on economic development, leaving 24.25 million people and 15.84 million farm animals short of water, he said.

Liu attributed the drought in Southwest China to inadequate water storage facilities, inefficient use of water and declining river flows, besides the more obvious factors of less rainfall and higher temperatures than normal.

Recent rainfall, brought by cloud seeding in the southwestern regions, possibly provided some relief to farm production, but drinking water remains a problem, he said.

(for 24+ million people, that could be a problem)

They're going to try and build their way out of it:

A total of 60 million cubic meters of water has been sent to drought-hit areas by constructing more than 20,000 km of pipelines and 4,307 new water projects, allocating 7,615 water tankers to help with the relief and dig 180,000 wells, he said.

You've got to be impressed with the effort. Higher temperatures than normal, hmmm?