planetwater

ground- water, geo- statistics, environmental- engineering, earth- science

Archive for 2007

Water-Links

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Here are a few links of international organizations related to drinking water:

  • The World Water Assessment Programme seeks to develop the tools and skills needed to achieve a better understanding of those basic processes, management practices and policies that will help improve the supply and quality of global freshwater resources.
  • The World Water Council is a NGO established in response to increasing concern from the global community about world water issues. Its mission is to promote awareness, build political commitment and trigger action on critical water issues at all levels, including the highest decision-making level, to facilitate the efficient management and use of water in all its dimensions and on an environmentally sustainable basis.
    Those guys put the World Water Forum together, one of which is beeing currently held, in Stockholm, during the World Water Week.
  • The European Water Partnership Blog, also called “Blue Gold”, has the mission to be an action-oriented forum for all stakeholders including local, national and European governmental agencies, knowledge institutes, business, non-governmental organizations, public and private financial institutions, end-users and civil society groups. It constitutes a platform for exchanging views, finding solutions for water challenges in wider Europe and stimulating cooperation and partnerships.
  • The Global Water System Project wants to answer this question:
    How are humans changing the global water cycle, the associated biogeochemical cycles, and the biological components of the global water system and what are the social feedbacks arising from these changes?
    It seems like GWSP is related to the [Water Systems Analysis Group][7] at the University of New Hampshire

Written by Claus

August 14th, 2007 at 3:21 am

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Milk from the Dessert

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Saudi-Arabia is an arid country. Cows do like and need water. Hence, Saudi-Arabia and cows don’t match very well. One would think. However, money can make things go round and round. This (german) news-story from the ZDF “auslandsjournal” shows a milk farm in Saudi-Arabia. It is the biggest milk farm in the world, and it does have a cooling system for the cows, including cold-water foot-baths for them. Also the kind of cows, bread in Saudi-Arabia drink 50L more water per day than an average european cow. Were does all this water come from? Fossil ground water. For an hydrogeologist, the interview with the grand-son of the current king of Saudi-Arabia is rather hilarious!

Written by Claus

August 12th, 2007 at 1:23 am

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Water, Water Everywhere, but Guilt by the Bottleful

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Wow! Who would have thought that the truth about bottled water would ever become mainstream? It seems that more and more people in the US realize that it they are paying for something they can get for free while also producing huge amounts of waste and wasting huge amounts of energy. What’s the situation in Germany? Is anyone questioning the obsession with Volvic, Evian, or Sprudel? Also, is anyone considering the life cycle impact of reusable bottles (Mehrwegflaschen)? I think it is time for a discussion of environmentalism in Germany and the US on planetwater.org! -Patrick

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Written by Patrick

August 11th, 2007 at 8:58 am

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Water, Environment, Economy

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The Independent is reporting on water shortages in lakes in northern Italy. Water levels there are almost as much down as in the record summer 2003. On the bright side, the area for beaches is increasing… however, water shortages high up in the mountains can not be a good sign.

According to the International Networks Archive at Princeton, such signs are currently taking lightly… according to them, a global crisis of substantial proportions is looming.

Which might be an indicator of human market-focussed economies… such as China… the economy is still soaring… but China’s minister of the environment is expecting the environment to demand its toll soon. Chances are the environment will get what it demands.

Globally, two of the main drilling and reservoir engineering companies Haliburton and Schlumberger recently announced substantial economic growth. “Reservoir engineering” here is to be understood in a very broad sense, and covers also water related engineering tasks.

Written by Claus

August 6th, 2007 at 2:35 pm

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Glaciers in Retreat – NYT Article

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Glaciers provide an excellent example for how climate change and water supply are intricately linked. Regions, such as large parts of India, that rely on glaciers for their drinking water and for irrigation are facing a tough challenge.

Studying Indian glaciers offers a snapshot of the consequences of global warming for India and raises vital questions about how the country will respond to them. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) predicted that as these glaciers melt, they would increase the likelihood of flooding over the next three decades and then, as they recede, dry up the rivers that they feed. “In the course of the century,” it warned darkly, “water supply stored in glaciers and snow cover are projected to decline, reducing water availability in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges, where more than one-sixth of the world population currently lives.”

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Written by Patrick

July 17th, 2007 at 6:59 am

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Bottled Water even more popular than beer?

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Those eight daily glasses of water you’re supposed to drink for good health? They will cost you $0.00135 — about 49 cents a year — if you take it from a New York City tap. Or, city officials suggest, you could spend 2,900 times as much, roughly $1,400 yearly, by drinking bottled water.

I do feel like saying: “Told you so!”

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Written by Patrick

July 17th, 2007 at 6:51 am

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Recent Rantings on Bottled Water, Climate Change

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This article by Nigel Cox summarizes everything that is wrong with bottled water. On the one hand it turns into a branded status symbol – what kind of a society accepts it to FedEx a case of a certain brand of bottled water across a continent? On the other hand more and more people lack access to drinking water.

And in Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the U.S. market today, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water. Which means it is easier for the typical American in Beverly Hills or Baltimore to get a drink of safe, pure, refreshing Fiji water than it is for most people in Fiji.

At the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills, where the rooms start at $500 a night and the guest next door might well be an Oscar winner, the minibar in all 196 rooms contains six bottles of Fiji Water. Before Fiji Water displaced Evian, Diet Coke was the number-one-selling minibar item. Now, says Christian Boyens, the Peninsula’s elegant director of food and beverage, “the 1 liter of Fiji Water is number one. Diet Coke is number two. And the 500-milliliter bottle of Fiji is number three.”

Some people still discuss if global warming is happening. Other people reckognize that something in fact is happening (this sometimes results in headlines as “2007 seen as second warmest year as climate shifts“) and maybe discuss how to minimize detrimental effects. Some look at the soil and how it is farmed, and come to at least interesting conclusions. Still other people think how this could be advantageous. It could be quite advantageous for professionals trained in water!

And still other people blame the gay.

On the topic of climate change, the protocol from the recent G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, is an interesting read, especially paragraphs 40 to 61.

Written by Claus

July 4th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

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Manufactured Landscapes

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Edward Burtinsky is a Canadian Photographer, who gained some fame through his work he called “manufactured landscapes”. These include glowing orange-red rivers originating in mine waste piles flowing through some of the most beautiful fractured limestone.

Food Processing

Burtinsky has recently been to China and his latest movie, also called “Manufactured Landscapes” opened a few days ago in New York City according to J-Walk, however rottentomatoes says it was released in 2006. The photographs are stunning, so I bet the moving pictures are worth it too!

Written by Claus

June 26th, 2007 at 11:34 am

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Flickr is Censoring

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There has been considerable uproar in Germany, especially in the blogging community, that flickr is censoring. Examples include “Sprechblase” and “e-ality“. Admittedly, this has nothing to do with water, but it is important for society in general and for the blogging community in general.

Written by Claus

June 17th, 2007 at 4:19 am

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Water Gadget

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The newsweek has a report on a little device that is really cheap and supposedly can produce small amounts of clean water.

Written by Claus

June 17th, 2007 at 4:15 am

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