North Georgia's Lake Lanier is the reservoir at the center of the tri-state water war dispute. (photo-Edgar Treiguts)
The study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal focused on water sustainability for the Southwestern U.S., but used East Coast states as a comparison. And the group of researchers found there’s a relatively low capacity for water storage in the Southeast.
University of Georgia researcher John Kominoski was part of the research group. He says there’s a basic reason for Georgia’s low storage capacity.
“Our reservoirs are pretty shallow -- they don’t store as much water as reservoirs in the Southwest. So because of that, they lose a lot of water to evaporation.”
And Kominoski says if more reservoirs are built, more water is susceptible to evaporation -- thus leaving less to send to downstream users.
Kominoski says the top of any long-term approach to solving water issues has to be conservation, along with doing more with reclaimed water technologies.
