Tag Archive for 'water crisis'

Water shortage sparks ‘crisis’ in S. Sudan: Red Cross

Published on 09/20/2012 in contaminated water and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

“The lack of clean water in refugee camps in South Sudan has become a “major humanitarian crisis” with people exposed to diseases due to contamination, the Red Cross said Thursday.

“Severe water shortages in refugee camps close to the Sudanese border have contributed to a rise in mortality and malnutrition rates to alarming levels,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement.

“In response to the crisis, the organisation said it had launched a project to improve water access for some 37,000 people in the worst-hit camp, Yusuf Batil.

“The humanitarian situation in Yusuf Batil camp in particular is extremely worrying. Conditions are dire and survival remains a struggle,” Melker Mabeck, who heads the ICRC delegation in South Sudan, said in the statement.

“Owing to the lack of clean water, people are drinking contaminated surface water. Children are especially vulnerable to death from water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea,” he said, pointing out that the ICRC was expanding the camp’s water infrastructure and distributing buckets for water storage.”

Read more: AFP

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Water crisis to continue in Delhi after Haryana turns down plea

Published on 06/12/2012 in management, solutions and outreach and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Wall Street Journal

“The severe water crisis in the capital is likely to continue as Delhi government’s efforts to get additional water from neighbouring Haryana to ease the worsening situation did not yield any result.

“Several areas of Delhi have been facing severe water shortage for the last few weeks. The situation has deteriorated further in South Delhi on Saturday when a major pipeline broke down after an under-construction building fell on it.

“In a meeting on Sunday, Delhi Chief Secretary PK Tripathi had asked his Haryana counterpart PK Chaudhery to release more water to Delhi to address the problem of water shortage.

“Sources said Tripathi requested Chaudhery to provide additional water to Delhi apart from daily supply of 1,000 cusecs but the Haryana Chief Secretary turned down the request, saying his state was also facing the same situation.

“Haryana accuses Delhi of drawing more water than the allotted quantity from the Yamuna barrage for Haiderpur and Wazirabad water treatment plants while Delhi has charged the neighbouring state with not releasing the agreed volume of water.”

Read more: IBN live

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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

Water Risk Threatens Businesses, National Security

Published on 04/10/2012 in climate change, displacement of people, drought, floods and management. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Forbes

“One of climate change’s biggest impacts is on water systems. Unreliable water can impact both corporate bottom lines and jeopardize natural security, as two recent reports point out.

“Climate change is changing precipitation patterns and intensity, increasing the incidence of droughts, floods, and erosion. These changes are making water supply and quality more difficult to obtain, affecting runoff and soil moisture, increasing water temperatures, decreasing snowpack and lake and river ice, threatening fish and aquatic species, and allowing saltwater intrusion and sea level rise. These changes are difficult to plan for, as past water patterns can no longer be used to predict the future. That uncertainty is problematic for businesses and can cause political strife, but some states and regions are taking proactive steps to avoid water trouble and will therefore be more reliable places to do business.

“A recent report from the Natural Resources Defense Council ranked U.S. states based on how their governments are planning and preparing for the water–related impacts of a changing climate, including whether they have strategies to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution that contributes to climate change and whether they have adaptation plans for projected climate-related impacts. The report includes an interactive online map highlighting the unique water vulnerabilities each state faces and what each is doing — or not doing — to prepare. Climate modeling was drawn in part from a 2009 report (PDF) from the U.S. Global Change Research Program, but the NRDC report also considered state’s policies. It said:

“Some states are leading the way in preparing for water-related impacts with integrated and comprehensive preparedness plans that address all relevant water sectors and state agencies. Unfortunately, other states are lagging when it comes to consideration of potential climate change impacts — or have yet to formally address climate change preparedness at all.”

Read more: Forbes

sammykayed

The South Pacific’s water crisis And not a drop to drink

Published on 10/06/2011 in aquatic ecosystems, climate change, drought, oceans, peak water, water shortage and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Retrieved from: The Economist

“ONE canary in the climate-change coalmine may have just quietly fallen from her perch. The tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has declared a state of emergency after a fresh water shortage forced it to shutter its schools and hospitals and begin water rationing across the country. Observers blame the shortage on the changing weather patterns and rising sea levels associated with climate change—and warn they could be a sign of things to come for the whole region.

“Climate scientists have linked the episode to a weather event known as La Niña, which has brought with it a punishing drought. Families who already rely almost solely on rainwater have been rationed to two buckets per day. The Red Cross and the New Zealand Defence Force have flown in water and desalination machines, but even so the government warns that Tuvalu has less than five days’ drinking water left.

“Even worse: nearby Samoa, which has a population 15 times that of Tuvalu and Tokelau combined, has begun to ration water in parts of its territory for the same reasons. The freshwater crisis racking the region, which The Red Cross calls “dire, with rain not expected for the next couple of months”, shows no signs of abating and every indication of spreading throughout the region’s fragile eco-system.”

Read more: The Economist

 

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Water crisis pushes Israel to approve world’s 2nd-largest desalination plant

Published on 05/25/2011 in desalination, drought, management and water technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: merco press

“The Finance Ministry has approved the construction and operation of a desalination plant in Soreq in southern Israel. Officials said the facility would contain a capacity to produce 150 million cubic meters of drinking water per year, or the second largest desalination plant in the world.

“On completion of the plant, which is one of the world’s biggest desalination plants, the desalinated water will constitute over 65 percent of the economy’s domestic water consumption,” Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said. “This step will make a significant contribution to solving Israel’s water crisis.”

“On May 23, the ministry signed an agreement for the $400 million project with an Israeli-led joint venture, SDL. SDL was owned by Israel’s IDE Technologies and the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Water International Holdings, winners of a desalination tender.

“Officials said the desalination pant would be completed in 2013. They said the 100-dunam facility, designed to operate on reverse osmosis  technology, would be based on the so-called build-own-transfer model, designed to avoid government ownership. Investment in the project has included the European Union’s European Investment Bank.”

Read more: world tribune

sammykayed

Billion-plus people to lack water in 2050: study

Published on 03/29/2011 in climate change, displacement of people, drought, tap water, water shortage and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Photo retrieved from: cdn.wn.com

“More than one billion urban residents will face serious water shortages by 2050 as climate change worsens effects of urbanization, with Indian cities among the worst hit, a study said Monday.

“The shortage threatens sanitation in some of the world’s fastest-growing cities but also poses risks for wildlife if cities pump in water from outside, said the article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The study found that under current urbanization trends, by mid-century some 993 million city dwellers will live with less than 100 liters (26 gallons) each day of water each — roughly the amount that fills a personal bathtub — which authors considered the daily minimum.

“Adding on the impact of climate change, an additional 100 million people will lack what they need for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing and toilet use.

“”Don’t take the numbers as destiny. They’re a sign of a challenge,” said lead author Rob McDonald of The Nature Conservancy, a private environmental group based near Washington.

“”There are solutions to getting those billion people water. It’s just a sign that a lot more investment is going to be needed, either in infrastructure or in water use efficiency,” he said.”

Read more: Brisbane Times

jenna cavelle

“Hydro-diplomacy” needed to avert Arab water wars

Published on 03/20/2011 in climate change, drought, lakes, peak water, policy, rivers, water rights, water wars and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Photo retrieved from: worldlearningnow.files.wordpress.com

“The United Nations should promote “hydro-diplomacy” to defuse any tensions over water in regions like the Middle East and North Africa where scarce supplies have the potential to spark future conflicts, experts said on Sunday.

“They said the U.N. Security Council should work out ways to bolster cooperation over water in shared lakes or rivers, from the Mekong to the Nile, that are likely to come under pressure from a rising world population and climate change.

“The Middle East and North Africa are the regions most at risk of conflict over scarce water supplies, they said, but history shows “water wars” are very rare.

“”We think that water is an issue that would be a appropriate for the U.N. Security Council,” Zafar Adeel, chair of UN-Water, told Reuters ahead of a meeting of experts in Canada this week to discuss water and security.

“U.N. studies project that 30 nations will be “water scarce” in 2025, up from 20 in 1990. Eighteen of them are in the Middle East and North Africa, with Libya and Egypt among those added to the 1990 list that includes Israel and Somalia.”

Read more: Reuters Africa

jenna cavelle

Danger Pent Up Behind Aging Dams

Published on 02/21/2011 in dams, floods, lakes, levees and management. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

“Frank Brassell, owner of Nelda’s Diner in this town wedged between the slopes of the southern Sierra Nevada, knows his fate should Lake Isabella Dam, a mile up the road, suddenly fail when the lake is full.

“Frank Brassell, owner of Nelda’s Diner in this town wedged betweenthe slopes of the southern Sierra Nevada, knows his fate should Lake Isabella Dam, a mile up theroad, suddenly fail when the lake is full.

“Lake Isabella Dam is just one acute example of a widespread problem: Of the nation’s 85,000 dams, more than 4,400 are considered susceptible to failure, according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. But repairing all those dams would cost billions of dollars, and it is far from clear who would provide all the money in a recessionary era.

“Nationwide, the potential repair costs are staggering. A 2009 report by the state dam safety officials’ group put the cost of fixing the most critical dams — where failure could cause loss of life — at $16 billion over 12 years, with the total cost of rehabilitating all dams at $51 billion. But those figures do not include Lake Isabella and other dams among the approximately 3,000 that are owned by the federal government. The corps, for example, says that more than 300 of the roughly 700 dams it is responsible for need safety-related repairs, and estimates the total fix-up bill at about $20 billion.”

Read more: NYtimes

sammykayed

Water crisis by 2020: Experts tell conference that action to avert shortages is needed now

Published on 02/14/2011 in policy and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

“South Africa faces a water crisis and could start having critical shortages as early as 2020, experts told the inaugural South African Water and Energy Forum in Johannesburg.

“The forum’s two-day conference is being held at the Sandton Sun for local and international experts to deliberate on water and energy supply issues in South Africa and globally.

“Former Water Affairs director- general and visiting professor at the Wits University Graduate School of Public and Development Management Mike Muller told delegates that “a crisis is looming … If we don’t panic now and take action now, we will be in a crisis by 2020.”"

Read more: Times Live

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