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Comment by tpfour | Hacker News Reader

> Huss says glaciers are essential to feeding Europe’s freshwater rivers, which provide drinking water to millions, especially in the summer months when there is less rainfall. “The summer is when we need the water in the lowlands.” he says, “If the glaciers are gone, this can have really serious consequences.”

What to do? Once actually "solving" the problem becomes a critical political issue, will there be anything left to "solve"?

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Dams and reservoirs. They'll have to capture more precipitation and store it in liquid rather than solid form. Obviously that will have environmental consequences as well.

Incidentally, the reservoirs that help ensure water supply in case of low rainfall here in parts of Germany are down to less than 50% of maximum and falling. It has been a very dry year here. The Rhine is low enough to have a dramatic impact on shipping.

Same in Netherlands; I now wonder if our drainage and flooding prevention (from e.g. the Rhine) was too good.

This is possible as long as precipitations are large enough. I would think this is still firmly an "if" proposition.

At first glance it does not seem obvious at all that the water cycle as we know it will be recognisable in 100 years.

It's more then that - rivers feed cooling towers that are required for power plants, refineries, natural gas processing plants. [1] [2]

This is already a big issue for industry in the summer

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_tower [2] https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/energy-and-water-use/wat...

Desalination I suppose. Israel has really pushed the limits. California has private desalination companies supplying drinking water.

There is very little saltwater supply in Switzerland.

I mean, is there any natural saltwater in Switzerland? GP sounds a lot like the whole "I'll sell you a beachfront property in Arizona" thing.

There’s also very little crude oil in Switzerland. And very few coffee and cocoa beans. I wonder how they make their famous Swiss chocolate?

They use their Large Hadron Collider to synthesize it.

Oil is brought in via the Rhine river and processed at the refinery in Cressier. It would of course be possible to ship seawater instead and desalinate it. I doubt it’s an economical enterprise.

Hah sorry. I read "low lands" as "low countries". You could pipe it but at that point you might as well find a different fresh water source.

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