Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Stocks Bull Market End Game Bear Start Strategy - 20th Mar 25
Gold and System Collapse: Charting the Bank Run of the Mighty US Dollar - 20th Mar 25
Tesla's Troubles — Is it Musk or is it More? - 20th Mar 25
The Stock Market Bear / Crash indicator Window - 9th Mar 25
Big US Tech Stocks Fundamentals - 9th Mar 25
No Winners When The Inflation Balloon Pops - 9th Mar 25
Stocks, Crypto and Housing Market Waiting for Trump to Shut His Mouth! - 27th Feb 25
PepeCoin (PEPE): Anticipating Crypto Reversals using Elliott Waves - 27th Feb 25
Audit the Fed, Audit Fort Knox, Audit Everything - 27th Feb 25
There Are Some Bullish Indicators in the Silver Market - 27th Feb 25
These Metrics Identify Only 10 AI Related Stocks That Are Undervalued - 27th Feb 25
Stocks, Bitcoin, Gold and Silver Markets Brief - 18th Feb 25
Harnessing Market Insights to Drive Financial Success - 18th Feb 25
Stock Market Bubble 2025 - 11th Feb 25
Fed Interest Rate Cut Probability - 11th Feb 25
Global Liquidity Prepares to Fire Bull Market Booster Rockets - 11th Feb 25
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: A Long-Term Bear Market Is Simply Impossible Today - 11th Feb 25
A Stock Market Chart That’s Out of This World - 11th Feb 25
These Are The Banks The Fed Believes Will Fail - 11th Feb 25
S&P 500: Dangerous Fragility Near Record High - 11th Feb 25
Stocks, Bitcoin and Crypto Markets Get High on Donald Trump Pump - 10th Feb 25
Bitcoin Break Out, MSTR Rocket to the Moon! AI Tech Stocks Earnings Season - 10th Feb 25
Liquidity and Inflation - 10th Feb 25
Gold Stocks Valuation Anomaly - 10th Feb 25

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

World Fresh Water Maps

Commodities / Water Sector Aug 12, 2012 - 07:37 AM GMT

By: Richard_Shaw

Commodities

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleFresh water is a fixed quantity.  Population and water usage per capita are rising quantities.  When the demand exceeds supply, various forces come into play:  allocation by price and affordability, efficiency changes, investment in desalination, legal disputes and at some point wars.


Total world consumption of fresh water currently exceeds the replenished amount.  The difference is being made up by (1) draining fresh water lakes, and (2) drilling into geologically trapped water that is not replenished.  Once those are fully tapped, people hit the wall, and something altogether new has to be done with and about water in their area.

What also is in effect now and will increase over time is the exportation of water, not by shipping water itself, but by growing food in water rich countries and exporting the food (and by indirection the water) to water poor countries.

This is one reason that we like the idea of investing in palm oil plantations, which exist in tropical areas with high rainfall and abundant water.  We like Brazilian farms too, where soybeans and other foods are grown in quantity. The problem there is that public farming companies with Brazil operations, tend to have substantial Argentinian assets, and anyone who own strategic assets (such as oil or land) in Argentina is a sitting duck for nationalization).

Parts of South America and Southeast Asia are particularly blessed with water resources.  The oil rich Middle East is below the water poverty line.  Currently oil producing Middle East countries are effectively trading oil for water.

There are about 43,600 cubic kilometers of obtainable rain replenished freshwater on earth per year, but that is less than  1/2 of total rainfall.  The balance evaporates or is otherwise unavailable, and once it makes it to the sea, it is no longer fresh.

Map of the World With Countries Sized by Rainfall Amount:
(source: WorldMapper.org)

Map of Countries By Total Fresh Water Resources:
(source: WorldMapper.org)

Map Showing Location of Tropical Forests Around the World
(source: National Geographic)

By Richard Shaw 
http://www.qvmgroup.com

Richard Shaw leads the QVM team as President of QVM Group. Richard has extensive investment industry experience including serving on the board of directors of two large investment management companies, including Aberdeen Asset Management (listed London Stock Exchange) and as a charter investor and director of Lending Tree ( download short professional profile ). He provides portfolio design and management services to individual and corporate clients. He also edits the QVM investment blog. His writings are generally republished by SeekingAlpha and Reuters and are linked to sites such as Kiplinger and Yahoo Finance and other sites. He is a 1970 graduate of Dartmouth College.

Copyright 2006-2011 by QVM Group LLC All rights reserved.

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilizing methods believed reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any trading losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Do your own due diligence.

Richard Shaw Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in