 We're back. We're live. It's Monday, 1 p.m. It's one o'clock rock here at the research in Manoa And our special guest is Ali El-Kadi President of hydrology. That's water science department of geology and geophysics school of ocean earth science and technology That's so west and he is also the associate director of the water resources research center Which is actually located in Holmes Hall the engineering building at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Welcome to the show Ali. Thanks Jade. Glad to be here. Nice to have you And we're talking today about Hawaii's water resources hyphen drying up question mark Are they drying up? That's one way to think about it I think so far we are okay, but if the climate continues to change the way it is expected And we are not careful about saving and conserving water. We might be in big trouble So Hawaii is a special environment special ecology for so many things And I guess that means it's also special for water. This would be different than other places, right? First we are an island or a group of islands and we have limited resources So basically what you have is what you get or vice versa what you get is what you have And basically we cannot import water from outside obviously We have a special kind of geology and the special type of features that's very different from the mainland continental systems Having a small watersheds is an issue here That means that the mountains may be tall but they're limited in size That's exactly the case and very steep That means you can have serious floods sometimes very small warming time You have less infiltration because of that because the water runs quickly and escape to the ocean We have aquifers which is a geologic formation where water is stored It's very porous and very high conductance That means any changes can affect the storage of water Basically we have to be aware of the conditions which include also variability of information Basically it's very complicated, it's very hard to study that differentiated from other areas as well You said we have to save water but it's not just that we have to save water today We always have to save water, we have to use less water, isn't that what you're saying? We have to, I can maybe surprise you Jay by giving you some numbers Each time you open the faucet, each wind minute costs you between wind and the 5 gallons of water So if someone is taking a long shower, how many minutes? 30 minutes? That's 150 gallons, if you use one of this large head showers or shower heads In the average we use in this country about between 60 and 80 gallons a day Per person But people in poor water countries, they can survive on 5 gallons a day Because they have to Unfortunately we don't have to If you open the faucet there is water and there is no reason to panic And it's cheap, you would tell me before the show that a gallon of water in Hawaii costs one-tenth of one cent That's not expensive No, no And water actually is free but you pay for the actual cost to get it from the ground and send it to your house How's the quality in Hawaii? We've had issues at Red Hill and all that But in general, how's the quality? Quality is good Usually people stop me to ask me when they know I'm a hydrologist I say I drink the faucet water Do you? Yeah And actually might be surprised to some that some of the bottled water are not of good quality Is that right? You heard it here on Think Tech We're not saying which bottled water, but some of it isn't as good as the faucet Yeah, you know why? Because there is no federal regulations for bottled water So if you make it in California, you have to satisfy California regulations But you can sell it in Hawaii without any regulations Just right out of the tap or worse So what about fluoride and that kind of additives? Do we have anything like that going on in Hawaii? I believe we do have that I think as I was asking about the waiver, but I don't know really what happens So there's undoubtedly a dynamic here And I'd like to get a handle from you on exactly what affects the availability and possibly the quality of water So rainfall would affect it and if climate change is changing rainfall, then climate change is going to affect it And of course we talked briefly before the show about damage to the lenses in the aquifers Could you talk about what kinds of things are threatening our water supply? Actually, if we could see the first figure That's the one So here is the cross section of the island of Oahu that give you some idea about the geology of the area So you can see the ocean on one side, you see the leeward side there And the windward side, the yellow part to your right is the cup rock that I was talking about Cup rock is basically marine sediment and some sedimentary sediment That have lower, what we call lower conductivity Conductivity is the expression of ability of the water to move High conductivity means water more fast, low conductivity means it will move slower So cup rock, if you want to research this is spelled C-A-P-R-O-C-K cup rock I think it has E after the P So basically when I mentioned that before the show, anytime you break the cup rock is bad Because it's calving the good water So when you break it the good water will escape That's number one Number two, the cup rock is useful because bad chemicals will not go down So it is protecting the good water below that So if you break the cup rock then bad things could go into the fresh water Most likely not because the pressure, what we call pressure, that's not exactly the word Is higher in the basalt, so water will move up So you just lose it You lose the water, it goes into the seawater It's easier and so water will go in So that would have a detrimental effect on the lens and therefore on the aquifer in general That's one of the factors But if you look at the picture here, you see the freshwater lens It looks like a lens like that Can you see it? Fresh water is blue Above the red, the red in the bottom Above the red is salt water Can you see that? And the lens is between the freshwater and the salt water No, the freshwater is a lens But there is a mixing zone between the two Can you see it? Yes The mixing zone is brackish water Yes, brackish, is that the lens? No, the lens is blue It is more like eyeglasses lens That's why I call it that lens So the freshwater lens floats on the top of the salt water Because of density So light over heavier water Mixing is because salt water will mix with water So that causes it to mix And if you use too much water, the lens will shrink The blue will shrink And the red will creep in And the mixing or brackish will increase So in the old days we have much thicker lens But because we use too much, then we are losing the lens Can you replace it? It has to rain But also if you use artificial recharge Like in the future, hopefully It will be safe to recharge with recycled water So that will be useful Let's talk about recycled water What is that? It's recycled water Actually in Hawaii here We generate lots of wastewater as you can expect The island of Oahu Generates about 100 million gallons of wastewater If I remember correctly What we do is get rid of it In three different ways One, throw it deep in the ocean Using what we call outfalls It's like two miles out And the other way is to deep inject it in wells Remember the brackish or salt water Below the fresh And hope it will not do some damage The third method is That's not desirable then Because it could do some damage It could come up into the fresh water It has, yes And the third method is septic system It is like syspoils or septic tanks Syspoils are very bad Because they are just a whole underground And it reaches everywhere Actually when it is close to the ocean It's really bad Because it has to have enough space To do some treatment Natural treatment But when it is near the ocean There is not enough space So what's your recommended solution? The recommended solution We will call it rather than wastewater We will call it water wasted So they are trying to treat it And there are still some issues there The cost is an issue The transportation is an issue Because the waste treatment facility Is far from where you need it But they use it for limited use Golf courses Golf courses And you could use it for agriculture When you don't have leaves When the plants don't have leaves So you can use it for all these And they do some study to make sure It doesn't go down to the lands So how do you process it In order to make it drinkable? It's different states And this is outside my area But basically it removes chemicals Like nutrients Like phosphorus and nitrogen It's a bad for people Because you move salinity But first you kill the bacteria And viruses, that's the first system And there is different degrees There is R1 water, R2 water And R3 water R3 is like fresh water Like faucet water But it's very expensive Because it has to go to many processes Yeah, much more expensive than One-tenth a cent per gallon And of course if you can't do this And you're short of water Then your option, major option Would be desalination Which is way more expensive Than processed water I guess it's, I don't know the relative cost But both of them are certainly much more expensive But San Diego put in a big desalination plant And it cost billions Yes, I believe Orange County I have that And California in general And the people of California Had droughts in the 80s, 90s And they learned the lessons So they were careful Unfortunately humans forget very quickly So once the drought is gone Go back to normal Hopefully we won't Yeah, we should That's Ali El-Kadi Professor of Hydrology, Department of Geology And Geophysics in Southwest And also Associate Director Of the Water Resources Research Center We'll take a short break Come back and see a bunch more of these slides So you can understand what is happening in Oahu And elsewhere around the state We'll be right back Oh-ha! This is Rez McChackle University of Hawaii football team Under Rolovic is going to kick butt this season In case you didn't understand me University of Hawaii football team Is going to kick butt under Rolovic this season So be sure to follow us on Hawaii and Iwachi Top I'll be at every game And remember, aloha! Aloha, my name is Justine Esperitu And I am the co-host of Hawaii Farmers Series This is my co-host, Matthew Johnson And we are live with you Every Thursday at 4pm At thinktechhawaii.com And our show focuses on Hawaii's local food community We feature not only the farmers Who have been producing our food But we also feature the supporters And other folks involved in the community That are trying to promote local agriculture Okay, we're back, we're live We're here with Ali El-Kadi President of Hydrology Excuse me, professor of president Professor of Hydrology And associate director of the Water Resources Research Center At UH Manoa So we have some slides Let's take a whiz through these slides And talk more about water in Hawaii Okay, what we see now is A chart for water expected Increase in water used in Hawaii Especially, wow And that chart is made by the Border Photo Supply Which deliver water to your house And they can't see the trend If we are for, you know Lucky enough we should use Or expect to use or increase About 1 million gallons a day Per year, okay That's what the blue line is The yellow line is not good So hopefully we are conserving As you can see is a blue shade That is leveling off there, right Starting maybe in 1991 It's just kind of leveling off So hopefully we are conserving, you know So when you do planning You should use this in mind Yes, but part of that as we discussed Could be a computer algorithm To determine the price If we want to change customer Behavior, consumer behavior Then we raise the water The cost per gallon or lower it As the supplies exist Wouldn't that be a way of Saving water? Right, this is nature of humans Things are expensive, they are Positive, but I think As I have some kind of structure But I don't think it is still Enough to make sure that People really conserve There's plenty of room Because it's so cheap now So if we made it expensive People would take note And they would use less Okay, how about the next slide? The next slide talks about On-site disposal systems Which is like septic systems And that includes sys walls And septic systems And it can be Surprised to know that There are about 2,000 units in Hawaii And they release Average or about 70 million gallons A day of minimally treated West water is not really R3 It just has partial treatment And it can reach the ocean And it can increase Nitrogen in the ground Which is bad Like if you have borderline Water quality, then you still Have leaching that can make it bad We should have done something About this a long time ago You have a picture of the big island Of course, because there are a lot of septic systems On the big island But this one is about Hawaii Hawaii, sorry You see in that picture here Shows the density of systems Septic systems The red is large About 500 units Very square miles This is huge, right? And can you tell Is it located J? Sure, they're on the water Is that good? No, they're going to get right into The water sources and the ocean Right, and what happens The sea level rises Comes right back up on you So that would be realistic It affects your drinking water And it will wash it Even make it worse So the solution is Except to soar Why don't we spend the money And make regular plumbing? It would be expensive Because you have to have long lines And you cannot have Really economic way to do that But now they have System where you can do local systems So just for the community So hopefully that will be That's how it would work In that map Between the dark areas One dark area and another There's long pipelines But if you didn't have to make those long pipelines If you only did it in the Concentration of the dark area It would be a lot less expensive And now it has Just to be more economically visible That's the criteria Here's another one now This is studied By the USGS United States Geological Survey Here in Hawaii There is a decline in stream Discharge The water runs in the stream As you can see the red line Means decline over the years That's called the base flow Meaning water coming from the aquifer Why is it declining? That's a sign of climate change Not enough rainfall So there is not enough rainfall It goes into the ground As it used to Less water goes to the streams Ali, I had the impression That when the plantations were operating And they built all those Ditches Run water for agricultural purposes They were careful And they maintained the ditches And the ditches were a positive effect on water But now there are no plantations The ditches are not being maintained Does this have any effect On drinking water supplies? Actually We call it return of flow Water return Or return water That goes down What happens is One third of irrigation Water goes down back to the aquifer So when you have urbanization Removes the plantations That means there is no water that goes down Like other plants That used to be agriculture So now there is no fresh water that goes down So agriculture has some advantages Because you have to irrigate anyway So you could be using too much water But if you use an economic way Or more like Recent or advanced irrigation system You could minimize losses And use less water The loss is not great So it's better not to lose the water Right, so you can compromise You don't have to urbanize And at the same time Use less water for irrigation Well that seems to be a point here That as the state urbanizes We need to spend money on systems That will Upgrade our water system We have to do that If we leave our water system Back in a time when everything was country Then we're going to lose We're going to lose So we need to spend a little money To keep the water system Up with the urbanization Right, there is some New technology To try to still benefit And not waste water And minimize the runoff Remember the runoff is a bad thing It goes to the ocean So if you have asphalt and buildings That's all goes to the ocean So what they do is like Use roof gardens They use like Driveways which has Grass Half grass, half blocks Recirculate water So you can try to Lesson the damage So you can do that If your architect and engineer help you Right, there is actually Some unit in New University of Hawaii They have units that study that They try to optimize the process So you don't lose Or destroy nature We're going to get more sensitive to this As the price of water goes up When we go to the next one What is this Flooding in the north shore That was I believe 2008 I remember we had A workshop there Teaching about Environment Then we were there That was the next day Or a few days after that Flooding So people were terrified and Changed the subject of the workshop So as you can imagine This is horrible And you can see With Clean change you could have more of that More flooding and also see The chocolate color, right That's not a good color No, no, this is sediment That washes off So you are losing the good soil To the ocean And damaging the ocean as well Now are there antigens in that water Antigens, bacteria, virus Yes, certainly Especially septic stem What about next This is Hanalei I think this should be shown After the other one Like before and after Can you go back to the previous one No, there is This one, yes This is before And now This is after What a wreck So you can see Flooding is very serious And in some cases The frequency will increase because of climate change So you have extreme cases You have more flooding You have more drought That's climate change That's harder work to keep everything Balanced that way That's true This is another flooding problem And this time in Manoa This is Hamilton Library This is Hamilton Library And to the bottom left You see the Basement And That was unfortunate because they had All the valuables In the basement And the Hamilton Library is in the lowest Point on campus And the basement is the lowest point In the building And they put the more valuable historic documents On computers You lose any of your research papers Not my personal Fortunately I have things stored on computers And actually There was also a picture of damage Had been to Manoa buildings Like you see the cars But Manoa Residential area I think 100 million dollars in one night That's what's a storm And the university can hardly Afford that kind of damage What we got here? Now science will come to play As I mentioned Climate change Is something that's happening So what to do about it And you have lots of issues You cannot wait until it happens So we do something called Modeling Basically use simulation models To protect what happens in the future So it will be easy To do relatively speaking Then wait until it happens And think about it Like for example I want to know what happens Of rainfall decrease Then I can do simulations You know make believe And see how it looks In principle it should be straightforward But there is lots of difficulties I will talk about in a second So what happens here We create something called the conceptual model Which is our understanding of reality Say I want to see What happens to the island of Oahu I need to study all the natural processes That I can simulate So that's very subjective Because especially underground We cannot really understand What's happening down there And basically I Collect all the information And build my conceptual model As I call it conceptual model Because it is mine Because it is my understanding of the system And we need to collect enough That to validate that So if you look here at the picture The left side is geology And this is just a Surfacial geology Means what we've seen from the surface So below that is not exactly the same But let's give you some idea About different material Like basalt, sediment, whatever So all of that is Well known At least in that In what we understand For it, right? But you need deeper formulations That you use deeper Techniques to look under these But let us assume that we know that So the arrow shows to the right Show that we converted to areas And each area Is comprised of one material Or whatever So you converted the geology To different areas And assign different materials to that So if you have basalt, assign high conductivity If you have sediment, assign low conductivity Okay? If you have what we call dykes Then it would be combined of Low conductivity Are dykes in our future? Dykes They are already They are in our past We had them way back when too It is the way lava Cold off They have no Virtually no conductivity And they extend like this Isolating lava So looking forward We only have a few seconds left What are we going to have to do To preserve our water supply At a reasonable price going forward And how soon do we have to do it? I think we started as I think I mentioned to you Maybe in my email I got a new grant Large grant, $20 million From the National Science Foundation It's called EBSCORE And that one stands for I guess It's called Experimental Program To stimulate Competitive research And well doing lots of work about water Especially about water So that basically will try to resolve the missing issues Like I mentioned We don't understand the processes Collect data and do modeling And your sophisticated techniques Non-introsive techniques to look into underground Hopefully that's the way to go Study, study, study Collect data and refine Your understanding and the way to predict Then Once you know how to Manage your resources You will learn how to conserve water And create new resources And hopefully will not be at loss And maybe do some earth moving Okay Our future is going to require some attention So happy that you're working on this Because water is one of the great resources Of the world and it's going to be More important going forward Including for Hawaii I'm glad too My area is very beneficial That's Ali El-Kadi President Professor of Hydrology Department of Geology and Geophysics School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology That's Sowest And he is the Assistant Director Of the Water Resources Research Center University of Hawaii Thank you so much