• Drought-prone pasts may foretell New York's and Atlanta's futures

    By fall 2007, during the second year of a three-year drought, Atlanta had roughly three months’ supply of water remaining while Athens, Georgia was down to approximately fifty days; another drought dramatically lowered New York City reservoirs to 33 percent of capacity in 1981; droughts in those cities and their surrounding regions were typically longer and more frequent centuries ago than they were for most of the twentieth century; a return to historic climate patterns would bring more frequent and prolonged droughts

  • New tool to build water infrastructure resiliency

    The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to roll out its new Community-Based Water Resiliency (CBWR) Electronic Tool this spring; the tool is designed to give organizations in charge of critical water infrastructure a way to assess their community’s ability to continue delivering water in the event of service disruptions and enhance resiliency; a major natural disaster or terrorist attack could leave large portions of a state without access to drinking water for months; Matthew Everett from the EPA will be present at the upcoming Government and Security Expo to discuss the EPA’s new initiative; the conference will be held from 29 March to 31 March in Washington, D.C.

  • Army water contracts fraudster appeals

    Last Tuesday, a man convicted of defrauding the U.S military of millions of dollars on water purification contracts requested the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out his 210-month sentence because a key witness was unable to testify; Richard E. Long was convicted of bribery, wire fraud, and money laundering for WATEC, Inc., a Tennessee based firm that provides water purification services to the military; Long accepted $550,000 in bribes in exchange for rewarding contracts worth as much as $66 million to WATEC, Inc.

  • Scientists: water woes ahead

    Within a generation, water demand in many countries is forecast to exceed supply by an estimated 40 percent.
    In other parts of the world prone to flooding, catastrophic floods normally expected once a century could occur every twenty years instead; meanwhile, spending on technologies and services to discover, manage, filter, disinfect, and desalinate water, improve infrastructure and distribution, mitigate flood damage, and reduce water consumption by households, industry, and agriculture is expected to rise to a trillion dollars annually by 2020

  • Mitigation policy could halve climate-related impacts on water scarcity

    Even without the effects of climate change, as much as 40 percent of the world’s population will be living under water scarce conditions by 2020; climate change is expected to influence future water scarcity through regional changes in precipitation and evaporation; most climate models suggest rainfall is likely to decrease in the subtropics and increase in mid-latitudes and some parts of the tropics; in the latter, mitigation efforts could actually reduce the amount of extra water potentially available

  • Canada's water could be answer for anticipated global water shortages

    Global demand for water is projected to exceed supplies by 40 percent in 2030, and Canada may be the answer to minimizing water shortages; it is estimated that in the next twenty years, one third of the world will only have half the water it needs to cover daily needs; to prevent these shortages, researchers are scrambling to develop technologies and practices to reduce water consumption, discover new re-processing techniques, and improve infrastructure; Canada’s water experts are well-suited to assist in this effort as they have gained valuable experience from managing 9 percent of the world’s fresh water supplies

  • Toxic metals from Superfund site endangers wetlands in Ventura County

    The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that an old metal recycling plant in Oxnard, California, now a federal Superfund site, was leaking lead, zinc, and other dangerous chemicals into nearby wetlands; when the plant closed, it left nearly 700,000 cubic yards of unattended waste laden with heavy metals and small amounts of radioactive thorium; high costs have hindered cleanup efforts and local residents have become frustrated with the drawn out efforts; the wetlands that are endangered by the old metal recycling plant are located in Ormand Beach and are home to several rare and endangered species

  • Nearly half Bhutan's schools lack access to sufficient water

    238 of Bhutan’s 576 schools lack sufficient water supplies; water shortages disrupt education as children must spend time that could be spent learning fetching water from streams; children are also falling sick due to poor hygiene and sanitation as a result of limited access to water; unsafe drinking water is one the second leading cause of death in the world and poses a serious public health risk to these children; water sources in Bhutan are dwindling as glaciers recede making it difficult to provide schools with water

  • New gene could help plants use less water

    A mutant plant gene discovery by researchers at Purdue could lead to major breakthroughs in farming that would allow plants to be grown with less water without compromising growth; the mutant gene GTL1 reduces water loss without sacrificing carbon dioxide intake which usually affects growth negatively; tests show that the mutation reduced water loss by 20 percent; researchers are in the process of determining how this gene can be applied to crops

  • Expert: Czech Republic beginning to run out of water

    The Czech Republic is running low on its underground water supplies, with villages in the north and the south experiencing shortages; nearly 50 percent of Czech residents depend on underground water sources; experts believe that increasingly extreme weather patterns caused by climate change are to blame; long dry months followed by severe storms are causing massive floods and leave the ground less able to absorb water; extreme estimates predict that by 2050, the Czech Republic would not have enough water for its population’s basic needs

  • U.S. water infrastructure in desperate need of repair

    U.S water infrastructure is rapidly aging and causing disease outbreaks, water loss, and property damage; these problems primarily owe to ancient water pipes, many of which have not been repaired or upgraded since they were first installed in the years following the Second World War; some are over eighty years old; on average 700 water mains break a day flooding homes and causing thousands of dollars in property damage; a 2008 salmonella outbreak in Colorado that sickened 250 people was linked to poor water infrastructure; an estimated seven billion gallons of water is lost due to leaky pipes

  • San Diego completes major water pipeline project

    San Diego county has completed the San Vicente pipeline which will provide residents with fresh water in the event of a disruption; San Diego receives 90 percent of its water from distant sources thousands of miles away; the pipeline is part of a larger $1.5 billion project designed to provide San Diego county with water for up to six months if supplies are cut off by a major earthquake or natural disaster; these projects are becoming increasingly important as San Diego’s two primary sources of water, the Colorado River and the San Joaquin-Sacramento river delta begin to dry up

  • Manila reducing water supply in hopes of preventing another water crisis

    Philippine officials hope to divert another crippling water shortage this summer; officials decreased the water supply to Metro Manila and Central Luzon to slow usage and ensure water supplies will last until the rainy season; last year Manila faced a crippling water shortage that left millions with only a few hours of water a day and some villages entirely without water; officials resorted to cloud seeding to alleviate the water crisis with some success

  • Major breakthrough in desalination technology could be game changer

    A new desalination technique could be a significantly cheaper and more energy efficient alternative to aqueducts and dams; Oasys Water has developed ground breaking new membranes and draw solutions that generate fresh water faster, more efficiently, and at lower temperatures than existing desalination methods

  • China invests $30 billion in water projects to ensure food security

    China will invest $30 billion in water conservation projects this year to mitigate climate change’s effects on grain production; last year floods and droughts destroyed crops, increased food prices, and drove up inflation; climate change is projected to cause a 10 percent decline in grain production by 2030; China has already spent $100 billion on water conservation projects and hopes to double its annual investment