• AI helps identify leaky pipes, prevent flooding

    Engineers have pioneered new methods for detecting leaky pipes and identifying flood risks with technologies normally used for computer game graphics and Artificial Intelligence; these techniques could help to identify water supply and flooding problems more quickly than ever before

  • Wastewater recycling adds to greenhouse gas emissions

    New research shows that wastewater recycling processes may generate more greenhouse gases than traditional water-treatment processes; still, there are good reasons to continue keep wastewater recycling among the water-resource tools for urban areas

  • Bacteria--Energy Producers of the Future?

    A lot of the water we use daily goes to waste — whether it goes down drains, sewers, or toilets, much of it ends up at a wastewater treatment plant where it undergoes rigorous cleaning before it flows back to the environment; researchers are looking at processes which would turn wastewater into energy

  • New desalination technology to help solve world's water shortage

    Over one-third of the world’s population already lives in areas struggling to keep up with the demand for fresh water. By 2025, that number will nearly double; a new study argues that seawater desalination should play an important role in helping combat worldwide fresh water shortages once conservation, reuse, and other methods have been exhausted

  • Protecting water utilities from terrorist attacks and contaminants

    In 1993, a cryptosporidiosis outbreak in Milwaukee contaminated the city’s water supplies, hastened the deaths of dozens of citizens, made more than 400,000 residents ill, and cost more than $96 million in medical expenses and lost productivity; Sandia’s CANARY software protects water utilities from terrorist attacks and contaminants

  • Water purification unit generates its own energy

    A new biological water purification facility developed by Siemens generates enough methane gas to power its own operations; it also produces much less sludge than conventional systems; the test facility is mlocated in Singapore, and the city state is building a much larger pilot facility — one that will process 300 times more effluent than its predecessor, or about as much sewage water as is produced by around 1,000 people

  • Pakistan charges India with "water terrorism"

    India is building dams on three major rivers flowing from the India to Pakistan; an editorial in a leading Pakistani newspaper says that India’s goal is “[to make] Pakistan totally barren,” and that India’s actions amount to water terrorism

  • Former world leaders say global water crisis must be addressed

    In March 2008, the U.K. intelligence services, in a report to then-prime minister Gordon Brown, warned that the deteriorating fresh water situation around the world would soon lead not only to tensions over water between states, but to “water wars”; world leaders, at least former world leaders, agree that the global water situation is dire, and twenty of them, led by Bill Clinton, meet to discuss solutions

  • Keeping water clean

    Cardiff University researchers create a real-time broadband monitor to detect and warn of impurities in water supplies; the new monitor works by using bioluminescence to detect the presence of potentially toxic substances of chemical or biological origin and immediately warn of suspicious change

  • China admits to critical flaws at world’s largest dam

    Last week, the Chinese government made a rare announcement and publicly admitted that there were critical problems at the Three Gorges dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, lending support to the growing opposition to future dam projects; with the approval of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the country’s second in command, last Thursday the State Council announced that the Three Gorges dam had been plagued by a series of problems “urgently in need of resolution”; problems include ecological deterioration, geological disasters, and the lingering uncertain status of more than one million people displaced by the dam; this is the first time such a high-ranking government official has publicly acknowledged the dam’s problems

  • University of Oklahoma student offers solutions Ethiopia's water problems

    In Ethiopia’s Rift Valley, the high levels of fluoride in the drinking water result in dental and skeletal disease; left untreated, fluorosis causes darkening of the teeth and bone deformities; a University of Oklahoma student has been investigating inexpensive, sustainable and locally available solutions, such as adsorption — a useful technology for fluoride removal from drinking water because it does not require energy input outside of gravity and, depending on the material used, can be very effective at removing fluoride to meet the World Health Organization standard

  • Engineering students win wastewater treatment competition

    In a surprise win, Humboldt State University (HSU) students recently bested engineering students at top ranked California universities to gain first place at the annual American Society of Civil Engineers Mid-Pacific Water Treatment Competition; this year teams were asked to build a system that would treat contaminated water that was heading toward a sensitive wetland ecosystem after an earthen levy around a biosolids compost facility had been breached; the teams were challenged to either design a containment system for the water or a treatment system; the HSU team won the competition beating U.C. Berkeley by more than thirty points

  • New technology quickly detects bioattacks on water supply systems

    If pathogens enter into a city water supply network, many people may fall ill quickly; to protect against this biological threat, researchers have developed a detection system, partly based on nanotechnology, that can warn authorities in time

  • U.K. struggles to reduce water usage as supplies dwindle

    An uncharacteristically warm and dry spring in the United Kingdom has forced water companies to begin conserving water, but a recent survey indicates that the method currently employed is widely unpopular and grossly affects low income families; some reservoirs are 20 percent below normal levels and eleven rivers are at their lowest in twenty years; in 1989 the British government mandated that all new homes have water meters installed and introduced a usage plan which charges households based on the amount of water they consume; the plan has proven effective in reducing water usage, but costs have increased by more than 50 percent

  • Maui proposes $44 million for water infrastructure projects

    Alan Arakawa, the mayor of Maui County, has proposed spending nearly $44 million on water infrastructure projects in 2012, a sharp increase of $20 million from current spending levels;the budget increases would go to the Department of Water Supply which has requested funding to undertake several critical infrastructure investments; the department would allocate $10 million to rehabilitate the Waikamoi flume, which is a critical source of water for Upcountry residents; the department also wants to spend $200,000 to improve water pipelines in Paia-Haiuku and $2.3 million for Wailuku-Kahului water source improvements; council members have balked at the large budget increases needed to pay for these projects