New Zealand Glacier Has Lost Enough Ice to Provide Country Drinking Water for Three Years
25 June
Science
Brewster Glacier, located in Mount Aspiring National Park (pictured) on New Zealand's South Island, lost 13 million cubic meters of ice between 2016 and 2019. s_porter01 / Getty Images
By Elliot Douglas
A glacier in New Zealand is believed to have lost so much ice over the last three years that it could provide drinking water for every resident of the country over the same period, a research institute announced Wednesday.
<p>Scientists say the Brewster Glacier on the South Island lost 13 million cubic meters of ice between 2016 and 2019, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) said.</p>
<div id="22eb9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4bc4a2abe0354b0319705f9b496058af"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1275550783556038656" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Since 2016 enough ice has melted from just one South Island #glacier to meet the drinking water needs of all NZers… https://t.co/ELLQoE4ygV</div> — NIWA (@NIWA)<a href="https://twitter.com/niwa_nz/statuses/1275550783556038656">1592949980.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"Over the past few years, our observations of extreme and variable conditions highlight strong impacts on water — which is arguably our most precious natural resource," said NIWA climate scientist Andrew Lorrey.</p><p>The Southern Alps range has lost more than 15.9 trillion liters of water, which is about the amount today's population of New Zealand would use in 40 years. This constitutes around 30% of the range's ice volume.</p>
'The Path to Extinction'
<p>Damage sustained by some glaciers between 2018 and 2019 may place them on the path to extinction, Lorrey explained.</p><p>Marine heatwaves and record temperatures impacted snow lines. Ash from the recent Australian bush fires also blanketed some of the ice, increasing the potential for more melting as the ash absorbs more solar radiation.</p><p>It could take 20 or 30 years of improvement in snow cover before scientists could "even start to consider whether the recent damage can be reversed to any degree," Lorrey said.</p>From Your Site Articles
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An aerial view shows Lake Mead in Nevada on January 2, 2020. Daniel SLIM / AFP / Getty Images
By Brett Walton
Use of Colorado River water in the three states of the river's lower basin fell to a 33-year low in 2019, amid growing awareness of the precarity of the region's water supply in a drying and warming climate.
<p class=""><br/></p>
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/844750342&color=ff5500&hide_related=true&show_comments=false&show_teaser=false"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/circleofblue" title="Circle of Blue" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Circle of Blue</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/circleofblue/drop-in-colorado-river-water-use" title="Drop In Colorado River Water Use" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Drop In Colorado River Water Use</a></div>
<p>Arizona, California, and Nevada combined to consume just over 6.5 million acre-feet last year, according to an <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/4200Rpts/DecreeRpt/2019/2019.pdf" target="_blank">annual audit</a> from the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that oversees the lower basin. That is about 1 million acre-feet less than the three states are entitled to use under a legal compact that divides the Colorado River's waters.</p><p>The last time water consumption from the river was that low was in 1986, the year after an enormous canal in Arizona opened that allowed the state to lay claim to its full Colorado River entitlement.</p><p>States have grappled in the last two decades with declining water levels in the basin's main reservoirs — Mead and Powell — while reckoning with clear scientific evidence that climate change is <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6483/1252.full" target="_blank">already constricting the iconic river</a> and will do further damage as temperatures rise.</p><p>For water managers, the steady drop in water consumption in recent years is a signal that conservation efforts are working and that they are not helpless in the face of daunting environmental changes.</p>
<p>"It's quite a turnaround from where we were a decade ago and really, I think, optimistic for dealing with chronic shortages on the river in the future, knowing that we can turn the dial back and reduce demand significantly, all three states combined," said Bill Hasencamp, the manager of Colorado River resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a regional wholesaler and one of the river's largest users.</p><p>Observers of the basin's intricate politics are also impressed with the trend lines for a watershed that irrigates about 5 million acres of farmland and provides 40 million people in two countries and 29 tribal nations with a portion of their water.</p><p>"It is an incredibly important demonstration of the fact that we can use less water in this incredibly important water-use region," John Fleck told Circle of Blue. Fleck is the director of the University of New Mexico water resources program.</p><p>Projections for 2020 indicate that conservation will continue, though not quite at last year's pace. Halfway through the year, the <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/forecast.pdf" target="_blank">Bureau of Reclamation forecasts</a> water consumption to be roughly 6.8 million acre-feet. An acre-foot is the amount of water that will flood an acre of land to a depth of one foot, or 325,851 gallons.</p><p>"I have to give them credit," Jennifer Gimbel, a senior water policy scholar at Colorado State University, told Circle of Blue about the lower basin states. "They're working hard to get these numbers."</p>
Raising Lake Mead
<p>Just five years ago, in 2015, the three states were making use of their entire 7.5-million-acre-foot allotment. By statute and tradition, the basin is divided into a lower basin, where use is higher, and an upper basin, which includes Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The basins have different water allocation systems and rules governing its use.</p><p>In the lower basin, Arizona's annual allocation is 2.8 million acre-feet, but last year it used just 2.5 million. Nevada used 233,000 of its 300,000 acre-feet. The big savings were in California, which used only 3.8 million of its 4.4 million acre-feet. California hasn't used that little water from the Colorado since the 1950s, Fleck said.</p><p>The drop in California last year is due in large part to Metropolitan Water District, which consumed only 537,000 acre-feet. Five years ago, the district's tally was around 1 million acre-feet per year. Urban conservation and development of local water sources have played a large role in the decline, but the district's Colorado River water use is also influenced by snow levels in the Sierra Nevada mountains. When more water is available to be imported from the northern part of the state, as it was last year, the district leans less heavily on the Colorado River.</p>Total Lower Colorado Basin Consumptive Use
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQxMTU1OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzM0NDYxM30.RVr3Rzi1jqZHweILfonMU8SWs_LGJBGqg9lMiQ-jrVY/img.png?width=980" id="d31ab" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="15ef390e64a1be66991bfd26b0f0fee5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Reclamation's annual audit measures the amount of water consumed by humans, plants, and animals in the lower basin. Consumptive use equals total withdrawals minus any water that is returned to the river system, from irrigation runoff or wastewater treatment plants.</p><p>As meticulous as it is, the audit neglects a significant piece of the basin's water budget: evaporation from reservoirs and system losses, which is water consumed by riverside vegetation and absorbed by the ground. Together, these add up to about 1 million acre-feet per year, Jeremy Dodds, water accounting and verification group manager for Reclamation, told Circle of Blue.</p><p>This factor is part of the lower basin's "structural deficit," which means that total demand in the lower basin — use by Arizona, California, and Nevada, plus evaporation and required deliveries to Mexico — exceeds the amount of water that flows into Lake Mead, the lower basin's supply source.</p><p>Gimbel, who was the principal deputy assistant secretary for water and science for the U.S. Department of Interior from 2014 to 2016, said that despite the conservation efforts reflected in the audit, the lower basin still has much work to do. "They're closing the deficit, but they're not there yet," she said.</p><p>The goal of the lower basin's conservation is to keep Lake Mead from a precipitous decline into "dead pool" territory, where the reservoir is too low to send water downstream. The dead-pool threshold is at elevation 895 feet. Not using 1 million acre-feet last year most certainly helped the reservoir. Dodds said that at the current elevation of 1,089 feet, each block of 85,000 acre-feet equals 1 foot of elevation. So last year's conservation added 12 feet to Mead, compared to a scenario in which the three states use their full entitlement.</p><p>The conservation tool box that the states have employed has a range of instruments. Cities have provided incentives to remove grass lawns and replace inefficient toilets, showerheads, and washing machines. In Imperial Irrigation District, farmers have lined earthen canals with concrete to prevent seepage and they have agreed to fallow land to save water. Those measures, in both town and country, have helped to reduce demand. Supplies, on the other hand, have been bolstered by more investment in recycling and reuse, groundwater treatment, and desalination. As a whole, the seven states in the watershed came together in 2019 to modify rules for mandatory water-use restrictions that kick in as Lake Mead drops.</p><p>The decline in Colorado River water consumption mirrors regional and national trends. In Metropolitan Water District's service area in Southern California, water use per person fell from about 181 gallons per person per day in the mid-1990s to 131 gallons in 2018, a drop of 27 percent. Colorado River consumption on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation, in Arizona, is down about 20 percent since 2016.</p>
<p>According to Tom Ley, a water consultant to the tribes, the decline is due to changes in farming practices and participation in a land fallowing program that will see 10,000 acres taken out of production in the next three years. The tribes' decrease in consumptive water use "may look even more dramatic once the 2020 report comes out," Ley told Circle of Blue.<br></p><p>All of these actions amount to a shift in the perception of what's possible, Fleck said.</p><p>"It shows that the expectation that a growing population and a robust agricultural economy require more water is wrong," explained Fleck, who is optimistic about the basin's capacity to wield the tools of conservation effectively. Environmental doom is not the inevitable outcome, he says. "We're seeing success in the transition away from the tragedy narrative," he added.</p><p>Still, there are minefields to navigate. There are dozens of proposals in the upper basin states to withdraw more water from the river, which, if they were built, would further stress supplies. Some of the water conserved in Lake Mead is stored as a credit that participating agencies can theoretically draw upon in the future. How agencies handle those withdrawals, especially if large requests are made as lake levels plummet, is an uncertainty. On top of that, a warming climate will suck more moisture from the basin, even before rain and snow reach the river.</p><p>A hot, dry spring this year in the upper basin is evidence of what aridity can do. Snowpack in the basin's headwaters was roughly average on April 1 and runoff into Lake Powell, a key water supply indicator, was expected to be 78 percent of normal. But then dry conditions arrived in April and May. Combined with dehydrated soils, which took their share of water, the runoff forecast by June 1 had diminished to just 57 percent of normal.</p><p>Those climate signals are the counterbalance to the conservation success so far. Water managers, now wary, know the risk.</p><p>"Just hopefully we don't get a string of dry years coming back," Hasencamp said.</p>
<p class=""><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://www.circleofblue.org/" target="_blank">Circle of Blue</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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UN secretary Ibrahim Thiaw tells DW how consumers can combat desertification and drought. Rainer Jensen / picture alliance / Getty Images
By Sonya Diehn
More than 2 billion hectares of previously productive land is degraded. For Desertification and Drought Day on June 17, DW spoke with Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
<p><em>DW: What do you want people to know about this year's desertification day?</em></p><p>Ibrahim Thiaw: Despite COVID-19, we still need to eat. We still need to have clothes. We still need to feed our animals. And we still need the planet. The planet does not need us.</p><p><em>More than a third of the world's land is vulnerable to exploitation that can lead to desertification. Where are some of the worst-affected areas?</em></p><p><em></em>If you consider the size of the land that is affected by desertification, Africa. But if you consider the number of people that are affected by land degradation, it is Asia. If you include the Americas, both north and south, 40% of land is affected by desertification or susceptible to be affected by land degradation. Europe is not spared either — we still lose a lot of soil here. And Europe has been more vulnerable to drought in recent years because of climate change. </p><p>We have one planet, so therefore there is no region in the world that is immune to land degradation or drought.</p>
<p><em>What do those areas have in common, are there some patterns there?</em></p><p>When you cause land degradation, you are affecting people's lives: their health, the economy, their security. Land degradation is also having an impact on migration — we will see more migration because people cannot produce anymore in their land. So therefore, it is not biophysical only. It is social. It is economic. It is health. It is our well-being.</p><p><em>What are some steps people can take?</em></p><p>Let us take the issue of fashion. Having our houses full of clothing that we don't need or we don't wear, or wear only once and throw away, that is what we call the wasteful economy. It is possible that you and I as shoppers are conscious about how we shop. How many liters are being used by the T-shirt I'm going to buy? How much land is being affected? How many people are being affected by that land degradation? It is important that the consciousness of the people, of the buyers, of the consumers, of the school, children, of the adults, are all at the same level. </p>
<p><em>People often think their changes are not going to make a difference. What do you say to that?</em></p><p>How can you make the change if you don't vote? How can you make the change in the planet if you don't buy the right jeans or the right T-shirt? Or if you decide to waste your food. We waste one-third of the food we produce, we just produce it to send to the dustbin. And yet we have 800 million people who are going to bed hungry. Do we live on one planet? Are we one humanity, or is there something wrong?</p><p><em>Is there something that needs to be changed in the way the land is managed?</em></p><p>Yes. The one-third of food we produce each year is equivalent to 1.4 billion hectares. So basically, each year we are wasting the equivalent of 1.4 billion hectares, meaning that we can feed the entire community, the entire world without further degrading on our land, without further clearing our forests, without further affecting our wetlands and our water ponds. We need to be more rational in the way we use these resources. We will have to manage. We should not be considering that these resources are limitless.</p>
<p><em>Can you give us a few examples of places that have successfully reversed desertification?</em></p><p>There are many good examples in different parts of the world, including in Germany. The old mine sites that have been rehabilitated, have been regenerated, and are now being used as tourist attractions.</p><p><span></span>You have examples in many parts of Africa where land that was degraded is now being reconstituted and managed for wildlife conservation. You have put tourists back in countries like Niger, one of the poorest nations on earth, they have decided to manage the land, and now you have giraffes. And when you have giraffes, you have tourists. When you have tourists, you have economic activity. So regeneration is something that can be positive to the economy, can be positive for communities. </p><p>More than 80 countries have pledged to regenerate 400 million hectares by 2030. It is not something that can be done only by experts, scientists or naturalists or biologists. It should be done by everybody.</p>
<p><em>You come from a region that has been dealing with desertification for decades. Is this somehow a personal issue for you?</em></p><p>It is, and I hope it is for you as well. It is a personal issue for me because my family has suffered, because my village has suffered, because my community, because my region, because my continent, because my world, my planet … when you see all the consequences that land degradation is having in the world, you should be concerned. And as a citizen of the world, you should be really conscious of the fact that there is something I can do about it. You are an actor, you are not a spectator.</p><p><em>Do you foresee that the pandemic will have an impact on desertification?</em></p><p>Why do we have that virus? Because we changed the land use. Because we, as human beings, have been in places where we should not have been, because we have taken species out of their ecosystems and because we are using them, we are over-consuming. So COVID-19 is one of the consequences of our new lifestyle. We hope that people will take some steps back and we learn lessons from it, and we hope that the post-COVID-19 world will be a world that is more sustainable. We hope that we will not have a repeat of the pandemic.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/to-stop-land-degradation-reject-fast-fashion-and-cancel-food-waste/a-53824564?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646190732#/" target="_self"></a></p>
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A large school of fish swim in a fish farm. wildestanimal / Getty Images
By Jake Johnson
President Donald Trump issued an executive order late Thursday that environmentalists warned will accelerate the corporate exploitation of oceans by relaxing regulations on and streamlining the construction of industrial offshore aquaculture facilities, which critics deride as "floating factory farms" that pump pollution and diseases into public waters.
<p><br/></p>
<p>The Don't Cage Our Ocean Coalition, which was formed to oppose ocean industrial fish farming, said in a <a href="https://foe.org/news/trump-exploits-covid-19-crisis-to-advance-corporate-aquaculture-agenda/" target="_blank">statement</a> that Trump's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-promoting-american-seafood-competitiveness-economic-growth/" target="_blank">Executive Order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth</a> "mandates federal agencies to craft a program for rapid authorization of industrial offshore aquaculture facilities, which use giant floating cages to cultivate finfish, allowing toxic pollution to flow into open waters."</p><p>Rosanna Marie Neil, policy counsel for Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, a member of the coalition, said the Trump White House is "supporting the corporate takeover of our oceans while they hope we aren't paying attention."</p><p>Environmental attorney Marianne Cufone similarly accused Trump of exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic to "push through dangerous short-cuts to regulatory processes, while communities struggle to stay healthy, pay rent, and put food on the table."</p><p>"The federal government should strengthen local food security during this health crisis by supporting sustainable seafood," said Cufone, "rather than allowing corporations to pollute the ecosystems we depend on."</p>
<div id="fe319" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="adca5f7739b67f6e84573e61c8c75192"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1258511621237817344" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">BREAKING: In the middle of a public health pandemic, Trump just issued an executive order to bolster aquaculture --… https://t.co/u18OynL4wg</div> — Friends of the Earth (@Friends of the Earth)<a href="https://twitter.com/foe_us/statuses/1258511621237817344">1588887527.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="426fc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="91fba35f38678fb1d98153ba259fcd85"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1258512402380808194" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Trump is exploiting a public health crisis to help an industry known for pumping diseases & antibiotics into oceans… https://t.co/itIuFwjMtw</div> — Friends of the Earth (@Friends of the Earth)<a href="https://twitter.com/foe_us/statuses/1258512402380808194">1588887713.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Trump's executive order Thursday was just the latest step the president has taken amid the coronavirus pandemic to loosen regulations on polluting industries. In late March, as <em>Common Dreams</em> <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/27/holy-crap-insane-citing-coronavirus-pandemic-epa-indefinitely-suspends-environmental" target="_blank">reported</a>, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a sweeping suspension of pollution regulations and empowered the fossil fuel industry to police itself indefinitely.</p><p>Environmental groups <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/media/2020/200416" target="_blank">sued</a> the EPA over the move, which they condemned as a "free pass for polluters."</p><p>In an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-lifts-the-net-off-american-fishing-11588875561" target="_blank">op-ed</a> for the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> Thursday, White House advisers Joe Grogan and Peter Navarro touted Trump's aquaculture executive order as a step toward making the U.S. "the world's seafood superpower."</p><p>"President Trump's executive order creates a task force to enact policies that encourage fair and reciprocal trade for America's seafood industry, and strengthens enforcement of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing," Grogan and Navarro wrote.</p><p>But environmentalists cautioned that the order simply hands U.S. mega-corporations more power to plunder oceans without oversight, imperiling local fishing communities and the health of public waters.<br></p><p><span></span>"It is outrageous and unethical for the federal government to use the current public health crisis to bolster this polluting industry," Hallie Templeton, senior oceans campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. "Now is the time to prioritize our health, security, sustainable food systems, and American farmers and fishermen, not corporations."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from </em><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/08/trump-signs-executive-order-greenlighting-corporate-takeover-our-oceans-while-they?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank"><em>Common Dreams.</em></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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Leon, Spain's main reservoir barely reaches 10% on September 1, 2017 during the country's worst drought in 20 years. Alvaro Fuente / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Chiara Cecchini
Although it is difficult today to divert attention from the dramatic situation we live in, it is even more important to get closer to our primary needs. Recently, we celebrated World Water Day, and the timing couldn't have been more appropriate to give to all of us the chance to rethink priorities and draw some lessons.
<p>Without water, our lifespan would be 14 days. Our entire existence is closely dependent on one single, exhaustible resource. In a moment where we all feel vulnerable, and surprisingly dependent on more external systems than we imagined, life is reminding us of what makes us human, and where we should probably focus our attention.</p><p>Looking at the numbers, desertification is on the increase everywhere in the world. <a href="https://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/BP_DESERTIFICATION/BP_DESERTIFICATION_EN.pdf" target="_blank">In Europe it already affects 8% of the territory</a>; <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/us-desert-50-years1.htm" target="_blank">in Africa, almost 70% of the continent is arid or semi-arid</a> land; and in North America about 40% of the continental land is at risk of desertification. Data shows that this scenario is destined to get even worse, with forecasts saying that <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/new_report_highlights_crucial_role_of_water_in_development/" target="_blank">47% of the world population is going to experience water scarcity by 2030</a>.</p><p>But where do we consume all this water?</p><p>Only <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/where-earths-water?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects" target="_blank">2.5% of the water on Earth is fresh</a> and only <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-1YrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT29&lpg=PT29&dq=0.1%25+of+water+is+accessible+to+humans&source=bl&ots=1Bl2FEa1Ng&sig=ACfU3U1k-ZLPQC8WRk5j2lkO3O3iecyA6g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjO_YuqyOXoAhUSVRUIHYeqCnk4ChDoATADegQIDBAw#v=onepage&q=0.1%25%20of%20water%20is%20accessible%20to%20humans&f=false" target="_blank">0.1% of it is accessible to humans</a>, while every human being needs it to survive. This explains the reason why in 2010 the UN officially recognized access to safe drinking water as a basic and universal human right, as well as including water among the Sustainable Development Goals.</p>
<iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-freshwater-use-over-the-long-run" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe>
<p>Global <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000372985.locale=en" target="_blank">water use has increased by a factor of six over the past 100 years</a>. The majority of it (up to 70%) goes into irrigation of crops that eventually feed us, the animals that we eat, or the clothes we wear. The remaining 30% is consumed by the industry and for domestic use.</p><p>While the majority of the available water goes to produce human food, the water impacts of individual products vary considerably. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_footprint" target="_blank">214 liters of water are needed to produce one kg of tomatoes</a>, 2,500l for a kg of rice, 3,180l for a kg of cheese, and 15,400l for a kg of beef. It is then easy to understand the risks of price increases for food in contexts of water scarcity. As well as the power we have every time we do our grocery shopping. Do we know how much water we eat every single day?</p><p>The <a href="https://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/pdf/human_right_to_water_and_sanitation_media_brief.pdf" target="_blank">World Health Organization defines the concept of water scarcity</a> based on the assumption that each person needs between 50 and 100 liters of water per day to meet their primary needs. We know that in most Western countries this percentage is abundantly exceeded.</p>
<p>The average American uses about 340 liters of water each day, and this is calculated as consumption at home only, without considering food consumed. Add to it your morning coffee (140 liters) a banana (80 litres), some grilled chicken (430 liters) and tomatoes (50 liters) for lunch, some cheese (200 liters), olives (200 liters) and a beer (150 liters) as aperitif, and some rice (250 liters) and broccoli (40 liters) for dinner. Your average daily water consumption has already jumped to 1,900 liters per day.</p><p>Not to mention current data on food waste. Every day in the United States, consumers throw out nearly a pound of food each, wasting both food and water. When we throw food away, we also throw away all the water and energy used to produce it.</p>
What Can We Do About It?
<p>Now that the whole world is experiencing the effects of a major disaster, we have the opportunity to re-evaluate some of our choices. COVID-19 has transformed everyday life so significantly that the effects are already visible from space, showing us that change is possible and results are tangible. COVID-19 is teaching us (among other things) that our eagerness for creation should not result in the destruction of our planet.</p><p>Here are five simple things we can all start doing to have a healthier relationship with water and our environment in the future.</p><p><strong></strong><strong>1. Follow the food pyramid,</strong> which forms the basis of the <a href="https://oldwayspt.org/resources/oldways-mediterranean-diet-pyramid" target="_blank">Mediterranean diet</a>. </p><p>Our weekly food intake should be mainly composed of fruit, vegetables and grains, with minor presence of animal-based proteins. It takes 31 mixed salads to make the water footprint of one burger.</p>
<p><strong>2. Look at how food is produced. </strong></p><p>Regenerative agriculture, permaculture and organic farming aim to improve the quality and productivity of soil so that it retains moisture, minimizing the need for excessive irrigation. <a href="http://www.betterfishfarming.org/" target="_blank">Hydroponic, aquaponic</a>, <a href="http://civileats.com/2015/12/14/can-large-corporate-urban-farms-grow-local-food/" target="_blank">aeroponic and vertical farming</a> make it possible to grow produce very efficiently.</p>
<p><strong>3. Eat unprocessed food. </strong></p><p>While the water footprint of whole foods is made up entirely of the water needed to grow, processed foods require additional water for cleaning, pre-cooking, and making packaging materials.</p>
<p><strong>4. Reconsider where to live and shop. </strong></p><p>As food and other products are traded, their water footprint follows them in the form of virtual water. Which means that every time you consume an imported product, you don't only increase its footprint by the water needed to take care of shipment, but you also take away water from its local population. Supporting your house, neighborhood and city to grow more food can have a hugely positive impact on your water footprint, as well as supporting existing local producers.</p>
<p><strong>5. Think twice before buying new clothes. </strong></p><p>It takes about <a href="https://curiosity.com/topics/it-takes-2700-liters-of-water-to-make-one-t-shirt-curiosity/" target="_blank">2,700 liters of water to make just one t-shirt</a>, enough for one person to drink for 900 days. <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2260064/Over-600-dresses-400-pairs-shoes-1-116-tops-No-Suri-Cruise-mean-YOU-Women-558-pairs-trousers-372-cardigans-lifetime.html" target="_blank">The average woman will own 372 cardigans and 558 pairs of trousers during her adult life</a>. The fast-fashion industry is based on us buying items extremely often, but do we really need all of them?</p><p>In a moment where we feel caged, where we are scared of losing our loved ones, and we feel vulnerable in the middle of a pandemic that seems unstoppable, our ecosystem is presenting us with a challenge. It is everyone's personal responsibility whether to accept it or not. Are we able to preserve our main source of life?</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from </em><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid-19-water-what-can-we-learn/" target="_blank"><em>World Economic Forum.</em></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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- NASA: 4 Billion People at Risk as 'Water Table Dropping All Over ... ›
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- One of the most significant, yet ignored, impacts of climate change is its disruption of the water cycle.
- The youth-driven climate movement provides examples of how to incorporate water into the climate agenda by raising awareness, encouraging advocacy and promoting innovation.
- World Water Day 2020 is focused on the interconnectedness of water and climate change.
<p>This year, World Water Day is focused on the interconnectedness of water and climate change. Water is the <a href="https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/climate-change/" target="_blank">primary resource affected by climate change</a>, with repercussions on the supply of drinking water, sanitation, and water used for food and energy production. Or in other words, as suggested by climate-change experts, "If climate change is a shark, <a href="https://www.watercalculator.org/footprint/climate-change-water-resources/" target="_blank">then water is its teeth</a>."<em></em></p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/world-water-day-how-to-put-water-into-the-climate-agenda/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></p>
<p>Against this backdrop, young people are increasingly recognized as the driving force for action behind the climate movement – and for injecting water into the climate agenda. Currently, more than half of the global population is under the age of 30, making it the largest youth population in history and the ones who will be most affected by the climate change induced disruption of water resources.</p><p>One active youth group is the World Economic Forum's <a href="https://www.globalshapers.org/" target="_blank">Global Shapers</a>, an impact-orientated network of young people, who listed water as the number one social risk in the Forum's Global Shapers survey.</p><p>Having launched several initiatives linking both water and climate change, here are three key lessons from global youth to advance an inclusive and effective climate action agenda:</p>
1. Raise Awareness
<p>Not enough is understood and communicated about the devastating risk of climate change to the world's water resources. Currently, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3674533?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank">50% of our drinking water comes from glaciers</a>, which are melting at an unprecedent speed. Higher air temperatures are causing increased flooding – <a href="https://www.zurich.com/en/knowledge/topics/flood-and-water-damage" target="_blank">which is affecting more people globally than any other natural hazard</a>. If no measures are taken, water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, is expected to cost some regions <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/water/publication/high-and-dry-climate-change-water-and-the-economy" target="_blank">up to 6% of their economic growth</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg4ODQ1NS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMTIxODQ1MX0.qJ4_h03eH2s3D_6FnWaae2eoUC_2dU4EvoaADlwnha0/img.png?width=980" id="77940" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fcd44dcbca3778d12738b067737eaf05" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>With water and climate change being complex topics in and of themselves, not to mention how they intersect, much remains to be done to raise awareness in a comprehensive, accessible and action-oriented way. The World Youth Parliament for Water (WYPW), a globally-recognized youth network, has therefore dedicated one of its three main working pillars towards awareness-raising. Noting the need to mainstream the unique role of water throughout the climate agenda, the WYWP is currently broadcasting "The <a href="https://soundcloud.com/climatereadypodcast/sn3episode3" target="_blank">ClimateReady Podcast</a>", sharing stories of youth action on combatting the climate crisis and reaching thousands of people.</p><p>All sectors can learn from these efforts, as an increased awareness of the water and climate change link will lead to an enabling environment for change and corporation, and more so, safeguard our water resources.</p>
2. Be an Advocate
<p>Young people are organizing and uniting around the world to raise awareness through climate strikes – bridging political differences and linking separate sectors. Rather than confronting one environmental issue at a time, they are holistic in their advocacy, recognizing the strength in combining efforts.</p><p>During the 2020 Annual Meeting in Davos, Global Shapers engaged in climate work and discussions on the future of water. Their participation, enthusiasm and conviction to further incentivize young people to scale up water innovation, resulted in the stakeholder proposal to develop an award. Rather than being a one-off entrepreneurial activity, this prize aims to be a milestone in a long-term water advocacy agenda.</p><p>While having a Corporate Social Responsibility programme is common, more companies could push the cause. An example is Heineken's "<a href="https://www.theheinekencompany.com/newsroom/heineken-announces-every-drop-water-ambition-for-2030/" target="_blank">Every Drop</a>" campaign, dedicated to lowering water usage to combat water scarcity.</p><p>Choose to be a champion, mobilize for the climate-water cause and implement what you advocate!</p>3. Seek Innovation
<p>Since 2012, the rise in smart phones has been dramatic (to date, there are more people with a mobile phone than access to a flushable toilet). Today's youth is the generation most accustomed to technology from an early age. With the increase of artificial intelligence, smart sensoring and blockchain, the possibilities for tackling water issues have multiplied.</p><p>In the run-up to COP 21, youth representatives released a white paper with recommendations in four key areas on how to address climate change – all of which included water. This led to the creation of the <a href="https://youthwaterclimate.org/project/ahiafor-yahovi-amedzape-danyi-apeyeme-togo-tonfuturtonclimat-project-to-support-the-young-people-for-the-protection-of-environment-water-and-land-in-togo/" target="_blank">Youth for Water and Climate</a> (YWC) initiative. Similar to the World Economic Forum's <a href="https://www.weforum.org/uplink" target="_blank">UpLink</a>, the YWC is a platform connecting young, innovative solution providers with solution seekers that are able to offer technical and financial resources to help scale up the projects.</p><p>By providing the means and the mentoring, the chances for these projects to develop increase, while offering tangible solutions for companies in return. Companies such as AB InBev have launched <a href="https://www.ab-inbev.com/sustainability/100-accelerator.html" target="_blank">sustainability accelerators</a>, enabling start-ups to grow, while learning from their breakthrough water innovations. In line with stakeholder capitalism, more companies aim to be inclusive – and what better way to do that – than by getting insights into innovative solutions for water challenges and climate change.</p>From Your Site Articles
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A girl makes a water run with empty buckets on May 17, 2017 in New Delhi, India. Shams Qari / Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Ever more of the world's population is living with water insecurity and is unable to consistently access safe, clean drinking water.
<p><br/></p>
<p>A number of factors, including <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a> and poor water management, are worsening water scarcity, which coupled with other social problems like rising inequality and ethnic tensions, are threatening conflict between states and within states.</p><p>Charles Iceland, director of global and national water initiatives at the <a href="https://www.waterpeacesecurity.org/map" target="_blank">World Resources Institute</a>, spoke to DW about disputes over the essential resource and how it can be avoided, as well as the new <a href="https://www.waterpeacesecurity.org/map" target="_blank">Water, Peace and Security (WPS)</a> tool that forecasts where water disputes are likely over the next 12 months, and how they might be avoided.<br></p>
<p><em>DW: What is a water conflict and what does it look like?</em></p><p>Charles Iceland: In many places throughout the world, there's just more and more demand for water with respect to what's available. Sometimes the conflicts are nonviolent — like in Australia or California where people go through the legal system or they work their issues out without violence. But in a lot of places, the problem is grave enough and the ability to resolve the problem is not well developed. So you can see the wrestling over these scarce resources develop in violent ways.</p>
<p><em>Where would you say are the regions and countries in which water, water scarcity, water quality are playing a role in conflict?</em></p><p>Populations are growing very quickly in sub-Saharan Africa — going up fourfold between 1960 and today. Resources have either stayed the same or you have a reduction in resources, because of climate change or because desertification is reducing arable land. So you have a lot of violent conflicts between these smallholder farmers and pastoralists wrestling over scarce land and water resources. We've seen over the past couple of years pastoralists massacring farming communities and retribution by farming communities.</p><p>We're also seeing a lot of violent conflict play out in the Middle East. So, for example, in Iraq, a lot of the demonstrations that led to the prime minister's resignation a few months ago. But part of the grievances entailed lack of services, which included lack of access to clean water and lack of access to electricity. They're getting sick. About a year and a half ago, 120,000 people in Basra had to be hospitalized because they were drinking contaminated water.</p><p>And it's [water scarcity] is also a problem in places like Iran, Afghanistan and India. So those are some of the hotspots.</p>
<p><em>So it could be an interstate conflict, but it could be intrastate as well between various stakeholders in society?</em></p><p>When you have violent conflict, it usually plays out at a subnational level. While you have international conflicts over water, those are rarely resolved through violence. So, for example, we have India and Pakistan wrestling over water in the Indus. We have Iraq and Turkey wrestling over water in the Tigris and Euphrates. We have Egypt and Ethiopia wrestling over water and in the Blue Nile Basin. The parties try as much as they can to resolve the issues in a nonviolent way through diplomacy.</p>
<p><em>Will we see a future of water wars and water as the new oil?</em></p><p>Both, like a lot of metaphors, are not really accurate. Wars are rarely fought over water as a single issue. Rather, we see the problem as a threat multiplier. So it's one issue in the background. If you have other issues leading to instability, maybe problems between ethnic groups or anything could trigger violence, the background of having water scarcity, has destabilized the society and made it less able to resolve problems amicably.</p>
<p><em>How much of a role does climate change play in water scarcity or water quality?</em></p><p>We have trouble attributing any particular <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought">drought</a> or <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding">flood</a> to climate change, but we are seeing very dramatic increases in the incidence and severity of drought in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. So we're having a general decline in rainfall in some of these areas. In some of these areas the amount of rainfall stays the same but you have very large intermittent drought and flood periods. That's what's been predicted by climate change experts.</p>
<p><em>What other factors can lead to water scarcity?</em></p><p>The management of water resources is a critical factor. So people, in theory might have enough water in some places, but they're mismanaging it. They're losing water. They are polluting the water. And then there are upstream, downstream issues. There are many instances where the upstream users are accessing water, but downstream users suffer because they're getting less water.</p>
<p><em>What exactly is the Water Peace and Security tool?</em></p><p>We're a consortium of nine organizations in the U.S. and Europe that are working together to both try to identify hotspots of water insecurity and then try to help local people and the global community do something about this to either avoid conflict or minimize the impacts of conflict. So we've developed a machine learning-based model that tries to predict where conflict might break out in the next 12 months. We're using a number of factors — political, economic, social, demographic — that might point at imminent conflict. And to that group of indicators, we add water and food insecurity indicators. We try to identify these hotspots, whether they are water-related conflicts and what are the drivers of the conflict.</p>
<p><em>How can you resolve a water conflict?</em></p><p>There are lots of examples on the subnational and international levels where either global or national entities have brought competing [water] users together.</p><p>A very good example of this was in 1960 — the World Bank brought the governments of India and Pakistan together to develop a treaty that divided up the water in the Indus River Basin. That treaty has come under pressure recently but it's still been able to keep India and Pakistan from having problems boil over — at least to date.</p><p><em>Jennifer Collins conducted the interview, which has been shortened and edited for clarity.</em></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/tackling-the-growing-threat-of-water-conflict/a-52696755?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">DW</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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Water Conflicts Will Intensify. Can We Predict the Worst Problems Before Conditions Boil Over?
01 March
Popular
More than 2.7 million people have been affected by the drought in Kenya. Russell Watkins / DFID / CC BY 2.0
By Tara Lohan
In 2015 an estimated 1.8 million migrants crossed into the European Union, fleeing countries gripped by violence, political upheaval and resource scarcity like Syria, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Eritrea and Nigeria. Many made their trips in flimsy, overcrowded boats. Thousands drowned along the way. E.U. governments struggled to deal with the influx of new arrivals, and the confluence of humanitarian and political crises that resulted — including a surge in right-wing anti-immigrant rhetoric.
<p>Advance warning, experts say, could have helped world governments and aid workers anticipate and adapt for these problems, and probably save lives in the process. But how do we predict future conflicts on a rapidly warming planet?</p><p>The Netherlands, which has experienced sharp rises in <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/migration-netherlands-rhetoric-and-perceived-reality-challenge-dutch-tolerance" target="_blank">both immigration and far-right populism</a>, decided to try to answer that question by funding a project to model which areas of the world were likely to face upcoming conflicts.</p><p>The result — the <a href="https://www.waterpeacesecurity.org/map" target="_blank">Water, Peace and Security Global Early Warning Tool</a> — was released in December. It's an online interface that analyzes data on violent conflicts, as well as dozens of economic, environmental and social indicators, to help pinpoint hotspots where worsening conditions — like food shortages or drought — are likely to shift to violent conflict within the year.</p><p>"We used a number of traditional indicators of predicting conflicts, such as economic strength, political, stability, demographic trends and past conflict, which is actually a predictor of future conflict," said Charles Iceland, director of global and national water initiatives at the <a href="https://www.wri.org/" target="_blank">World Resources Institute</a>. The organization partnered with IHE Delft, Deltares, The Hague Center for Strategic Studies, International Alert and Wetlands International to develop the tool.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjgzNzE5OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNDM1NzM0MX0.ksew5-oECVyve4eQuI6UH80nrkpAp8PDus05NQZIpIw/img.jpg?width=980" id="b5897" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="de2ded12957769d64e1d0c5a3a5e767a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A camp hosting Syrian refugees in Turkey. European Union 2016 / European Parliament / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
<p>When it comes to determining where problems could erupt, water is a key part of the equation.</p><p>"We put in a number of water-risk variables on the assumption that no conflict is caused by water alone," Iceland said, "but water may be present as an exacerbating or contributing factor along with a lot of other features of society."</p><p>Most recently, drought was one of the <a href="https://www.wri.org/news/water-stress-helping-drive-conflict-and-migration" target="_blank">driving factors</a> in the unrest that led to Syria's civil war and increasing destabilization in Mali. It was also an underlying contributor to the deadly conflict in Darfur in 2003 and has bolstered the efforts of terrorist organizations like Boko Haram.</p><p>The link between water stress and other resource pressures, Iceland warms, is becoming more acute as global environmental crises worsen.</p><p>"When you look at the big picture, we're consuming a lot more resources now then are replenished by our natural systems," he said. "Just that alone is enough to cause a lot of problems. And then on top of that you've got a changing climate that's further exacerbating the situation."</p><p>The links between climate change and global security are fast becoming a top concern.</p><p>A new report released this week by U.S. national security, military and intelligence professionals at the <a href="https://climateandsecurity.org/" target="_blank">Center for Climate and Security</a> mapped future climate change scenarios and their effects on security. Not surprisingly, the findings are troubling. Competition for dwindling resources, they predict, will increase social tensions and could topple already-fragile states. Natural disasters, social unrest and shrinking economic opportunities will push people from their homes and heighten migration pressures.</p><p>The <a href="https://climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/a-security-threat-assessment-of-global-climate-change_nsmip_2020_2.pdf" target="_blank">report found</a> that "even at scenarios of low warming, each region of the world will face severe risks to national and global security in the next three decades … Higher levels of warming will pose catastrophic, and likely irreversible, global security risks over the course of the 21st century."</p><p>Iceland hopes that the early warning tool could help play a role in averting some crises that could come from these and other scenarios that lead to violent conflict.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjgzNzIwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNjQ1OTE1Mn0.TvWZSFq8-36px7pa2_62ZpNPPJhnO4WTtgx6SctfjM8/img.jpg?width=980" id="0943a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f0515901d98293d96cea44866b4126ff" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/water-conflict-predictor/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2645352752#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>Habiba Hossen collects water from a rehabilitated distribution point in Ethiopia during a drought in 2012. Pablo Tosco / Oxfam / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
<p>But it's a complicated picture.</p><p>"It would be wonderful to have a perfect tool to predict something as inherently complex as violent conflict," said Peter Gleick, president emeritus of the <a href="https://pacinst.org/" target="_blank">Pacific Institute</a>, which along with Oregon State University and New America are also affiliated partners of the project. "We'll never have such a tool. But the more information we have about the many factors that contribute to violence the better, especially given the new, real and growing threat of climate disruption."</p><p>How successful the resource ultimately is also depends on how, and by whom, it's used. Simply knowing where trouble is brewing is only the first step. Iceland says the resource is geared for decision-makers like foreign-affairs ministries and intelligence departments, as well as development and disaster-relief experts at non-governmental organizations.</p><p>"A lot of these governments and non-government entities could use this information to try to figure out where the next problems can occur and get ready for it," he said. "Or the global community could approach those national leaders in developing countries [where problems are predicted] and say, 'We see that you're likely to have a water-related problem in the near future, what are some strategies that we could develop with you to try to address this problem?'"</p><p>The system isn't just available to diplomats and international NGOs, though — anyone can use it and download relevant data.</p><p>"You can look at a lot of other datasets on the website that might be used as contextual information," said Iceland. "Things like where are the roads and reservoirs with respect to predicted conflict. Or where the population is very dense in relation to these predicted conflict areas."</p><p>One area currently on the map as an emerging area of concern, he said, is Iran. The country has a dry environment with a rapidly growing population and is working toward being food self-sufficient.</p><p>"But they really don't have enough water to do that and so a lot of these lakes and rivers are drying up," said Iceland. That's forcing people to abandon farms to move to cities, and those who've remained in agricultural communities are beginning to protest the government's water allocations.</p><p>Other areas of concern include the eastern coast of South Africa and southern Iraq, he says, but it's too soon yet to show any on-the-ground results from the early warning tool there or elsewhere.</p><p>Even so, the resource has started to reveal things that could soon help mitigate future conflicts or allow communities to adapt to upcoming problems.</p><p>"This new effort has already given us insight into areas where more efforts at smart water policies, improved management and environmental diplomacy are needed," said Gleick.</p><p>And the more data we collect, the more we'll be able to learn.</p><p>"I hope and expect the tool to improve over time," he added.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Colorado River Has Lost 1.5 Billion Tons of Water to the Climate Crisis, 'Severe Water Shortages' May Follow
21 February
Climate
Horseshoe Bend (seen above) is a horseshoe-shaped meander of the Colorado River in Page, Arizona. didier.camus / Flickr / public domain
Millions of people rely on the Colorado River, but the climate crisis is causing the river to dry up, putting many at risk of "severe water shortages," according to new research, as The Guardian reported.
<p>Longer periods of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought" rel="noopener noreferrer">drought</a> and rising temperatures have decreased the river's annual flow by 20 percent compared to the last century. The researchers, who published their study in <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/02/19/science.aay9187" target="_blank">Science</a>, say that global heating has caused mountain snowpacks that feed the river to disappear, which leads to increased evaporation, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/02/20/climate-change-has-stolen-more-than-billion-tons-water-wests-most-vital-river/" target="_blank">The Washington Post reported</a>.</p>
<p>"That's the thing I found most fascinating about this study," lead author Chris Milly of the U.S. Geological Survey said to <a href="https://www.knau.org/post/study-colorado-river-s-flow-decreases-9-percent-every-degree-warming" target="_blank">KNAU</a>. "As the snow cover dwindles due to warming, it's reflecting less sunlight back to the atmosphere. So the basin's absorbing more sunlight. That sunlight is powering evaporation out of the basin. Now when that evaporation—the water is taken out of the basin due to the evaporation, there's less water flowing down the river to the 40 million people that are waiting for it."</p>
<p>Snow and ice reflect sunlight back away from the Earth's surface, a phenomenon known as the albedo effect. The loss of snow and ice means the Earth absorbs more heat.</p>
<p>Milly and his research partner, Krista A. Dunne, found that for every degree Celsius of warming, the river's flow decreases 9.3 percent. Recent studies have confirmed that the river's steady decreased flow since 2000 is due to rising temperatures. The decline has amounted to 1.5 billion tons of missing water, equal to the annual water consumption of 10 million Americans, as The Washington Post reported.</p>
<p>About 40 million people live along the Colorado and it supports nearly $1 trillion in economic activity each year and provides 16 million jobs. Its waters cover a wide expanse, according to The Washington Post. Its waters are channeled as far away as California's Imperial Valley and central Arizona, where its used to irrigate crops, as well as across the Rockies to supply <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water">drinking water</a> for Colorado's biggest cities. The Colorado feeds the two largest water reserves in the U.S., Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Lake Mead supplies Las Vegas with almost all of its water, as The Guardian reported. The huge reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam has dropped to levels not seen since the 1960s.</p>
<p>So far the world has heated up by about 1 degree Celsius over pre-industrial times, but it is on course to rise 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century unless emissions are drastically cut, as The Guardian reported. For the Colorado River this means, an "increasing risk of severe water shortages," the study says. Increased rainfall will not offset the loss in reflective snow. </p>
<p>"This has important implications for water users and managers alike," Brad Udall, a senior scientist at Colorado State University and an expert on water supplies in the west who was not involved in the research said, as The Guardian reported. "More broadly, these results tell us that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as we possible can. We've wasted nearly 30 years bickering over the science. The science is crystal clear – we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately."</p>
<p>Andrew Mueller, general manager for the Colorado River District, who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email to The Washington Post that the new findings provide "confirmation of significantly grim indicators about future flow in the Colorado River."</p>
<p>He added that the amount of water that would disappear with another 1 degree C temperature rise is nearly five times what Las Vegas uses each year. "A decline in flows of this magnitude will present a significant challenge to all inhabitants in the Colorado River Basin."</p>
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Pro-environment demonstrators on the streets of Washington, DC during the Jan. 20, 2017 Trump inauguration. Mobilus In Mobili / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
By Dr. Brian R. Shmaefsky
One year after the Flint Water Crisis I was invited to participate in a water rights session at a conference hosted by the US Human Rights Network in Austin, Texas in 2015. The reason I was at the conference was to promote efforts by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to encourage scientists to shine a light on how science intersects with human rights, in the U.S. as well as in the context of international development. My plan was to sit at an information booth and share my stories about water quality projects I spearheaded in communities in Bangladesh, Colombia, and the Philippines. I did not expect to be thrown into conversations that made me reexamine how scientists use their knowledge as a public good.
<p>The water rights session was titled <em>Water Justice: Effective Advocacy for Our Right to Water</em> and began with forum speakers discussing environmental justice issues related to water availability, cost, and quality in various regions of the U.S. I heard first-hand accounts of the Flint water supply contamination, the prohibitive cost of water in lower-income communities in Boston, and the scarcity of clean drinking water on Arizona's Native American Reservations.</p>
<p>The forum led to an audience roundtable discussion that began with self-introductions by the attendees. I introduced myself as an environmental scientist based in Arizona who was interested in their concerns. Immediately after the introduction I was surprised to be told by several individuals that they distrusted scientists and that we were a contributor to their problems. I shared about my life growing up poor in New York City housing projects dealing with problems similar to theirs, and I was able to gain some credibility by relating to their experiences with my own. At that point the approximately 50 attendees, who were affected by water issues discussed in the forum, felt free to explain how their experiences caused them to distrust scientists.</p><p>Several residents from Flint, Michigan shared their anger about the scientists from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality lied to the community about high lead levels in the water. The also felt ignored by scientists from the EPA Region 5 office who should have had more oversight of the water management decision. I am sure this distrust was exacerbated by the 2017 accusations that the Virginia Tech scientists who assisted the community over-exaggerated the harmful effects of water which caused unnecessary panic in the community.</p><p>Representatives from the Shiprock New Mexico Chapter of the Navajo Nation discussed how they felt betrayed by EPA Region 6 scientists who failed to recognize contaminated water supplied to the community for use in agriculture and drinking. The Shiprock residents were already critical of the EPA's handling of a 3-million-gallon release of toxic wastewater into a tributary upstream of the Navajo Native land. A group representing a lower-income African American community of Boston voiced that government scientists and social scientists involved in water infrastructure design are unconcerned about the affordability of drinking water and sewage in lower-income areas.</p><p>I used what I learned from the stories about the distrust of scientists as a platform to educate colleagues about how scientists can learn to integrate community-based and interdisciplinary considerations into their work on environmental justice and policy issues and created <a href="https://ucs-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/science-network/ucs-sntk-equitable-partnerships-2-11.pdf" target="_blank">this one-pager</a> as a guide for scientists who wish to do effective environmental justice work. There are three key components:</p><ul><li>Understanding public views and sentiments about science and scientists</li><li>Building trust in communities affected by environmental justice</li><li>Reducing tensions when working on environmental justice issues</li></ul>
Understanding Public Views and Sentiments About Science and Scientists
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/" target="_blank">2015 study by the Pew Research Center</a>, a random sample of 2,002 adult Americans perceive science as having positive impacts on peoples' lives. Americans also believe that government funding of science is worth the payoff provided by scientific knowledge and technological applications. But unfortunately, the benefits of science are not always equally distributed to all communities.</p><p>Dr. Robert Bullard, one of the most prominent environmental justice scholars, points out in his book<em> <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/book/10.2105/9780875530079" target="_blank">Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States: Building Environmentally Just, Sustainable, and Livable</a> </em>that many scientific developments for reducing pollution and improving health care do not always make their way into areas affected by discriminatory practices or poverty. Populations that are disproportionately affected by environmental injustices are predominantly communities of color, tribal communities, and low-income communities.</p><p>Historically, the benefits of science and technology have not been shared equally as is discussed in the 2016 Nature article <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/is-science-only-for-the-rich-1.20650" target="_blank"><em>Is science only for the rich?</em></a> A 2018 The Atlantic article <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/the-trump-administration-finds-that-environmental-racism-is-real/554315/" target="_blank"><em>Trump's EPA Concludes Environmental Racism Is Real</em></a> discusses that at times science has been used against environmental justice communities. In addition, the "Belmont Report", produced by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/sites/default/files/the-belmont-report-508c_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">documents a long history</a> of unequal benefits of medical research.</p><p>In part due to this history, scientists are not always or immediately trusted or welcome in environmental justice communities. Scientists also have a reputation for 'parachuting' into communities to conduct research and make recommendations for change without ever fully consulting the knowledge and lived experience of the people who live there. Community members want equal access to data, policymakers, and science or technology that can remediate environmental injustice.</p><p>Scientists can <a href="http://ambiental.uaslp.mx/eventos/HESD07/Extensos/46-HESD07-FullText-Shmaefsky-Letargo_VF.pdf" target="_blank">play a role in conducting research</a> that is community-driven and in using their social capital and access to scientific institutions and policymakers to make community demands and needs heard directly and with the weight of evidence behind it. For example, from 2007 to 2010, I collaborated with a geology colleague to engage indigent people in the Philippines to develop a sustainable integrated waste and water management system based on stakeholder customs and resources. The communities had no access to affordable resources and were suffering the consequences of no management program. Previous efforts by other entities to improve water management in the community proved ineffective due to a disconnect between the plans of the entities and the needs of the stakeholders.</p><p>There is also an inclusivity problem in science — it is not yet representative of the diverse world in which we live. The latest statistics on the ethnicity of scientists show that populations subject to environmental injustice make up less than 15 percent of the U.S. Approximately 70 percent of scientists in the U.S. are white and 72 percent of white scientists are male, and most do not come from low-income backgrounds. Science needs the experiences and expertise of people from impacted communities to ask the questions and work on solutions that better serve the needs of those communities. And people need to see themselves, see people like them, in the scientific community to gain trust that the institution of science represents them too. This disparity creates an incongruity between people affected by environmental injustice and the scientific community.</p><p>Scientists need to be aware of how they are perceived when working with community, and slowly and deliberately build relationships and trust with environmental justice and fenceline communities.</p>
<p><em>Dr. Brian Shmaefsky is currently a professor of environmental sciences at Lone Star College – Kingwood, near Houston, Texas. His research interests are environmental physiology and biomonitoring. However, his current professional activities include developing sustainable water quality strategies for less economically developed nations and consulting on environment justice policy. </em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/science-blogger/connecting-science-justice" rel="noopener noreferrer">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Tests on an MIT building rooftop showed that a simple proof-of-concept desalination device could produce clean, drinkable water at a rate equivalent to more than 1.5 gallons per hour for each square meter of solar collecting area. Images courtesy of the researchers
By Paul Brown
An international team of scientists has developed a cheap way to provide fresh water to thirsty communities by making seawater drinkable without using electricity.
<p>So long as the sun is shining, they say, their device will produce enough high-quality potable water to cover a family's needs, at a cost of around $100.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/fresh-water-from-sunshine-can-keep-thirst-at-bay/" target="_blank">Climate News Network</a>.</em></p>
<p>The scientists, from Massachusetts institute of Technology (MIT), U.S. and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, believe their brainwave offers a simple solution to thirsty islands and arid coastal areas which lack a reliable electricity supply but have access to seawater. It could even help to prevent some of the mass migrations expected with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a>.</p><p>The researchers report their work in the journal <a href="https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ee/c9ee04122b#!divAbstract" target="_blank">Energy and Environmental Science</a>. Testing their prototype on <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2020/passive-solar-powered-water-desalination-0207" target="_blank">a roof at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology</a>, they produced more than 1.5 gallons of fresh <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" rel="noopener noreferrer">drinking water</a> every hour for every square meter of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/solar" rel="noopener noreferrer">solar</a> collecting area.</p><p>Their device is cube-shaped, with multiple layers of solar evaporators and condensers piled one on top of another, surmounted with a layer of transparent insulation. Essentially it is a multi-layer <a href="https://worldwaterreserve.com/potable-water/purification/how-to-make-a-solar-still/" target="_blank">solar still</a>, similar to those used for centuries to make strong liquor and used today in many applications.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY3MzkwMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDU5NDY4N30.3eUk2ZfTRqJfLXJb0PRTg-UqMb7ZiD1HD-fyq94VxJQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="36407" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8b31f30364d6bc1ce5c29d142d88c39a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Diagram illustrates the basic structure of the proposed desalination system. Sunlight passes through a transparent insulating layer at left, to heat up a black heat-absorbing material, which transfers the heat to a layer of wicking material (shown in blue), where it evaporates and then condenses on a surface (gray) and then drips off to be collected as fresh, potable water. Images courtesy of the researchers
<p>A solar still uses flat panels to absorb heat which it then transfers to a layer of water, which begins to evaporate. The vapor condenses on the next panel and the water is collected, while the heat from the vapor condensation is passed to the layer above.</p><p>Whenever vapor condenses on a surface, it releases heat; in typical condenser systems, that heat is simply lost to the environment. But in this multi-layer version the released heat flows to the next evaporating layer, recycling the solar heat and boosting overall efficiency.</p><p>The efficiency comes from using each of the multiple stages to remove salt from the sea water, with the heat released by the previous stage harnessed instead of wasted. In this way, the team's demonstration device achieved an overall efficiency of 385 percent in converting the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/energy-news/">energy</a> of sunlight into evaporation.</p><p><a href="http://meche.mit.edu/people/faculty/enwang@mit.edu" target="_blank">Evelyn Wang, a co-author</a>, said: "When you condense water, you release energy as heat. If you have more than one stage, you can take advantage of that heat."</p>Cost Trade-Off
<p>Although adding more layers increases the conversion efficiency of the system, each layer also adds cost and bulk. The team settled on a 10-stage system for their proof-of-concept device.</p><p>It delivered pure water that exceeded city drinking water standards, at a rate of 5.78 liters per square meter (about 1.52 gallons per 11 square feet) of solar collecting area. This is more than twice as much as the record amount previously produced by any such passive solar-powered desalination system, Professor Wang says.</p><p>And a big advantage of the system is that it has a self-flushing mechanism which will clean out the accumulation of salt each night and return it to the sea.</p><p>One possible way of using the system would be with floating panels on a body of saltwater. The panels could deliver constant fresh water through pipes to the shore so long as the sun was shining. Other systems could be designed to serve a single household, perhaps using a flat panel on a large shallow tank of seawater.</p><p>The team estimates that a system with a roughly one-square-meter solar collecting area could meet the daily drinking water needs of one person. In production, they think a system built to serve the needs of a family might be built for around $100.</p>Cheaper Replacements
<p>The most expensive component of the prototype is the layer of transparent <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/aerogels.html" target="_blank">aerogel</a> used as an insulator at the top of the stack, but the team suggests other less expensive insulators could be used instead. (The aerogel itself is made from very cheap silica but requires specialized drying equipment during its manufacture.)</p><p>"This new approach is very significant," says <a href="https://me.berkeley.edu/people/ravi-prasher/" target="_blank">Professor Ravi Prasher of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory</a> and the University of California at Berkeley, who was not involved in the research.</p><p>"One of the challenges in solar still-based desalination has been low efficiency due to the loss of significant energy in condensation.</p><p>"By efficiently harvesting the condensation energy, the overall solar to vapour efficiency is dramatically improved … This increased efficiency will have an overall impact on reducing the cost of produced water."</p>From Your Site Articles
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