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California infrastructure
In the event of a major earthquake or flood and many levees failing simultaneously in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, as many as 515,000 residents and 520,000 acres of land would be in immediate danger; the long term effects could be even more widespread, as nearly 28 million residents depend on the Delta for water and irrigation; California lawmakers have increasingly turned their attention to securing the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s levees, but experts say that only little progress has been made
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The water we drink
Florida’s Biscayne Aquifer has begun to run low and communities are exploring alternative sources of water as well as methods to stretch existing sources; the city of Pembroke Pines plans to inject treated sewage water 60 to 200 feet below ground directly into underground aquifers rather than use the existing practice of pumping treated water into nearby wetlands, lakes, or fields, where it will slowly trickle down into the aquifer over several months or years
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Infrastructure protection
Pima County, Arizona, is moving to fingerprint more employees who work with kids and populations who need special assistance, who deal with sensitive data, or who have access to critical infrastructure facilities such as wastewater treatment plants; “We don’t want guys with criminal backgrounds knowing how our radio system is constructed. The same with wastewater, which could be compromised,” John Moffatt, the county’s director of Strategic Technology Planning, said
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The water we drink
New analysis shows that pathogens levels in municipal water have dropped since the implementation of federal regulations on treating sewage in 1993; these treatment guidelines have proven to be extremely effective with 94 percent to 99 percent of all pathogens in biosolids eliminated after wastewater treatment
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The water we drink
China is facing increasingly sever water shortages; the Chinese government is expanding it activities to combat extreme weather such as droughts, exploring airborne water resources, bringing water from he sea inland, and other measures to secure stable water supplies for cities, industry and agriculture
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The water we drink
UConn biologist Charles Yarish is turning his enthusiasm for seaweed into a new system for cleaning up waterways; Yarish’s most recent endeavor will use seaweeds to clean up pollution from human sources, as well as waste from fish and even people; this approach, dubbed extractive aquaculture or bioextraction, promises to use the physiological properties of seaweeds and other organisms to clean up excess nutrients in polluted areas, making them healthier, more productive, and more economically viable
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The water we drink
Twenty-five years ago, environmentalist Marc Reisner published Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, which predicted that water resources in the West would be unable to support the growing demand of cities, agriculture, new research offers new support for most of Reisner’s conclusions, using data and methods unavailable to him in 1986
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Infrastructure
Fresh water and reusable energy: humans are on a constant hunt for a sustainable supply of both; trouble is, water purification requires a lot of energy, while utility companies need large amounts of water for energy production; researchers from the University of Colorado Denver College of Engineering and Applied Science may have discovered an answer
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The water we drink
Haiti’s corrupt and indifferent government has done little to improve water and sanitation since a 12 January earthquake, making it likely that the cholera epidemic there will continue to spread; even before the quake, more than a third of Haitians lacked access to clean water; now, more than two-thirds of Haitians have no access to clean water; less than one-fifth of the population has access to a simple latrine or toilet
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The water we drink
The growing global shortage of water has led to a growing interest in desalination to produce fresh water from seas and estuaries; conventional desalination plants, however, consume large amounts of energy; the solution: a bug-powered desalination cell that takes salt out of seawater
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The water we drink
Experts say that by 2030 global water demand would outstrip supply by 40 percent; a new survey reveals that we do not have to wait that long: drought, shortages, flooding, and rising prices are already damaging companies in water-intensive industries
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The water we drink
Chinese officials say they have a found a solution to uninhabitable deserts of Xinjiang in west china: pump raw sea water thousands of miles from the coast to fill Xinjiang’s dried-up salt lakes and desert basins in the hope that it will evaporate and encourage rainfall over drought-stricken areas of northern and northwestern China; the sea water would be carried through a pipeline made of plastic and fiberglass; water experts have condemned the proposal
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Water infrastructure
Water pipes and treatment systems in the United States are in a sorry state, but nearly two-thirds of voters and just over half of businesses would be willing to pay more for their water to ensure its quality and availability; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that at the current rate of investment, the funding gap for water infrastructure could grow to as much as $224 billion by 2022
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Infrastructure
The soils in large areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including major portions of Australia, Africa, and South America, have been drying up in the past decade as a result of intensified “evapotranspiration” — the movement of water from the land to the atmosphere
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The water we drink
In recent decades, the rate at which humans worldwide are pumping dry the vast underground stores of water that billions depend on has more than doubled; if water was siphoned from the Great Lakes as rapidly as water is pumped out of underground reservoirs, the Great Lakes would go bone-dry in around 80 years
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The water we drink
Coal-waste disposal sites have contaminated drinking and surface water in 34 states; the sites released pollutants such as arsenic, selenium, lead and chromium into water sources on which both humans and farm animals depend; there could be a bigger problem yet: large coal ash-generating states like Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, and Tennessee, require no monitoring by law at coal ash ponds, so the pollution of water by coal ash is not even monitored
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Infrastructure
An inflatable rubber dam (called “bladder”) on Tempe’s Town Lake exploded, sending a wall of water into the Salt River bed; at least three-quarters of the about one billion gallons of water had drained overnight; those parts of the rubber dam which are wet have held up, but a plan to keep those parts of the dam which are above water failed, exposing the rubber to scorching sun that has damaged the material
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Infrastructure / the water we drink
Precise knowledge of water losses is essential for operating and planning the maintenance of drinking water networks efficiently; Siemens’s new solution not only continuously checks for leaks, but also pinpoints them automatically; this is done by setting up district metering areas, in which the inflows and outflows of water are measured by ultrasonic flow meters
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The water we drink
New sensor creates a single procedure for in-situ monitoring of chlorinated hydrocarbons in water, obviating the need for laboratory-based technologies for the analysis of water contaminants, which are time consuming, labor intensive and expensive
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Scientists argue that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in an effort to correct old data on water flows in the Mississippi, may have led to underestimates of the current risk of flooding on the Mississippi between the Ohio and Missouri Rivers, and to inadequate preparations by government agencies
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The long view
State Pension Fund is Helping a Middle Eastern Firm Export Arizona’s Precious Groundwater
As rural Arizonans face the prospect of wells running dry, foreign firms are sucking up vast amounts of the state’s groundwater to grow hay for Saudi Arabia and other wealthy nations. The state’s retirement system invested heavily in a private land deal that allowed a foreign company to effectively ship Arizona’s scarce water supply overseas.
Wastewater Can Help Tackle Water Shortages
Europe has experienced severe heat and drought over the last few summers, and 2023 has been no different. Vast swathes of Central and Southern Europe are simply too dry from a lack of rainfall. Water shortages are causing tensions in some countries. But, for now, there’s enough water to go around. Using the precious resource more efficiently is key.