We can live three weeks without food, but only three days without water. Our world faces a water crisis. Alarmingly, every 90 seconds a child dies of a water-related disease. Both developing and developed global areas suffer water problems; Flint, Michigan shocked the United States into awareness, revealing more problems with lead in drinking water discovered in all 50 states. Marine life also suffers: more than 2,000 species are now classified as endangered or threatened. When water safety imperiled ancient Rome, the aqueducts brought fresh spring water from hills to city. The New River, an engineered waterway, similarly saved London. Half of the world’s jobs involve water. How can we respond to the goals of the Paris Agreement COP 21 to improve climate, and water?
Thanks to the Comisión Nacional del Agua of México for world and regional water statistics, and to Cherie E. Potts for U.S. statistics.
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Can sports raise awareness of the future of water? Image: wikimediacommons.
Sports are associated with water. Many sports are performed on, in or through water; other sports like running races build up a powerful thirst, often slaked at water stations. Because of their natural link, can sports help to raise awareness of water sustainability? México’s CONAGUA invites participation in an annual running event. In a different endeavor, sports teams representing water’s many forms – oceans, rivers, urban water, agriculture and irrigation – are exemplified by Ultimate Frisbee Oaxaca, UFO, to raise awareness of how to sustain and improve these vital resources. Rome’s aqueducts provided water for urban growth as well as competitive games including naumachia. Sporting events often include water stations; will innovations such as the Fontus by Kristof Retezár be a game changer?
Palacios-Vélez, Óscar Luis and Felipe J.A. Pedraza-Oropeza. “Drainage and Salinity Problems in the Mexican Irrigation Districts: An Overview 1962-2013.” Tecnología y Ciencias del Agua, vol. VI, núm. 6, noviembre-diciembre de 2015, pp. 113-123. ISSN 0187.8336.
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Licen
Earth has a water problem; we are slowly depleting one of our essential resources. But space may be the answer. There is water, for example, on Mars; NASA confirmed the presence of the liquid in 2015. There is water on the Moon; lunar deposits were identified in 2009. There is water on asteroids; commercial enterprises, such as Planetary Resources whose Arkyd 6 will use infrared imaging sensors, are developing ways to find, mine, and refine the liquid for uses including rocket fuel. As earth considers the future of water, should we look up?
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Can Flint rebuild water health and safety, with an new vision? Image: Flint River, pre-crisis, 1979. United States Army Corps of Engineers, wikimedia commons.
Flint, Michigan has made world news for a sad reason. In a temporary cost-cutting measure, authorities switched the city’s watersupply from Lake Huron (via Detroit) to the Flint River, known to contain corrosive minerals. Absent filters or other safeguards, river water coursed though antiquated pipes, leeching out lead. Residents noticed immediately: smell, color and taste had changed. A similar crisis, with a healthier solution, caused Rome‘s response to degradation of the Tiber River; aqueducts were built to bring safe water to the city. Flint health experts including pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha noted an increase in illness in children whose tests revealed the presence of lead. But it would be over a year until action was taken. Blame might be shared by many; response after the fact is problematic. Plumbing can be changed; water can be filtered; but what about those whose health is now threatened, perhaps for many years in the future? Medical treatment for 6,000 to 12,000 children affected is estimated at $100 million. Temporary measures: filters, bottled water? $28 million. Cost of fixing the aging pipes? $1.5 billion. Such costs, most seriously the health of a new generation, could have been avoided. As Flint rebuilds, might leaders create a regional water resource, connected to the Great Lakes, perhaps modeled upon England’s New River, to bring healthy drinking water, and greenway exercise paths, with a new vision for Michigan?
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Depleting groundwater increases sea rise. How should we balance water resources to achieve sustainability? Image: Perhelion, wikimedia commons.
Depletion of underground aquifers accelerates global sea rise. According to a study published in Nature by a team of researchers including Yoshihido Wada of NASA Goddard Institute at Columbia University and Marc Bierkens of Utrecht University, groundwater use is rapidly increasing, with the consequence of contribution to 20% of sea rise. Aquifers and aqueducts helped support Rome; England’s New River fostered London’s growth while improving public health via walking paths. With aquifers being tapped for everything from drinking water, agriculture, industry, and hydraulic fracturing, groundwater is a stressed resource. Especially important are shared water resources: how should transnational aquifers, such as those shared by México and the United States, be sustained? What should be added to laws and policy regarding world water?
Special appreciation to Cherie E. Potts for reference and suggestion.
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Puja, ceremony of honoring the sacred, as seen in “Durga Puja” by Sevak Ram, 1809. Image: British Library Add.Or. 29
Jalwa Puja is a water ceremony, sacred to India, in which mothers welcome a new child with blessings at the village well. Baghwati Argrawal incorporated this and other customs, including naming reservoirs after community leaders, in the Rajastan project that collects and distributes rainwater. Argrawal calls the program, administered by Sustainable Innovations, Aakash Ganga or River from the Sky. The system collects monsoon rains, channeling potential floods into treasured reservoirs. A rain collection system also irrigates gardens of the Taj Mahal. But what of areas where there is scarce percipitation? Will Graciela Schneier-Madanes and the University of Arizona’s Institute of the Environment, as presented at Fulbright Water Act 2015, guide the world’s dry regions? Can the University of Massachusetts Boston’s School for the Environment open a new vision? Most arid country on earth, Australia changed agriculture and irrigation while providing electricity via Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric. As UN Climate Change conference COP21 concludes, how can we sustain shared resources including water?
Kathleen Toner, CNN. “‘River from the Sky’ brings life-changing water.” 7 December 2015.
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
São Paolo, Brazil is among the world’s megacities. Image: wikimedia commons.
Urban centers with populations over 10 million, megacities are the greatest consumers of resources, especially water. When London reached limits to growth, the New River allowed the city to expand. At a time when the Tiber threatened health and safety, Rome built the aqueducts. Over 2000 years ago, Chengdu, China engineered the Dujiangyan irrigation system. Today, Paris is among the world’s cities utilizing non-potable water to power systems and control climate. Megacities are responsible for 70% of fossil-fuel CO2 emissions. What can the megacities of the world do improve and sustain the environment? Will Africa lead the way? As world water becomes more precious, how can cities use water wisely? UNESCO considers this question in conjunction with COP21.
Special appreciation to Rachael M. Rusting for Dujiangyan references and suggestions.
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water. – Albert Szent-Gyorgyi. Water Act! may lead the way. Image: www.komendenver.org.
Water is life, some would state. Water resources determined success of some of the world’s greatest cities: Baghdad, London, Rome, Singapore. Environmental consequences of climate change can be observed in water resources: floods devastate; drought strangles. Earth, the water planet, may be running out of water. Will “Water Act!” convened in Paris by the Fulbright Association produce consensus and action regarding world water?
As water becomes more scarce on earth, the element begins to be discovered in space. Earth’s solar system contains 23 oceans. Europa, Jupiter’s moon, may house a sub-surface ocean “vigorously convecting” with Hadley cells and ice plumes 124 miles high. Water movement on Europa may mean life; circulating from equator to poles, as evidenced by plumes, moving water may create the fertile environment for life. Findings of Krista Soderlund of University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and colleagues may indicate it is more likely to find life in Europa’s ocean than its land surface: water is a life-giving medium. Planetary Resources is aiming to harvest minerals, and water, from asteroids. Finding water in space may bode well for building a better future; perhaps Gerard K. O’Neill’s vision will be realized, guided in part by the United Nations Outer Space Treaty and Unispace.
Meanwhile, on earth, the world seeks to protect and preserve what water we still have. California continues to address change; citizens successfully met Governor Edmund G. Brown’s challenge to reduce water usage 25%. Differentiating water utilization for people, agriculture, building, industry, and technology might be the way of the future, as suggested by Régine Engström, Executive Director of Eau de Paris, proposing “non-potable water systems may help build tomorrow’s sustainable city.” The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference convening in France will seek goals of ambition, fairness, post-2020 financing, and pre-2020 actions regarding climate change and environment. What should COP21 recommend regarding water?
Special appreciation to Cherie E. Potts for Solar System Water references and suggestions.
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Classical Greece: inspiration for innovation. Image: wikimedia commons.
Greece may provide one of the first documented instances, in history, of innovation that may attend climate migration. When Thera, now Santorini, suffered prolonged drought, the oracle at Delphi advised pioneers to sail to the shores of Libya, where they discovered a spot known for moist climate. A sacred plant grew naturally on the fertile soil; some credit the herb sylphium in part for the creativity that soon sprouted. Measurement of the earth’s circumference, mechanics for doubling a cube, early research into prime numbers, even one of the first maps of the stars (thought to tally 675) were among the innovations. Cyrene flourished, growing into five cities. Perhaps influenced by experience and freedom, a new constitution was drafted, with expanded definitions of citizenship. Although options for relocation, in our times, may be different, climate refugees might take inspiration from Greece, source of great innovation.
For more:
Litwin, Evan T. “Climate Diaspora.” Master’s Thesis, McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston, 2011.
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Israel’s desalination program yields 25% of the water supply, according to Avraham Tenne, Desalination Division of the Water Authority of Israel: “With the touch of a button, we can produce 600 million cubic meters of water.” The land of Solomon’s Temple gains 50% of agricultural water through scientific sewage treatment. It seems to work: Medjool dates, grown with recycled water, are highly prized, and priced, around the world. Drought-stricken California has 80,500 farms; could Israel’s water wizardry improve its agriculture? Will Water Act, in Paris, prelude to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, build consensus and action to save the world’s water?
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
