Archive for the 'world water supply' Category

Africa: U.S. Response to Future Water Crisis Takes Shape

Published on 05/11/2012 in climate change, hydrology, management, peak water, policy and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.africastories.org

“Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton requested the report and she named Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero to lead the U.S. response to the challenges outlined in the study.

Otero told the Washington audience that the first priority she and Clinton have identified is to help other nations develop their capacity in resources and expertise to cope with future water-scarcity problems. “We know that it is countries and communities that have to lead in securing their own water and in securing their own water future,” Otero said.

The United States must also work to increase international awareness of the potential for future water crises by increasing and better coordinating diplomacy. The United States will help developing countries better prepare for the challenges they’ll face, Otero said, and help them “to prioritize so that water and sanitation are part of their national plans, part of their budgets and part of their overall thinking.”

Otero said finding solutions to secure adequate water supplies for growth and development will require enormous levels of funding that the United States must help mobilize. The application of science and technology to the problem is an important part of the strategy.”

Read more: All Africa

 

lily victoria

Recipe For Safer Drinking Water? Add Sun, Salt And Lime

Published on 05/09/2012 in contaminated water, peak water, waterborne diseases and world water supply. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.npr.org

“In many developing countries, the only source of water is contaminated with viruses and bacteria. In fact, the United Nations estimates that 1 in 6 people don’t have access to enough fresh drinking water.

Pouring water into clear plastic bottles and placing them in the sun can kill disease causing organisms in about six hours. It’s a simple and cheap method that’s been around forever, and it helps. (Who says sun tea isn’t safe?)

But there’s a hitch – the water has to be clear enough for the sun’s rays to penetrate – and much of the world’s water supply is murky from the clay soils in riverbeds and lake bottoms that mix with the water. Enter the scientists.

“Basically, you need to be able to read a newspaper through it. That means it’s clear enough for the UV radiation to penetrate and kill the pathogens. If you can’t see through it, it just won’t work,” explains Joshua Pierce, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Michigan Tech.”

Read more: NPR

 

lily victoria

America is Not Immune to the Water Crisis

Published on 05/01/2012 in water shortage, water wars and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Retrieved from: IMDB

“In the U.S., we tend to think of “the water crisis” as a problem for other countries, but as we show in Last Call, we are not immune. By the interconnected nature of the resource, the crisis is global, its impacts domino-like. We shouldn’t feel insulated just because water flows freely from our taps.

“But we do feel insulated, don’t we? For a while I contemplated calling the film A River in Egypt, but I realized that the problem isn’t denial — which implies willful dismissal of facts — but ignorance. Water problems barely register on our list of concerns.

“I grew up in Northern California. We never had a lawn; we let the hillside go brown in drought years. We had a bucket in the shower to catch the water that came out before it got warm. In starting Last Call at the Oasis, I was somewhat smug in feeling that I knew something about water issues.

“I realize now that all I really knew was drought. I didn’t factor in climate change, groundwater depletion, contamination, outdated water laws, the battle between industry and the environment, etc., etc. All of which made this production a continually eye-opening experience for me. A sampling: we learned that there are estimates that that the aquifer in the Central Valley, which produces a quarter of our nation’s food, might be depleted in as little as sixty years. One third of U.S. counties face water shortages by 2050. And of the more than 80,000 chemicals used in the United States, many of which end up in our water supplies, only 5 are regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act. What’s going on is big, and it is crucial that we understand it. This is water — essential for all life. Could the stakes be any higher?”

Read more: Huffington post

sammykayed

In Liberia, Political Battles Center on Water Access

Published on 04/25/2012 in peak water, tap water, water shortage and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

“The Liberian government submitted information to the World Health Organization and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program that estimated 8 percent of households in urban areas have piped water and 88 percent have access to an improved water source. Living in the heart of the the Liberian capital, civilian Eugene Seoh should be one of the few Liberians who do have piped water. He does not.

“Theophilus Addey, the acting deputy national coordinator of the Liberia Reconstruction Development Committee, said these figures are just a guide for the government.

“Not only the numbers are questionable; the government is also making suspect claims about specific water access projects. The managing director of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation, Nortu Jappah, said in an interview in November that he and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had recently opened a water main to serve the string of neighborhoods along Somalia Drive. The area has not had piped water for more than two decades.

“Access to sanitation is very low — just 25 percent as of 2008, according to World Bank statistics. Civil society groups in Liberia argue that the current water situation is actually not much improved.

“In 2008, the Liberian government launched the Poverty Reduction Strategy, or PRS, to chart the nation’s course to development. Among other goals, the plan promised that access to water would double in four years.

Since then, little has been done to replace old infrastructure damaged during Liberia’s civil war, according to Silas Siakor, director of the Sustainable Development Initiative Liberia.”

Read More: PBS

Chippie Kislik

What happens when all the wells run dry?

Published on 04/09/2012 in drought, groundwater, peak water, policy, tap water and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: .

Retrieved from: www.theage.com.au

“From 2006 to 2011, they note, up to 60 per cent of Syria’s land experienced one of the worst droughts and the most severe set of crop failures in its history. The United Nations reported that more than 800,000 Syrians had their livelihoods wiped out by these droughts, and many were forced to move to the cities to find work – adding to the burdens of already incompetent government.

”If climate projections stay on their current path, the drought situation in North Africa and the Middle East is going to get progressively worse, and you will end up witnessing cycle after cycle of instability that may be the impetus for future authoritarian responses,” argues Femia.

An analysis by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published last October in the Journal of Climate, found that droughts in winter in the Middle East – when the region traditionally gets most of its rainfall to replenish aquifers – are increasing, and human-caused climate change is partly responsible.”

Read more: National Times

lily victoria

11 Rivers Forced Underground

Published on 04/01/2012 in contaminated water, dams, rivers, wastewater, water diversions, water technology and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Photo retrieved from: www.nationalgeographic.com

“Rivers are the lifeblood of many plant, animal, and human communities. Yet many of the world’s rivers have been dammed, degraded, polluted, and overdrawn at alarming rates.

Some of the world’s great rivers, from the Colorado to the Indus, don’t always reach their ends because people have diverted so much water for agriculture, industry, and municipal uses. Other rivers have been completely covered over by development, as people attempted to “tame” nature by ending flooding and maximizing usable land area.

But what happens to once-thriving freshwater ecosystems when the rivers they depend on are entombed in sewer pipes beneath layers of concrete and soil? Few species can make the transition to subterranean living. Ironically, it was often rivers and streams that attracted people in the first place, but those very sources of life can fall victim to the expanding concrete jungle.”

Read more: National Geographic

 

lily victoria

Why the Right to Water Is Under Attack

Published on 03/29/2012 in peak water, policy, tap water, water rights and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: .

 

Photo retrieved from: www.alternet.org

“It was less than two years ago, in the summer of 2010, that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution recognizing water as a human right. This was followed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UN HRC) adopting a resolution on “human rights and access to safe drinking water and sanitation,” which made these rights legally binding. The recognition of the right to water at these U.N. bodies, and the developments since, such as the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on right to water and the resolution by the World Health Assembly recognizing right to water, have helped place water rights on the global agenda.

These successes were partly the result of collective efforts of water justice activists over the last 10 years. IATP’s own advocacy on right to water was a direct response to the reference to water as a “need” [instead of a right], in the Ministerial Declaration of the 2nd World Water Forum in 2000.”

Read more: AlterNet

 

lily victoria

5 Deadly Threats to Our Precious Drinking Water Supply

Published on 03/22/2012 in contaminated water, peak water, policy, privatization, tap water, water shortage and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: .

 

Photo retrieved from: www.alternet.org

“Here in the US, clean, affordable, safe drinking water faces five threats:

1. Racial and Economic Inequalities

While an international law recognizes the human right to water, unfortunately there is no binding enforcement and in the US there are no laws guaranteeing that you’ll have clean water or that you’ll be protected from water shut-offs if you can’t afford it. One of the areas that has been hardest hit is Detroit, a city that is majority African American. The unemployment rate is 1 in 6 and in some neighborhoods as high as 50 percent. As a result, water use went down too — Detroit’s water utility supplied 20 percent less water in 2009 than it did in 2003.

Usually we think using less water is a good thing, but the city’s water utility saw the loss of water use as a loss of revenue, so they hiked rates. A community already hit hard struggled even more to keep up. In 2006, the number of people who had their water shut off reached 45,000. Unpaid water bills were added to property taxes, meaning that people who couldn’t pay risked losing not just access to clean water and sanitation, but their homes as well.”

Read more: AlterNet

 

lily victoria

Are We Running Out of Water?

Published on 03/19/2012 in aquatic ecosystems, climate change, contaminated water, drought, groundwater, hydrology, lakes, oceans, peak water, rivers, tap water, water shortage and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.nationalgeographic.com

“Early in 2001, the Rio Grande River failed to reach the Gulf of Mexico for the first time.

With that nefarious event the Rio Grande joined a growing list of once-mighty rivers that are running dry from overuse:  the Colorado River in the U.S., the Yaqui in Mexico, the Indus in Pakistan, the Ganges in Bangladesh, the Yellow and Tarim in China, and the Murray in Australia, along with many other rivers large and small.

Not surprisingly, fisheries in these once-bountiful rivers have crashed.  After all, fish do need water.

We’ve tapped underground water sources pretty heavily as well.  The water level in the Ogallala Aquifer in the Midwestern U.S. has dropped more than 150 feet in some places, leaving many farmers’ wells bone dry.

As water is sucked out of aquifers, the overlying soil and rock can compact or collapse into the dewatered void, causing tall buildings to teeter in Mexico City, automobiles to tumble into sinkholes in Florida, or swallowing tourists on the fringes of the shriveling Dead Sea in Israel and Jordan.”

Read more: National Geographic

 

lily victoria

Time to tackle water crisis, global forum told

Published on 03/15/2012 in climate change, displacement of people, greenwashing, management, peak water, privatization, solutions and outreach, water rights, water shortage, water wars and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Spx daily

“A global meeting on water opened in France on Monday with demands to provide billions of poor people with clean water and decent sanitation and address the spiralling demands of the future.

“The challenges are huge and the problems are deep-rooted,” French Prime Minister François Fillon said as he opened the sixth World Water Forum in the southern city of Marseille.

“The number of human beings who have no access to clean water is in the billions. Each year, we mourn millions of dead from the health risks that this causes. This situation is not acceptable — the world community must rise and tackle it.”

“As many as 20,000 participants from 140 countries are expected for the six-day event, including scores of ministers for the environment and water and a scattering of heads of state from francophone west Africa.

“Separately, a massive UN report, issued only once every three years, said water problems in many parts of the world were chronic.

“Without a crackdown on waste will worsen as demand for food rises and climate change intensifies, it said. “Pressures on freshwater are rising, from the expanding needs of agriculture, food production and energy consumption to pollution and the weaknesses of water management,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in the report.

“Climate change is a real and growing threat. Without good planning and adaptation, hundreds of millions of people are at risk of hunger, disease, energy shortages and poverty.”

“Demand for food will increase by some 70% by 2050, which will lead to a nearly 20% increase in global agricultural water consumption, the UN’s Fourth World Water Development Report said.

“Abstraction of aquifers has at least tripled in the past 50 years and now supplies almost half of all drinking water today. “In some hotspots, the availability of non-renewable groundwater resources has reached critical limits,” the report said.

“The report demanded an overhaul in the use of water, especially by curbing waste. Smarter irrigation, less thirsty crops and the use of “grey,” or used water, to flush toilets are among the options.”

Read more: Bworldonline

sammykayed