The Midwestern states are increasingly influential in America, and their industries, economies, and societies seem more promising and dynamic than those on the East Coast and the dilapidated West Coast. That however, does not mean the Midwestern states are without their own issues.
A major problem facing the Midwestern states of the United States is the water crisis.
The Westward Movement and the existence and development of the Midwestern states all depended on the natural resource space. Now water, one of its most important elements, is facing serious problems.
To understand the water crisis, one has to look at the Ogallala Aquifer, a shallow water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. The deposition of this aquifer dates back two to six million years ago, from the late Miocene to early Pliocene ages when the southern Rocky Mountains were still tectonically active. From the uplands to the west, rivers and streams cut channels in a generally west to east or southeast direction. Erosion of the Rockies provided alluvial and aeolian sediment that filled the ancient channels and eventually covered the entire area of the present-day aquifer, forming the water-bearing Ogallala Formation.
The Ogallala Aquifer is the world's largest aquifer. It underlies an area of approximately 174,000 square miles (450,000 square kilometers) in portions of eight states (South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas). It was named in 1898 by geologist N. H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska.
Large scale extraction for agricultural purposes started after World War II due partially to center pivot irrigation and to the adaptation of automotive engines for groundwater wells. Today about 27% of the irrigated land in the entire United States lies over the aquifer, which yields about 30% of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States. The aquifer system supplies drinking water to 82% of the 2.3 million people (1990 census) who live within the boundaries of the High Plains study area.
The problem is that the Ogallala Aquifer is at risk of over-extraction and pollution. Since 1950, agricultural irrigation has reduced the saturated volume of the aquifer by an estimated 9%. Once depleted, the aquifer will take over 6,000 years to replenish naturally through rainfall. Fieldwork has shown that the actual situation may be much worse than this. In the past, water was found from wells drilled in the Ogallala Aquifer at 50 feet, but now wells are drilled basically 800 to 900 feet deep to find water, and the water table is falling at an alarming rate.
It is worth noting that the impact of global warming on the United States is quite significant. Alaska is not the only place that is seriously threatened by climate change; it also affects the Great Plains region, where America's economy and national power are at stake. Likewise, the glaciers in the Rocky Mountains have been reduced and nearly disappeared. If the glaciers in the Rocky Mountains were to disappear completely, several important rivers in the Midwest, such as the Colorado River, would be severely affected. This would immediately have a serious impact on valley farming, plains agriculture, and many important cities such as Denver and Salt Lake City, threatening their very existence. In fact, the current snowfall is of no help to replenish the lost water resources, and because of climate change, the amount of snowfall is also rapidly reduced, and even changed the layout and structure of the forest in Yellowstone National Park. Drought-tolerant trees are gradually covering the forests, leaving no chance for the creatures that once depended on forests to survive. In the years to come, the famous Yellowstone National Park may have nothing left but rocks, and the forest will never be the same as it was in the past.
The impact of global warming on the United States is highly significant and it has now become a global issue. This has been much discussed, but a large part of the discussions is superficial, like the rise of sea level, human survival crisis, and so on. The reality is that, the glaciers that covered the earth have been declining continuously since the Wisconsin Glaciation (approximately 110,000 years ago to 12,000 years ago, which reached its peak about peak 18,000 years ago). The Wisconsin Glaciation, the last known ice age, had changed the geography of North America, creating the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls, the Mississippi River, and the Great Plains of North America. As the ice that covers the plains of North America shrinks, it continues to cause massive climate catastrophes. The United States is actually more anxious than any other country to face such enormous climate change because the daunting challenges it faces.
What does it mean for the U.S. to be concerned about climate issues now?
This is actually a political issue linked to geographical change. Judging from the situation in the Midwest, the attention given by the U.S. to the climate changes might not be truly about addressing global warming. The real intention of the U.S. is to reverse conservative cultural constraints and build a climate consensus in American society to create a social environment that allows large-scale investment in infrastructure. In other words, the United States is working on a global warming political agenda for its own sake, and it does seem to be a priority for the Midwestern states.
Bureau of Reclamation in Colorado had a plan to bring water from Missouri to Colorado and sell it back to recoup the money, a plan similar to China's South-North Water Transfer Project and, of course, to the aqueduct network of ancient Rome. However, the estimated cost of this plan was USD 8.5 billion, an astronomical figure, and the project went nowhere. Now infrastructure development is on the agenda again in the United States, though it is highly controversial, and a lot of related bills have been overturned because people are more concerned about highways, railroads, and bridges, and it faces difficulties in making progress because of the hassles in obtaining consensus. It is much easier to persuade the naysayers when there is a global climate consensus.
The climate challenges are severe for all countries, but the United States has important reasons and contexts for its own concerns, and they are certainly directly related to America's sustainable prosperity and future prospects.
