Weird weather leaves Amazon forest thirsty: ‘Once in a century’ drought followed one just five years ago
Posted by: Maven on December 1, 2010 at 8:11 am
From MSNBC:
“The river loops low past its bleached-white banks, where caimans bask in the fierce morning sun and stranded houseboats tilt precariously. Nearby sits a beached barge with its load of eight trucks and a crane. Its owners were caught out long ago by the speed of the river’s decline.
This is what it looks like when the world’s greatest rainforest is thirsty. If climate scientists are right, parched Amazon scenes like this will become more common in the coming decades, possibly threatening the survival of the forest and accelerating global warming.
The environmental and economic consequences could be huge for Brazil, for South America, for the planet. … “
Continue reading from MSNBC by clicking here.
Reaching the bottom of the well: Why worry about freshwater supplies? Unlike options in energy-use, there are no substitutes or alternatives to water
Posted by: Maven on November 10, 2010 at 8:30 amFrom the Guardian.co.uk:
“The future security of freshwater resources around the world is of increasing concern. Due to our interlinked global economy, water scarcity in many parts of the world could harm the global economy in ways we hadn’t thought of. Shortfalls in crop yields and more variable food prices could be an early impact.
This is because our demand for water is closely linked to our overall economic growth. As we grow wealthier, the more cities, power plants, factories and high protein food (dairy, meat, fish, etc) we demand, the more freshwater we require.
It is not just a question of more people requiring more water. Rather, it is a case of more wealthy societies demanding much more water. During the 20th century, for example, while population grew by factor four, freshwater withdrawals grew by factor nine, primarily as our economies grew.
If we take these past patterns and look forward, the outlook to 2030 is stark. … “
Continue reading from the Guardian.co.uk by clicking here.
Border tale swapping: Redondo Beach hosts the 6th Bi-national Mayors Summit
Posted by: Maven on October 30, 2010 at 7:52 amFrom the Redondo Beach Patch:
“Mayors from both sides of the border shared their concerns about water, public safety and the environment during a cross cultural exchange Friday in Redondo Beach.
The mayors, from Southern California and Baja California, discussed expanded relationships with China, increased tourism and social networking. But a big focus was water.
West Basin Municipal Water District was one of the main sponsors of the 6th annual Bi-national Mayors Summit, and its desalination project at the SEA Lab was toured during the event. … “
Continue reading from the Redondo Beach Patch by clicking here.
Water Wired blog: Taming the Darién Gap – The latest LaRouche scheme
Posted by: Maven on October 22, 2010 at 8:46 amFrom the Water Wired blog:
“I am still getting emails from the LaRouche folks about their NAWAPA scheme and various other geo- and bioengineering projects. It’s actually good to get these, since Maude Barlow and T. Boone Pickens haven’t provided me with any good blog fodder latrely, although I hear that I should check out T. Boone.
By the way, check out the nice puff piece on Boone’s Mesa Vista Ranch redecoration project in the current Architectural Digest. What A puff piece in AD
The latest LaRouche plan will tame the Darién Gap (video below) with an extended NAWAPA project. I wonder if they have secured permission from all the countries they plan to ‘develop’ … “
More from the Water Wired blog by clicking here.
Huffington Post: Water management lessons from an unlikely source
Posted by: Maven on October 14, 2010 at 8:37 amFrom Jim Lauria at the Huffington Post:
“The United States has a lot to learn from the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority. The underfunded utility dug the Cambodian capital’s water infrastructure out of the rubble of Pol Pot’s regime and now supplies fresh, clean water to Phnom Penh’s 1.3 million residents, rich and poor. Delivery is reliable, rates are reasonable, and the efficiency of the system — a measure of how much water reaches its destination instead of leaking out of broken infrastructure — is an impressive 94.1 percent, with a goal of 96 percent by 2020. (In contrast, a 2002 report by the Congressional Budget Office estimated water loss to leakage in many U.S. drinking water delivery systems steals as much as 20 percent of the flow.)
The stunning success of the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority’s efforts has earned them this year’s coveted Stockholm Industry Water Award, international recognition of its commitment and ingenuity. … “
Continue reading from the Huffington Post by clicking here.
Osmosis power geneartion revives in Northern Europe
Posted by: Maven on October 6, 2010 at 7:42 amFrom Renewable Energy World:
“If you’re overlooking an estuary, you’d never guess that vast amounts of energy are flowing into the sea. But what if you place a thin and strong membrane between the fresh and brackish water Then it might be possible to tap so much energy that tens of thousands of households could be provided with electricity. At least, that is the goal of Dutch and Norwegian researchers, as they seek to make osmotic power commercially viable.
Last century osmotic power was no more than a pipe dream for researchers but in the past five years all that has changed. In November 2009 Norwegian utility company Statkraft launched a 1,2 kW prototype plant in Tofte, south of Oslo, while REDstack, a spin-off of Dutch R&D company Wetsus, is scaling up its 5 kW pilot at the salt refinery in Harlingen to a 50 kW demonstration plant halfway up the country’s Afsluitdijk causeway.
With rapidly improving advances in membrane technologies, its huge potential is beginning to come to light. According to Wetsus, Dutch coastlines and rivers hold somewhere in excess of 18 TWh of potential generating capacity, enough to power 1 million households. Meanwhile in Norway, estimates suggest the technology could generate some 12 TWh annually from the country’s fjords. … “
Continue reading from Renewable Energy World by clicking here.
Water map shows billions at risk of ‘water insecurity’
Posted by: Maven on September 30, 2010 at 8:52 amFrom BBC News:
“About 80% of the world’s population lives in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure, according to a new global analysis. Researchers compiled a composite index of “water threats” that includes issues such as scarcity and pollution.
The most severe threat category encompasses 3.4 billion people.
Writing in the journal Nature, they say that in western countries, conserving water for people through reservoirs and dams works for people, but not nature. They urge developing countries not to follow the same path. … “
Continue reading from BBC News by clicking here.
MORE COVERAGE:
- Scientists Sound Alarm on State of the World's Rivers. from YubaNet.com
- Report Casts World’s Rivers In ‘Crisis State’, from Water Online
Groundwater depletion raises likelihood of global food crises
Posted by: Maven on September 28, 2010 at 8:19 amFrom National Geographic’s News Watch blog:
“Out of sight, out of mind means deep trouble when it comes to the reserves of freshwater stored underground. New numbers are out on the rate of groundwater depletion around the globe, and if they hold up to further scrutiny, the world is almost certainly facing a future of food shortages.
In an upcoming issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, Professor Marc Bierkens of Utrecht University in the Netherlands and his colleagues estimate that the rate at which humanity is pumping dry the underground reservoirs that hundreds of millions of people depend upon for food and drinking water more than doubled between 1960 and 2000. … “
Continue reading from National Geographic’s News Watch blog by clicking here.
Nile mystery: Just whose river is it?
Posted by: Maven on September 19, 2010 at 8:12 am
From NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday:
“All great mysteries begin at the end and end at the very beginning. And for thousands of years, the Nile River was perhaps the world's greatest mystery.
Anyone can see where it ends, pouring northward through Egypt and into the Mediterranean Sea. But locating the origins of this magnificent river befuddled nearly everybody. Not until the Victorian Age did Western explorers find what had eluded so many.
The 19th century explorers who helped solve the mystery of the Nile’s source were the best of the Victorian era, doing the work of Britain’s Royal Geographic Society, of private sponsors, sultans, Egyptians and of a queen bent on expanding her empire.
But in settling the question of the Nile, the explorers may have inadvertently stumbled onto a whole new question: Just whose river is it … “
Continue reading from National Public Radio by clicking here.
Photo of the Nile River from WikiMedia Commons.
Water shortages? No more! Lyndon LaRouche presents ‘Mega-Project NAWAPA Redux’
Posted by: Maven on September 16, 2010 at 8:58 am
From Water Wired:
“Many of you know that I have posted a number of times about the water mega-projects, NAWAPA (North American Water And Power Alliance) and NARA (North American Recycling Alliance). Both these projects propose to bring water fromAlaska/Canada (NAWAPA) or Canada’s James Bay (NARA) to quench the thirst of the USA, primarily the western USA, but also parts of the Eastern USA (NARA, especially) and perhaps even northern Mexico. …
Imagine my surprise when a woman called me from Seattle just a few hours go to inform me of a proposal to revive NAWAPA and put 3-4 million engineers/scientists to work on a TVA-like project to bring water from Alaska and Canada (mainlyfrom the Yukon and MacKenzie basins, with some coastal baisns as well) to make the desert bloom (my words, not hers) as well as supply the Great Lakes and eastern North America. Total storage in the system: 4.4 billion acre-feet (5,400 cubic kilometers). It’s even got the 500-mile (800-kilometer) long reservoir in theRocky Mountain Trench! … “
Continue reading from the Water Wired blog by clicking here.
Water Wired blog: Coping with drought and water scarcity; Can the Australian Experience Help?
Posted by: Maven on September 15, 2010 at 7:45 amFrom Michael Campana at the WaterWired blog:
“Jim Thebaut’s 501(c)(3),The Chronicles Group, just submitted this report to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,Coping with Drought and Water Scarcity. It’s based on a panel discussion hesld at CSIS on 17 June 2010.
[Links for videos and the pdf file available on the click-through.]
One of the themes dealt with lessons from Australia and the USA. I’ve heard some people say that the western USA should just follow the lead of Australia in dealing with its drought, especially in the Murray-Darling basin. Some comments by Jennifer McKay, Director of the of the the University of South Australia’s Centre for Comparative Water Policies and Laws and who teaches both law and business, might be instructive. … “
Continue reading from the WaterWired blog by clicking here.
Foreign investors are becoming players in Australia’s water market
Posted by: Maven on September 9, 2010 at 8:29 amFrom Circle of Blue Water News:
“Foreign investors have bought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of permanent water rights in Australia, according to a series of reports published this week by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Purchasing water rights represents a shift in investment strategy for water funds, which to this point have focused primarily on water utilities, water infrastructure and water-related technologies. Though formal water rights trading exists in Chile, the western United States, South Africa and China, no country matches the size of Australia's market, worth AU$30 billion. … “
Continue reading from Circle of Blue Water News by clicking here.
US company plans to ship fresh water from Alaska to India
Posted by: Maven on September 7, 2010 at 7:55 amRemember the editorial last week about shipping water in ocean tankers to areas of need Here’s a story from the Guardian (UK) Environment Network reporting that a US Company is intending to do just that: ship water from Alaska to India:
“Imagine an oil tanker plowing through the ocean, hauling valuable cargo from resource-rich nations of the world to the countries that need it: but instead of oil, the tanker holds millions of gallons of fresh water.
It’s not a vision from some futuristic film or doomsday novel, but the present-day intention of companies trying to launch the bulk water export business. The idea has been around since the 1990′s, yet no one has succeeded in making it a practical reality.
But last July, the US company S2C Global Systems, Inc. became the latest bulk water wanna-be by announcing it would begin shipping water from Alaska to India within the next six to eight months. Using large class vessels that can hold 50 million gallons at a time, S2C plans to sell the water for both manufacturing and drinking purposes to countries around the Arabian Sea. … “
Getting water this way makes desalination look cheap! Read more from the Guardian Environment Network by clicking here.
Australia: Thirsty foreigners soak up scarce water rights
Posted by: Maven on September 3, 2010 at 8:51 amFrom the Sydney Morning Herald:
“International investors are circling Australia’s water market, looking to snap up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of our most precious national resource, with almost no government limit on how much they can buy.
Foreign investors have already bought millions of litres of water rights in our most strategic food-producing areas and are poised to buy more after the massive shake-out tipped to occur when the long-awaited Murray-Darling Basin plan is released.
The head of an Australian fund designed to cash in on future water scarcity leaves tomorrow on a trip through Asia, North America and Europe aimed at raising $100 million from investors to buy water in the Murray Darling Basin. … “
Continue reading from the Sydney Morning Herald by clicking here.
Abu Dhabi: Multiplying the yield of an oasis
Posted by: Maven on September 2, 2010 at 8:48 am
Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and it’s second largest city, has invested heavily in desalination plants along the Persian Gulf to meet the water demands of its 1.2 million residents, which puts them in a rather precarious position, according to this article in the New York Times:
” … Abu Dhabi may be a desert country, but its daily water consumption per head is higher than that in most places in the world, at about 650 liters, or 170 gallons. In the United States, for example, daily consumption is 300 liters per person, and in many European countries, it is less than half that. Desalinated water is used for golf courses, agriculture and car washes. As much as half is used to water public spaces.
But all this conspicuous consumption is based on a shaky foundation: If something an attack, a natural disaster or a major oil spill in the Gulf should put the desalination plants out of operation, the emirate's reserves, now stored in above-ground water tanks, would be exhausted within 48 hours. “That would be a disaster,\” said Mohamed Dawoud of the water resources department at the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency, acknowledging the emirate's weak spot. … “
Read the full text of this article from the New York Times by clicking here.
Watering deserts
Posted by: Maven on August 31, 2010 at 8:28 amFrom Clean Technica:
“The increasing desertification of the planet due to climate change is a serious threat to future humans, so technology that can create water in deserts is arguably one of the more critical technologies that we need to master.
Wacky ideas that purport to solve serious climate issues are a dime a dozen, but ones that have actually proven themselves : by actually working in the real world : are welcome news.
At two years into successful operation on the largely arid Arabian peninsula, the “fog catcher\” is such a concept. … “
Continue reading from Clean Technica by clicking here.
Resurrecting the Dead Sea: An extraordinary plan to revive the Dead Sea could ease tensions among Israel, Palestine and Jordan – Or it could create an environmental disaster
Posted by: Maven on August 23, 2010 at 7:18 am
From Miller-McCune:
“Fathi Huweimel leans carefully over the edge of a jagged slab of broken asphalt, peering down into a 60-foot-deep crater that was level ground just yesterday. All around him sprawl the ruins of Ghawr al Hadithah, once a farming village in central Jordan but now a jigsaw of broken houses, shattered roads and abandoned tomato fields growing wild amid the massive holes pocking the earth. To the east, the village gives way to desert fringed by stark, sere mountains. To the west, a few hundred yards away, lie the glimmering waters of the Dead Sea.
“We've had about 75 holes open up in the last two years,\” says Huweimel, a thickset man with a broad mouth and deep brown eyes who has lived all of his 45 years in the area. He works as a field researcher with Friends of the Earth-Middle East, an environmental organization. “Everyone is leaving,\” he continues. “Those who stay are staying because they have no choice. … “
Continue reading from Miller-McCune by clicking here.
Photo of the Dead Sea by flickr photographer Mr. Kris.
Russian conspiracy theory: Is regional climate change is the deliberate work of the US?
Posted by: Maven on August 17, 2010 at 8:57 amHere’s one for the “things that make you go hmmmm” file …. From Clean Technica:
“As Russia reels under broiling temperatures completely outside the range of its experience, a widely quoted Russian political scientist is voicing the suspicion that the regional climate change is the deliberate work of the US, according to Radio Free Europe.
His idea is that the US is secretly trying to kill Russians and wipe out their crops with “climate-change weapons.
Faced with soaring temperatures and the resulting droughts, crop failures, heat stroke deaths and wildfires, the deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation is suggesting that it had to have been deliberate. This had to have been an act of war, perpetrated by an enemy. … “
Continue reading at Clean Technica by clicking here.
Sunday’s top of the scroll: Mexico, US talking about Colorado River water
Posted by: Maven on August 15, 2010 at 8:09 am
From the San Diego Union Tribune:
“A powerful Easter Sunday earthquake along the Mexico border has had ripple effects in Nevada , spurring international talks about future use of the Colorado River and the water level in Lake Mead.
United States and Mexico federal officials met recently at the Southern Nevada Water Authority office in Las Vegas to discuss water shortage and sharing agreements between the two nations.
Talks on the topic began in early 2008, but the 7.2 magnitude quake April 4 near Mexicali added urgency for Mexican officials because widespread damage to irrigation infrastructure might prevent that nation from using its full Colorado River allocation. … “
Continue reading from the San Diego Union Tribune by clicking here.
Photo of Lake Mead by flickr photographer Andrew C. Parnell.
First issue of the Global Water Magazine from John Hopkins University now available online
Posted by: Maven on July 27, 2010 at 7:51 amFrom John Hopkins University’s Global Water Program, the latest issue of Global Water Magazine is now available online. The theme this month is “Water challenges and solutions for the next decade”, and the issue is a collection of opinion articles, such as “Imperatives for Urban Water Professionals on the Pathway to 2050″, “Water Rights and Human Rights: The Poor Will Not Need Our Charity if We Need Their Water”, “The World is Dry”, “The First Stop on the Road to Corporate Water Reporting: Measurement”, and more.
Check out John Hopkins University’s Global Water Magazine by clicking here. (Hat tip to the Aguanomics blog.)
A baby, Skype and water research partnership
Posted by: Maven on July 21, 2010 at 7:24 amFrom the University of California Newsroom:
“RIVERSIDE A year ago, Sharon Walker, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the UC Riverside Bourns College of Engineering, flew to Israel with support from a Fulbright fellowship to study water quality and sustainability issues in a similarly arid environment.
She returned last month with a a deep familiarity with Skype, a baby daughter and a grant to develop a collaborative program on water sustainability with Ben-Gurion University of the Negrev in Israel.
Her daughter, Ma'ayan, is now 5 months old. Walker spent 10 hours a week on Skype communicating with her six doctoral students, including one who likely will be going to Israel in December. And the $147,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture kicked off last week with an Israeli scholar's visit to UC Riverside.
In the coming years, Walker, the John Babbage Chair in Environmental Engineering at UC Riverside, hopes research and exchanges between UC Riverside and Ben-Gurion faculty and graduate students will help the U.S. follow Israel's lead in sustainable water use. … “
Continue reading from the University of California Newsroom by clicking here.
Hitachi and Schwarzenegger: Solutions for a thirsty planet
Posted by: Maven on July 13, 2010 at 4:44 amFrom CNBC, this guest blog post from Terry Tamminen, former Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, is a partner at Pegasus Sustainable Century Merchant Bank and the Cullman Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation:
“Hitachi's Plant Technologies division and two cities in Japan are selling treated sewage water to an iron ore mining company in West Australia for use in industrial processes that today consume scarce drinking water. Ore ships go to Japan fully loaded, but come back to Australia empty, taking on seawater as ballast for that return trip. The treated sewage water will be used for ballast instead, so there is no extra energy used (or net carbon and smog emissions) in moving the water. Moreover, invasive marine species typically hitch a ride in ballast water of ships (California is among many jurisdictions that now restrict dumping of ballast water into sensitive ecosystems like San Francisco Bay), so this novel use of reclaimed fresh water eliminates another environmental threat.
This project comes as cities like Perth (in Western Australia, near the iron ore mines) have seen a 65 percent decline of flows into dams in the past decade because of ongoing drought and increases in human uses of fresh water. The Land Down Under has begun $13.2 billion in desalination plant construction projects and expects to obtain up to a third of the nation's water from this source by 2015. Of course desalination is the equivalent of making water from electricity, which in Australia's case means burning more coal and increasing both air pollution and carbon emissions. … “
Seeking Alpha blog: How the free market can solve the world’s water crisis
Posted by: Maven on July 8, 2010 at 7:19 amFrom the Seeking Alpha blog:
“By 2025, more than 2.8 billion people will live in 48 countries facing water stress or water scarcity, a recently revised United Nations medium population projected. Of these 48 countries, 40 are either in the Near East and North Africa or in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the next two decades population increase alone,not to mention growing demand per capita,is projected to push all of the Near East into water scarcity. By 2050 the number of countries facing water stress or scarcity will rise to 54, and their combined population to 4 billion people,40% of the projected global population of 9.4 billion. … “
So what is the solution, according to this blogger
” … If water were traded on the free market it’s reasonable to assume that the highest price would have been paid by households, since they consume a fraction of developed country annual water consumption (about 5 square meters) and since it is very hard for the average household to consume less – its demand is inelastic. But also today households pay the highest price.
The rest of the water, which is not consumed by the households, would be divided between different industries and the agricultural sector. Every industrialist and every farmer would pay the maximum price that he can afford in order to make a profit. As demand goes up, prices would go up as well and part of the industries and agricultural corps that consume a lot of water would disappear and move to a country that has an abundant water supply. (Israel, for example would need give up on selling bananas to Italy, and would have to leave that job to Brazil or Turkey.)
Theoretically, the price of water can rise to 55 cents a square meter (the price of producing water in a modern desalination plant). At that price, the amount of water available is basically limitless.
In order to solve the world's water crisis the action needed is to take control of the world's water supply out of the hands of politicians and put it into the hands of competitive private markets. It is important to create a competitive environment since a creation of private monopolies could be even worse than the current situation. … “
Read the full text of this post at the Seeking Alpha blog by clicking here.
The PlayPump: What went wrong?
Posted by: Maven on July 3, 2010 at 7:22 am
From Water Matters @ Columbia (Columbia University):
“Earlier this week, PBS\”s Frontline ran a story about the PlayPump, a technology that was supposed to bring drinking water to thousands of African communities by harnessing the power of children at play. The title of the Frontline story, “Troubled Water\” indicates that all didn't go as planned with the PlayPump. As Frontline reports, dozens of PlayPumps in Mozambique sit idle, and in many villages PlayPumps have been removed, and hand pumps reinstalled.
The idea behind PlayPump is simple, and it's not hard to see why so many people got so excited about it. A merry-go-round type device is installed and connected to a water pump. As children play on the merry-go-round, water is pumped into a storage tank, and is then available on demand. Frontline originally reported on the technology in 2005, leading to a tremendous amount of excitement, including support from Laura Bush and AOL Founder Steve Case. As the new Frontline story reports, it seems clear that PlayPump hasn't lived up to its original promise, and even its strongest backers have had to admit that the large-scale roll-out they had originally planned was not realistic. … “
Continue reading from Water Matters @ Columbia by clicking here.
World’s Water Supply: Here are the the haves and have nots: A new report shows which countries have the most precarious and stable water supplies
Posted by: Maven on June 30, 2010 at 7:43 amFrom AlterNet:
“British-based risk consultancy Maplecroft has released a new report showing which countries have the most precarious and stable water supplies. The report is intended to help guide investors, underscoring just how serious water supply is getting when it comes to the world economy. From farming to manufacturing, investors in various industries are starting to seriously weigh where they put their money based on how secure water supplies are or will be, and companies with interests in areas with unstable water supplies are having to put water efficiency in a place of priority. Though it focuses on areas of risk, the report also reveals whole new areas in water where investors may want to pile in funds.
Reuters reports, “African nations led by Somalia, Mauritania and Sudan have the most precarious water supplies in the world while Iceland has the best, according to a survey on Thursday that aims to alert companies to investment risks… A “water security risk index” of 165 nations found African and Asian nations had the most vulnerable supplies, judged by factors including access to drinking water, per capita demand and dependence on rivers that first flow through other nations.” … “
Continue reading from AlterNet by clicking here.
As tiny UAE’s water tab grows, resources run dry
Posted by: Maven on June 22, 2010 at 7:25 am
From Scientific American:
“Driving along brand new highways with medians of lush trees and manicured grass, one could easily forget the United Arab Emirates sits on a sweltering desert coast with rapidly diminishing freshwater resources.
The Gulf Arab nation’s oil income has allowed it to subsidize extravagant water use for Emiratis, either those in gated communities sporting pristine pools and evergreen golf courses or for farmers clinging to ancient irrigation practices.
Environmentalists warn the country, already reliant on costly desalination plants powered by its lucrative fossil fuels, must cut consumption by its 8.2 million people or risk depleting groundwater resources in 50 years.
“We need to convince them that water here isn’t a free resource. It’s not even a natural resource, it’s manmade. It is costly, and it has a big environmental impact,” said Mohamed Daoud of the state-run Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi. … “
Continue reading from the Scientific American by clicking here.
Click here for commentary from the TreeHugger blog.
Photo of Dubai by flickr photographer Bravo Whiskey.
Canada should export water in ‘sustainable’ manner, says report
Posted by: Maven on June 19, 2010 at 8:18 amFrom the Montreal Gazette (hat tip to the Sisweb):
“A new report released Wednesday by the Fraser Institute says Canada has an abundance of water and should consider exporting it in an “environmentally sustainable manner,” findings critics say are misguided and “problematic.”
The Vancouver-based right-wing think tank suggests Canada needs to “move beyond fearmongering and protectionism” and look instead at the “benefits and opportunities presented by bulk water exports.”
Report author Diane Katz contends international trade in water would not only benefit countries with scare water resources, but would also lead to “responsible pricing” in Canada and more responsible use. She argues artificially low residential and industrial water rates fail to encourage conservation. … “
Continue reading from the Montreal Gazette by clicking here.
U.N.: Rescuing ecosystems can save trillions of dollars
Posted by: Maven on June 7, 2010 at 7:24 amFrom Reuters News:
“In the study released before World Environment Day on June 5, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said nations could boost their economies by replenishing dying forests, marshes, coral reefs and riverbanks.
“What are the real economic value of some of these resources Wetlands, of which half have been destroyed, have an economic value of $7 trillion per year,” Tim Kasten, a UNEP natural resources expert, told reporters in Nairobi. “All together these services are providing up to $70 trillion per year of economic benefit,” Kasten said.
UNEP warned the loss of ecosystem services could lead to a 25 percent loss in the world’s food production by 2050.
The report, ‘Dying Planet, Living Planet’, says restoring wetlands helps to protect coastal regions from tropical storms and filter sewage out of water, while replanted forests provide vital drinking water for some of the world’s largest cities. … “
Continue reading from Reuters News by clicking here.
Peter Gleick: Water lessons from Singapore
Posted by: Maven on June 7, 2010 at 6:39 amFrom Peter Gleick at the City Brights blog:
“Some of the most interesting water stories are coming out of Singapore — an example of a place with serious water constraints and important political and economic incentives to address those constraints in a sustainable way. For years, Singapore has been buying water from its neighbor, Malaysia, to help satisfy the needs of around 4.5 million people. In a move with all sorts of political, economic, and environmental implications, the government of Singapore recently announced that it will not renew one of its two water agreements with its neighbor Malaysia under two water agreements, signed in the very early 1960s. This water comes at an economic cost, though a very small one — the rate paid to Malaysia is very low. But it also comes with a political cost: their dependence on Malaysia for water constrains and affects their political relationships. In the past few years, Singapore has been working hard to diversify their water “portfolio.”
Water Number: 4. Today, Singapore depends on four different sources of water: about 35% of their water comes from rainfall captured on its own limited territory, about 15% is high-quality recycled water produced by its NEWater treatment plants, 10% comes from desalinated water, and around 40% is water imported from Malaysia. … “
Continue reading Peter Gleick’s post by clicking here.
Don’t call the Guatemala sinkhole a sinkhole
Posted by: Maven on June 7, 2010 at 6:31 am
OK, only kinda-sorta water related, not even California related, but here’s a follow-up on the popular Guatemalan sinkhole story from Discovery News:
“The giant sinkhole that opened beneath downtown Guatemala City over the weekend is all the rage right now. There’s just one problem: it isn’t a sinkhole.
“Sure, it looks a lot like a sinkhole,” geologist Sam Bonis told Discovery News from his home in Guatemala. “And a whale looks a lot like a fish, but calling it one would be very misleading.”
Instead, Bonis prefers the term “piping feature” — a decidedly less sexy label for the 100-foot deep, 66-foot wide circular chasm. But it’s an important distinction, he maintains, because “sinkholes” refer to areas where bedrock is solid but has been eaten away by groundwater, forming a geological Swiss cheese whose contours are nearly impossible to predict.
The situation beneath the country’s capital is far different, and more dangerous. … “
Continue reading from Discovery News by clicking here.
NatGeo’s News Watch blog: Passing the point of “peak water” means paying more for H2O
Posted by: Maven on June 1, 2010 at 8:10 am
From National Geographic’s News Watch blog:
“We have passed the point of “peak water”–or the end of cheap, easy-to-access water–in several places around the globe, experts say.
Those places include the Great Plains in the southern and central U.S., California’s Central Valley, northern China, the Nile River Basin in northern Africa, the Jordan River Basin in the Middle East, India, and more.
The term “peak water” has been sprinkled throughout recent media accounts of droughts and groundwater depletion, but a May 20 article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science finally provides a clear definition.
“It means that every new sources we tap is going to be farther afield, harder to access, and more expensive. We are at the end of the era of cheap, easy-to-access water,” said study co-author Meena Palaniappan, director of the International Water and Communities Initiative at the Pacific Institute. … “
Continue reading from the National Geographic’s News Watch blog by clicking here.
Not just oil: US hit peak water in 1970 and nobody noticed
Posted by: Maven on May 25, 2010 at 1:38 pmFrom Ars Technica:
“The concept of peak oil, where the inaccessibility of remaining deposits ensures that extraction rates start an irreversible decline, has been the subject of regular debate for decades. Although that argument still hasn’t been settled,estimates range from the peak already having passed us to its arrival being 30 years in the future,having a better sense of when we’re likely to hit it could prove invaluable when it comes to planning our energy economy. The general concept of peaking has also been valuable, as it applies to just about any finite resource. A new analysis suggests that it may be valuable to consider applying it to a renewable resource as well: the planet’s water supply.
The analysis, performed by staff at the Pacific Institute, recognizes that there are some significant differences between petroleum and water. For oil, using it involves a chemical transformation that won’t be reversed except on geological time scales. Using water often leaves it in its native state, with a cycle that returns it to the environment in a geologic blink of an eye. Still, the authors make a compelling argument that, not only can there be a peak water, but the US passed this point around 1970, apparently without anyone noticing.
They make their case based on three ways in which water can run up against limits on its use. … “
Continue reading from Ars Technica by clicking here.
The Economist special report on water: For want of a drink: Finite, vital, much wanted, little understood, water looks unmanageable, but it needn’t be, argues John Grimond
Posted by: Maven on May 22, 2010 at 7:14 am
From the Economist.com, a special report on water:
“When the word water appears in print these days, crisis is rarely far behind. Water, it is said, is the new oil: a resource long squandered, now growing expensive and soon to be overwhelmed by insatiable demand. Aquifers are falling, glaciers vanishing, reservoirs drying up and rivers no longer flowing to the sea. Climate change threatens to make the problems worse. Everyone must use less water if famine, pestilence and mass migration are not to sweep the globe. As it is, wars are about to break out between countries squabbling over dams and rivers. If the apocalypse is still a little way off, it is only because the four horsemen and their steeds have stopped to search for something to drink.
The language is often overblown, and the remedies sometimes ill conceived, but the basic message is not wrong. Water is indeed scarce in many places, and will grow scarcer. Bringing supply and demand into equilibrium will be painful, and political disputes may increase in number and intensify in their capacity to cause trouble. To carry on with present practices would indeed be to invite disaster.
Why The difficulties start with the sheer number of people using the stuff. When, 60 years ago, the world's population was about 2.5 billion, worries about water supply affected relatively few people. Both drought and hunger existed, as they have throughout history, but most people could be fed without irrigated farming. Then the green revolution, in an inspired combination of new crop breeds, fertilisers and water, made possible a huge rise in the population. The number of people on Earth rose to 6 billion in 2000, nearly 7 billion today, and is heading for 9 billion in 2050. The area under irrigation has doubled and the amount of water drawn for farming has tripled. The proportion of people living in countries chronically short of water, which stood at 8% (500m) at the turn of the 21st century, is set to rise to 45% (4 billion) by 2050. And already 1 billion people go to bed hungry each night, partly for lack of water to grow food. … “
Continue reading this article from The Economist by clicking here.
Other segments to this special report:
Business begins to stir, but many water providers still have a long way to go: “Although water is a universal human requirement, the use people make of it varies hugely. The average Malian draws 4 cubic metres a year for domestic use, the average American 215. Include all uses, and the figures range from 20 cubic metres for the average Ugandan to over 5,000 for his Turkmenistani counterpart. The statistics can be misleading: in places where rain falls copiously and evenly from the skies, withdrawals will be small. Moreover, water-blessed countries have much less reason to be careful with their resources than the water-starved. Yet high use of water is not necessarily bad. It depends how it is employed, and whether it is naturally replaced. … ” Continue reading this segment at The Economist by clicking here.
A glass half empty: It won't fill up without lots of changes on the ground,and much greater restraint by users: “Can the world solve its water problems There is no reason in logic, physics or hydrogeology why it should not be able to do so. Most of the obstacles are political, although some are cultural, and none is helped by water's astonishing ability to repel or defy economic analysis. … ” Continue reading this segment at the Economist by clicking here.
Making farmers matter – and monitor, budget, manage, and prosper: “Of all the activities that need water, far and away the thirstiest is farming. Cut the use of irrigation water by 10%, it is said, and you would save more than is lost in evaporation by all other consumers. Yet farming is crucial. Not only does it provide the food that all mankind requires, but it is also a great engine of economic growth for the three-quarters of the world's poor who live in the countryside. Without water they may return to pastoralism,as some people already have in parts of the Sahel in Africa,or migrate, or starve. With water, they may fight their way out of poverty. … ” Continue reading this segment from The Economist by clicking here.
Trade and conserve: How to make tight supplies go further: “If most governments are bad at making wise investment decisions about water, that is largely because they are bad at evaluating the costs and benefits, and that in turn is at least partly because they find it hard to price water. Many find it hard even to measure. Yet you cannot manage what you cannot measure. … ” Continue reading this segment from The Economist by clicking here.
Enough is not enough: It must also be clean: “If water has the capacity to enhance life, its absence has the capacity to make it miserable. David Gray, a water practitioner who has served the World Bank in almost every river basin on the globe and is now a professor at Oxford, has a technique that makes the point. Every day he receives e-mails with water stories from newspapers round the world. By briefly displaying to an audience just one day's crop,including, say, drought in Australia, floods in Kenya, an empty dam in Pakistan, a toxic spill in the Yellow river and saltwater contamination in Haiti,he can soon show how water may dominate if not destroy lives, especially in poor countries. … ” Continue reading from The Economist by clicking here.
The ups and downs of dams: Small projects often give better returns: “THE trouble with water is that it is all politics, no economics. The costs of poor management are large: groundwater depletion takes 2.1% off Jordan's GDP; water pollution and scarcity knock 2.3% off China's; 11% of Kenya's was lost to flooding in 1997-98, and 16% to drought in the next two years. Rich countries build sewers, drains, dams, reservoirs, flood defences, irrigation canals and barrages to avoid such problems. Poor countries, with some exceptions, notably China, find large projects much more difficult. But at least large projects give politicians a monument to boast about. Small projects,weirs and wells and waterworks,have no allure for big-headed politicians. … ” Continue reading this segment from The Economist by clicking here.
To the last drop: How to avoid water wars: “SINCE men fight over land and oil and plenty of other things, it would be odd if they did not also fight over a commodity as precious and scarce as water. And they do. The Pacific Institute in California has drawn up a list of conflicts in which water has played a part. It starts with a legendary, Noah-and-the-flood-like episode about 3000BC in which the Sumerian god Ea punished the Earth with a storm, and ends, 202 incidents later, with clashes in Mumbai prompted by water rationing last year. Pundits delight in predicting the outbreak of water wars, and certainly water has sometimes been involved in military rows. But so far there have been no true water wars. … ” Continue reading this segment from The Economist by clicking here.
Bulk water exports prohibited under new U.S.-Canada border regulations
Posted by: Maven on May 14, 2010 at 7:29 amFrom the Vancouver Sun:
“OTTAWA Stronger protection against bulk water exports from rivers and streams that cross the U.S.-Canada border was announced Thursday by the federal government.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon cited the depletion of water in the once mighty Rio Grande River that crosses the U.S.-Mexico border at a news conference announcing the bill he tabled in the House of Commons.
“That water basin is on the point of being completely dried up and that is what we want to be able to avoid here,” he said at a news conference.
The bill would “plug the last remaining gap” in a ban against bulk water removal that is in place for the Great Lakes and other water that straddles the Canada-U.S. border and is covered by provincial law. The bill provides new powers of inspection and enforcement and fines of up to $6 million for corporate violations. The exception is to help forest fire fighting or other disasters in the United States.
“This important legislation makes it clear that we are not in the business of exporting our water,” Cannon said. “Canadian water is not a commodity. It is not for sale.” … “
Continue reading from the Vancouver Sun by clicking here.
RELATED: Is there a loophole for bottled water Yes, says one advocacy group who calls the legislation a first step but doesn’t go far enough: “Canada will continue to export water in bulk, just in small individual containers instead of giant containers.” Click here for this story from canada.com.
Private water suppliers poised to grow as demand set to surge; Global Water Intelligence analysts expect the water supply market to grow about 20% in the next five years
Posted by: Maven on April 29, 2010 at 8:48 pmFrom the Guardian.co.uk:
“Private companies are poised for a surge in demand to take over water supplies, despite widespread opposition to privatisation of what is seen as a life-giving public service.
Global Water Intelligence analysts expect the water supply market to grow about 20% in the next five years, and demand is especially strong in North Africa, the Middle East and China, GWI’s publisher Christopher Gasson told the Guardian.
Another big growth area is likely to be the US, where “hundreds” of public water authorities thought to be talking to private operators, said Dan McCarthy, president and CEO of the global water division of engineering group Black & Veatch.
Renewed growth is being driven by poor services and the need for huge investment to repair and expand supplies, which in a recession is even harder for governments and municipal authorities to fund, said Gasson. It is also encouraged by less historical opposition to private suppliers in much of the big-growth regions, and the continuing “marketisation” of China, he said. … “
Continue reading this article from the guardian.co.uk by clicking here.
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