Richard A. Lovett for Nature

Whether river deltas become swamped by rising sea levels will depend on a multitude of factors, including the type of soil and the tectonic action of any nearby plates, say researchers.

“In coastal systems we have to think about combined impacts,” said oceanographer Richard Feely of the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Washington, at this year’s meeting of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation in Portland, Oregon on 3 November. Every system is different, he says.

In the Mississippi Delta, for example, not only is the sea level rising, but the soils are subsiding, causing the land to submerge more rapidly than the river can deliver new sediment. “It’s quite clear that if we try to focus on conserving the outer areas, it’s going to be almost impossible” to save the delta, says Carles Ibáñez Martí, director of the Institute for Food and Agricultural Research and Technology’s Aquatic Ecosystems unit in Sant Carles de la Ràpita in Spain.

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Todd Jarvis, the associate director of the Institute for Water and Watersheds at Oregon State University, sees parallels between the planet’s dwindling oil supplies and groundwater depletion.

“Groundwater is the oil of this century,” Mr. Jarvis said at a water-use conference last week in Stevenson, Wash. “Much as we saw oil shortages grip the world, we are now seeing that with groundwater.”

Mr. Jarvis said the solution may come from studying how the world reacted to the crisis in the 1970s when the oil industry was thought to have reached its peak production.

“We are draining water from the aquifers faster than they can be replenished,” Mr Jarvis said. “The groundwater that supplies the drinking water for half the world’s population is now in jeopardy.”

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ABOARD THE ALGUITA, 1,000 miles northeast of Hawaii — In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.

Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.

Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.

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Travel expenses were paid in part by readers of Spot.Us, a nonprofit Web project that supports freelance journalists.

KATHMANDU, NOV 07 – The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), a government owned power utility, has agreed for Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with a Chinese company for the commissioning of the 50-MW Upper Marsyangdi Hydro Electricity Project (UMHEP) located in Lamjung district.

This is the first Chinese investment in hydro project in Nepal.

According to Diwakar Poudel, deputy acting director of the Finance Department of the NEA, a memorandum of understanding for PPA was signed among Chinese company Sino Hydro and Nepali company Sagarmatha Power Company and the NEA on Friday.

The NEA signed the MoU with the Nepal-China joint venture company at a proposed rate of 5.995 cent (Rs 4.5 approximately) per unit of power. The government issues generation licence for the project after the parties concerned sign the PPA.

Poudel said Sagarmatha Power Company that has 90 percent shares of Sino Hydro should sign PPA with the NEA within four months and deposit a bank guarantee of US $ 100,000 (Rs 7.5 million approximately) for project implementation.

According to Poudel, the NEA asked the Chinese company for bank guarantee after it failed to sign the PPA even after two preliminary agreements. Sino Hydro and the

NEA had earlier agreed on PPA at 5.73 cent (Rs 4.24) per unit. However, the Chinese company requested the NEA to revise PPA rate citing various reasons, including hike in the prices of construction materials and equipment.

UMHEP, which will start construction work this winter, is expected to complete in the next four years at an estimated cost of around US $ 138 million. “The UMHEP is an attractive project compared to other donor-funded hydro projects as it will generate 50 percent energy even during the dry season,” said Poudel.

Hydro projects like Khimti and Bhotekoshi generate around 20 and 30 percent of their installed capacity respectively during the dry season.

Jivendra Jha, managing director at NEA said, “Despite differences between the government and the Chinese company regarding PPA rates, Sino Hydro has agreed to sign it at Rs 4.5 per unit.”

As per Friday’s agreement, there would be three percent price increase in the proposed rate of Rs 4.5. According to Electricity Act 1992, the project developer is liable to hand over any project in good state to the government 30 years after it goes for commercial generation.

According to a study, the UMHEP will generate 321 million power units annually that will be transported through the 220 KV transmission lines being constructed at Marsyangdi corridor by the government recently.

[Ed-Apols for full quote]

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By James G. Workman | Special to Circle of Blue

Circle of Blue’s “Water + Climate: Words” highlights literary investigations of water and climate intersections. As politicians debate the line-by-line contents of a global climate change treaty, the human and environmental drama is playing out around the world, from the deserts of Africa to the shores of Greenland. In Heart of Dryness journalist and author James Workman shares the lives of Botswana’s Bushmen, an indigenous hunter-gatherer population that has been forced to relocate by the national government since the 1990s. As he follows this population’s struggle for land, he comes face-first with the multi-layered reality of a world increasingly struggling for water while battling the effects of a warming planet.

“The main thing was to have a story that would illustrate to the lay person so that they understand these water issues,” Workman tells Circle of Blue. “If your bring these issues down to the people who laugh, dance and have babies like you, you care about them and see the parallels and connections between their life in the Kalahari and yours – you see their humanity.

“When we hear the statistic that 2.2 billion people live without sanitation, it’s shocking, but at the same time it’s meaningless.”

For two years Workman lived and traveled with the Bushmen as they battled the national government in court over access to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). At the end of 2006, the Bushmen won the right to return to the CKGR while Workman was blacklisted from the country for his stories.

Now he shares these intimate stories with Circle of Blue, weaving each installment into the themes of our Water+Climate series. The first excerpt examines their struggle for food in the face of political and environmental obstacles.

Read excerpt from James G. Workman’s, ‘Heart of Dryness’ at Circle of Blue

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James G. Workman is an award-winning journalist and has served as an environmental consultant to U.S.-cabinet members.

Part One-Water Not Mixed into Barcelona Climate Talks

Part Two-Advocates Try To Plug the Drain of Water From Climate Negotiations

Part Three-Delegates Seek More Definition, Much More, in Barcelona Climate Talks (latest).

and more to come at Circle of Blue

The following is a timeline of the discovery of global warming.

300 BC – Theophrastus, a student of Greek philosopher Aristotle, documents that human activity can affect climate. He observes that drainage of marshes cools an area around Thessaly and that clearing of forests near Philippi warms the climate.

17th century – Flemish scientist Jan Baptista van Helmont discovers that gases different from normal air — carbon dioxide — are given off by burning charcoal.

17th century – The Industrial Revolution starts, bringing rising use of fossil fuels

1824 – Frenchman Joseph Fourier suggests that something in the atmosphere is keeping the world warmer than it would otherwise be — a hint at the greenhouse gas effect.

1837 – Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz presents evidence of big past changes in Alpine glaciers — pointing to ancient Ice Ages and showing that the climate has not always been stable.

1860s – Irish scientist John Tyndall shows that molecules of gases such as water vapor and carbon dioxide trap heat. He wrote that changes “could have produced all the mutations of climate which the researches of geologists reveal.”

1896 – Sweden’s Svante Arrhenius becomes the first to quantify carbon dioxide’s role in keeping the planet warm. He later concluded that burning of coal could cause a “noticeable increase” in carbon levels over centuries.

1957-58 – U.S. scientist Charles Keeling sets up stations to measure carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at the South Pole and at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. The measurements have shown a steady rise.

1965 – U.S. President Lyndon Johnson tells Congress: “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through…a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”

1988 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tells the United Nations: “The problem of global climate change is one that affects us all and action will only be effective if it is taken at the international level. It is no good squabbling over who is responsible or who should pay.”

1988 – The United Nations sets up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess the scientific evidence.

1992 – World leaders agree the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which sets a non-binding goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions by 2000 at 1990 levels — a target not met overall. 1995 – The IPCC concludes for a first time that humans are causing global warming, saying: “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

1997 – The Kyoto Protocol is agreed in Japan; developed nations agree to cut their greenhouse gas emissions on average by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The United States stays out of the deal.

2001 (January) – The IPCC concludes that it is “likely” — or 66 percent probable — that human activities rather than natural variations are the main cause of recent warming.

2001 (June) – President George W. Bush notes the U.S. National Academy of Sciences says greenhouse gases are rising “in large part due to human activity.” He adds: “Yet, the Academy’s report tells us that we do not know how much effect natural fluctuations in climate may have had on warming. We do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future.”

2007 – The IPCC says that it is “very likely” — at least 90 percent certain — that humans are to blame for most of the observed warming trend of the past 50 years. It also said that warming of the planet was “unequivocal.”

2009 – Group of Eight leaders agree industrialized nations should cut emissions on average by 80 percent by 2050 and limit warming to a maximum of 2 Celsius above pre-industrial times.

[Ed- Apols for full quote]

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A World Bank study in 2006 showed water lost in the system before it reaches the customer — known as “non-revenue water” — costs utilities at least $14 billion worldwide every year, largely from leaky pipes and poor maintenance.

Most of the loss is in developing countries: 12 billion gallons (45 million cubic meters) of water are lost daily, enough to serve nearly 200 million people, the study said.

The problem is also endemic in industrialized countries. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates losses from the U.S. water distribution system cost the country $2.6 billion a year.

“Israel is one of the leading countries in initiative ideas to reduce non-revenue water and losses,” said Stuart Hamilton, a task force member of the International Water Association (IWA). His group measures performance at the world’s utilities.

And I thought they just cut the water off to save the resource…

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More than a third of species assessed in a major international biodiversity study are threatened with extinction, scientists have warned.

Out of the 47,677 species in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 17,291 were deemed to be at serious risk.

These included 21% of mammals, 30% of amphibians, 70% of plants and 35% of invertebrates.

Conservationists warned that not enough was being done to tackle the main threats, such as habitat loss.

“The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting,” warned Jane Smart, director of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Biodiversity Conservation Group.

“The latest analysis… shows that the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss will not be met,” she added.

“It’s time for governments to start getting serious about saving species and make sure it’s high on their agendas for next year, as we are rapidly running out of time.”

The Red List, regarded as the most authoritative assessment of the state of the planet’s species, draws on the work of thousands of scientists around the globe.

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Threatened Species in pictures at the BBC Picture gallery here (beautiful images).

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Visit IUCN Online and find out more about the Red list.

I grew up knowing my country was drowning. My childhood memories are full of flashing images of annual monsoon rains making rivers out of our roads, lakes out of our rice paddy fields, washing away farmers’ harvests, pushing the rural population into our already overpopulated capital city. Of course the yearly floods alternated with even greater natural disasters- cyclones, tornadoes, you name it growing up I saw it. The rumor in the playground was that in twenty years Bangladesh would be completely underwater.

Today that statement is no longer a rumor, but very much a reality. According to the UK ’s Guardian publication, Bangladesh makes up not even 10% of the land mass of South Asia, but over 90% of the region’s water passes through it. Experts state that Bangladesh’s shifting and intensifying weather patterns are making a bad situation worse. The case of Bangladesh shows us that climate change is real, and is already impacting populations and ecosystems around the world.

But the case of Bangladesh shows us something more: That it’s the world’s poor who will feel the impact of this change the hardest. And who exactly are the poor? Women, who make up approximately 65% of the world’s poorest populations.

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Anushay Hossain is the Global Programs Coordinator at Feminist Majority Foundation here.

A European satellite is set to provide major new insights into how water is cycled around the Earth.

The Smos spacecraft will make the first global maps of the amount of moisture held in soils and of the quantity of salts dissolved in the oceans.

The data will have wide uses but should improve weather forecasts and warnings of extreme events, such as floods.

A Russian Rokot launcher carrying Smos lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia at 0450 (0150 GMT) on Monday.

Some 70 minutes later, the upper-stage of the Rockot released the spacecraft, and telemetry confirming all was well with the mission was acquired by the Hartebeesthoek ground station, near Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (Smos) satellite is part of an armada of European spacecraft being sent into orbit over the next few years to study the planet.

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The concept is straightforward: Companies pledge environmental patents to the commons, and anyone can use them — free.

Many patented environmental technologies are not strategic, so sharing maximizes the social benefit without sacrificing competitive advantage, says Wayne Balta, vice president of corporate environmental affairs and product safety at I.B.M. For instance, I.B.M. contributed a recyclable cardboard packaging insert that requires less fossil fuel to create and transport than the foam inserts that are now commonly used.

Other examples include a DuPont method for better detecting pollution in soil, air or water by using a microorganism that produces light when exposed to a pollutant. There are also methods from Xerox for removing toxic waste from contaminated groundwater, as well as a cleaning technique for semiconductor wafers from I.B.M. that uses ozone gas and eliminates chemical contaminants that result from other processes.

By assembling these patents in one easily accessible location — anyone can search through them on the council’s Web site — the hope is to encourage their widespread adoption, particularly in the developing world. Since its start, the commons has grown to 100 patents from 31, with 11 companies now participating.

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The roof of the world is springing a dangerous leak. Accelerated melting of glaciers and changes in rainfall patterns in the high Himalayan mountain chain are posing a growing risk to people’s lives and livelihoods in the 10 river basins downstream.

Rivers that flow from these mountains wind their way through thousands of kilometers of grazing, agricultural and forest lands, and are a source of irrigation, drinking water and energy for some 1.3 billion people who live in the river basins. But the glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya range are shrinking at a fast pace.

Any long-term loss of natural fresh- water storage is likely to have severe effects on communities downstream. One relatively recent occurrence is the formation of lakes behind glacial debris that can burst and cause “glacial lake outburst floods,” or Glofs. These can do considerable damage downstream.

Perhaps even more important are changes in the magnitude and frequency of rainfall, which, in combination with a reduced amount of snow and ice, could have substantial impact on the availability of water. The effect on food production could be catastrophic.

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International Rivers hosts a flurry of media including photography, video, painting, drawing music and film shot over the years of construction…

Photographs

Three Gorges Dam Image Gallery
International Rivers
Artists: Steven Benson, Chris De Bode

Chen Nong: San Xia – Curatorial Projects
Thomas Kellner: Photography in Art

Paintings

The Three Gorges Project: Paintings by Liu Xiaodong
Asian Art Museum and the Mary Boone Gallery, New York

Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art
Displacement is on U.S. tour through 2010.
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago

Selected Works of Yun-Fei Ji
James Cohan Gallery, New York

Drawings

Drawings (2008-2009) – China Three Gorges Dam Project
Joy Garnett

Three Gorges Dam Series – Paintings and Work on Paper
Rick Camire

Music

Yangtze Journey
This piece is premiering on the slideshow for the first time.
Jeff Fallen

Film

“Rhapsody on Farewell” (2002), “River, River” (2005), “Color Lines” (2006), “The Garden” (2007)
Chen Quilin

Follow this link for them all at International Rivers

It has often been said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. For the internet, that first step was more of a stumble.

At 2100, on 29 October 1969, engineers 400 miles apart at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and Stanford Research Institute (SRI) prepared to send data between the first nodes of what was then known as Arpanet.

It got the name because it was commissioned by the US Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arpa).

The fledgling network was to be tested by Charley Kline attempting to remotely log in to a Scientific Data Systems computer that resided at SRI.

Kline typed an “L” and then asked his colleague Bill Duvall at SRI via a telephone headset if the letter had arrived.

It had.

Kline typed an “O”. Duvall said that arrived too.

Kline typed a “G”. Duvall could only report that the system had crashed.

They got it working again by 22:30 and everything went fine. After that first misstep, the network almost never put a foot wrong. The rest has made history.

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