Flooding and water scarcity ranked as top threat for UK

Published on 01/27/2012 in climate change, drought, floods and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: edieWater

“Water scarcity and flooding is likely to become the main problem for the UK in the future, which will need to adapt to increase its reliance, was the stark warning from the first comprehensive climate change risk study.

“As part of the assessment, 700 potential climate change impacts were investigated, with flooding ranked as the worst risk for the UK, closely followed by water shortages, soil erosion and prolonged heatwaves.

Flood risk is projected to increase significantly across the UK, with analysis for England and Wales showing unless plans to adapt to changing risks are implemented, that by the 2080s climate change and population growth could see damages to buildings and property reach between £2.1bn – £12bn, compared to current costs of £1.2bn.

Water quality is also predicted to be affected, as it depends on water volume and river flows to dilute pollutants. This, states the report is likely to increase water treatment costs and damage the local ecosystem.

“The CCRA also predicts increasing pressure on the UK’s water resources and warns that without action to improve water resources there could be major supply shortages by the 2050s in parts of the north, south and east of England, with the Thames River basin predicted to take the brunt of the drought.”

Read more: edieWater

Sami Oueida

No More Catfish in the Madeira?

Published on 01/27/2012 in aquatic ecosystems, dams, greenwashing, hydropower, peak water, policy, privatization, rivers, species extinction and water diversions. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Photo retrieved from: www.internationalrivers.org

“When the environmental license for the Santo Antônio Dam was approved against the findings of fish experts, Lula controversially claimed that the dams would not be stopped because of “some catfish.” Now, the catfish are disappearing.

The news is especially troubling only a few years after 11 tons of fish were destroyed during construction of a coffer dam. Meanwhile, construction of the Jirau Dam continues farther upstream; and if the government’s plans move forward to build a third dam on the Madeira River – the Ribeirão Dam – fish species may disappear from this majestic river at an even greater rate.

Earlier this year, Congress unilaterally proclaimed the Ribeirão Dam a “national priority,” despite the dam not appearing on any government plan. It is not mentioned in the Program to Accelerate Growth, nor in the Ten-Year Energy Plans for 2020, nor in the National Energy Plan for 2030. The project has not passed through the Ministry of Planning. And no economic feasibility study, no environmental impact assessment, and no indigenous action plan have ever been sent to IBAMA, and no prior consultations have ever been held. Every indication points to this third dam being a nice serving of pork barrel spending for theRaupp political family in Rondônia.

Will the catfish disappear entirely from the Madeira River? As long as Dilma’s authoritarian dam-building in the Amazon continues, chances are only getting worse.”

Read more: International Rivers

 

lily victoria

Afghan Olive Farms Waiting for Water

Published on 01/27/2012 in agriculture, dams, hydropower, management, policy, rivers, water shortage and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.ens-newswire.com

“We’re faced with a lack of water,” he said. “The problem is that the canal department is asking for both water and electricity at the same time – and we can’t satisfy both demands simultaneously.”

“The United States Agency for International Development said last year that it was refurbishing and modernizing the dam, where the turbine-driven generators were in poor condition and at risk of failing. The agency said it plans to finish the repair work by mid-2012.

But as Hezatullah, head of the Nangarhar Olive Factory, pointed out, the industry has declined not just because of water shortages, but also as a result of years of war and poor maintenance of farms.

There used to be 700,000 olive trees in the province, which borders on Pakistan, but three-quarters of them were destroyed by decades of war starting with the Soviet invasion of 1979, he said. The farms once employed 12,000 workers, but now run on a skeleton staff of 800.”

Read more: Environment News Service

 

lily victoria

Nuclear Power Plants Threaten Drinking Water for 2.3 Million Californians

Published on 01/25/2012 in management, nuclear power and tap water. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.lasmogtown.com

“San Diego is the 6th Largest Region in the Country to Have Drinking Water Sources Located Within 50 Miles of a Nuclear Plant

The drinking water for 2.3 million people in California could be at risk of radioactive contamination from a leak or accident at a local nuclear power plant, says a new study released today by the California Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and Environment California Research and Policy Center.

“The danger of nuclear power is too close to home. Here in California, the drinking water for 2.3 million people is too close to an active nuclear power plant,” said Emily Rusch, CALPIRG Education Fund State Director. “An accident or a leak could spew cancer-causing radioactive waste into our drinking water.”

The nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan last year drew a spotlight on the many risks associated with nuclear power. After the disaster, airborne radiation left areas around the plant uninhabitable, and even contaminated drinking water sources near Tokyo, 130 miles from the plant.

According to the new report, “Too Close to Home: Nuclear Power and the Threat to Drinking Water,” the drinking water for 2,295,738 San Diego area residents is within 50 miles of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station – the distance the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses to measure risk to food and water supplies. Another 66,450 Californians on the Central Coast depend on drinking water supplies within 50 miles of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant near San Luis Obispo.”

Read more: YubaNet.com

lily victoria

Sharing The Benefits Of Large Dams

Published on 01/25/2012 in dams, displacement of people, hydropower, management, peak water, policy, privatization and rivers. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.ghanaweb.com

“It’s been nearly 50 years since the Akosombo dam was built in Ghana in 1965, flooding the lands and homes of 80,000 people, creating the largest manmade lake in the world, and securing Ghana’s electricity supply.

Since then, west African countries have built more than 150 large dams. Like Akossombo, many have stimulated national development while also bringing considerable environmental and social challenges. Some local grievances have even passed down through the generations, clogging up government offices and courts with complaints over the way ageing dams were built.

Large dam construction largely went out of fashion among major donors after 1990, as global concern grew over local impacts. But the past decade has seen the World Bank and other major multilateral banks renew their support for large dams in the face of increasing energy and food demand. Can these projects avoid repeating history?”

Read more: China Dialogue

 

lily victoria

Wasting the Wastewater

Published on 01/24/2012 in contaminated water, dam removal, graywater and wastewater. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Wastewater treated with chlorine at a plant in Fort Worth. While the reuse of such water in industry and on golf courses has become familiar, scientists say that such recycling water will also be crucial to the drinking supply someday.

Retrieved from: NY Times

“Each day, American municipalities discharge enough treated wastewater into natural sources to fill Lake Champlain within six months. Growing pressure on water supplies and calls for updating the ancient subterranean piping infrastructure have brought new scrutiny to this step in the treatment process, which is labeled wasteful and unnecessary by a spectrum of voices.

“As the world enters the 21st century, the human community finds itself searching for new paradigms for water supply and management,” says a report released this month by the Water Science and Technology Board of the National Research Council, a division of the National Academy of Sciences. The report investigates the potential for establishing a more resilient national water supply through the direct recycling of municipal wastewater.

“Law and practice have always been that water goes back into a river or into groundwater or the ocean before it returns for further treatment,” said Brent Haddad, founder and director of the Center for integrated water research at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a member of the committee that wrote the report. The critical question, he said, is “whether that natural stage of treatment is actually an efficient stage of treatment.”

“Sixteen experts representing industry, government, and research fields in the social sciences and hard sciences collaborated over three years to produce the study, examining everything from pathogenic risks to public attitudes about reuse.

“The committee ultimately concluded that the reuse of municipal wastewater can safely and significantly increase the nation’s available water resources – potable and non-potable – without intermediate discharge into the natural environment. “The technology for treating wastewater is good enough that we don’t need that intervention,” Dr. Haddad said.”

Read more: NY Times

sammykayed

Drought, high feed costs prompt program to help Okla. sheriffs handle abandoned livestock

Published on 01/24/2012 in agriculture, drought, management and water shortage. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.newson6.com

“A lengthy drought that has scorched Oklahoma pastures and sent the price of hay skyrocketing has led to sharp spike in the number of cases of livestock being abandoned or neglected. While most of the cases involve horses, there also have been reports of malnourished goats and sheep, officials said.

“We are receiving many phone calls from people about starving animals,” said Dr. Carey Floyd, president of the Oklahoma Veterinary Medical Association. “People don’t have any hay, there is no pasture left. Some people are really struggling to properly care for the animals.”

Much of Oklahoma has been locked in a drought since October 2010 that intensified last year, when the state experienced its hottest summer ever recorded with a statewide average of 86.9 degrees. The price of hay has more than doubled since the same time last year, and many cattle producers sold their livestock because of a shortage of feed and water for their herds.”

Read more: The Republic

 

lily victoria

Looking At A New Strategy To Save The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Published on 01/24/2012 in agriculture, aquatic ecosystems, policy, rivers, tap water and water diversions. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Retrieved from: www.allamericanpatriots.com

“Water supply, flood control, and environmental management are fundamental challenges for the western United States. California’s unique development patterns, with nearly 20 million of its residents living in water starved southern California, has resulted in a system of water transfers and aqueduct systems that rely on water being pumped, collected and transferred from Northern California through an extensive and damaging pumping and aqueduct system.

The Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta (the Delta) is the heart of California’s water source and the center of the transfer system. The Delta is an 837,594 acres area where the Sacramento and San Joaquin River join before entering the San Francisco Bay and then the Pacific Ocean. Water is pumped from the Delta through a system of aqueducts to agricultural users in the San Joaquin Valley and urban centers of the San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles and other communities throughout southern California. Unsustainable pumping of vast amounts of water yearly from the Delta has caused the collapse of several fish populations and has forced a rethinking of the federal and state water policies.

United States federal and state river and water policies for the past 150 years have relied on maximizing conversions of wetlands for agricultural uses while placing a high priority on flood control on major rivers like the Mississippi, Missouri and Sacramento. As we move well into the 21st century the historic water policies of flood control and water exports have left the Delta facing an imminent collapse that threatens the massive California water transfers and the delta fisheries if immediate action is not taken. The effect of the collapse is potentially the loss of water to the 20 million California residences and the agricultural economy of the California San Joaquin Valley.”

Read more: Aquafornia

 

lily victoria

No Doubt Pakistan’s Water Crisis Is Predominantly Manmade

Published on 01/23/2012 in agriculture, drought, water rights and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Greater Kashmir

“Pakistan has in most areas of agriculture a monsoon climate, and there might be abundant rainfall during the wet season and then a very long dry season where crop production depends very heavily on irrigation water.

“Groundwater is a very important source of irrigation for farmers. Ground water is being over-pumped extensively in order to meet current demands for food production but if our demands exceed that renewable supply, then we must be in the situation that we might be over-pumping groundwater to satisfy the demand, or taking too much water from river basin systems, result in formation of salinity and barren land that in long run cause food scarcity. Over-pumping of groundwater for agriculture, industry or domestic use comes at a sharp ecological price. It disrupts the natural hydrologic cycle, causes Rivers and wetlands to dry up, the ground to collapse and fish and wildlife and trees to die.

“Water and agricultural sectors are likely to be the most sensitive to climate change. Fresh water availability is expected to be highly vulnerable to the anticipated climate change. While the frequency and severity of floods would eventually increase in river deltas. The arid and semi-arid regions could experience severe water stress.

Read more: Eurasia review

sammykayed

Morocco’s Berbers Had Water Management Sorted

Published on 01/23/2012 in dams, greenwashing, management, riparian zone, rivers and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.greenprophet.com

“These indigenous traditions have been falling apart since dam projects funded by the World Bank have disrupted local practices. “Now families are fighting over water, this was never the case in the past, our system was perfect, we don’t know why international organizations have come to help” Houssa’s mother said.

Water allocation methods

Water allocation methods used by the Berbers depend on two things: Land Tenure and Time. First Land Tenure is divided by elevation and the paths of springs. Land above the spring is used for seasonal grazing and land below for agriculture and personal use. And the organization of land-ownership is designated by tribe – so any water issues that arise are discussed between different tribes.

Second, Berbers allocate water by time, not quantity. This is true whether the allocation is between villages, between lineages (large extended family units), or between individual users. Careful allocation schedules are decided unanimously and set by days of the week.

So, three days for the upstream riparian and four for the downstream riparian, then by days between villages and finally hours between family lineages. This is because different times of the day have different evaporation rates throughout the year, so the schedule is methodologically designed to respect the natural water flow while ensuring fair allocation for all.”

Read more: Green Prophet

 

lily victoria