It's actually only a challenge in shallow water that doesn't move, which if you think about it isn't that surprising. If you pump it out a bit further, you quite literally have a whole ocean to dilute the salt in. Off the coast of California, for example, which is a state that should have no water shortage as it has abundant access to clean solar and wind energy and the entire pacific to desalinate, ocean depths drop quickly even just a few miles out. You would not be able to affect salinity levels of ocean waters there in any measurable way even if you wanted to.
So, the solution is pipes and pumps. Those add cost of course but it's a completely solvable problem otherwise. Exhausting natural sources of ground water and aquifers also has an impact. Desalination done right might give some of those stressed ecosystems a chance to recover.
> It's actually only a challenge in shallow water that doesn't move, which if you think about it isn't that surprising. If you pump it out a bit further, you quite literally have a whole ocean to dilute the salt in.
What do the studies say what the effects of stripping water from the oceans and increasig the concentration of salt and other things are?
Yea, but it's different. For example, we have harmed ecosystems by our flood, erosion, etc. control of rivers. They're supposed to move, but we don't let them, and that has detrimental downstream, figuratively and literally, effects. And it's because we view rivers as just a vessel or tract of water rather than as part of a system. Analogously, the ocean is not just a bucket of water.
Coastal ecosystems are particularly sensitive and are already at a tipping point. Are they meant to have bits of it pumped out, filtered, and everything but the water dumped back in?
I have been downvoted here, but is it really a bad thing to attempt to understand things a bit better? Before we solve one problem by creating another problem, something humans are really good at?
So, the solution is pipes and pumps. Those add cost of course but it's a completely solvable problem otherwise. Exhausting natural sources of ground water and aquifers also has an impact. Desalination done right might give some of those stressed ecosystems a chance to recover.