Save and Manage the Water for Humans

Pictures of Terbala Dam and Chasma Barrage

2012-10-01T23:14:00.004-07:00

Terbala Reservior

Terbala Spillway

Terbala Lake

Sediment Boat

My Friends doing Sediment study of Terabla Reservior

Spillway

Chasma Barrage

other view of Chasma

Chasma

Indexing inhumanity, Indian style

2012-08-09T00:13:00.002-07:00

It took minutes for the top guns to swing into action when the Sensex fell by several hundred points. But no Minister came forward to calm the nation when India hit the 94th rank in the Global Hunger Index.

It all happened around the same time. The day the Sensex crossed 19,000, India clocked in 94th in the Global Hunger Index — behind Ethiopia. Both stories did make it to the front page (in one daily at least). But, of course, the GHI ranking was mostly buried inside or not carried at all that day. The joy over the stunning rise of the media’s most loved index held on for a bit the next day. The same day, India clocked in as the leading nation in the number of women dying in childbirth. In this list, the second, third and fourth worst countries put together just about matched India’s 1.17 lakh deaths of women in childbirth. This story appeared in single column just beneath the Sensex surge.

Next came the fall of several hundred points in the Sensex. That is, barely a couple of days later. It took minutes for the top guns to swing into action. Fingers were in every dyke. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram lost no time in reassuring worried investors via the media. Other top officials were all over television, doing the same. “FM soothes the Market’s nerves” ran the ticker. The barrage — both media and official — kept up through the day. The panels of experts convened to celebrate the 19K summit were reconvened to explain why they’d tripped off the cliff. They then droned on about the merits of P-Notes, regulation and the future. What stood out, of course, was the swiftness of both government and media response to each twitch in the index.

No Minister came forward to calm the nation when India hit the 94th rank in the Global Hunger Index. That’s out of 118 countries. The daily, DNA, though, did capture the essence of the story with its report: “Ethiopians manage hunger better than us.” For indeed, they do these days. At least by the measure of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Global Hunger Index. Ethiopia ranks a notch above us at 93. Draw the baseline anywhere in the 1990s, and you’ll find Ethiopia worked better at reducing hunger than we did. Pakistan ranks ahead of us, too, at 88. China logs in at 47. All our South Asian neighbours do better than us on this index, except Bangladesh. And who knows when it will overtake us? None of the countries boasts an economy growing at 9 per cent a year.

You’d think it was an issue worth some attention. But it was hard to find panels debating this on television. Or any editorials in the newspapers doing the same. No Ministers or top babus soothing the nerves of the hungry. No experts with furrowed brows warning that the trends could continue, even worsen.

The GHI is by no means the only measure of what’s happening. The United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organisation put it simply in 2006. Its State of Food Insecurity in the World report confirmed yet again that we have the largest number of undernourished people in the globe. The 2004 edition of the report had shown that India had added more people to the “newly hungry” in the planet than the rest of the world together. There, too, nations much worse off had done far better. Between the years 1995-97 and 2000-02, hunger grew in India at a time when it fell in Ethiopia.

There was also another link begging to be made. Not just between the Sensex and hunger stories. Let’s revert to the latest maternal mortality figures released by the WHO and others. Some 536,000 women died in childbirth in 2005. Of these, every fifth one of them, at least, was an Indian. That is, 117,000 of them. A total that could only be matched by Nigeria, Afghanistan and Congo together. Almost 99 per cent of all these deaths worldwide occurred in developing countries. Much of this, again, is amongst the poorer sections of the population.

If we were to look at specific groups or communities, this would be even clearer. Let alone on the hunger index, India’s rank in the U.N.’s Human Development Index is anyway dismal. There, at 126, we are below Bolivia, Guatemala and Gabon. Yet even that rank does not tell the full story. If we were to isolate the rich and the better off as a group, they might enter the top 10 nations. Efforts last year to look at adivasis as a group led pretty much in the reverse direction. One study found that if we were to derive the HDI for our tribes only, they would rank in the worst off 25 nations of the world.

That’s quite easy to believe. Canada has always been among the top 10 nations of the world in HDI rankings. In fact, it occupied the top slot for some years. Yet, a survey of its native or indigenous people towards the end of the last decade placed them at rank 63. That is, all those natives living on “reservations.” Across the world, tribal people mostly have a poor HDI profile.

And so it is in India, too, where they are pretty much at the bottom. The study that found their HDI to rank amongst the bottom 25 nations of the world, also found things to be worse by the region. The tribes of Orissa, it reports, fall below even the low end of the HDI of sub-Saharan African nations. This is by no means the only study to tell us how India’s tribes are doing. There are tons of official data to show us that in great detail. But there’s no rush to debate their survival in expert panels. They mostly get covered when they resist displacement. Often with loss of life. They make up just eight per cent of the population. But account for over 45 per cent of those losing their lands to projects.

The furore now on the import of wheat is welcome. At least the media have begun to look at the issue. But surely, it is also worth discussing how we came to import wheat in the first place. And how a nation with so many in hunger ended up exporting millions of tonnes of grain this decade. That too, at prices lower than those we offer to millions of poor people in this country.

New heights of misery

And no matter how the Sensex is doing, the misery index for the poor scales new heights in one sector after another. Health costs still mount. They push people into debt even faster than before. A study done for the WHO in six Indian States found that 16 per cent of households it looked at were pushed below the poverty line by heavy medical costs. Nearly 10,000 families from lower income groups were covered by the survey for the years 2002-05. Some 12 per cent had to sell their assets to meet health expenses. Over 43 per cent had to resort to loans for the same reasons.

Our answer to this has been: more of the same. More privatisation. Less and less of a public health system. In Mumbai, extortion by hospitals has become so frequent as to actually find mention in the media. But journalists do not get to make the link between the gutting of public services and the public’s misery. Much less can they track this in terms of private profiteering. That would go against the publication or channel’s stand of privatisation as a cure for all ills.

More than once this year, the Bombay High Court has warned hospitals against the cruel practice of holding back the body of a patient — demanding lakhs of rupees from the family before returning it. It still happens, though. Now even at government hospitals leased out to private managements. So a low income family is suddenly told it owes the hospital a huge sum of money. And that the body of its five-year-old girl will be released only when that sum is paid. A fine example of public-private partnership as it works today.

In fact, it would be good to devise a health index spanning the reform years. One that looks at how both rich and poor have done health-wise. How many years of life, for instance, are taken away from you by ill-health if you are one of India’s less well off citizens? In the world of the media, though, only one index matters: the Sensex. Watching which has spawned a whole little industry in itself. The numbers who pronounce on and debate it (in the media, anyway) are impressive. The oracles reading equity’s entrails for omens. Maybe we need a media relevance index. An MRI scan of mass-produced mediocrity.

11 Facts About Pollution in America

2012-08-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.
The Mississippi River – which drains the lands of nearly 40% of the continental United Sates – carries an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen pollution into the Gulf of Mexico each year. The resulting dead zone in the Gulf each summer is about the size of New Jersey.
1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into US waters annually.
Polluted drinking waters are a problem for about half of the world’s population. Each year there are about 250 million cases of water-based diseases, resulting in roughly 5 to 10 million deaths.
Vehicle exhaust contributes roughly 60% of all carbon monoxide emissions nationwide, and up to 95% in cities.
Large hog farms emit hydrogen sulfide, a gas that most often causes flu-like symptoms in humans, but at high concentrations can lead to brain damage.
Each year, U.S. factories spew 3 million tons of toxic chemicals into the air, land, and water.
In the U.S. 41% of all insecticides are used on corn. Of these, 80% are used to treat a pest that could be controlled simply by rotating a different crop for just one year.
Every year, one American produces over 3,285 pounds of hazardous waste.
Over 80% of items in landfills can be recycled, but they’re not.
Americans generate 30 billion foam cups, 220 million tires, and 1.8 billion disposable diapers every year.

General Knowledge

2012-07-29T06:16:00.002-07:00

The deepest cycling underwater is 66.5 m (218 ft 2.11 in) and was achieved by Vittorio Innocente (Italy) in Santa Margherita Ligure, Liguria, Italy, on 21 July 2008.

The border between Belgium and Netherlands goes through a restaurant in Baarle – Nassau

Skógafoss, Iceland
Skógafoss is a waterfall situated in the south ofIceland. It is one of the biggest waterfalls in the country with a width of 25 metres (82 feet) and a drop of 60 m (200 ft). Due to the amount ofspray the waterfall consistently produces, a single or double rainbow is normally visible on sunny days

The first law school in the world was built in Lebanon, in Downtown Beirut.

Claudia Mitchell - first woman to have a bionic arm -
a prosthetic limb that she controls with her mind.

WOW!!!.....Blue lagoon Galapagos island, Ecuador

Sink Holes←
In 2007, natural disasters create a depth of 300 feet
sinkhole swallowed a dozen homes in Guatemala–
killing 2 and causing thousands of people were
evacuated. The sinkhole was caused by rain and
underground waste stream.

Stone house in Portugal was built in 1973

The Three Sisters” - rock formation, Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia !!

Baatara gorge waterfall is a waterfall in the Tannourine, Lebanon.
The waterfall descends the Baatara Pothole, located on the Lebanon Mountain Trail. Discovered in 1952, the waterfall drops 255 m into a cave of jurassic limestone.
The cave is also known as the “Cave of the Three Bridges.”

Water Trivia Facts

2012-07-29T03:28:00.002-07:00

Only 3% of Earth’s water is fresh water.
97% of the water on Earth is salt water.
The water found at the Earth’s surface in lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, and swamps makes up only 0.3% of the world’s fresh water.
68.7% of the fresh water on Earth is trapped in glaciers.
30% of fresh water is in the ground.
1.7% of the world’s water is frozen and therefore unusable.
Water covers 70.9% of the Earth’s surface.
Water can dissolve more substances than any other liquid including sulfuric acid.
More than 25% of bottled water comes from a municipal water supply, the same place that tap water comes from.
A ten meter rise in sea levels due to melting glaciers would flood 25% of the population of the United States.
There is more fresh water in the atmosphere than in all of the rivers on the planet combined.
If all of the water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere fell at once, distributed evenly, it would only cover the earth with about an inch of water.
Water boils quicker in Denver, Colorado than in New York City.
Approximately 400 billion gallons of water are used in the United States per day.
Nearly one-half of the water used by Americans is used for thermoelectric power generation.
In one year, the average American residence uses over 100,000 gallons (indoors and outside).
It takes six and a half years for the average American residence to use the amount of water required to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool (660,000 gallons).
It takes seven and a half years for the average American residence to use the same amount of water that flows over the Niagara Falls in one second (750,000 gallons).
American residents use about 100 gallons of water per day.
Americans use more water each day by flushing the toilet than they do by showering or any other activity.
In 1900, 25,000 American’s died of typhoid. By 1960, thanks to the use of chlorine in water treatment, that number dropped to 20.
At 50 gallons per day, residential Europeans use about half of the water that residential Americans use.
Residents of sub-Saharan Africa use only 2-5 gallons of water per day.
The average faucet flows at a rate of 2 gallons per minute. You can save up to four gallons of water every morning by turning off the faucet while you brush your teeth.
Taking a bath requires up to 70 gallons of water. A five-minute shower uses only 10 to 25 gallons.
A running toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water per day.
The New York City water supply system leaks 36 million gallons per day.
If you drink your daily recommended 8 glasses of water per day from the tap, it will cost you about 50 cents per year. If you choose to drink it from water bottles, it can cost you up to $1,400 dollars.
There are approximately one million miles of water pipeline and aqueducts in the United States and Canada, enough to circle Earth 40 times.
The first water pipes in the US were made from wood (bored logs that were charred with fire).
The first municipal water filtration works opened in Paisley, Scotland in 1832
A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds.
A cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 pounds
An inch of water covering one acre (27,154 gallons) weighs 113 tons.
Water vaporizes at 212 degrees F, 100 degrees C.
It takes more water to manufacture a new car (39,090 gallons) than to fill an above ground swimming pool.
It takes more than ten gallons of water to produce one slice of bread.
Over 713 gallons of water go into the production of one cotton T-shirt.
1000 gallons of water are required to produce 1 gallon of milk.
Roughly 634 gallons of water go into the production of one hamburger.
Water is the only substance found on earth naturally in three forms: solid, liquid and gas.
At 1 drip per second, a faucet can leak 3,000 gallons per year.
Water makes up between 55-78% of a human’s body weight.

Water Pollution in India

2012-07-28T22:02:00.000-07:00

Water pollution is becoming a huge problem which is faced by all of the human existence and as well as by every wild life species. According to present scales for pollution of water, 10 to 15 billion pounds full of waste materials like garbage is threw in different seas and rivers of the entire world. Not only had this, now, as per the latest records for water pollution in India; had 20 billion gallons of drinking water pollution also dumped in running rivers and seas. Water pollution is associated with the contamination of water bodies like lake, river, ocean and groundwater. It occurs when various pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly in water bodies without adequate treatment of the harmful waste substance or without the removal of harmful waste compounds. Water is typically referred to as polluted when it is impaired by anthropogenic contaminants and either does not support a human use or undergoes a marked shift in its ability to support its constituent biotic communities, such as fish.

A small quantity of a toxic chemical may have little impact if it is spilled into the ocean from a ship. But the same amount of the same chemical can have a much bigger impact pumped into a lake or river, where there is less clean water to disperse it. Surface water and groundwater have often been studied and managed as separate resources, although they are interrelated. Sources of surface water pollution are generally grouped into two categories based on their origin. They are i) point- source and ii) non- point source. Point source pollution refers to contaminants that enter a waterway through a discrete conveyance, such as a pipe or ditch. It mainly includes waste coming out from factories, industries, sewage treatment and city drains. Non- point source pollution refers to diffuse contamination that does not originate from single discrete sources. NPS pollution is often the cumulative effect of small amounts of contaminants gathered from a large area. The leaching out of nitrogen compounds from agricultural land which has been fertilized is a typical example.

Water pollution is caused mainly by toxic pollutants, organic substances (entry of manure and sewage), and use of pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers in agriculture, allowing cattle to graze near waterways often results in washing away of organic ways, it can be contaminated by radioactive waste material, improper disposal of hazardous chemicals drain toxic chemicals into water bodies, mild acid and bases also contribute in water pollution. Pathogens also enter in water bodies and contaminate it. Organic compounds such as volatile organic compounds, detergents, food processing waste, petroleum and hydrocarbons also severely affect the environment. Inorganic compounds include acidity, ammonia and chemical waste and heavy metals such as lead etc.

DO YOU KNOW>Water pollution has been suggested that it is the leading worldwide cause of deaths and diseases, and that it accounts for the deaths of more than 14,000 people daily. An estimated 700 million Indians have no access to a proper toilet, and 1,000 Indian children die of diarrheal sickness every day. Some 90% of China's cities suffer from some degree of water pollution, and nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water. In addition to the acute problems of water pollution in developing countries, industrialized countries continue to struggle with pollution problems as well. In the most recent national report on water quality in the United States, 45 percent of assessed stream miles, 47 percent of assessed lake acres, and 32 percent of assessed bay and estuarine square miles were classified as polluted.

Water pollution has become indispensible part of our life and we can find its presence everywhere. It has many devastating effects on aquatic as well as on human life. It leads to eutrophication due to which marine life is severely affected. A number of waterborne diseases are produced by the pathogens present in polluted water, affecting humans and animals alike such as cholera or typhoid. Pollution affects the chemistry of water. The pollutants, including toxic chemicals, can alter the acidity, conductivity and temperature of water. As per the records, about 14000 people perish or incur various communicable diseases due to the consumption of contaminated drinking water. The concentration of bacteria and viruses in polluted water causes increase in solids suspended in the water body, which, in turn, leads to health problems. Marine life becomes deteriorated due to water pollution. Lethal killing of fish and aquatic plants in rivers, oceans and seas is an after effect of water contamination only. Diseases affecting the heart, poor circulation of blood and the nervous system and ailments like skin lesion, cholera and diarrhoea are often linked to the harmful effects of water pollution. Carcinogenic pollutants found in polluted water might cause cancer. Alteration in the chromosomal makeup of the future generation is foreseen, as a result of water pollution. Discharges from power stations reduce the availability of oxygen in the water body, in which they are dumped. The flora and fauna of rivers, sea and oceans is adversely affected by water pollution.

There are several steps that can be taken to help prevent water pollution from getting worse.

Water pollution can be prevented by conservation of soil as soil erosion is one of the biggest causes of water pollution today. When we take initiative to conserve soil, we also conserve water and water life. Planting vegetative covers, strict erosion management and implementing beneficial farming methods are just a few of the many possible approaches to soil conservation.
Utilization of a green infrastructure approach to improve stormwater management capacity throughout the system, and reduce the hydraulic overloading of the treatment plant is an effective way to conserve water.
Repairing and replacement of leaking and malfunctioning equipment should be done to ensure proper working of machines up to their potential.
Toxic chemicals should be properly disposed and there should be minimum use of volatile organic compounds (VOC).
Minimal use of plastics should be done in order to prevent fresh extraction and mining.
Awareness should be spread among the common people so that they can come forward to reduce water pollution.
Limited use of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides should be there in order to reduce the concentration of harmful pollutants in water sources.
Industrial waste should be treated properly before it is discharged to the water bodies.

These steps may not look so effective but when a millions of people develop into a concerned citizen then surely they would be able to achieve control over water pollution.

Effects of Marine Pollution

2012-07-28T21:58:00.004-07:00

The beauty of our earth is that its ecology is perfect for the growth and development of all forms of biological life. The major component of this ecology is land, air and water bodies of all kinds. Oceans make up the main part of water bodies on the earth and are also home to a large number and wide variety of species or life forms. Over the years and especially in modern times, surplus human activities have adversely affected the marine life. The most important ill effect has been pollution. Incidents of oil spills, industrial waste dumping, garbage disposal and accumulation of various toxic materials as wastes, from many processes has polluted almost all the major aquatic bodies around the globe.

Causes of Marine Pollution

Though, the causes of this serious state of marine bodies are many, there are those that stand out amongst the rest. Oil spills are becoming a major hazard as tankers and cargo ships discharge it either deliberately or accidentally. Poisonous materials like PCBs, mercury, PAHs and dioxins along with other radioactive wastes that are disposed into these bodies cause enormous marine pollution. In addition to these, the damage occurring due to the large scale and insensitive disposal of human wastes and sewage contents into oceans is unimaginable. Moreover, the dead organic matter that remains in the water causes further pollution that is very dangerous to the existing life forms.

Effects of Marine Pollution

The effects of the marine pollution are as huge and varied as the causes themselves. The oil pollution results in disruptions to the cycle of coral reefs, clogging of the gills of fishes thereby resulting in their death and hampering the process of photosynthesis of marine plants leading to their end. Oil pollution on a large scale also indirectly affects areas that may not have seen the spill. The disposal of toxic wastes has both direct and indirect effect on marine life and equally hazardous consequence on the human race as we are closely linked with aquatic life forms in many ways. Toxins along with garbage deplete the oxygen content of the water thus making it impossible for many life forms including bigger species like whales, dolphins, penguins, shark, iguana and seals to survive.

Some of these substances like the normal DDTs and pesticides accumulate in the fatty acids of animals and results in the failure of reproductive system of some of the species especially mammals. Apart from these, activities like farming, forestry and mining if not done with care lead to sediments being deposited in the waters and impacts adversely both plant as well as animal life in the oceans. Plastic debris, discarded fishing nets and other similar items that are there purely because of human negligence act as severe agents of marine pollution and have an effect that cannot be imagined unless witnessed. The large scale death of animals due to plastic consumption like the sea turtles who consume it thinking it to be jellyfish is an example.

The Water-Food-Energy Nexus

2012-07-28T20:35:00.003-07:00

Freshwater has been the constant and essential companion of homo sapiensthroughout our history. In modern times, we have risked even greater dependence by adopting means of wealth creation characterised by gargantuan thirst.

Industry accounts for 22% of freshwater use, the largest share of which is consumed by the energy sector. Water is used in great quantities for cooling in thermal and nuclear power generation, as well as in the extraction of coal and oil. Protests against new fossil fuel technologies such as gas fracking and oil sands are inspired in part by fears of wastage and pollution of water.

Although the relative needs of agriculture vary widely – from just 3% in the UK to 83% in India – this sector currently accounts for the largest global share of freshwater at about 70%. The dynamic expansion of food production in Asia over the last 40 years – often described as the “green revolution” - has been achieved through modern farming methods which require high input of water.

...and modern: Eggborough cooling towers

Households consume the remaining small share of 8% but demand the highest quality standards for safe drinking. Despite considerable humanitarian endeavour over the last three decades, almost 900 million people continue to lack access to safe water.

The close dependence of industry and agriculture on freshwater ensures that any scarcity is likely to impose upward pressure on food and energy prices. This is the scenario that strikes fear into political leaders struggling to restore economic health. Prudent stewardship of the water cycle is nevertheless a virtue honoured more in the breach than in the observance.

News headlines provide constant reminders of this failing. The drought in the Horn of Africa demands emergency food aid for over 12 million people and has led to the first UN declaration of famine in over 20 years.
Water Cycle

Our planet is a miserly distributor of freshwater. Most water is rendered useless to humanity by dilution with salt in the ocean. Only 2.5% is available as freshwater, of which two thirds is locked up in ice and snow.

Kuang Xi Waterfall

The water cycle is driven by evaporation from land and sea, condensing into clouds which have the potential for precipitation as rain. Again, nature is unkind in depositing almost 80% of rain over the sea.

Of the rain that falls over land, only 40% finds its way as “blue water” into aquifers, lakes and rivers which are accessible supply sources. The “green water” balance is absorbed by the land, of great potential value to agriculture but notoriously fickle for that purpose in volume, timing, intensity and location.

Thanks to this natural cycle, water is a renewable source of energy and life. However, unlike other renewable resources such as sun, wind and tide, freshwater is not plentiful. It is a finite resource.

The current global per capita availability of freshwater from rivers, lakes, aquifers and rainfall averages a potentially healthy 6,000 cubic metres per annum. Availability of 1,000 cubic metres per annum within a country or region is regarded as sufficient to meet the needs of households, agriculture, industry - and to sustain local ecosystems.

A state of water scarcity exists below that threshold. Below 1,700 cubic metres, short term periods of "water stress" may be experienced.

Average annual consumption in the US is just under 3,000 cubic metres; in Syria and Jordan, availability is falling towards 500 cubic metres; in Yemen the figure is now below 200.

Freshwater is very unevenly distributed and scarcity is normally assessed within regions or individual river basins. “Water security”, the inverse of scarcity, implies consistent and affordable access to unpolluted freshwater for all categories of user.
Causes of Water Scarcity

Unsustainable extraction of freshwater and other human interference with the water cycle are the immediate causes of water scarcity within a river basin.

Sahito Banbhro tubewell, Pakistan

Over-extraction has its most straightforward manifestation in the level of aquifers, underground reserves charged by the passage of water through soil and rocks. If withdrawals exceed the natural rate of recharge, the level of an aquifer will fall, eventually drying up altogether. In parts of India, the water table is believed to have fallen more than 300 metres.

Human intervention which degrades the quantity and quality of the natural supply of freshwater occurs in three principal ways.

Firstly, there are 48,000 large dams in place around the world, with many more under construction. Dams alter the natural flow of a river, often improving water and energy security for some, at the expense of others.

Secondly, soil moisture is lost in land degradation that results from poor farming practices and deforestation. And thirdly, surface waters are polluted by run-off of chemicals used in farming and by untreated industrial and household wastewater in cities. This is an acute problem in less developed countries where environmental and sanitation regulations remain inadequate.

In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, there is an additional category of “economic” water scarcity which is caused by too little human intervention. This occurs when natural supplies are sufficient to meet demand but fail to reach users due to shortcomings in distribution or storage infrastructure.
Environmental Limits

Disruption of the water cycle has potentially serious environmental side effects. Cities are known to be sinking as aquifers become empty. This factor was one cause of the serious flooding in Bangkok towards the end of 2011. In coastal regions, depleted aquifers increase the risk of saline intrusion.

Agro-chemical pollution through run-off of nitrates and phosphates causes eutrophication, the excessive growth of algae whose eventual decomposition removes oxygen from the water, killing the aquatic ecosystem.

A combination of dams, drought and over-extraction can restrict the environmental flow of the river to the extent that it fails to complete its normal journey to the sea.

Murray-Darling River, Australia/Neil Saunders

A quarter of the world’s rivers suffer this fate. Important examples include the Yellow River in China and the Murray-Darling River in Australia. The rich ecosystem of the deltas are at risk.

“Global freshwater use” is listed as one of nine planetary boundaries in the influential 2009 study published by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. “These can trigger abrupt system state change when critical thresholds have been crossed,” warns the report.

An example might be Lake Chad. Misguided governance of the natural cycle of the Lake led to its area of water collapsing by 90% in the space of 30 years, affecting 20 million people.
Future Demand

The underlying drivers for continued strong demand for freshwater are population growth and rising incomes.

Precious water resource, Morocco

World population is projected to grow from 7.0 billion to 9.3 billion by 2050. Rising living standards will demand higher volume of household water use, together with richer diets and more consumer goods. All of these changes drive water consumption.

Most of the population growth will occur in the cities of developing countries, many of which are already logistically overwhelmed by growth and unregulated slum development. Whilst cities were often founded in proximity to good freshwater supplies, the benevolence of nature rarely extends to megacity concentrations of over ten million people.

In addition to safe drinking water and sanitation, the rising pressure on freshwater will be felt most acutely in the energy and food sectors.

The latter is already in crisis, with almost a billion people experiencing hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that global food production must rise by 70% by 2050.

World primary energy demand will increase by 36% between 2008 and 2035, according to the International Energy Agency. Despite the emergence of renewable energy sources, dependence on traditional water-intensive mining and power generation is projected to rise in coming years.

The cumulative effect of these demand drivers will lift global demand for freshwater by 53% by 2030, according to the 2030 Water Resources Group, a consortium of private sector interests supported by the World Bank. One third of the global population, mostly in developing countries, will live in regions where demand for water exceeds supply by more than 50%.

Climate Change

With projections of supply and demand for freshwater veering off in opposite directions, global warming represents the worst possible intervention. Rising planetary temperatures will accelerate the pump of the water cycle through faster evaporation from land and sea into a warmer atmosphere.

House buried by sand in Mauritania

The implications for rainfall are of course the subject of intensive research. There is broad agreement that monsoon patterns will change in timing and intensity, that arid and semi-arid regions will become drier, and that extremes of drought and flooding will become more frequent. Rising sea levels will aggravate the problem of groundwater salinity.

Much uncertainty remains, especially in focusing predictions on national or regional areas that match the scope of policy response. And the effect on the El Nino and La Nina climate phenomena remains unclear.

Even where predictions of rainfall trends are confident, there is insufficient understanding of the mechanics of run-off and groundwater recharge to fully grasp the implications. This same is true for the consequences of the melting of the world’s glaciers which together account for 40% of global irrigation. The net impact on crop yields and soil conservation is also uncertain.

Water scarcity therefore presents policymakers with a perfect storm of known and “known unknown” threats. But hesitation wins no sympathy in nature. The 2011 emergency water relief for the Pacific island of Tuvalu delivered a preview of water scarcity in a warming world.
Practical Solutions

Most of the world’s poor are dependent on small farms in developing countries, inadequately equipped to respond to water problems. This is where sustainable solutions are most needed and are most challenging.

Drip irrigation in Niger

In Asia the tasks are to reduce demand for irrigation and to restore water tables. Most irrigation is currently performed by indiscriminate flooding of fields, highly inefficient and wasteful.Modern drip irrigation technologycan reduce water use by around 50% and increase yields through its targeted application.

Underground aquifers are by nature ideal for adaptation to variable rainfall. Groundwater recharge can be revived by maintenance of neglected storage tanks and drainage, supported by simple rainwater harvesting technologies.

In sub-Saharan Africa the problems are very different. Nearly all of the farming is rainfed but only 4% of rainfall is captured for the purpose. Government and donors are under considerable pressure to reverse their long term neglect of this sector of agriculture.

Integrated programmes of land and water management would upgrade farmers' awareness of techniques to conserve soil moisture and structure. Selection of diversified and drought-tolerant crops represents basic risk management.

In view of the uncertain effects of climate change at local levels, most climate adaptation strategies will focus on steps that are consistent anyway with establishing greater resilience to variable rainfall.
Theoretical Solutions

Richer countries can in theory contribute to management of water scarcity by leveraging the economic tools of modern consumer societies.

Virtual water ready for export, South Australia

Measurement of water consumed throughout the manufacturing supply chain has provided an invaluable starting point for raising awareness amongst corporations and consumers alike. The figures are startling: 140 litres of freshwater are required for a single cup of coffee, 6,000 litres for a pair of denim jeans and more than 15,000 litres for a kilo of beef.

This invisible input has become known as “virtual water”, a concept especially useful for illustrating the movement of water between countries in traded goods. The methodology can also be aggregated to quantify the water footprint of individuals and businesses.

These ideas have inspired economists to suggest replicating the familiar model for mitigating carbon dioxide emissions. This would involve a global system for countries and businesses to trade the right to consume water. Informed choices by individual consumers would be enabled by labelling retail goods with their water footprint.

These proposals remain on the drawing board. Unlike carbon dioxide which has the same environmental consequences regardless of where it is emitted, the impact of water consumption varies widely according to its local availability.

Failure to price water as a scarce environmental resource is one of the fault lines of modern market economics. The consequences of the green revolution in Asia were exacerbated by allowing farmers unlimited free access to water. The world’s largest exporters of beef and manufactured goods, Australia and China respectively, are countries which experience serious water scarcity.
Governance Issues

Reconciling the demands of competing users of water is especially challenging where responsibilities are fragmented between different government departments.

Governments are encouraged to focus accountability for coordinating the water implications of goals for poverty reduction, food security and energy security. The demanding ideal of pulling together both human and environmental needs is often described as “integrated water resources management.”

Poor governance standards in many developing countries can nevertheless enable powerful interests to gain disproportionate access to scarce water resources. An extreme example is the phenomenon known as “land-grabbing”.

The acquisition of agricultural land in developing countries is being pursued by foreign investors and by wealthy governments seeking to overcome their own food and water insecurity. Displacement of the poor from land on which they have enjoyed customary use too often equates with the loss of water rights.

Governments are being reminded of their obligations to protect access to water for all citizens. A resolution passed by the UN General Assembly in July 2010 recognises “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right.”

At international level, there is a governance vacuum on water scarcity. UN Water is not an implementing agency – its role is to strengthen coordination and coherence among other UN entities dealing with freshwater.

There is no UN Convention to tackle water scarcity in parallel with those for climate change, biodiversity and desertification. A 2011 meeting of the InterAction Council, the group of former world leaders, deplored that "international water leadership is virtually nonexistent."

Conflict Prevention

History is replete with water conflict, from squabbles between neighbouring farms to wars decided by cutting off or poisoning a water supply.

Deceptive calm on the Nile at Aswan

Fear of water wars pervades the modern era, more so perhaps than is justified by events. The ingredients are certainly there – the mega-dam technology to deny supplies to downstream countries, the location of major rivers in regions already convulsed by water scarcity and military tension.

The Middle East and North Africa region is the particular focus of concern. The River Jordan supplies water to Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jordan and Syria – whose poor inter-relations in any event provoke a high state of military readiness.

Management of a transboundary river is a zero sum game; if one country gains in distribution rights, another loses. No fewer than nine countries share the resources of the River Nile and they are currently in dispute. The two major users, Egypt and Sudan, are refusing to sign the Entebbe Agreement, a set of new regulations which would reduce their current allocations.

There is nothing new about such disputes and water conflict resolution mechanisms are commonplace around the world.

In Southeast Asia, the Mekong River Commission is an inter-governmental agency formed by the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam to further their interests of shared water resources of the Mekong River. The Commission maintains dialogue with China whose 21 dams on the upper Mekong are the cause of considerable anxiety.

15 Facts About China That Will Blow Your Mind

2012-07-24T21:25:00.004-07:00

By 2025, China will build TEN New York-sized cities

“[By 2025,] 40 billion square meters of floor space will be built — in five million buildings. 50,000 of these buildings could be skyscrapers — the equivalent of ten New York Cities.”

By 2030, China will add more new city-dwellers than the entire U.S. population.

“[By 2030] China’s cities will have added 350 million people—more than the entire population of the United States today.”

China already consumes twice as much steel as the US, Europe and Japan combined.

China is the steel market. Even in 2010, as developed nation steel demand is expected to rebound, Chinese steel demand will still dwarf all other major economies. This also means that China drives the seaborne iron ore and coking coal markets as well, as these commodities are key ingredients in steel.

If the Chinese, one day, use as much oil per person as Americans, then the world will need seven more Saudi Arabias to meet their demand.

There are already more Christians in China than Italy, and China is on track to become the largest center of Christianity in the world.

Due to the extremely rapid expansion of Christianity in China, there are now an estimated 54 million Christians in the country comprised of about 40 million Protestants and 14 million Catholics. Meanwhile, Italy has just 60 million people in total, of which only 79% are Christian these days. Which means Italy has 47.4 million Christians, a full 12% less than China. It’s partly because 16% of Italians are now irreligious. Moreover, China’s Christian population is set to grow far more rapidly than Italy’s, or even much of the world’s even.

“…is not going to stop China from soon becoming home to the largest Christian population on the globe, says the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in an excellent and well-balanced article he recently wrote for the Great Britain-China Centre.”

Chinese are far more likely to believe in evolution than Americans.

“Only Russia (48%), USA (42%), South Africa (41%) and Egypt (25%) remained sceptical about the scientific evidence that exists to support Darwin’s theory. The results also show that a significant proportion of those people surveyed in the USA, South Africa and India (43%) believe that all life on Earth, including human life, has always existed in its current form. In all other countries, people in China (74%), Mexico (69%), Argentina (68%), Great Britain (63%) Russia, Spain (56%), and Egypt (52%) were of the view that more people thought that life on Earth, including human life, evolved over time either by a process guided by God or as a result of natural selection in which no God played a part.”

Chinese internet users are five times as likely to have blogs as Americans.

Yet these prolific bloggers are under the watchful eye of an internet police army:

“Although the existence of an internet police force – estimated at more than 30,000 – has been known for some time, attention has previously focused on their work as censors and monitors. Countless critical comments appear on bulletin boards of major portals such as Sohu and Sina only to be erased minutes, or sometimes just seconds, later. In the most recent case, all postings that blamed corrupt local officials or slow-moving police for the deaths of 88 children in floods last Friday were removed almost as soon as they appeared.”

China has 150% more soldiers than America does, plus a high tech ‘Kill Weapon’ weapon the U.S. can’t deal with.

China has about 3.4 million active military personnel compared to America’s 1.4 million. Moreover, in some key spaces, China might even have a tech advantage:

“After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a “kill weapon” developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers.

“The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing the Chinese the capability of destroying a U.S. supercarrier in one strike. Because the missile employs a complex guidance system, low radar signature and a maneuverability that makes its flight path unpredictable, the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased. It is estimated that the missile can travel at mach 10 and reach its maximum range of 2000km in less than 12 minutes.“

“If operational as is believed, the system marks the first time a ballistic missile has been successfully developed to attack vessels at sea. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.”

China still hasn’t rid itself of Europe’s medieval plague.

“[2009:] China has ended a quarantine blockade around a remote northwestern town hit by pneumonic plague, Xinhua news agency reported late on Saturday.

“The outbreak of the highly infectious disease killed three villagers around Ziketan Town in Qinghai province, Xinhua reported. But with no new infections reported for over a week, authorities decided to lift the blockade on the remote town of 10,000 in a heavily ethnic Tibetan area, Xinhua reported. China experiences sporadic outbreaks of the plague, which is typically spread by rodents and fleas and can pass easily between people.”

Some even suspect Chinese animal markets to be breeding grounds for new killer bugs.

“We face similar threats from other viruses and such epidemics can happen because we continue to have very crowded markets in China,” said Lo Wing-lok, an infectious disease expert in Hong Kong.

40% of Chinese small businesses went bust or almost went bust during the U.S. financial crisis.

“According to a report issued last week by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 20 per cent of small businesses had crashed and another 20 per cent went “to the brink of bankruptcy” during the climax of the global financial crisis from October 2008 to March last year.

“According to my research, to date, most of the 20 per cent on the brink of failure have been revived thanks to the recovering economy,” said Chen Naixing, economist and director of the academy’s small business research centre.”

China executes three times as many people as the rest of the world COMBINED… and uses mobile execution vans for efficiency.

“[China carries out] almost three times as many as the rest of the world put together, according to the most conservative estimate by Amnesty International. In 2008, the group confirmed 1,718 executions through news reports and public documents, but many others are not reported. Some analysts say the figure may be above 6,000. The exact number is a state secret.”

China averages 274 protests PER DAY.

“Although there are an estimated 100,000 mass protests in China each year, the vast majority occur in the countryside among desperate and angry peasants, and are quickly suppressed and censored.”

When you buy Chinese stocks, you are basically financing the Chinese government. Eight of Shanghai’s top ten stocks are state-controlled arms of the government.

Eight of the ten largest stocks on the Shanghai Stock Exchange are nothing but state-controlled companies:

PetroChina (PTR 121.75 ↓-1.30%)
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (3988 2.83↑0.00%)
Sinopec (SNP 88.00 ↓-0.72%)
Bank of China
China Shenhua Energy Company (1088 27.05 ↑0.00%)
China Life Insurance Company (LFC 40.09 ↓-0.45%)
Bank of Communications (3328 4.87 ↑0.00%)

50% of counterfeit goods come from China.

“China was the main source country for [intellectual property rights] infringing articles with 54% of the total amount.”

“CD/DVD was the top category of articles detained with a total amount of 79 million, which accounted for 44% of the entire amount, followed by cigarettes (23%) and clothing and accessories (10%).”

The majority of Chinese drink polluted water.

China has 20% of the world’s population but only 7% of global water resources. To make matters worse, 90% of cities’ groundwater and 75% of rivers and lakes are polluted according to the World Bank. This means that 700 million people drink contaminated water every day.

Bonus: Chinese GDP could overtake the U.S. as soon as the early 2020s.

“China’s growth will be underpinned by a rapid expansion in emerging market economies, which will account for about 70% of global GDP growth in the coming decade, Deutsche Bank (DB 28.17 ↓-2.05%)‘s Chief Economist for Greater China, Jun Ma, told an investment conference in Hong Kong,”

“By the early 2020s, China will over[take] the U.S. in terms of GDP, Ma said, noting the forecast is dramatically stepped-up from his views two years earlier.” ‘”China’s nominal GDP growth could surpass that of the United States within ten years, a period which will likely be accompanied by a gradual appreciation of the yuan,” Ma said.’

California's Contaminated Groundwater

2012-07-24T00:13:00.002-07:00

Beneath the surface of the earth lies a vast body of water. It does not exist in a large underground lake or a flowing underground stream but rather as tiny droplets of water, interspersed among the grains of soil and rock that we commonly picture when imagining the world underground. Nevertheless, the aggregate volume of those tiny water droplets is greater than the volume of all the lakes and rivers of the world combined. In fact, the volume of groundwater is estimated to be more than 30 times the combined volume of all fresh-water lakes in the world and more than 3,000 times the combined volume of all the world's streams.^[1] In California alone, current supplies of usable groundwater are estimated at about 250 million acre-feet six times the volume of all of the state's surface water reservoirs combined.

For more than 100 years, groundwater has provided a substantial and essential resource for California's agriculture, its industries, and its cities. It was not long after statehood in 1850 that California's residents began building pumps to extract this plentiful resource from the subsurface. The scarcity and seasonal availability of surface water, especially in the southern half of the state, have caused Californians to turn time and time again to the state's groundwater supply.

Indisputably, the availability -- and, more importantly, the deficiency -- of all forms of freshwater have substantially influenced California's history and development. In fact, water is widely considered the single most significant natural resource affecting the growth of the state.^[4] Given the arid climate that pervades most of the southern half of the state and the limited supply of running water, legendary political and economic battles occurred over access to the waters of the Mono Basin, the San Joaquin River, the Owens Valley, the Colorado River, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta.

Yet despite their importance, these surface water bodies are only part of the water picture in California. Between 25 and 40 percent of California's water supply in an average year comes not from surface streams or reservoirs but rather from beneath the ground. That figure can be as high as two thirds in critically dry years.In fact, California uses more groundwater than does any other state. Californians extract an average of 14.5 billion gallons of groundwater every day -- nearly twice as much as Texas, the second-ranked state.

Fifty percent of California's population -- some 16 million people -- depends on groundwater for its drinking water supplies.But of course, groundwater is used for much more than just drinking water. California also leads the nation in the number of agricultural irrigation wells, with more than 71,000.In the Lower Sacramento River Valley alone, approximately 750,000 acres of prime agricultural land are irrigated, at least in part, by groundwater. Indeed, many areas of the state rely exclusively on groundwater for their water supplies.In the lower Sacramento Valley, for example, approximately one million people rely on groundwater to supply all of their water needs.^[14]

For all of these reasons, the California Department of Water Resources has concluded that water from California's groundwater basins "has been the most important single resource contributing to the present development of the state's economy. Yet despite the importance of this resource, until relatively recently groundwater never received a degree of attention or protection commensurate with its value to society. Part of that failure may be due to ignorance. Until recently, groundwater was believed to be both naturally pristine and immune from contamination by surface activities.

We now understand that the quality of the water stored underground in aquifers (the geological formations that hold groundwater) is fragile. Groundwater resources can be effectively diminished if they become contaminated to such a degree that the water remaining in the aquifers is rendered unusable -- or requires expensive treatment in order to be made usable. Technological advances continue to make treatment a more viable option and may eventually permit the use of once-abandoned groundwater reserves, as we learn to remove more types of contaminants and at lower costs. However, at least for the foreseeable future, true groundwater remediation is generally a time-consuming and costly process.

Yet without remediation, most forms of contamination will persist and may even worsen. Unlike an aquifer suffering from depletion, which may rebound naturally during the next wet season without human intervention, a contaminated aquifer may remain contaminated (depending on the nature of the contaminants) for hundreds, or even thousands, of years. Furthermore, contaminants will inevitably spread -- albeit very slowly -- within any given groundwater basin. Finally, some lag time inevitably exists between the contamination of water and the discovery of that contamination, often with some further delay before the use of the contaminated water is terminated. Thus, contamination not only results in a reduction in the amount of immediately usable water, but may also result in human exposure to hazardous levels of contaminants.

For these reasons, the contamination of our groundwater resources is a serious, long-term threat to the viability of the resource in California, a state that relies on its groundwater for many purposes. Understanding the full extent of the problem, and generating reliable information on trends that can inform policy and resource allocation decisions, are the best, and indeed, most basic, approaches to safeguarding this natural resource. Surprisingly, the information that is available about the quality of groundwater in California, as well as water quality trends, is extremely limited -- and often unreliable. Perhaps not so surprisingly, existing information, including some of the most reliable data available, paints a picture of widespread groundwater contamination in California.

What Do Existing Statewide Data Tell Us?

The primary state assessment mechanism for determining the condition of the state's groundwater resources is a report produced by the State Water Resources Control Board, and updated every two years, known as the "305(b) Report. The most recent edition suggests that more than one third of the areal extent of groundwater in the state (a two-dimensional measurement of the surface area of the land under which groundwater basins are located) is contaminated to such a degree that it cannot safely be used for all of the purposes the state has designated as appropriate and desirable. According to the year 2000 update of the 305(b) Report, each of the five most prevalent and harmful classes of contaminants independentlycontributes to the impairment of more than 15 percent of the groundwater assessed in the state, as measured by surface area.Furthermore, the causes of this contamination are many and varied. Several major sources and activities continue to contribute to groundwater pollution, including septic systems, landfills, leaking underground storage tanks, and agricultural operations.

While existing data paint a picture of a significantly degraded natural resource, the incomplete and often fundamentally unreliable nature of this information is an equally significant problem. NRDC's investigation revealed that the 305(b) Report, for example, although ostensibly the most comprehensive and thorough analysis of the state's groundwater basins, is so seriously flawed that its groundwater data is of questionable value. The problems in the 305(b) Report's groundwater information range from data-collection inaccuracies to a lack of substantiation for basic assumptions.Indeed, within a few days after NRDC provided the State Water Resources Control Board, the agency responsible for the 305(b) Report, with an advance copy of this NRDC study, the Board announced that even it did not consider much of its own groundwater data to be reliable.Although the Board has been publishing the same or similar data for nearly ten years without caveat, on March 22, 2001 senior Board staff wrote to NRDC and the federal Environmental Protection Agency and declared that the "State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) staff is retracting all groundwater assessment information from the SWRCB's year 2000 Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 305(b) report." This unprecedented action by the primary state agency charged with water quality control is indicative of the challenge facing California in attempting to understand the full extent of statewide groundwater contamination.

There are other agencies involved in collecting information about the quality of California's groundwater resources, but that is as much a part of the problem as a solution. Multiple agencies manage often competing monitoring and assessment systems, none of which is adequate on its own as a means of effectively assessing and protecting groundwater quality throughout California. Notwithstanding the good intentions of many state agencies, a failure to reform a highly fragmented and inefficient monitoring and assessment approach leaves California unprepared to assess and protect adequately this critical natural resource in the twenty-first century.

Findings and Recommendations

In order to characterize the condition of California's groundwater resources and the effectiveness of the groundwater monitoring and assessment system employed by responsible state agencies, NRDC searched for and reviewed available data on the condition of the resource and the sources of the most prevalent contaminants found within it; we also assessed the means by which this information is gathered. The data upon which NRDC relied came primarily from a variety of government agencies, at both the state and federal level. NRDC used that data, other information, and its own professional judgment, to derive a list of five significant and representative groundwater contaminants and their sources. We then analyzed each one in greater detail, based on the most comprehensive and reliable data available with respect to those specific contaminants and sources. Based on that research, NRDC found that:

Available information suggests significant contamination of California's groundwater basins. Specifically:

According to questionable State Water Resources Control Board data, more than one third of the areal extent of groundwater assessed in California is so polluted that it cannot fully support at least one of its intended uses, and at least 40 percent is either impaired by pollution or threatened with impairment;
Groundwater contaminants include both naturally occurring substances, such as some metals, and anthropogenic ones, such as pesticides. Salinity, organic compounds, pesticides, nutrients, and metals are among the most significant types of contaminants that threaten or impair groundwater basins in California;
Large numbers of drinking water wells regularly exceed drinking water standards (with thousands of exceedances last year alone), necessitating various means of treatment prior to the delivery of water to users;
Groundwater contaminants have been detected at levels that exceed applicable federal or state standards throughout many regions of California. Likewise, a variety of contaminants, reflecting a range of human activities and natural causes, threaten or impair groundwater basins in California.

There are several significant sources of that contamination:

Leaking underground storage tanks, natural sources, agriculture, land disposal, septage, and industrial point sources are leading causes of groundwater contamination.

There is no comprehensive groundwater monitoring program in California -- and available information is often of dubious quality. Specifically:

The status of California's groundwater resources is monitored by an array of different agencies (both state and federal) with little, if any, coordination among them;
The format in which the information about groundwater quality is presented can be deceptive, in that agencies assess the quality of the water relative to certain standards (which may or may not be appropriate), rather than relative to its natural state or to previous measurements, thus obscuring the degree to which the water's composition has been altered and providing no data trends;
Much of the general data, such as information generated by the State Water Resources Control Board about the scope of the state's groundwater impairment problem, is simply incomplete and/or unreliable, making it difficult to know for sure the condition of one of California's most important natural resources;
Agencies that do collect reliable data, such as the Department of Health Services, the Department of Pesticide Regulation, and the U.S. Geological Survey, do not survey the groundwater basins throughout the state in a comprehensive manner from which conclusions might be drawn regarding the status of the resource as a whole. Based on the findings of this study, NRDC concludes that there are a number of reforms and improvements that need to be made at the state level in order for California to improve its stewardship of the quality and usability of its groundwater resources.

In particular, NRDC makes the following recommendations:

The state agencies responsible for protecting and managing California's groundwater resources (particularly the State Water Resources Control Board, the Department of Health Services, and the Department of Water Resources) should improve the scope and quality of their information by instituting a more systematic and ongoing monitoring program and by standardizing the formatting of the data gathered;
A single agency should be responsible for compiling all of the information and for making that information readily accessible to the general public;
The significant inadequacies and errors contained in the 305(b) Report should be remedied through a complete reformation of this critical statewide groundwater assessment;
The agency or agencies responsible for protecting California's groundwater resources and the health of California's residents should develop a better understanding of the actual contaminants that are affecting the groundwater and the sources from which they come;
The Legislature should ensure that adequate funding is provided to support these programs;
The Legislature should ensure adequate implementation and enforcement of prevention programs to prevent further contamination of groundwater resources;
The agency or agencies responsible for remediation of contamination within groundwater basins should ensure timely remediation of already contaminated sites;
The Legislature should institute "polluter pays" provisions for groundwater contamination to compensate the individuals or agencies conducting remedial activities. However, it should clearly provide that remediation is not to be contingent upon identification of the responsible parties and that collection of compensation is not to be a prerequisite to remedial action.

Survey of water sampling and piezometers in KhaneTaking

2012-07-22T23:18:00.000-07:00

Taking reading from piezometer

Taking water sample for Chemical anaylsis

A close view of peizometer

Again Taking Sample from Tubewell

Measuring Depth to Water level

Tubewell giving a lot of water

Child is enjoying

Again Measuring Water level

Taking Sample of water

Very Deep well

What is meant by Hydroelectricity?

2012-07-22T04:54:00.001-07:00

Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy, accounting for 16 percent of global electricity consumption, and 3,427 terawatt-hours of electricity production in 2010, which continues the rapid rate of increase experienced between 2003 and 2009.

Hydropower is produced in 150 countries, with the Asia-Pacific region generating 32 percent of global hydropower in 2010. China is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 721 terawatt-hours of production in 2010, representing around 17 percent of domestic electricity use. There are now three hydroelectricity plants larger than 10 GW: the Three Gorges Dam in China, Itaipu Dam in Brazil, and Guri Dam in Venezuela.

The cost of hydroelectricity is relatively low, making it a competitive source of renewable electricity. The average cost of electricity from a hydro plant larger than 10 megawatts is 3 to 5 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour. Hydro is also a flexible source of electricity since plants can be ramped up and down very quickly to adapt to changing energy demands. However, damming interrupts the flow of rivers and can harm local ecosystems, and building large dams and reservoirs often involves displacing people and wildlife. Once a hydroelectric complex is constructed, the project produces no direct waste, and has a considerably lower output level of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) than fossil fuel powered energy plants.

has been used since ancient times to grind flour and perform other tasks. In the mid-1770s, French engineer Bernard Forest de Bélidor published Architecture Hydraulique which described vertical- and horizontal-axis hydraulic machines. By the late 19th century, the electrical generator was developed and could now be coupled with hydraulics. The growing demand for the Industrial Revolution would drive development as well. In 1878 the world's first hydroelectric power scheme was developed atCragside in Northumberland, England by William George Armstrong. It was used to power a single arc lamp in his art gallery. The old Schoelkopf Power Station No. 1 nearNiagara Falls in the U.S. side began to produce electricity in 1881. The first Edison hydroelectric power plant, the Vulcan Street Plant, began operating September 30, 1882, in Appleton, Wisconsin, with an output of about 12.5 kilowatts. By 1886 there were 45 hydroelectric power plants in the U.S. and Canada. By 1889 there were 200 in the U.S. alone.

At the beginning of the 20th century, many small hydroelectric power plants were being constructed by commercial companies in mountains near metropolitan areas.Grenoble, France held the International Exhibition of Hydropower and Tourism with over one million visitors. By 1920 as 40% of the power produced in the United States was hydroelectric, theFederal Power Act was enacted into law. The Act created the Federal Power Commission to regulate hydroelectric power plants on federal land and water. As the power plants became larger, their associated dams developed additional purposes to include flood control, irrigation and navigation. Federal funding became necessary for large-scale development and federally owned corporations, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority (1933) and the Bonneville Power Administration (1937) were created. Additionally, the Bureau of Reclamation which had began a series of western U.S. irrigation projects in the early 20th century was now constructing large hydroelectric projects such as the 1928 Hoover Dam. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was also involved in hydroelectric development, completing the Bonneville Dam in 1937 and being recognized by the Flood Control Act of 1936 as the premier federal flood control agency.

Hydroelectric power plants continued to become larger throughout the 20th century. Hydropower was referred to as white coal for its power and plenty. Hoover Dam's initial 1,345 MW power plant was the world's largest hydroelectric power plant in 1936; it was eclipsed by the 6809 MW Grand Coulee Dam in 1942. The Itaipu Dam opened in 1984 in South America as the largest, producing 14,000 MW but was surpassed in 2008 by the Three Gorges Dam in China at 22,500 MW. Hydroelectricity would eventually supply some countries, including Norway, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Paraguay and Brazil, with over 85% of their electricity. The United States currently has over 2,000 hydroelectric power plants which supply 49% of its renewable electricity.

Generating methods

Turbine row at Los Nihuiles Power Station in Mendoza, Argentina

Cross section of a conventional hydroelectric dam.

A typical turbine and generator

Conventional (dams)

Most hydroelectric power comes from the potential energy of dammed water driving a water turbine and generator. The power extracted from the water depends on the volume and on the difference in height between the source and the water's outflow. This height difference is called the head. The amount of potential energy in water is proportional to the head. A large pipe (the "penstock") delivers water to the turbine.

Pumped-storage

This method produces electricity to supply high peak demands by moving water between reservoirs at different elevations. At times of low electrical demand, excess generation capacity is used to pump water into the higher reservoir. When there is higher demand, water is released back into the lower reservoir through a turbine. Pumped-storage schemes currently provide the most commercially important means of large-scale grid energy storage and improve the daily capacity factor of the generation system.

Run-of-the-river

Run-of-the-river hydroelectric stations are those with small or no reservoir capacity, so that the water coming from upstream must be used for generation at that moment, or must be allowed to bypass the dam.

Tide

A tidal power plant makes use of the daily rise and fall of ocean water due to tides; such sources are highly predictable, and if conditions permit construction of reservoirs, can also be dispatchable to generate power during high demand periods. Less common types of hydro schemes use water's kinetic energy or undammed sources such as undershot waterwheels.

Underground

An underground power station makes use of a large natural height difference between two waterways, such as a waterfall or mountain lake. An underground tunnel is constructed to take water from the high reservoir to the generating hall built in an underground cavern near the lowest point of the water tunnel and a horizontal tailrace taking water away to the lower outlet waterway.

Measurement of the tailrace and forebay rates at the Limestone Generating Station inManitoba, Canada.

Sizes and capacities of hydroelectric facilities

Large facilities

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest operating hydroelectric power station, at22,500 MW.

Although no official definition exists for the capacity range of large hydroelectric power stations, facilities from over a few hundred megawatts to more than 10 GW are generally considered large hydroelectric facilities. Currently, only three facilities over 10 GW (10,000 MW) are in operation worldwide;Three Gorges Dam at 22.5 GW, Itaipu Dam at 14 GW, and Guri Dam at 10.2 GW. Large-scale hydroelectric power stations are more commonly seen as the largest power producing facilities in the world, with some hydroelectric facilities capable of generating more than double the installed capacities of the current largest nuclear power stations.

Rank	Station	Country	Location	Capacity (MW)
1	Three Gorges Dam	China	30°49′15″N 111°00′08″E	20,300
2	Itaipu Dam	Brazil Paraguay	25°24′31″S 54°35′21″W	14,000
3	Guri Dam	Venezuela	07°45′59″N 62°59′57″W	10,200
4	Tucurui Dam	Brazil	03°49′53″S 49°38′36″W	8,370
5	Grand Coulee Dam	United States	47°57′23″N 118°58′56″W	6,809

Small

Small hydro is the development of hydroelectric power on a scale serving a small community or industrial plant. The definition of a small hydro project varies but a generating capacity of up to 10 megawatts (MW) is generally accepted as the upper limit of what can be termed small hydro. This may be stretched to 25 MW and 30 MW in Canada and the United States. Small-scale hydroelectricity production grew by 28% during 2008 from 2005, raising the total world small-hydro capacity to 85 GW. Over 70% of this was in China (65 GW), followed by Japan (3.5 GW), the United States (3 GW), and India (2 GW).

A micro-hydro facility in Vietnam

Pico hydroelectricity in Mondulkiri, Cambodia

Small hydro plants may be connected to conventional electrical distribution networks as a source of low-cost renewable energy. Alternatively, small hydro projects may be built in isolated areas that would be uneconomic to serve from a network, or in areas where there is no national electrical distribution network. Since small hydro projects usually have minimal reservoirs and civil construction work, they are seen as having a relatively low environmental impact compared to large hydro. This decreased environmental impact depends strongly on the balance between stream flow and power production.

Micro

Micro hydro is a term used for hydroelectric power installations that typically produce up to 100 KW of power. These installations can provide power to an isolated home or small community, or are sometimes connected to electric power networks. There are many of these installations around the world, particularly in developing nations as they can provide an economical source of energy without purchase of fuel. Micro hydro systems complement photovoltaic solar energy systems because in many areas, water flow, and thus available hydro power, is highest in the winter when solar energy is at a minimum.

Pico

Pico hydro is a term used for hydroelectric power generation of under 5 KW. It is useful in small, remote communities that require only a small amount of electricity. For example, to power one or two fluorescent light bulbs and a TV or radio for a few homes. Even smaller turbines of 200-300W may power a single home in a developing country with a drop of only 1 m (3 ft). Pico-hydro setups typically are run-of-the-river, meaning that dams are not used, but rather pipes divert some of the flow, drop this down a gradient, and through the turbine before returning it to the stream.

Calculating available power

A simple formula for approximating electric power production at a hydroelectric plant is: , where

is Power in watts,
is the density of water (~1000 kg/m³),
is height in meters,
is flow rate in cubic meters per second,
is acceleration due to gravity of 9.8 m/s²,
is a coefficient of efficiency ranging from 0 to 1. Efficiency is often higher (that is, closer to 1) with larger and more modern turbines.

Annual electric energy production depends on the available water supply. In some installations the water flow rate can vary by a factor of 10:1 over the course of a year.

Advantages and disadvantages of hydroelectricity

Advantages

The Ffestiniog Power Station can generate 360 MW of electricity within 60 seconds of the demand arising.

Flexibility

Hydro is a flexible source of electricity since plants can be ramped up and down very quickly to adapt to changing energy demands.

Low power costs

The major advantage of hydroelectricity is elimination of the cost of fuel. The cost of operating a hydroelectric plant is nearly immune to increases in the cost of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas or coal, and no imports are needed. The average cost of electricity from a hydro plant larger than 10 megawatts is 3 to 5 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour.

Hydroelectric plants have long economic lives, with some plants still in service after 50–100 years. Operating labor cost is also usually low, as plants are automated and have few personnel on site during normal operation.

Where a dam serves multiple purposes, a hydroelectric plant may be added with relatively low construction cost, providing a useful revenue stream to offset the costs of dam operation. It has been calculated that the sale of electricity from the Three Gorges Dam will cover the construction costs after 5 to 8 years of full generation.

Suitability for industrial applications

While many hydroelectric projects supply public electricity networks, some are created to serve specific industrial enterprises. Dedicated hydroelectric projects are often built to provide the substantial amounts of electricity needed for aluminium electrolytic plants, for example. The Grand Coulee Dam switched to support Alcoa aluminium in Bellingham, Washington, United States for American World War II airplanes before it was allowed to provide irrigation and power to citizens (in addition to aluminium power) after the war. In Suriname, the Brokopondo Reservoir was constructed to provide electricity for the Alcoa aluminium industry. New Zealand's Manapouri Power Station was constructed to supply electricity to the aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point.

Reduced CO2 emissions

Since hydroelectric dams do not burn fossil fuels, they do not directly produce carbon dioxide. While some carbon dioxide is produced during manufacture and construction of the project, this is a tiny fraction of the operating emissions of equivalent fossil-fuel electricity generation. One measurement of greenhouse gas related and other externality comparison between energy sources can be found in the ExternE project by the Paul Scherrer Institut and the University of Stuttgart which was funded by the European Commission. According to that study, hydroelectricity produces the least amount of greenhouse gases and externality of any energy source.Coming in second place was wind, third was nuclear energy, and fourth was solar photovoltaic.The extremely positive greenhouse gas impact of hydroelectricity is found especially in temperate climates. The above study was for local energy in Europe; presumably similar conditions prevail in North America and Northern Asia, which all see a regular, natural freeze/thaw cycle (with associated seasonal plant decay and regrowth).

Other uses of the reservoir

Reservoirs created by hydroelectric schemes often provide facilities for water sports, and become tourist attractions themselves. In some countries, aquaculture in reservoirs is common. Multi-use dams installed for irrigation support agriculture with a relatively constant water supply. Large hydro dams can control floods, which would otherwise affect people living downstream of the project.

Disadvantages

Ecosystem damage and loss of land

Hydroelectric power stations that use dams would submerge large areas of land due to the requirement of a reservoir.

Large reservoirs required for the operation of hydroelectric power stations result in submersion of extensive areas upstream of the dams, destroying biologically rich and productive lowland and riverine valley forests, marshland and grasslands. The loss of land is often exacerbated by habitat fragmentation of surrounding areas caused by the reservoir.

Hydroelectric projects can be disruptive to surrounding aquatic ecosystems both upstream and downstream of the plant site. For instance, studies have shown that dams along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America have reduced salmon populations by preventing access to spawning grounds upstream, even though most dams in salmon habitat have fish ladders installed. Salmon spawn are also harmed on their migration to sea when they must pass through turbines. Turbine and power-plant designs that are easier on aquatic life are an active area of research. Mitigation measures such as fish ladders may be required at new projects or as a condition of re-licensing of existing projects.

Generation of hydroelectric power changes the downstream river environment. Water exiting a turbine usually contains very little suspended sediment, which can lead to scouring of river beds and loss of riverbanks. Since turbine gates are often opened intermittently, rapid or even daily fluctuations in river flow are observed. For example, in the Grand Canyon, the daily cyclic flow variation caused by Glen Canyon Dam was found to be contributing to erosion of sand bars. Dissolved oxygen content of the water may change from pre-construction conditions. Water exiting turbines can be warmer or colder than downstream, due to it being pulled from a higher or lower part in the reservoir level. This can change aquatic faunal populations, including endangered species, and prevent natural freezing processes from occurring. Some hydroelectric projects also use canals to divert a river at a shallower gradient to increase the head of the scheme. In some cases, the entire river may be diverted leaving a dry riverbed. Examples include the Tekapo and Pukaki Rivers in New Zealand.

Siltation and flow shortage

When water flows it has the ability to transport particles heavier than itself downstream. This has a negative effect on dams and subsequently their power stations, particularly those on rivers or within catchment areas with high siltation. Siltation can fill a reservoir and reduce its capacity to control floods along with causing additional horizontal pressure on the upstream portion of the dam. Eventually, some reservoirs can become full of sediment and useless or over-top during a flood and fail.

Changes in the amount of river flow will correlate with the amount of energy produced by a dam. Lower river flows will reduce the amount of live storage in a reservoir therefore reducing the amount of water that can be used for hydroelectricity. The result of diminished river flow can be power shortages in areas that depend heavily on hydroelectric power. The risk of flow shortage may increase as a result of climate change.One study from the Colorado River in the United States suggest that modest climate changes, such as an increase in temperature in 2 degree Celsius resulting in a 10% decline in precipitation, might reduce river run-off by up to 40%.Brazil in particular is vulnerable due to its heaving reliance on hydroelectricity, as increasing temperatures, lower water ﬂow and alterations in the rainfall regime, could reduce total energy production by 7% annually by the end of the century.

Methane emissions (from reservoirs)

The Hoover Dam in the United States is a large conventional dammed-hydro facility, with an installed capacity of 2,080 MW.

Lower positive impacts are found in the tropical regions, as it has been noted that the reservoirs of power plants in tropical regions may produce substantial amounts of methane. This is due to plant material in flooded areas decaying in an anaerobic environment, and forming methane, a greenhouse gas. According to the World Commission on Dams report, where the reservoir is large compared to the generating capacity (less than 100 watts per square metre of surface area) and no clearing of the forests in the area was undertaken prior to impoundment of the reservoir, greenhouse gas emissions from the reservoir may be higher than those of a conventional oil-fired thermal generation plant. Although these emissions represent carbon already in the biosphere, not fossil deposits that had been sequestered from the carbon cycle, there is a greater amount of methane due to anaerobic decay, causing greater damage than would otherwise have occurred had the forest decayed naturally.

In boreal reservoirs of Canada and Northern Europe, however, greenhouse gas emissions are typically only 2% to 8% of any kind of conventional fossil-fuel thermal generation. A new class of underwater logging operation that targets drowned forests can mitigate the effect of forest decay.

Relocation

Another disadvantage of hydroelectric dams is the need to relocate the people living where the reservoirs are planned. In February 2008 it was estimated that 40-80 million people worldwide had been physically displaced as a direct result of dam construction. Historically and culturally important sites can be flooded and lost. Such problems have arisen at the Aswan Dam in Egypt between 1960 and 1980, the Three Gorges Dam in China, the Clyde Dam in New Zealand, and the Ilisu Dam in Turkey.

Failure risks

Because large conventional dammed-hydro facilities hold back large volumes of water, a failure due to poor construction, natural disasters or sabotage can be catastrophic to downriver settlements and infrastructure. Dam failures have been some of the largest man-made disasters in history.

The Banqiao Dam failure in Southern China directly resulted in the deaths of 26,000 people, and another 145,000 from epidemics. Millions were left homeless. Also, the creation of a dam in a geologically inappropriate location may cause disasters such as 1963 disaster at Vajont Dam in Italy, where almost 2000 people died.

Smaller dams and micro hydro facilities create less risk, but can form continuing hazards even after being decommissioned. For example, the small Kelly Barnes Dam failed in 1967, causing 39 deaths with the Toccoa Flood, ten years after its power plant was decommissioned.

Comparison with other methods of power generation

Hydroelectricity eliminates the flue gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion, including pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, dust, and mercury in the coal. Hydroelectricity also avoids the hazards of coal mining and the indirect health effects of coal emissions. Compared to nuclear power, hydroelectricity generates no nuclear waste, has none of the dangers associated with uranium mining, nor nuclear leaks. Unlike uranium, hydroelectricity is also a renewable energy source.

Compared to wind farms, hydroelectricity power plants have a more predictable load factor. If the project has a storage reservoir, it can generate power when needed. Hydroelectric plants can be easily regulated to follow variations in power demand.

World hydroelectric capacity

World renewable energy share (2008)

The ranking of hydro-electric capacity is either by actual annual energy production or by installed capacity power rating. Hydro accounted for 16 percent of global electricity consumption, and 3,427 terawatt-hours of electricity production in 2010, which continues the rapid rate of increase experienced between 2003 and 2009.

Hydropower is produced in 150 countries, with the Asia-Pacific region generated 32 percent of global hydropower in 2010. China is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 721 terawatt-hours of production in 2010, representing around 17 percent of domestic electricity use.Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Austria, Switzerland, and Venezuela have a majority of the internal electric energy production from hydroelectric power. Paraguay produces 100% of its electricity from hydroelectric dams, and exports 90% of its production to Brazil and to Argentina. Norway produces 98–99% of its electricity from hydroelectric sources.

There are now three hydroelectric plants larger than 10 GW: the Three Gorges Dam in China, Itaipu Dam in Brazil, and Guri Dam in Venezuela.

A hydro-electric plant rarely operates at its full power rating over a full year; the ratio between annual average power and installed capacity rating is the capacity factor. The installed capacity is the sum of all generator nameplate power ratings.

Ten of the largest hydroelectric producers as at 2009.
Country	Annual hydroelectric production (TWh)	Installed capacity (GW)	Capacity factor	% of total capacity
China	652.05	196.79	0.37	22.25
Canada	369.5	88.974	0.59	61.12
Brazil	363.8	69.080	0.56	85.56
United States	250.6	79.511	0.42	5.74
Russia	167.0	45.000	0.42	17.64
Norway	140.5	27.528	0.49	98.25
India	115.6	33.600	0.43	15.80
Venezuela	85.96	14.622	0.67	69.20
Japan	69.2	27.229	0.37	7.21
Sweden	65.5	16.209	0.46	44.34

Major projects under construction

Name	Maximum Capacity	Country	Construction started	Scheduled completion	Comments
Xiluodu Dam	12,600 MW	China	December 26, 2005	2015	Construction once stopped due to lack of environmental impact study.
Belo Monte Dam	11,181 MW	Brazil	March, 2011	2015	Preliminary construction underway.
Siang Upper HE Project	11,000 MW	India	April, 2009	2024	Multi-phase construction over a period of 15 years. Construction was delayed due to dispute with China.
TaSang Dam	7,110 MW	Burma	March, 2007	2022	Controversial 228 meter tall dam with capacity to produce 35,446 Ghw annually.
Xiangjiaba Dam	6,400 MW	China	November 26, 2006	2015
Nuozhadu Dam	5,850 MW	China	2006	2017
Jinping 2 Hydropower Station	4,800 MW	China	January 30, 2007	2014	To build this dam, 23 families and 129 local residents need to be moved. It works with Jinping 1 Hydropower Station as a group.
Diamer-Bhasha Dam	4,500 MW	Pakistan	October 18, 2011	2023
Jinping 1 Hydropower Station	3,600 MW	China	November 11, 2005	2014
Jirau Dam	3,300 MW	Brazil	2008	2012	Construction halted in March 2011 due to worker riots.
Pubugou Dam	3,300 MW	China	March 30, 2004	2010
Goupitan Dam	3,000 MW	China	November 8, 2003	2011
Guanyinyan Dam	3,000 MW	China	2008	2015	Construction of the roads and spillway started.
Lianghekou Dam	3,000 MW	China	2009	2015
Boguchan Dam	3,000 MW	Russia	1980	2013
Dagangshan Dam	2,600 MW	China	August 15, 2008	2014
Sơn La Dam	2,400 MW	Vietnam	December 2, 2005	2012
Guandi Dam	2,400 MW	China	November 11, 2007	2012
Liyuan Dam	2,400 MW	China	2008
Tocoma DamBolívar State	2,160 MW	Venezuela	2004	2014	This power plant would be the last development in the Low Caroni Basin, bringing the total to six power plants on the same river, including the 10,000MW Guri Dam.
Ludila Dam	2,100 MW	China	2007	2015	Construction halt due to lack of the environmental assessment.
Shuangjiangkou Dam	2,000 MW	China	December, 2007		The dam will be 312 m high.
Ahai Dam	2,000 MW	China	July 27, 2006
Lower Subansiri Dam	2,000 MW	India	2005	2012

15 Depressing Facts About The Coming Water Crisis in America

2012-07-21T06:54:00.001-07:00

By 2025, two-thirds of the world will live under conditions of water scarcity.

Global water demands will increase by 40% in the next ten years

Water use is increasing much faster than population.

1.6 billion live in areas where there is water, but they can't afford to drink it.

Globally, 1.2 billion people live in areas with inadequate water supply.

Transporting water is impractical, even within the U.S. Just look at the cost of bottled water.
A few exceptions to the economic limits on transporting water exist. Bottled water, for example, is sometimes consumed vast distances from where it was produced because it commands a premium far above normal costs. Growth in bottled water consumption may expand in some markets, but overall, long-distance transfers of bulk water are not likely to become a significant export in commercial markets.

Parts of America use up to 80% of their available freshwater resources. (That means a slight drought or increase in usage will cause a WATER SHORTAGE.)

Californians look forward to a fourth straight year of serious drought.

Americans care very little about water, because for most of our history water has been abundant and good. But problems with infrastructure and supply are growing.

Globally, the water crisis is much worse.

We are fast approaching a world in which the most hotly-contested resource for development and survival is not oil, but water.

This is also why investors have become crazy about it, pouring huge money into water rights, desalinization, and purification projects.

America must spend $255 billion in the next five years to prevent deterioration of water infrastructure. We plan to spend half that amount.

The Ten Biggest American Cities That Are Running Out Of Water

2012-07-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

Some parts of the United States have begun to run low on water. That is probably not much of a surprise to people who live in the arid parts of America that have had water shortages for decades or even centuries. No one who has been to the Badlands in South Dakota would expect to be able to grow crops there.

The water problem is worse than most people realize, particularly in several large cities which are occasionally low on water now and almost certainly face shortfalls in a few years. This is particularly true if the change in global weather patterns substantially alters rainfall amounts in some areas of the US.

24/7 Wall St. looked at an October 2010 report on water risk by environmental research and sustainability group Ceres. We also considered a comprehensive July 2010 report from the Natural Resources Defense Council, which mapped areas at high risk of water shortage conflict. 24/7 Wall St. also did its own analysis of water supply and consumption in America's largest cities, and focused on the thirty largest metropolitan areas. One goal was to identify potential conflicts in regions that might have disputed rights over large supplies of water and the battles that could arise from these disputes. And, 24/7 Wall St. examined geographic areas that have already been plagued by drought and water shortages off and on.

The analysis allowed us to choose ten cities that are likely to face severe shortages in the relatively near-term future. Some of these are likely to be obvious to the reader. The area around Los Angeles was once too dry to sustain the population of a huge city. But infrastructure was built that allowed water to be pumped in from east of the region. Las Vegas had similar problems. It was part of a great desert until Lake Mead was created by the Hoover Dam built on the Colorado River.

Severe droughts that could affect large cities are first a human problem. The competition for water could make life in some of America's largest cities nearly unbearable for residents. A number of industries rely on regular access to water. Some people would be out of work if these industries had poor prospects for continued operation. The other important trouble that very low water supplies creates is that cities have sold bonds based on their needs for infrastructure to move, clean and supply water. Credit ratings agencies may not have taken drought issues into account at the level that they should. Extreme disruptions of the water supply of any city would have severe financial consequences.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report takes the following into account when assessing the likelihood of water shortages: "The risk to water sustainability is based on the following criteria: (1) projected water demand as a share of available precipitation; (2) groundwater use as a share of projected available precipitation; (3) susceptibility to drought; (4) projected increase in freshwater withdrawals; and (5) projected increase in summer water deficit."

The ten cities on this list are the ones with the most acute exposure to problems that could cause large imbalances of water supply and demand. There are a number of metropolitan areas that could face similar problems but their risks are not quite as high. The water problem for U.S. cities is, although it may not be evident, one of the largest issues that faces urban areas over the next ten years.

These are the ten largest cities by population that have the greatest chance of running out of water.

10. Orlando, Fla.

Major Water Supply: Floridan Aquifer
Population (U.S. rank): 235,860 (80th)
Population Growth Rate: 26.8% since 2000
Average annual rainfall: 48.35 in.

North-central Florida, especially Orange County where Orlando is located, has experienced frequent droughts in the last decade. As a consequence, the area has implemented extreme conservation measures, including aggressive water-rationing policies and lawn-watering bans. After the drought and resulting wildfires subsided, however, Orlando faced another problem. As of 2013, Orlando will no longer be able to increase the rate at which it uses water from the Floridan aquifer, the city's main source of fresh water supply. This presents a major problem for city officials: how does the limited water supply continue to meet demand for one of the fastest-growing regions in the state? It is estimated that water usage in the Orlando area will increase from 526 million gallons per day in 1995 to 866 million in 2020. On the city website, the mayor is quoted, saying: "Orlando Utilities Commission water usage trends show Orlando water demand exceeding the supply by approximately 2014 if no action is taken." There are plans in the works to tap the St. John's River for irrigation, and eventually drinking water. Many, however, are skeptical that even this will be enough to meet Orlando's growing demand.

9. Atlanta

Major Water Supply: Lake Lanier, Ga.
Population (U.S. rank): 540,922 (33rd)
Population Growth Rate: 29.9% since 2000
Average annual rainfall: 50.2 in.

Between 2007 and 2008, the Southeast experienced a major drought, which depleted the region's major water supplies. No city in the south suffered more than Atlanta, the second-fastest-growing metropolitan area in the last eight years. The crisis began when the Army Corps of Engineers released more than 20 billion gallons of water from Lake Lanier, the city's primary source of water. Continued poor rainfall brought the lake to its lowest recorded levels. At one point, city officials reported there was only three months left of stored fresh water to supply Atlanta. The drought eventually subsided and consistent rain returned the lake to less dangerous levels. However, Atlanta may continue to be at risk, as the lake is the site of an ongoing legal conflict between Georgia, Alabama and Florida, all of which rely on the reservoir for fresh water. Last year, a federal judge declared Atlanta's withdrawals from the lake illegal, and if the ruling stands, the city will lose roughly 40% of its water supply by 2012.

8. Tucson, Ariz.

Major Water Supply: Local ground water
Population (U.S. rank): 543,000 (32nd)
Population Growth Rate: 20% since 2000
Average Annual Rainfall: 12.17 in.

The NRDC study rates Pima County, Ariz., where Tuscon is located, as an area with extreme risk of water shortage. The city is in the Sonoran Desert, an extremely arid region that receives less than 12 inches of rainfall each year. Currently, the Tucson region uses about 350,000 acre-feet of water per year. At this rate, Tucson's groundwater supply, which now provides the majority of the city's water, has a very limited life span. In addition to this, the city is currently bringing in 314,000 acre-feet per year from the Colorado River under the Central Arizona Project. However, Tuscon is growing rapidly. This, combined with the political uncertainty of the Central Arizona Project allocation, places Tucson at extreme risk for future water shortages.

7. Las Vegas

Major Water Supply: Lake Mead/Colorado River
Population (U.S. rank): 567,000 (28th)
Population Growth Rate: 18.6% since 2000
Average Annual Rainfall: 4.5 in.

In the middle of the Mojave Desert, with an annual precipitation rate of only 10 cm, Las Vegas must rely on distant sources for its fresh water. The city's main source is Lake Mead, which supplies 85% of the water used in the Las Vegas Valley. Unfortunately, the lake is 59% empty and is approaching its first water shortage ever. In addition to Las Vegas, it would affect other areas of Nevada and Arizona. Moreover, it could potentially stop the Hoover Dam from producing electricity -- as soon as 2013. This would affect many big California cities that receive hydroelectric power through the dam.

6. Fort Worth, Texas

Major Water Supply: Multiple
Population (U.S. rank): 727,577 (17th)
Population Growth Rate: 36.1% since 2000
Average annual rainfall: 34.01 inches

As Fort Worth continues to grow (its population is expected to hit 4.3 million by 2060), the amount of water demand has continued to exceed the amount of water available through local supply. As a result, the city, which is in Tarrant County, must rely on storage water, making the system much more exposed to the worst effects of prolonged drought. To remedy this problem, the Tarrant Regional Water District is trying to bring in more water from Oklahoma's Red River. Oklahoma, wishing to preserve its water sources, limits interstate water sales. Fort Worth has countered with a lawsuit, which is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals.

5. San Francisco Bay Area

Major Water Supply: Various, including Lake Hetch Hetchy
Population (U.S. rank): San Francisco: 815,359 (12th), Oakland: 409,189 (44th), San Jose: 964,695 (10th)
Population Growth Rate: 20% since 2000
Average annual rainfall: 20.4 in.

Much like the Southeast in the early 2000's, California has experienced intermittent droughts that have brought the area's water supply to the brink of disaster. After several years of drought between 2005 and 2007, the Bay Area, which represents more than 3.7 million people, was forced to adopt aggressive water usage restrictions. Legal battles ensued between San Fransisco area legislators and those in the Sacramento delta who believed they deserved Bay Area water from major sources, like Lake Hetch Hetchy. According to the NRDC and Ceres studies, the San Fransisco Bay Area, including adjacent cities San Jose and Oakland, are "very likely" to experience a severe crisis as a result of water shortage within the next 50 years.

4. San Antonio, Texas

Major Water Supply: Various ground water sources
Population (U.S. rank): 1,373,668 (7th)
Population Growth Rate: 20% since 2000
Average annual rainfall: 30.24 in.

Bexar County, Texas, where San Antonio is located, possesses the highest rating given by the Natural Resources Defense Council with regards to water sustainability. This means that the area is at extremely high risk for water demand exceeding supply by 2050 if no major systematic changes are made. As most surface water from lakes and rivers in Texas have already been claimed by varying districts across Texas, most counties are now looking at groundwater to meet future demand. San Antonio has attempted to secure water from a number of Texas groundwater conservation districts. Due to legal obstacles, this has proven to be difficult. Today, many experts, including members of the Texas Water Development Board, recommend undertaking a major project to ensure future sustainability, such as a desalination plant on the Gulf Coast.

3. Phoenix

Major Water Supply: Colorado River Basin
Population (U.S. rank): 1,593,659 (5th)
Population Growth Rate: 21.2% since 2000
Average annual rainfall: 8.3 in.

Like many of the other western cities on this list, Phoenix is extremely dependent on water imported from the Colorado River. This is because nearly half of the water the city's residents use comes from this significant source. As the Colorado River Basin enters the eleventh year of its drought, the city's reliance on the river may soon become a serious problem. If the drought continues, water deliveries to Arizona could potentially be cut back. To keep up a sufficient water supply, Phoenix is adopting an aggressive campaign to recycle water, replenish groundwater and try to dissuade over-consumption. Time will tell if it these measures will be enough.

2. Houston

Major Water Supply: Jasper Aquifer, Lake Houston, Lake Conroe
Population (U.S. rank): 2,257,926 (4th)
Population Growth Rate: 15.6% since 2000
Average annual rainfall: 53.34 inches

Throughout most of its history, the city of Houston primarily drew water from the Jasper Aquifer, located along the southeastern coast of Texas. Over the last 30 years, the city began to suffer from dramatic rises in sea level of nearly an inch a year. Geologists eventually realized that the cause was Houston's withdrawal of fresh water from the aquifer located under the city. This discovery forced city officials to use nearby Lake Houston and Lake Conroe for municipal water instead of the aquifer. Since 2000, Houston has been the fifth fastest-growing city in the country, and its presence in an area with high drought likelihood makes it an immediate risk for serious water shortages.

1. Los Angeles

Major Water Supply: Colorado River Basin
Population (U.S. rank): 3,831,868 (2nd)
Population Growth Rate: 3.7% since 2000
Average annual rainfall: 14.77 in.

In the 1980's, Los Angeles suffered a major crisis when the city was forced to stop using 40% of its drinking water due to industrial runoff contamination. Like Las Vegas, the city now relies on importing water from the Colorado River via hundreds of miles of aqueducts. The Colorado may only be a temporary solution, however, as the city continues to increase its demand at an unsustainable rate. In its utility risk rating, Ceres gave the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power the highest likelihood of risk among the cities it assessed. That list included Atlanta and the Forth Worth area. On top of this, the Hoover Dam, which is the main source of electricity for L.A. and much of the greater Southwest, is also producing at a lower rate than it has historically. Some scientists suspect this drop-off will continue to a point where its electricity production is too small to sustain the dam economically. Los Angeles, even if the dam doesn't cease production in 2013, as some predict, still faces serious water shortages.

Rivers of Pakistan

2012-07-19T09:26:00.002-07:00

Swat River

Rare Indus Dolphin

Boy with Monkey

Chanab River

Kech River Turbat Balochistan Pakistan

Ice Caped Lake in Pakistan

Swat River

Indus taking way

Great Indus River

Indus River in Muzafrabad

Turtle found in Indus River

Ocean Energy Moving Toward Commercialization

2012-07-19T07:06:00.002-07:00

The earth is the water planet, so it should come as no great surprise that forms of water power have been one of the world’s most popular “renewable” energy sources. Yet the largest water power source of all – the ocean that covers three-quarters of earth – has yet to be tapped in any major way for power generation. There are three primary reasons for this:

The first is the nature of the ocean itself, a powerful resource that cannot be privately owned like land that typically serves as the foundation for site control for terrestrial power plants of all kinds;
The second is funding. Hydropower was heavily subsidized during the Great Depression, but little public investment has since been steered toward marine renewables with the exception of ocean thermal technologies, which were perceived to be a failure.
The third reason why the ocean has not yet been industrialized on behalf of energy production is that the technologies, materials and construction techniques did not exist until now to harness this renewable energy resource in any meaningful and cost effective way.

Literally hundreds of technology designs from more than 100 firms are competing for attention as they push a variety emerging ocean renewable options. Most are smaller upstart firms, but a few larger players – Scottish Power, Lockheed Martin and Pacific Gas & Electric — are engaged and seeking new business opportunities in the marine renewables space. Oil companies Chevron, BP and Shell are also investing in the sector.

In the U.S., the clear frontrunner among device developers is Ocean Power Technologies (OPT). It was the first wave power company to issue successful IPOs through the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market for approximately $40 million and then another on the U.S. Stock Exchange in 2007 for $100 million. OPT has a long list of projects in the pipeline, including the first “commercial” installation in the U.S. in Reedsport, Oregon in 2010, which could lead to the first 50 MW wave farm in the U.S. A nearby site in Coos Bay, Oregon represents another potential 100 MW deployment.

While the total installed capacity of emerging “second generation” marine hydrokinetic resources – a category that includes wave, tidal stream, ocean current, ocean thermal and river hydrokinetic resources – was less than 10 MW at the end of 2008, a recent surge in interest in these new renewable options has generated a buzz, particularly in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Portugal, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, among other countries. It is expected that within the next five to eight years, these emerging technologies will become commercialized to the point that they can begin competing for a share of the burgeoning market for carbon-free and non-polluting renewable resources.

The five technologies covered in a new report by Pike Research are the following:

Tidal stream turbines often look suspiciously like wind turbines placed underwater. Tidal projects comprise over 90 percent of today’s marine kinetic capacity totals, but the vast majority of this installed capacity relies upon first generation “barrage” systems still relying upon storage dams.
Wave energy technologies more often look more like metal snakes that can span nearly 500 feet, floating on the ocean’s surface horizontally, or generators that stand erect vertically akin to a buoy. Any western coastline in the world has wave energy potential.
River hydrokinetic technologies are also quite similar to tidal technologies, relying on the kinetic energy of moving water, which can be enhanced by tidal flows, particularly at the mouth of a river way interacting with a sea and/or ocean.
Ocean current technologies are similar to tidal energy technologies, only they can tap into deeper ocean currents that are located offshore. Less developed than either tidal or wave energy, ocean current technologies, nevertheless, are attracting more attention since the resource is 24/7.
Ocean thermal energy technologies take a very different approach to generating electricity, capturing energy from the differences in temperature between the ocean surface and lower depths, and can also deliver power 24/7.

While there is a common perception that the U.S. and much of the industrialized world has tapped out its hydropower resources, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) disputes this claim. According to its assessment, the U.S. has the water resources to generate from 85,000 to 95,000 more megawatts (MW) from this non-carbon energy source, with 23,000 MW available by 2025. Included in this water power assessment are new emerging marine kinetic technologies. In fact, according to EPRI, ocean energy and hydrokinetic sources (which includes river hydrokinetic technologies) will nearly match conventional new hydropower at existing sites in new capacity additions in the U.S. between 2010 and 2025.

The UN projects that the total “technically exploitable” potential for waterpower (including marine renewables) is 15 trillion kilowatt-hours, equal to half of the projected global electricity use in the year 2030. Of this vast resource potential, roughly 15% has been developed so far. The UN and World Energy Council projects 250 GW of hydropower will be developed by 2030. If marine renewables capture just 10% of this forecasted hydropower capacity, that figure represents 25 GW, a figure Pike Research believes is a valid possibility and the likely floor on market scope.

The demand for energy worldwide will continue to grow at a dramatic clip between 2009 and 2025, with renewable energy sources overtaking natural gas as the second largest source behind coal by 2015 (IEA, 2008). By 2015, the marine renewable market share of this renewable energy growth will still be all but invisible as far as the IEA statistics are concerned, but development up to that point in time will determine whether these sources will contribute any substantial capacity by 2025. By 2015, Pike Research shows a potential of over 22 GW of all five technologies profiled in this report could come on-line. Two of the largest projects – a 14 GW tidal barrage in the U.K. and a 2.2 GW tidal fence in the Philippines — may never materialize, and/or will not likely be on-line by that date, leaving a net potential of more than 14 GW.

By 2025, at least 25 GW of total marine renewables will be developed globally. If effective carbon regulations in the U.S. are in place by 2010, and marine renewable targets established by various European governments are met, marine renewables and river hydrokinetic technologies could provide as much as 200 GW by 2025: 115 GW wave; 57 GW tidal stream; 20 GW tidal barrage; 4 GW ocean current; 3 GW river hydrokinetic; 1 GW OTEC.

THE END OF CHEAP FOOD? WORLD’S POOREST IN DANGER AS FOOD PRICES SPIKE

2012-07-19T06:50:00.001-07:00

arsamma Masanagari stands amid pigeon peas and sorghum on her family’s farm in Pastapur village in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

new round of food inflation and severe hikes in the price of basic foodstuffs such as rice, maize, wheat, oil, sugar and salt is plunging many of the world’s poorest people, including millions across the Horn of Africa, into deeper poverty and into situations of severe hunger and malnourishment. This is one of the findings of the IFRC’s annual World Disasters Report 2011 launched today in New Delhi, India. The worst hit are poor people who typically spend between 50 and 80 per cent of their incomes on food.

“Food prices are hitting the alarming highs of the 2008 crisis, with the poorest of the poor being hit the hardest,” said IFRC Secretary-General Bekele Geleta. “It’s profoundly concerning that we seem to be going backwards in terms of ensuring basic food is available and affordable” he added.

Speculative commodity trading, rapidly growing populations, climate change and a sharp decrease in domestic agricultural production due to lack of appropriate investment and ineffective governance, are just some of the leading causes fuelling a new round of food inflation concludes the report.

The recent bursting of the US property bubble has led to a surge in global investors seeking new opportunities in the food-commodity futures. “Global financial and trade speculations can have a dangerous impact on food prices,” said Geleta adding that food stocks were often being bought up by traders and stored away in depots and warehouses waiting for high profits. “It’s unacceptable that a trader in London or New York can determine whether or not a father in a country such as India can afford to feed his family,” he said.

According to The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the price of a 90 kilogram bag of maize, the main food source for most Kenyans, jumped from about $16 in June 2010 to about $44 in July 2011 -- an increase of 160%. Sugar prices increased by 19.43% between June 2011 and last month.

More investment in agriculture is essential, but the reports questions whether this investment should target smallholders and pastoralists or encourage capital-intensive, large-scale farming. There is increasingly widespread agreement that smallholder farming could be the best way forward in Africa.

“Governments and donors should invest more in agriculture and give a helping hand to farmers,” said Geleta, himself Ethiopian-born. “It’s not just food that is becoming expensive, the price of new technologies, seeds, fertilizers and fuel needed to transport food is also going up. We need to boost the agricultural sector as a way of protecting people who find themselves at the mercy of inflation and the global stock markets.”

The WDR also highlights growing fears that the rise in food prices could reach a violent tipping point and become a dangerous source of instability in many countries. The recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa were fuelled, amongst other factors, by an increase in the price of food and general cost of living. In September 2010, 13 people were killed in “food riots” in Mozambique.

“It seems the global volatility of food prices is here to stay, and the era of cheap food is over, “ said Geleta urging governments and donors to ensure that the most vulnerable people are better prepared to cope with unstable agricultural markets and volatile food prices.

A scarce resource: Plugging the leaks on Pakistan's lifeline

2012-07-17T09:31:00.002-07:00

If we are not proactive, soon we may not have the water resources to feed our agrarian economy or quell the power crisis.

Environmentalists and many scientists predict that water is going to get scarcer, for several reasons: a growing global population, increasing wealth in the developing world and climate changes that could create more severe weather and disrupt rainfall patterns.

Water demand in 2030 is expected to exceed current supply by 40 percent, the 2030 Water Resources Group, a World Bank-backed panel of businesses, predicts. Some even say the next great war will be over water.

Since its birth, Pakistan has faced grave water challenges. Nowhere, perhaps, are water issues more complex than in Pakistan. Chief among these has been obtaining access to the headwaters of the Indus and rivers of Punjab, which were, at the stroke of a British pen, committed to other countries.

A second major challenge has been dealing with water-logging and salinity in the world’s largest contiguous irrigation system. The installation of diesel-powered tubewells in the Ayub era gave farmers a measure of independence because they no longer needed to rely on surface water from the Indus for all their irrigation needs but groundwater resources are becoming scarce now.

A third challenge is to build infrastructure and institutions which can maximise welfare and manage risk from floods, droughts and environmental degradation.

In this scenario there has to be a lot of focus on what needs to be done to try and plan for the future. Key areas that need to be focused on include climate change and how it will affect the Himalayan glaciers and how both will affect the quantity and timing of river flows. Two other areas that are equally important but also trickier are possible options for a new Indus Water Treaty (IWT) and for a Pakistan-Afghanistan Treaty on the Kabul River.

Pakistan’s Problems

In some years, Pakistan—with 180 million people to feed and annual rainfall averaging less than 9.5 inches—suffers severe droughts and shortages of electrical power. A particularly bad drought gripped the country between 1998 and 2002. In other years, it is ravaged by floods. In 2010, some 20 million people were displaced by a flood that covered one-fifth of the country’s land area. Just a year later, a pattern of water shortages reasserted itself.

The challenge is that Pakistan depends not only on one river, but on one major dam — the second largest in the world by structural volume. Tarbela Dam is managed for one purpose: agricultural irrigation. The problem though is that while dams can be operated to store water; to generate hydropower; or to mitigate flooding but a single dam cannot prioritise all three at once, and a dam’s flow parameters are chosen to serve the primary purpose for which it has been designated.

In Pakistan, for example, where there are two cropping seasons, one in summer and one in winter, most of the water flow comes in the summer, so you must store as much water as you can in that period to have enough for the winter season. At Tarbela, that means filling the dam as much as possible during the summer. By August the dam needs to be full which is why when the floods came in the summer of 2010, there was very little storage available to attenuate the flood peaks.

The only solution is to build another very large dam, or dams. Pakistan clearly needs more agricultural-storage capacity, more flood-control capacity, and more electrical generating capacity. Only 14% of its economically viable hydropower potential has been developed compared to more than 70% in advanced economies.

The country’s current plight is at least partly due to the fact that loans for infrastructure projects have given way to funding for social goods such as healthcare and human rights. This is a mistake. The core need is to first build its basic productive capacity. Critics of dam construction need to figure out where their loyalties lie. But lack of funding — the billions of dollars required to invest in solutions — is not the only problem in Pakistan. The biggest source of the nation’s water problems is lack of political will.

Part of the problem is also the Water Accord of 1991, a document of just two pages that was supposed to enhance cooperation among the provinces. Ambiguities of interpretation that govern the distribution of water during shortages have heightened mistrust, preventing or delaying the construction of mutually beneficial dams: no province, for example, wants to participate without knowing what its allocation from a new dam might be. And the accord could be more comprehensive in several other respects. For instance, it privileges agriculture, and even though that is sensible for a largely agrarian country, there are other national challenges for which the provinces need to find a workable mechanism. Hydroelectric storage, for example, is not mentioned. Flood control is not mentioned.

The answer is simple, Pakistan needs more dams. We all know there are trade-offs in the water management business. But think of the alternative. Try living in a flood, or a drought.

California flood plan calls for up to $17 billion in repairs

2012-07-17T09:23:00.002-07:00

The Suisun Marsh Salinity Control Gates (foreground) span the Montezuma Slough at the Roaring River intake (background). They operate like a heart valve, allowing flow in only one direction. In this picture, the three gates are open to allow the freshwater ebb tide from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to push the more saline Grizzly Bay water out of the slough. US Army Corps of Engineers photo

California water officials recommended a historic investment in the state's aging flood control system Friday, saying more than half of the state's levees do not meet standards and the system needs up to $17 billion in repairs and investment.

The Department of Water Resources' release of the first statewide flood plan follows a call by Gov. Jerry Brown to refocus state efforts on preparing for the effects of a warming climate as floods from a faster-melting snowpack already place increased strain on the state's aging levees.
Officials and experts say the state's flood control system — a piece-meal collection of 14,000 levees and other infrastructure built along the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers by farmers and local governments over the last 150 years — is no longer adequate.

Once a mostly agricultural region that was lightly populated, the Central Valley where the rivers meet has experienced rapid development and population growth. "The system is based on antiquated technologies, so you have to upgrade it and keep in mind changing societal demands," said Jeffrey Mount, professor and founding director of Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis.

Central Valley's flood risk ranks among the nation's highest. About 1 million Californians now live in floodplains and levees protect an estimated $69 billion in assets, including the state's water supply, major freeways, agricultural land and the valley's remaining wetland and riparian habitat, said Mike Mierzwa, senior engineer in the Central Valley Flood Protection Office.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is a freshwater source for two-thirds of California's population and irrigates millions of acres of farmland throughout the state. While officials have long known the flood control system was in disrepair, it's the first time they have studied it as a whole, come up with long-term solutions and a priority for investments....

Water wars between countries could be just around the corner

2012-07-15T23:43:00.004-07:00

A member of the Karo tribe by the Omo river in Ethiopia. Three hydropower dams are planned – the resulting scarcity could quickly lead to violent conflict

Energy secretary tells conference that growing pressure on water resources could worsen existing war and lead to new ones

Water wars could be a real prospect in coming years as states struggle with the effects of climate change, growing demand for water and declining resources, the secretary of state for energy and climate change warned on Thursday.

Ed Davey told a conference of high-ranking politicians and diplomats from around the world that although water had not been a direct cause of wars in the past, growing pressure on the resource if climate change is allowed to take hold, together with the pressure on food and other resources, could lead to new sources of conflict and the worsening of existing conflicts.

"Countries have not tended to go to war over water, but I have a fear for the world that climate instability drives political instability," he said. "The pressure of that makes conflict more likely."

Even a small temperature rise – far less than the 4C that scientists predict will result from a continuation of business as usual – could lead to lower agricultural yields, he warned, at a time when population growth means that demand for food was likely to be up by 70% by 2060. By the same time, he noted, the number of people living in conditions of serious water stress would have reached 1.8 billion, according to estimates.

"Climate change intensifies pressures on states, and between states," he told the conference, gathered to discuss whether climate change and natural resources should be regarded as a national security issue. "[Its effects] can lead to internal unrest … and exacerbate existing tensions. We have to plan for a world where climate change makes difficult problems even worse."

But Davey recalled previous global catastrophes that had been averted, including the threat of nuclear armageddon during the cold war, and successes such as the elimination of smallpox. He urged governments to work on adapting to climate change as a matter of urgency, as well as striving for an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

His call was echoed by Ali Bongo Ondimba, president of the Gabonese Republic. He told the conference that Africa was the most vulnerable part of the world to climate change, but that African people had been responding to a changing climate for thousands of years – his own Bantu people had been forced, centuries ago, to move around Africa as areas dried out and food became scarcer.

Gabon had already started to take action to protect the 88% of its land that is covered by rainforest, and to reduce carbon emissions by its industries, with a view to a "transformation" by 2025.

He warned that seeking to lift people out of poverty could not be achieved at the expense of degrading natural resources. He warned that policies for economic growth across the continent must reflect this immediately: "The impact [of degradation] cannot be reversed by policies conceived too late."

Volunteer weather observers in Australia : over 100 years of vital data collection

2012-07-15T22:53:00.003-07:00

From seas to storms and rainfall to rivers, thousands of volunteers across Australia gather weather, climate and water information to help strengthen our long-term understanding of Australia's climate and deliver crucial weather and forecasting services to communities across Australia.

Volunteer rainfall observer of Doongin Peak, Western Australia.

Volunteers have been observing and recording weather, climate and water data for the Bureau since 1908—over 100 years. Our volunteer networks now include weather observers, rainfall and river height observers, storm spotters and volunteers at sea.

Parks Australia Ranger taking a
weather reading in Uluru-Kata Tjuta
National Park, Northern Territory.

Rainfall and river height observers

Every day thousands of volunteers collect data from around 5900 rainfall observer stations and over 1000 river height gauges. These readings are critical not only to local flood forecasts, but also in the broader reaches of water catchments.

The work of our volunteers plays a vital role in helping the Bureau:

assess Australian water resources and provide products such as the National Water Account, Australian Water Resources Assessment and the Seasonal Streamflow Forecasts

meet its obligations to compile and deliver comprehensive water information across Australia (a requirement under the Commonwealth Water Act 2007).

Volunteers at sea

The importance of weather information to mariners was a driving force behind the establishment of many of the world's national meteorological services. Much of our knowledge of global climate was originally taken from the logs of sailing ships of the 18th and 19th centuries.

From early last century, marine weather forecasts improved the safety of shipping after improved communications systems enabled mariners to transmit weather observations and receive forecasts from the Bureau.

The Bureau coordinates a network of around 80 foreign and Australian ships making meteorological observations such as air pressure, temperature, humidity, sea surface temperature, wind speed and direction, and visual observations such as wave heights.

Volunteers here, there and everywhere

Our smaller volunteer networks are just as important. Volunteers collect a variety of data each day including:

evaporation pan readings, usually with 203 mm rain gauge readings
lightning flash counters
synoptic observations.

Volunteer weather observer in Cradle Mountain – Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania.

Volunteer excellence awards

To recognise the consistent and outstanding achievements of our volunteers, the Bureau offers excellence awards to:

individual volunteers (50 years)
family volunteers (100 years, and each succeeding 50 years)
ships providing synoptic reports (5 years).

Water Resources in the Middle East

2012-07-15T06:29:00.003-07:00

Abstract
In the Middle East, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers combined provide the area with good quantity of water. These rivers flow through the countries of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey and provide the essential element for agriculture and economics. The population growth rate varies from 3.1% in Iraq and 2.1% in Turkey and adds a great pressure on the water resource. Due to the lack of industry, 80% of the water in this region is being used for agricultural use. Desalination has helped provide water to areas where water is dwindled due to the construction of dams in Turkey.

Introduction

The increasing importance of water in geopolitical affairs is escalating the potential for conflict over water resources among nations. It is estimated that there are presently at least ten places in the world where war could erupt over dwindling water resources. Unfortunately the majority of these sites are in the vulnerable Middle East. The Euphrates and Tigris rivers are shared among different countries and with the depletion of water in the Middle East more conflicts have arisen. Projects are being developed to exploit the water resources in the area (Topkaya 1998). Projects like Guneydogu Anadolu Projesi (GAP), also referred to as the Southeast Anatolia Development Project, will create irrigation and hydropower and will use a lot of water (Lowi 1995). The total amount of water that is planned to be used by Turkey, Syria and Iraq exceeds the total flow capacity of the rivers (Topkaya 1998).

Contribution of the riparians on water potential

Euphrates-Tigris River Basins and the Riparian States

Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq, is located on the intersection of the Tigris and Diyala rivers. During the months of April and May parts of southern Iraq are often flooded, levees often collapse and roads are often built up on high embankments. The water flow of these rivers fluctuates greatly from one season to the next (Figure 3). In the summer months the average flow of the two rivers is approximately 200 cubic meters per second. In the springtime it reaches the level of 5000 or cubic meters per second. This means too much water for human consumption in the springtime and to little the rest of the year (Topkaya 1998).

Political Factors

The biggest and most intensive project ever-implemented in Turkey known as GAP. GAP includes irrigation and hydropower schemes and the construction of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Figure 4). It is planned that 27 billion kilowatts of electricity will be generated annually which accounts for 22% of the country's economical viable hydropower potential. Over 1.7 million hectares of land will be irrigated which accounts for 19% of the economically irrigable area in Turkey (Topkaya 1998).

Watershed of the Euphrates-Tigris Rivers and the planned dams in GAP region in Turkey

When the GAP is completed, power plants and dams built on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, will together allow more than 50 billion cubic meters of water to flow annually, (in Turkish boundaries) and will regulate 28% of Turkey's total water potential. Consumption of water by the country of Turkey varies between 40.8%, 22.2% and 34.5% from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, respectively, as they are considered as one basin (Topkaya 1998).

Contribution and Consumption of Water by Turkey

The GAP project brings serious concerns to Iraq and Syria because of the dependence of water to irrigate its agricultural fields. When the Ataturk dam was completed in 1990, the filling up of the lake behind the dam caused a 75 percent drop in the downstream water supply for an entire month (Swain 1998). The flow of the Euphrates to Syria could be reduced up to 40% and up to 80% in Iraq. This decrease in water volume will come with deterioration in the water quality due to upstream agricultural uses (Swain 1998). The April 1990 agreement between Iraq and Syria stated that where the Euphrates leaves Syria into Iraq, that Iraq gets 58% and 42% to Syria. With decreasing water flow from the Turkish side, Syria will have to reduce its flow to Iraq, and to face the situation; they may form an alliance against Turkey for the use of the Euphrates resources (Swain 1998).

Population Problem

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According to experts at the Arabian Center for Dry and Arid Land Studies, the surface and ground water available in Arab lands is not sufficient enough to meet the drinking needs of the population. The shortage will affect environmental conditions in the area, and will impede further economic growth. In the 1950's only four countries had problems with water scarcity in the region. Now the number is ten, with four more countries estimated to join the group by the year 2000 (Al-Solh 1997). According to government agencies in the Middle East, water is indicated as the future source of conflict in the Middle East (Deconinck 2000). This dry area consists of one of the fastest growing populations in the world, as some 97.5 million people are expected to exceed 109.5 million by the year 2005 (Topkaya 1998). Every day the growing demand for food leads to more water scarcity. A shortage of water could be compensated by the import of 'virtual water', which saves 1000 tons of water for every single ton of grain imported (Deconinck 2000). Virtual water is water embedded in commodities such as grain (Allan 1998). More information will be discussed about virtual water in the next section Agriculture and Irrigation. The Worldwatch Institute (WWI) warns that a water war will be fought on the food market when food production cannot keep pace with population growth, which will cause the price of grain to rise. The poorer countries of the region will have to keep their population growth under control, which will pave the way they handle their water resources (Deconinck 2000).

Agriculture and Irrigation

The geographical Middle East has a rich history of agricultural productivity. Soils and climatic patterns differ from fertile plains and hills to deserts. The land that is tillable depends on the seasonal rainwater, or if irrigated, the water from subsoil aquifers or surface sources. Most of the surface waters in the area lie in the northern and northeastern regions (Isaac 1992). As mentioned before, the water flow is much less during the summer months when food needs to be grown (Figure 6). Less than 10% of an individual's needs is devoted to drinking and domestic use. More than 90% is devoted to food production (Allan 1998). It requires about sixteen times the amount of water to produce a kilogram of meat, to produce a kilogram of wheat. This explains why most of the food that is grown in the Tigris-Euphrates basin is wheat (Allan 1998). Turkey gets less than 250 millimeters of rainfall per year; the minimum amount needed for rain-fed agriculture. In contrast Turkey gets more than half of the amount of rainfall that Syria and Iraq get. As for Iraq, almost two-thirds of the country is desert; thus agricultural productivity is highly dependent on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers for irrigation water (Lowi 1995). Although Iraq has an advantage because of a complex irrigation network and an efficient system of drainage. The drainage was achieved by supplying irrigation water from the Euphrates in the west and the Nahrawan canal in the east. This permitted the Tigris, which is situated between the two, to function as a drain. This supported great cultivation of the land around the Tigris River, without serious decline to the land. The system of drainage is not as good as it was during the Sassanian period (A.D. 226-637) due to the construction of dams along the Euphrates River (Murakami 1995).

Figure 6. Tigris River in Iraq (Mostyn and Hourani 1988)

Virtual water has a number of advantages for solving the water problem in the Middle East. First, virtual water is crucial politically, because it enables politicians to avoid confronting with the water deficit. Secondly, the virtual water embedded in grain is being traded less than its production cost (Allan 1998).

Desalination and other solutions

In some of the more arid parts of the Middle East, where good quality of water is extremely limited, desalination of seawater has been used to solve some of the problems. The country of Kuwait was the first to adopt seawater desalination in 1957 and linked electricity generation to desalination. Today there are about 1,483 desalination units operating in the Middle East. This accounts for 57.9% of all desalting plants in the world. The dominant type of plant that is used is the multi-stage flash (MSF) which accounts for 86.7% of all plants being used (Murakami 1995). However, there has been a recent trend towards the use of reverse osmosis (RO) in seawater desalination. RO has lower operation and maintenance cost and the reduction of energy consumption compared to the present MSF plants. The total costs of producing potable water from seawater by MSF plants are $4 per 1000 gallons. The costs of producing potable water by RO is 50 cents per 1000 gallons. To a thirsty person living in the Middle East, four dollars does not seem much, but these numbers seem dismaying to a farmer (Abelson 1991). The RO unit is stored in two separate containers. The first, the operation container, includes the membranes, high pressure pumps, cartridge filter, flushing/cleaning tank, transfer pump, dosing stations, control panel and a electric switchboard. The second contains two dual-media filters, the feed pump, a backwash air blower, and associated pipes and valves (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant (Bosch 1996).

Brackish seawater is supplied to the feed water tank through a pipeline network. The water enters a pre-treatment system consisting of dual-media filters (hydroanthracite/fine sands) and cartridge filters. Sulfuric acid and antiscalant flocon are added before the cartridge filters and sodium bisulfate at the suction of the feed pump. After the water passes through the cartridge filter, the pressure is increased up to 15-25kg/cm2 by the centrifugal pump. The RO unit consists of eight pressure vessels. The permeate from the modules flows to the flushing/cleaning tank. A neutral pH value is achieved in the final product water by dosing it with caustic soda. Sodium hypochlorite is injected to sterilize the water (Murakami 1995).

Reverse osmosis is the reversal of the natural flow of osmosis. To purify the water is not to dilute the salt in the water, but to separate the pure water from the salt and other contaminants. When the natural osmotic flow is reversed, water is forced through a membrane in the opposite direction and collects salts and other contaminants (Figure 8) (Togan 2001).

Figure 8. Understanding Reverse Osmosis (Togan 2001).

The reverse osmosis process can not work properly without removing or flushing the contaminants from the RO membrane. The membrane will be clogged by salt and other impurities, requiring greater pressure to force the water through the membrane. RO membranes have a mechanism called cross flow filtration. In cross flow filtration, the feed water is split into two parts-a purified water stream and a concentrated contaminant stream that sweeps away the excessive salts rejected by the membrane (Figure 9) (Togan 2001).

Figure 9. Cross Flow Filtration Module (Togan 2001).

RO systems typically remove 85% to 95% of inorganic solids, 99% of larger organic solids, and more than 99% of the solid particles, bacteria and pryogens. Pryogens are lipopolysaccharides found in the outer cell walls of certain bacteria. These semi-permeable membranes have a submicron pore size. Particles and bacteria cannot pass through the membrane and are held on the membrane surface (Studt 1998).

Conclusion

Iraq argues that for thousands of years rivers have given life to the inhabitants of Mesopotamia and it is an acquired right for the people of Iraq. In other words no upstream country has the right to take away water. Iraq has also accused Turkey for violating "International Law", by not informing Iraq and reducing the amount of flow, the committed level behind the Ataturk Dam (Zahawi 1990). On the contrary Turkey officials' claim that the dams so far constructed and the ones to be constructed by Turkey on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, would not only contribute to its own energy and irrigation needs, but also serve regulated water to its downstream neighbors. Turkish dams on the Euphrates River have been found efficient, due to their effective reservoirs and their low evaporation losses (Kolars 1994). With a rapid growing population and a limited amount of water to grow food, this area has a water problem that needs to be fixed. The use of RO desalination units might be the best answer to the water resource problem in the Middle East. Of the three countries Turkey, Syria and Iraq, Turkey has the absolute advantage. In addition to being upstream, it also enjoys military superiority. Given its status in the basin, it is unrealistic to see Turkey to cooperate with Syria and Iraq and share the water (Lowi 1995).

The next major conflict in the Middle East

2012-07-15T06:14:00.003-07:00

Oil has always been thought of as the traditional cause of conflict in the Middle East past and present. Since the first Gulf oil well gushed in Bahrain in 1932, countries have squabbled over borders in the hope that ownership of a patch of desert or a sand bank might give them access to new riches. No longer. Now, most borders have been set, oil fields mapped and reserves accurately estimated - unlike the water resources, which are still often unknown. WATER is taking over from oil as the likeliest cause of conflict in the Middle East.

When President Anwar Sadat signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1979, he said Egypt will never go to war again, except to protect its water resources. King Hussein of Jordan has said he will never go to war with Israel again except over water and the Untied Nation Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has warned bluntly that the next war in the area will be over water.

From Turkey, the southern bastion of Nato, down to Oman, looking out over the Indian Ocean, the countries of the Middle East are worrying today about how they will satisfy the needs of their burgeoning industries, or find drinking water for the extra millions born each year, not to mention agriculture, the main cause of depleting water resources in the region.

All these nations depend on three great river systems, or vast underground aquifers, some of which are of `fossil water' that cannot be renewed.

Take the greatest source of water in the region, the Nile. Its basin nations have one of the highest rate of population growth which are likely to double in less than thirty years, yet the amount of water the Nile brings is no more than it was when Moses was found in the bulrushes.

The shortage:

Although all natural water resources are replenished through the natural hydrological cycle, their renewal rate ranges from days to millennia. The average renewal rate for rivers are about 18 days - that is to renew every drop taken out - while for large lakes and deep aquifer they can span thousand years.

The world's oldest reserves such as the Nubian aquifer in North Africa were filled when water infiltrated the earth's subsurface in past geological years. When we refer to fossil water in an aquifer, it is water trapped since the ice age and there is no certainty how long it would take to replenish them, thus it safe to conclude that mining their water is only a temporary solution.

The oil boom in the Gulf and other Middle Eastern states, desalination became an industry. In 1990 over 13 million cubic meter were produced each day world wide using 7,500 plants, yet this represents just under one thousandth of fresh water consumption per day.

Water scarcity: In general a country with less than 1,700 cubic meter per capita is regarded as experiencing water stress, while less than 1000 cubic meter is regarded as water shortage.

Water scarcity or availability is based on measurements of stream flow within countries in question, with evaporation calculated based on local climate and subtracted from the total. Dr Malin Falkenmark expresses the thresholds as number of people per ``flow unit'' of water, a unit equal to one million cubic meters per year. Dr Falkenmark uses 600 or more persons per floe unit as an indicator of water stress, 1000 or more persons per flow unit as an indicator of water scarcity and 2000 or more per flow unit as absolute scarcity. But most reports - and the methods used in publications - usually reverse the ratio of people per flow unit, expressing the figure as the amount of water available per capita. So reversing the first two equations yields fewer than 1,667 cubic meter per person per annum as an indicator of water stress ( again this figure is rounded up to 1700) and 1000 or fewer cubic meters per person as an indicator of scarcity.

In the case of Renewable fresh water resources there is no universal uniform on it since there is no international consensus on how to define and measure renewable fresh water resources.

* The list of water-scarce countries in 1955 were seven including three Middle Eastern countries : Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait.

By 1990, 13 were added among them eight from the Middle East : Algeria, Israel/Palestine , Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

UN studies anticipate to add another 10 countries by the year 2025 seven of them are from the Middle east : Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Libya, Morocco, Oman and Syria. This mean that by the year 2025 some eighteen countries in this troublesome region will suffer from water shortages.

* The Annual Renewable fresh water Available Per Person ranked by 1990 Availability in Cubic Metres

Country 1955 1990 2025

Kuwait 147 23 9

Qatar 808 75 57

Bahrain 1,427 117 68

Saudi Arabia 1,266 306 113

UAE 6,196 308 176

Jordan 906 327 121

Yemen 1,098 445 152

Israel 1,229 461 264

Tunisia 1,127 540 324

Algeria 1,770 689 332

Libya 4,105 1,017 359

Morocco 2,763 1,117 590

Egypt 2,561 1,123 630

Oman 4,240 1,266 410

Lebanon 3,088 1,818 1,113

Iran 6,203 2,203 816

Syria 6,500 2,087 732

Turkey 8,509 3,626 2,186

Iraq 18,441 6,029 2,356

Sudan 11,899 4,792 1,993

* Figures of population growth in the Middle East leaves little room for optimism.

Israel's population is projected to grow from 4.7 millions in 1990 to about 8 million in 2025. By that time Palestinians in the west bank - because of their higher birth rate, are likely to reach just under seven millions- the two peoples are to share the same water resources which they both now say are not enough.

Jordan's population more than doubled from 1.5 millions in 1955 to 4 millions in 1990 and is projected to double again before 2010. Their annual per capita water availability in 1990 was 327 cubic meters some 673 below the bottom line of crisis.

Iran for example had 2,025 cubic meter per capita in 1990, the figure projected for 2025 is between 776 and 860 cubic meter.

Libya's population of 4.5 million in 1990 is projected to increase to 12.9 million in 2025 and the oil revenues enabled the government to increase dependency on desalination, but they diverted - or rather wasted massive resources on a white elephant, the great man made river to mine fossil water in the south.

Egypt's 58 Million in 1990 are projected to reach 101 Millions in 2025 and already approaching water scarcity: its per capita availability is 1,017

* The Middle East is also a region where figures of water withdrawal as percentage of renewable water supplies are among the highest in the world, while the renewal rate is rather slow because of the arid nature of the land.

Withdrawal as a % years for country of renewable population to double Water supplies

Libya 374% 20.4

Qatar 174% 33.0

UAE 140% 24.8

Yemen 135% 21.7

Jordan 110% 19.3

Israel 110% 46.2

Saudi Arabia 106% 21.7

Bahrain over 100% 28.9

Kuwait over 100% 23.1

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INADEQUACY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW:

See water laws

Middle Eastern nations in the past have illustrated their willingness to resort to force in settling disputes over issues less serious than shortage of water, which is not only the source of life, but also lies at the heart of the basic beliefs of the majority who follow the three monolithic religions of the region, as well as ancient beliefs and mythologies that still the base of social life today - like Egypt and the Nile, or the inhabitants of the marshes in southern Iraq.

Water sources in almost all cases, with few exceptions of underground aquifers, crosses borders and in some cases involve as high as nine sovereign states in the basin.

Percentage of renewable years for Countrywater supplies originating population to double
outside national borders

Egypt 97 % 30.1

Syria 79 % 18.2

Sudan 77 % 22.4

Iraq 66 % 18.7

Few agreements have been reached about how the water should be shared; most of those agreements are seen as un-just: upstream countries believe that they should control the flow of the rivers, taking what they like, if they can get away with it. Example Turkey. Downstream, where the states are often more advanced and militarily stronger they have always challenged this assumption, like Egypt and Israel. It is a recipe for confrontation.

International law is not clear on the shared water courses, rivers or cross border aquifers. Water cannot be owned, but the methods by which an individual, a group, a legal entity or a nation can store, transfer and regulate the flow of water, makes this person in control. i.e. his hand on the tap. Governments, organisations and individuals negotiate agreements using a mixture of customary use, local and tradition laws, and the established right of use over a period of time - not specified. Such mixture is often contradictory and in itself a cause of conflict.

The Islamic laws - or shari'aa - and incidentally stem from a word meaning the sharing of water-, of which many Arab countries based their water use rules- predates the Mohammedan belief and is based on the harsh rules of the desert: example the people who dig a well have the first right of use, but they cannot deny the use - for drinking - to man or beast. A man lowering a container into a well will have full possession of only the amount of water that fills it at that precise moment...and so on.

When it came to sharing water courses, the situation is not clear.

Muslim Fundamentalists, currently active in the region, have recently begun to include the water issue in their radical literature as they interpret the laws of water sharing with non Muslims along Islamic lines in a way designed to deploy water as another weapon to continue few ongoing conflicts in the region.

The non clarity of international law is a matter of concern. There are few, if any, precedents that the UN international law commission or the International court of justice could be cited to establish some rules to arbitrate on water sharing that is if neighbouring countries quarrelling over water resort to arbitration; but so far no country has volunteered to do so.

Only the world bank set a precedent in the late 1940's in financing a dam project in India. The bank made it conditional that an agreement on sharing the benefits of the dam between riparian nations should be reached as well as commissioning independent studies to alter designs, and modify plans in order to minimise the harm that the project might inflict on neighbouring people. This only works when a nation approaches the world bank for a loan to finance a water scheme - like in north Syria and south Turkey in the 1950's.

But, as history have shown in the Middle East, nations that did not go to the World Bank to finance their water schemes had no ombudsman or a neutral observer to arbitrate between them and their neighbours. There was - and still there is - no provision in international law to stop them imposing their will on weaker or smaller neighbours, uprooting ethnic minorities by force or by ending their way of life and even having far reaching and lasting devastating effect on the environment, all because they carried out their ambitious water scheme away from world supervision without any proper studies while mankind helplessly looked on..

There are many examples of governmental water schemes that took little notice of international laws, the effect on the environment and wildlife, the interests of neighbouring nations or even the welfare of their own population. Water policies in Jordan and Levant have, for generations, been in the front line of the Middle East longest conflict. Turkey has an alarming attitude to neighbouring Iraq and Syria, not to mention the effect of its water politics on its own Kurdish population.

The Ba'ath dictatorship in Iraq is currently destroying the marshes and thousands of years way of life.

The Egyptian dictator colonel Nasser refused to listen to any argument but politics when he built the Aswan Dam - while the dam is providing multiple benefits to farmers and generating electricity - it had other devastating effects. Nasser imposed his will on Sudan - 1959 agreement gave Egypt 84 cubic kilometre of water and Sudan 18 cubic kilometres, yet the Egyptian `borrow' 60 percent of Sudan's water-, the lake the dam created covered priceless archaeological sites, destroyed valuable ecosystems and fishing grounds, eroded beaches and damaged nutrient and sediment balances and uprooted the 100,000 people, by evacuating the majority of the Nubian nation in the 1960's from the land they inhabited since the ancient Egyptian state over 5000 years ago.

Even if we put the damage to the environment aside, undemocratic governments - and the Middle East is full of them - argue that their water schemes which have infringed the rights of ethnic minorities, are internal matters. But again history proves that it is only a matter of time before the aggrieved ethnic minorities take up arms to face such injustice in a classical guerrilla war that on for years with even heavier price paid by the population, the wild life and the environment.

****

WATER AND THE CURRENT PEACE ACCORDS:

As the Palestine Israel accord is heralding the end of one long dispute, with its prospect of a general peace between Israel and her Arab neighbours, it became obvious that water is in the heart of the dispute since other issues that obscured water for years, proved to be of lesser significance to the parties of the dispute. Multilateral talks group concentrating on water - they met in Oman last month - still have reached no agreement on sharing water after almost three years of starting the talks.

During the research for the book, both my co-author and I, discovered that water was the hidden agenda for past conflicts and one major obstacle to reach a lasting and final settlement in the region. The conflicts over water is not just between Israel and her neighbours, but also conflicts among Arabic speaking nations.

In the past Arab dictators stifled their own disputes and faced the Jewish state as a common enemy. Soon, that constraint is likely to disappear and all the long-suppressed enmities - like water sharing quarrels - will come into the open.

Already water has played a part in causing wars, altering policies and changing alliances. As late as in 1987 & 1989 Senegal and Mauritania fought two limited wars across the Senegal river - when Mauritanian tribesmen followed the shrinking vegetation and crossed to the other bank, violating Senegalese sovereignty. As artillery exchanges raved across the river Senegal, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia became directly and indirectly involved.

Water was an early weapon deployed in the Arab Israeli conflict. In the 1960s cross border raids on water schemes' machinery raved between Israel, Syria and Jordan culminating in the Six Day war in 1967. In 1964, an Arab summit conference in Amman decided to divert the headwaters of the Jordan - in effect, depriving Israel of its main supply.

Few months before the 1964 Arab Summit, Israel built a giant pumping station on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee and began to siphon water into systems of pipes and canals known as the national water carrier, all the way to the Negav Desert. By 1990, the carrier was diverting 440 million cubic meter a year of water that used to pass through the Jordan all the way to the Dead Sea. As a result the Dead Sea has now shrunk into a slain drying two lakes.

When Yasser Arafat founded Fateh guerrilla organisation, the group's baptism on new-year's-eve 1964/65 was an operation against the national water carrier in Israel.

To implement the 1964 Arab summit resolution, work began on the Syrian and Jordanian side of the border, despite Israel's warning that it would consider it an infringement of national rights. And though all the work was carried out on Arab or neutral land, battles, air raids and artillery duels occurred. In the end, Israeli air strikes deep into Syria forced the Arabs to call off their scheme by destroying the proposed dam site on the Yarmuk river. Had the two dams al-Maquarin and Al-Makhiyabat been completed, they would have deprived Israel of 550 million cubic meter per annum.( In fact Jordan and Syria are proposing to build a new Dam the Unity Dam further upstream, World bank linking the finance with an agreement with Israel, which has not been reached yet.)

General Ariel Sharon, later an Israeli defence minister, had no doubt what those skirmishes were all about. `People generally regard 5 June 1967 as the day the Six-day war began,' he said. `That is the official date. But, in reality, it started two- and-a-half years earlier, on the day Israel decided to act against the diversion of the Jordan.'

That brief conflict settled nothing, so once again war erupted in 1973. President Sadat of Egypt wanted to force Israel to the conference table, and to conclude a lasting peace. With the help of Henry Kissinger a peace treaty with Israel was reached in 1979, after the Camp David meetings and accords in 1978.

As the various Israeli-Egyptian committees met to settle the details of the treaty, Israeli delegates suggested that there should be co-operation on water projects. In particular, they wanted about 1 per cent of the Nile flow giving them about 800 million cubic meter to be diverted into a pipeline extending from the peace canal which takes water from the Ismaelia canal east of the delta to Sinai.

President Sadat saw this as providing a substitute for water from aquifers of the west bank and the Jordan, thus reducing Israel's dependency on the territories seen as Palestinian self rule areas. He also saw such project as basis for regional co-operation, eventually extending the pipeline to Lebanon or Jordan in later stages.

What president Sadat did not realise was the consternation that his ideas would cause at home, where the Nile is held in almost mystical regard; the prime duty of the Egyptian armed forces is to defend and preserve that source of all Egyptian life.

Following Egyptian intelligence leaking the information to senior army officers already restive at being forced to make peace with their old enemy, plots to oust Mr Sadat were laid, and he was saved only when the CIA learned of them - through an Egyptian officer who defected to the opposition in London - and warned the Egyptian president. Amazed that the army could plot against him, Mr Sadat questioned Field Marshal Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala, the defence minister, who said the loyalty of the Egyptian army could not be guaranteed if a coup was mounted `to stop Israel stealing the Nile'. The president quickly dropped the water-sharing idea.

THE DAY THE TAP WAS TURNED-OFF:

More recently, Turkey seized an opportunity to demonstrate its ability to control the flow of water to its neighbours, and provoked a remarkable alliance between enemies. In January 1990, it stopped the flow of the Euphrates. Officially, the interruption was to fill the vast lake in front of the new Ataturk Dam; in fact, it was a demonstration to Syria of what might happen if President Hafez al-Assad continued aiding the Kurdish rebels in south-east Anatolia. Halting the flow of the Euphrates into Syria also brought water shortages in Iraq. Turkish planners thought that would not matter, as Syria and Iraq were bitter enemies.

Faced with this common threat, however, old antagonisms were instantly forgotten; the Iraqi and Syrian media united in denouncing Turkey, and military leaders from both countries drew up plans for armed retaliation. After three weeks, the river was allowed to flow as usual, though the stoppage had been planned to last a month.

Trouble between Turkey and Syria over water remains the likeliest prospect today. So far, Turkey has completed only about half of the Gap (South-east Anatolia) project to build 22 dams and reservoirs on the Euphrates to reclaim 1.7 M Hectar. When the Gap is completed, the quantity and quality of water flow to Syria will be reduced by an estimated 40 percent of its 1980 flow ( which was 7,000 bn gallons of water). Turkey says the water will eventually return back to the river after watering its fields, but water will be much saltier by then, the Syrians say. And as the whole Western Alliance would be involved by a war between Turkey and Syria, it is no surprise that American and European planners have been working on contingency plans for such eventuality.

When all the Euphrates projects are complete, the Turks intend to harness the Tigris. That will have a direct effect on Iraq ( about 90 per cent of the current flow), again forcing Syria and Iraq into alliance - though they almost went to war in 1975, when Syria built the Thawrah dam.

President Suleyman Demirel summed up the intransigent attitude of the Turks: `Neither Syria nor Iraq can lay claim to Turkey's rivers, any more than Ankara could claim their oil . . . We have a right to do anything we like. The water resources are Turkey's, the oil resources are theirs. We don't say we share the oil resources, and they cannot say they share our water resources.'

Syria's answer has been to step up support for the Kurdish fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party PKK, spreading devastation in Turkey. Part of the Kurdish grievances is the GAP project in their home land. Between 1984 and 1993 the region became a battle ground, some 5000 people were killed as the Kurdish revolt spread. Those who wanted to live peacefully were caught between the hammer of the PKK and the anvil of Turkish security forces. Iraq's answer as yet to be made.

The Tigris-Euphrates river basin is the scene not only of a bitter, low-intensity war in eastern Turkey, but also of silent genocide where the two great rivers unite in the Shatt-al-Arab ( which itself was a main cause of eight year war between Iran and Iraq to move the borders from its middle to the eastern bank ) and discharge themselves into the warm waters of the Gulf. There, Saddam Hussein's engineers have built a `Third River' to drain the marshes north of Basra, home for 3,000 years to the Marsh Arabs. This is followed by another one `The Mother of All Battles River' Ostensibly an irrigation project, it is really a way of suppressing forever the last pocket of resistance to President Saddam in the south of the country.

The Shia, who answered the call by George Bush for a rebellion against the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1991, took refuge there when they were defeated, and have been supplied and joined by revolutionary guards and Iraqi dissidents from Iran. Unable to flush them out of their reed- hidden bases, the Iraqis first poisoned the waters, are now draining them - and are destroying a whole people and their way of life which is estimated to irreversibly disappear within the next 10 to 20 years if the Iraqi government continues to drain them as indicated by a study of ecological and environmental changes in the marsh region, an area slightly smaller than Wales, carried out by a team of scientists.

Of 15,000 square kilometres of marsh and lake in 1985, 57 per cent had been turned into dry land by 1992. [ Evidence for this claim comes from detailed interpretation of satellite images of the region, obtained from Landsat, NOAA and SPOT probes.] This transformation has irreversibly damaged much of the wildlife of the marshland ecosystem, which is classified as of global importance by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

CONFRONTATION IN THE NILE BASIN:

The Iraqi schemes might not shock many since the world has accepted that Saddam Hussein is in the habit of pursuing such policies. But on the other extreme where moderation is the norm, things don't look too bright when it comes to water politics.

Today, Egypt is regarded as the most moderate and helpful of all Middle Eastern nations. But it is as ready as any other country to use force to protect its vital resources. It worries about dams that might be built in the Ethiopian highlands, which will affect the flow of the Nile, and about grandiose plans for a canal that could tap the sources of that great river in central Africa.

In November 1989, the Ethiopian ambassador was called to the Foreign Office in Cairo to provide an explanation on the presence of Israeli hydrologists and surveyors studying the areas on the Blue Nile with the possibility of building a number of dams to store 51 bn Cubic Meter. He was left in no doubt about Egypt's stern response. In the same day Egyptian members of Parliament lined up one speaker after the other saying they would back the government in taking military action in Ethiopia. The Blue Nile contributes about 85 percent of the annual flow that reaches Egypt. Two days earlier the Egyptian intelligence leaked information to the press about the issue and moving special forces near Ethiopia. Among the Egyptian special forces is a unit that trains regularly in jungle warfare: there are no jungles in Egypt.

Until couple of years ago, Egypt had no real worry about Ethiopia when it was under the Marxist regime of Haile Mariam Mengistu and had little chance of getting finance to build dams or little support world wide, the story is now different, which makes the more hawkish trend in Egypt push for a military solution at the first prospect of Ethiopia building dams on the Blue Nile.

Above all, Egypt worries about Sudan, whose fundamentalist government is increasingly friendly with Iran. Cairo blames extremists across the border for the wave of terrorist attacks that have halved its tourist trade. Egypt may seek an excuse to intervene in Sudan: any `unauthorised' interference with the flow of the Nile would be an ideal pretext,' one Egyptian official told me.

A more immediate danger to the Nile basin and the environmental welfare of the valley is posed, in the eyes of the Egyptians, by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's `Great Man-made River' in neighbouring Libya. A huge pipeline carries water from 120 wells, tapping the Kufrah aquifer in the sparsely populated south of the country, to the arid, densely inhabited coast in the north.

In addition to the white elephant nature of the project ( the final cost could exceed $32 bn, the cost of a dozen desalination plants - while the water which could be mined just once, is unlikely to last more than 15 years). According to some hydrologists, the rapid depletion of this aquifer could lead to seepage from the Nile. Meanwhile some geologists fear a change in the sub layers or rocks under the desert as a result of speedy pumping of the water.

There is no agreement among geologists in Egypt on what effect that might have, but some argue that such seepage could have a devastating effect on the cavity of the rocks underneath the western deserts as the sudden drop in temperature at night would cause the frozen water to expand cracking the rocks and leading to irreparable damage.

However we have reasons to suspect that in the event of geologists presenting the proof that mining water by the Libyans is having a direct effect on the Nile bed, the Egyptian army will - directly or indirectly pending a political decision - put an end to Gaddafi's man-made river.

Egyptian intelligence sources refuse to comment on whether they have plans to slow down Gaddafi's project or even shut it down altogether before the whole of the aquifer is totally depleted. But they confirmed another plans for a massive military operation that would ` temporarily' take the Egyptian army into southern Libya; although the term temporarily could mean years here. That is to do with the Aswan High Dam, rather than the Gaddafi project. Aswan High Dam was a controversial project.

Built by Egypt's former dictator colonel Gamal Abd el-Nasser as a monument to his era of defying the west the dam has a lake stretches some 500 kilometre up streams and some 60 kilometres wide in certain places. The lake can store two years of water of the annual flooding. The Aswan giant turbines generate 2000 megawatts of hydroelectricity. But the harm that the Aswan Dam did over the years is irreversible. Before the dam was built, the annual flood used to bring 130 million tonnes of silt - mainly soil washed down from the Ethiopian high mountains; 90 per cent used to be washed into the Mediterranean and 15 million tonnes was deposited onto the Nile flood plains accumulating in annual layers of 1 millimetre each - that what formed Egypt's agricultural soil in the valley and Delta over the millennia.

Since the dam was built almost all the 130 million tonne are is deposited in front of the dam. There are two possible scenarios as a result of the accumulation of the silt, which, in low flood years mounts to hills dried by the sun into mini brick dams. First scenario is a wall from dried silt forms on the west bank of the lake, then it dries by the sun in a low flood year; in a high flood year, the water will break through it and billions of tonnes of water will gush westwards. In the event of the Nile breaking its banks and creating streams going west, it would take months if not years to repair some of the damage by directing the flow northward to keep it within the Egyptian borders. The Egyptian High Command have plans to occupy South East Libya, North Chad and parts of North Sudan for as long as it takes to complete the construction of several dams to divert the newly formed streams to the North, in order to prevent neighbouring nations from establishing a right of use presence - since International law is not clear in such cases but the right of use is recognised - by moving some of their nationals into the newly formed streams inside their borders.

The second scenario, is more depressing and is based on study by Dr Ibrahim Kamel. His theory is as the current slows, millions of tonnes of silt fall into the bottom to form a small mound. In low flood season, the dam dried by the sun, more silt accumulates on top of it year after year and so on. The same process repeats itself several times every few hundred kilometres upstream making another lake further south. In a year of high flood - as happened with the Mississippi in the US last year, the pressure of water will destroy the most southern of those silt dams, the water will gather force destroying other dams as it gushes through; by the time the massive wave reaches the Aswan dam, it would sweep the structure and flood most of Egypt. We also have evidence that the Egyptian military are anxious to have total control of Sudan to carry out necessary work to minimise the possibility of such flood.

HOLY TROUBLE:

The third river system of the Middle East is tiny compared to the others, but the danger of conflict over its water is just as great and even more noticeable than the other two. The short, muddy Jordan flows through the most hotly disputed territory of all, and is bordered by countries that have history of using force to gain their ends.

The annual flow in the whole area controlled by Israel since 1967 is just under 500 cubic meter per person. The 1991 figures indicate that Israelis use 375 cubic meter apiece and Palestinians 180 cubic meter ( assuming that 5 million Israeli citizens and settlers and 2 million Palestinians and Golan heights residents). Looking at birth rates, the population could double some time between 2010 & 2020. The flow of the river Jordan cannot be improved either. Even less than 15 months after some unusual heavy rain in 1991 that caused flood, water shortages were endemic in Amman despite ongoing water rationing.

A study, in 1990, by Dan Zaslavsky, Israel's national water commissioner found that 10 consecutive years of above average rainfall are needed to replenish the heavily overtaxed underground resources. In the five years since, it only happened in 1991, and partly early 1993.

In the Jordan basin of all, it is a zero-sum game. If Israel obtains more Jordan will receive less, and vice versa.

One of the bitter sources of conflict, which Arabs never fail to mention, that while the a Jordanian average use is 80 litres per day, Israelis use 300 litres, of the same river and the same aquifers.

If you go to the west bank an area of 5,890 square kilometre occupied by Israel, the difference are great and both sides' belief in their right to water makes their ideological differences over land, religious interpretation etc., seem moderate.

The presence of some 100 Israeli settlements (populated by over 100,000 Jews) on land occupied in the West Bank in 1967, is a thorny issue. Water is very much in the heart of the conflict. The 100,000 settlers are given ( 100 Million Cubic meter) almost as much water as the one million Palestinians who live in the region ( given 137 million cubic meter). This is a source of bitterness and a real obstacle for peace. `` All Israeli settlements have water, lawns and swimming pools, while dozens of Palestinian villages are with inadequate water supplies and suffer from water shortage'' said Abdel Rahman Tamimi a ground water expert with the Palestine Hydrology Group.

Figures published by PHG indicate that Israelis take 80 percent of the annual flow of 615 million cubic meter of mountain aquifers that should be, according to Mr Tamimi, `Palestinian water.' This means that one quarter of water used by Israelis annually is seen by Arabs as `stolen water' which they want back. ( according figures by Independent scholars like Professor Thomas Naff of University of Pennsylvania, 40 per cent of Israel's water comes from two aquifer. The early one within pre 1948 borders but the other one supplies 20 per cent is from the occupied West bank ).

The PHG also accuse the Israeli occupation authority of forbidding Palestinian civilians from drilling new wells or deepening existing wells since 1967, while Israeli wells are six times deeper causing Palestinian wells to totally dry for more than 5 month a year. As a result, the PHG argue, irrigated Palestinian farmland declined from 27 per cent of all agricultural land in 1967 to a meagre 4 per cent in 1990.

The Israeli counter argument is based on their military superiority and a status quo that wont help peace, as well as the lack of provision on water use in International law.

In theory, peace between the Arabs and Israel should end their rivalry over water, but it is just as likely that water will delay, if not altogether prevent, peace. In a final settlement, Israel would have to give up the West Bank which gives it control of the southern portion of the Jordan, the west bank of the river with its aquifers; the Golan Heights in Syria which contains the headwaters of the Jordan and the strip of land along the southern Lebanese border where the Zahrani and Litani rivers flow.

It seems unlikely that the Israelis would leave the land without guarantees to water security, particularly as at least part of its motives in invading and holding to south Lebanon - or so the Lebanese and other non partisan sources say - was to have access to Litani and Hasbani rivers, and the headsprings of the Jordan.

Before the six day war, Israel controlled less than 10 Kilometre or 6.25 Miles only of the Yarmuk river, now it has a de-facto control that stops Syria and Jordan from diverting the headwaters if they chose to. A report was recently prepared by the Israeli Military warned Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin against pulling out of the Golan heights. Two reasons were given, first water security and second the army intelligence gathering operation.

Even if some generous compensation are to be paid to the settlers to hand back settlements to the Palestinians, no electable Israeli government is likely to let go of control of water supplies, unless alternative source is found by some miracle.

In 1989 - just less than two years before the Arabs and Israelis met in Madrid - an official publication issued by Israel's Ministry of Agriculture, which was then headed by hardliner Rafael Eitan, concluded that full control of the mountain aquifers are of vital necessity :`` It is hard to conceive, of any political solution consistent with Israel's survival that does not involve complete and continued Israeli control of the water system.'' General Eitan argued later that, overriding any religious and even security grounds for keeping the West bank is Israel's need to stay because it must have the water. Mr Eitan has just ( In February ) been invited into the labour coalition by Prime Minister Rabin, to strengthen his hand in securing a vote to back the accord with Yasser Arafat. Now the price Mr Eitan is demanding is holding into water resources for good.

When it comes to international law it is even more complicated. Unless there is a legal entity called Palestine, there can be no international arbitration, so this has to be between Jordan and Israel. Even though, the two parties themselves must seek arbitration, which is unlikely.

If agreement is reached between Jordan and Israel, but without a settlement between Syria and Israel, in decade or so Syria could face an alliance of Jordan, the Palestinians and Israel aimed at maximising their share of scarce water resources. Just as the old enemy Iraq, might side with Syria against Turkey to demand more water, such alliance would even be supported by Israel, just to emphasise the right of a down stream state to confront an upstream state which exploits geography to the disadvantage of other riparian states.

International law is not clear on the right of upstream countries to control either surface or ground water. Israeli experts interpret the law in practical hydrological terms according to the practices of centuries of irrigation methods in the region:`` In hydrological terms water should be harnessed in the foothills. The onus is on the people who live below to arrange supply;'' a point welcomed by Egypt and Jordan and partly by Syria in its dispute with Turkey.

LITTLE ROOM FOR OPTIMISM:

Optimists think that if a general peace is reached in the Middle East, Arab oil money and Israeli technology may combine to help reduce the wastage of water and revolutionise irrigation - since agriculture swallows up to 85 percent of water in the Middle East, while the world average figure is 69 per cent and in countries like Sudan the figure is 99 per cent - and also find an economic, nuclear, solar or electric energy to desalinate seawater ( like the red-to-dead-sea canal project, the Indongo pan-African electric grid among the nine Nile riparian states, etc.).

But pessimists outnumber the optimists, among them are regional statesmen, politicians, and world diplomats and technocrats too. Elias Salamah, professor of water resources at the University of Amman has warned, on several occasions, that, ``if the multilateral talks on water fail to bring about a fairer distribution of water, some time between 1995 and 2005 there is high probability that Israel, Jordan and the west bank will face such progressive worsening water shortages that there will be conflict.''

The issue of water security comes up almost once a month in Egyptian Parliament, the all party water committee's 1993 report accuses Israel of `stealing 1300, Million cubic meters of `Arab water' every year.

The inevitable serious shortage makes such a conflict seems likely. It is estimated that the Middle East's population of 314 million will rise by 34 million within 30 years, with an annual water requirement of 470 billion cubic metres annually - 132 billion more than the total available supplies based on current level of consumption from both renewable and non renewable sources and on the assumption that there will be an improvement in conservation of about 2 percent annually. Arab Gulf states' water needs jumped from 6 bn cubic meter in 1980 to 22.5 bn cubic meter in 1990 and estimated to reach 35.5 bn by 2010.

In general the Middle East will need double the amount of water it used in 1975. As it is, per capita water consumption in such comparatively Arab countries as Jordan is only about 80 litres and Israel is 300 on a par with the European average. Meanwhile, unless other projects are implemented, water available in Israel would be half of what was available in 1985. Some countries - like Oman - have already trimmed its development programme to take account of highly population growth, and other countries will soon be forced to follow suit.

But there are other political, ideological, social and historic considerations making many Middle Eastern governments too reluctant to move into a revolutionary consumption reduction methods. Egypt, the largest nation in the region, is unwilling to see large migration from the country to the urban areas, or to use modern technology in irrigation that would create mass unemployment, or to replace high water consumption crops unemployment, loss of hard currency earning form export or increase of salinity of farm land.

Long history of antagonism and mistrust makes Middle Eastern leaders reluctant to reform their agriculture policy, switching the subsidised home produced with imported cheaper food. At present almost all grow cereal crops - with little economic sense, not to mention the devastating effect on both surface and underground water - since they are used to wars interrupting the trade routs. ( The Saudi always argue that their project to grow wheat in the desert was a decision taken by the late King Faisal claiming that his 1973 oil embargo led hostile western powers to delay delivery of wheat and flour to the kingdom !)

Iraq has gone full circle from paying subsidies to farmers to work in industry and construction project back into embracing the land and raising the slogans of the land of the two rivers being the cradle of the agricultural civilisation, due to the political turmoil that this unfortunate nation has been through.

Israeli agriculture policy too is ideologically motivated; `` making the desert of Palestine bloom'' was, and still is, an entrenched Zionist ideal. For some bizarre ideological motives a number of Israeli farms insist on growing every fruit, vegetable or a crop of which they read in the bible, even if that was not always economically feasible. ( subject to weather condition and time of the year between 35 to 55 per-cent of all Israel's energy goes to pumping and moving water).

In addition, when some governments showed willingness to invest in water projects, they end up wasting their financial, economic and natural resources by choosing the wrong scheme because they were ill advised. Some irresponsible - even corrupt - western experts, academics and advisers to western construction companies go on advising the Arabs to build White elephants like Gaddafi's project or Saudi Arabia growing wheat in the desert and depleting the water table below sea level increasing salinity. Those experts and academics know they are giving wrong and dishonest advice. Their greed for fees paid by construction companies or undemocratic governments in the Middle East make them opt for projects that would make dictators' media show water gushing in abundance, which is a short term solution. But such projects by nature sharpen the water crisis on the long term, thus bring the possibility of open conflict even closer.

The majority of Engineers and Hydrologists are honest, but in their planning of dams, diversions and more desalination plants and trying to improve water use and eliminate leaks and reduce evaporation ( the figures are astronomical but 15 per cent of all water in the region is lost through leaks and 20 per cent to evaporation ) and inefficient irrigation ( 60 percent is lost before reaching the crops and orchards to be watered).

Several discussion with some of those experts, and examining their reports, indicated that they have lacked the political advice of non-partisan specialist, while some also ignored the environmental and human factors ( examples the Nubians in the Asswan Dam, the silt, As a result of slowing the current, pollution is behind 40 percent of Kidney chronic disorders in Egypt. The lack of silt resulted in an increase in the use chemical fertilizers. The salinity in drainage has reached 340 in a million that is seven times higher than the safety level. The Kurds in Turkey , the Shia in Southern Iraq etc.).

They also either ignored, or misunderstood the factors and political realities of the region, let alone their assumption that they can find the will among politicians to allow cross-border co-operation. Their ideas could work in other regions; but not in the Middle East, not just yet.

Most alarming, and perhaps most telling, was an off-the-record comment by a leading politician about his country's water need. `` A time may well come,'' he said,`` we have to calculate whether a small swift war might be economically more rewarding than putting up with a drop in our water supplies.''.

Antarctica at Risk from Human Activities

2012-07-15T02:30:00.002-07:00

The continent of Antarctica is at risk from human activities and other forces, and environmental management is needed to protect the planet's last great wilderness area, says an international team of researchers, including a Texas A&M University oceanographer, in a paper published in the current issue of Science magazine.

Mahlon "Chuck" Kennicutt II, professor of oceanography who has conducted research in the area for more than 25 years, says Antarctica faces growing threats from global warming, loss of sea ice and landed ice, increased tourism, over-fishing in the region, pollution and invasive species creeping into the area. One of the longer-term concerns that may present the greatest threat overall is the potential for oil, gas and mineral exploitation on the continent and in the surrounding ocean, the authors note.

Kennicutt says the Antarctic Treaty System that governs the continent has worked well since it was established in 1962 and that 50 countries currently adhere to the treaty, but it is under pressure today from global climate changes and the ever-present interest in the area's natural resources, from fish to krill to oil to gas to minerals.

"Many people may not realize that Antarctica is a like a 'canary in a coal mine' when it comes to global warming, and Antarctica serves as a sort of thermostat for Earth," he points out. "The polar regions are the most sensitive regions on Earth to global warming, responding rapidly, so what happens in Antarctica in response to this warming affects the entire Earth system in many ways that we barely understand," Kennicutt explains. "Antarctica contains over 90 percent of the fresh water in the world, locked up as solid water in its massive ice sheets. Research that develops fundamental knowledge and understanding of these complex systems conducted in and from Antarctica is critical to understanding many of the challenges facing Earth today."

In addition to conducting research in the area, Kennicutt is also president of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR), formed in 1958 to coordinate international research in the region.

More than twice the size of the United States, Antarctica has no cities, no government and no permanent residents. All who go to Antarctica are short-time visitors, whether they are scientists, personnel that support scientists or tourists. Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest location on Earth and is the only continent with no time zones.

"The Antarctic Treaty has worked well for the past 50 years, but we need to rethink how best to protect the continent from a range of growing of threats," Kennicutt adds.

"The treaty forbids oil or gas development, but it's possible that could be challenged in the years to come. Until now, energy companies have shown little interest in exploring the southern reaches of our planet because of the harsh conditions, the distance to market and the lack of technologies make it a very expensive commercial proposition.

"In the 1960s, most believed that drilling on the North Slope of Alaska was not economical, and in less than 30 years, it became one of the world's major sources of oil. Deep-water drilling today is practiced worldwide and subfloor completion technologies are rapidly advancing, so barriers in the past may soon be overcome increasing the threat to Antarctica in the not-so-distant future."

Another problem -- melting ice from several areas of Antarctica -- is a very real concern today, Kennicutt adds.

"A report in the news last week shows that sea-level rise on the east coast of the U.S. is occurring much faster than predicted," he notes.

"As the planet warms and the massive ice sheets break apart and melt, sea levels could continue to rise dramatically, not only in the U.S. but around the world. The ice sheets of Antarctica are known as the 'sleeping giants' in the ongoing debates about climate change and sea level rise. Scientists have only rudimentary understanding of how and when these 'giants' will contribute to sea level in the future."

He adds that the first explorers to Antarctica more than 100 years ago would be surprised to see how things have changed in the region.

For instance, it has been proven there are more than 300 sub-glacial lakes in Antarctica, some of them as big as the Great Lakes, and the huge ice sheets in the area flow like rivers to the ocean. He adds that growing tourism in the area and numerous scientific expeditions suggest that the prospect of permanent human settlements is not out of the question.

"All of these concerns pose serious challenges to conservation and protection efforts in Antarctica," Kennicutt notes.

"The bottom line is that we need to make sure that existing agreements and practices that address and respond to these threats are robust enough to last for the next 50 years, and that they truly provide the necessary protection of Antarctica that we all wish for and that we owe to future generations.

Penguins nest

The Coming Water Crisis in America

2012-07-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Water, Water Everywhere? Not so much…

We’re on the edge of a water crisis in the United States. Ongoing development in the American Southwest has created an ever-rising demand for a resource that has always been in short supply in the region. Civil engineering projects over the last century have made this development possible, but we seem to be reaching the point where current population levels in Nevada, Arizona, and Southeastern California are becoming unsustainable. People are living in a desert, and using water to do things like filling swimming pools, growing lawns, and creating golf courses. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to face the inevitable conclusion that this can’t go on. There are several indicators that we are headed for disaster. Here are a few.

Lake Mead

A man-made lake, Lake Mead is stacked up behind Hoover Dam, and supplies water and, via the dam, electricity to places like Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The problem is that it’s going dry. The water level in Lake Mead has been steadily dropping since the year 2000, and is now only slightly higher than it was during the harsh 1965 drought. The drop in Lake Mead’s water level is proportional to the growth of thirsty cities in the surrounding desert—cities like Las Vegas. If current trends continue, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego predicts that the lake may dry up completely by 2021. Even if this worst-case scenario doesn’t come to pass, there will certainly be shortfalls in both water delivery and electricity generation in the coming decade.

The town of St. Thomas ought to be underwater.

Colorado River

Lake Mead is essentially a wide spot in the Colorado River, which runs over 1450 miles from its source in the Colorado Rockies all the way to the All-American Canal, which diverts its flow away from Mexico and the Gulf of California and toward Imperial Valley in southeastern California. This diversion sends enough fresh water to Imperial Valley to allow its farmers to grow over a billion dollars worth of crops in what would otherwise be a desert. Of course, this miracle has its dark side in that it has turned what would otherwise have been an estuarial marshland in Mexico into a desert.

Continuing development in the American Southwest has put a great strain on the lower part of the Colorado River, prompting the states that depend on its flow to enter into the Colorado River Compact. You’d think that this would encourage responsible water management, but under the compact, even if the water level in Lake Mead drops to below what it was immediately after Hoover Dam was built, California will still get its full allocation so it can continue to irrigate its desert.

No Problem--We Can Use Great Lakes Water!

Of course, many folks in the Southwest imagine that we can simply divert water from the Great Lakes to supply their needs. After all, the Great Lakes Basin is the world’s largest resevoir of fresh water. Surely the Lakes can spare a few cubic miles of water to keep the people of Las Vegas from having to look at brown lawns. But even without a major diversion of water to the Southwest, the Great Lakes’ water levels have been decreasing over the past several years. Already ore freighters are unable to run fully loaded on the Lakes without scraping the bottom in shallow areas. If Great Lakes water is diverted while this trend continues, shipping on the Lakes will become functionally impossible, rendering thousands of people jobless in a region that can ill afford more unemployment.

Predictions of dire economic repercussions aside, history has shown us what happens when people try to turn a desert into farmland.

The Aral Sea…No, not “Sea.” What’s the Word? Desert.

The Aral Sea used to be the world’s fourth largest lake, at a little more than 26,000 square miles. It supported a robust fishing industry that employed thousands. But then, in an effort to create arable land from a desert, the Soviet Union diverted a couple rivers and built some irrigation canals. Today, the Aral Sea is mostly gone. Its surface area is now just under 2000 square miles, and the water is so salty and contaminated that nothing can live in it. The town of Moynaq, which used to be a fishing port, is now nearly a hundred miles from shore. Occasionally, there are dust storms where the water was.

Images of the Aral Sea

Russian Navy survey map of the Aral Sea, 1853 Image

Aral Sea from Space, 2004 Image courtesy

Aral Sea, 2009 Image

Where the shore used to be, Moynaq. Image

Orphaned Aral Ship Image

No Fish Today. Image

Why Am I Worried?

“But that was the USSR, “ you might say. “There’s no danger that the USA would make the same errors as a failed communist regime.” Well, not at the behest of a monolithic government bureaucracy, no. But we certainly might be moved, as a nation, to take pity on a region that is dealing with a drought (never mind that it was a desert before people moved there and remains one today). “People need water to live,” we might tell ourselves. “It would be inhuman to deny them the most basic of necessities when such an abundance exists in the Great Lakes basin.” I suppose it would be, if in fact folks were dying of dehydration because of some natural disaster. But that’s not what’s happening in the American Southwest.