Water use

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Water use

12wonderY
Editado: Mar 27, 2013, 11:22 am

Here's the article I remembered about water consumption:
http://www.care2.com/causes/a-single-american-can-use-as-much-water-in-a-day-as-...

I doesn't address home water use only, though. It addresses water use in agriculture, but it doesn't say whether it includes all the other industrial operations using water to create goods, etc.
I'm not sure the quoted comparison is a useful number, except in a very general way.

I do have some figures stored somewhere about typical household water uses in the US, as I used them as a starting point to determine the size adequacy of my cistern.

More later.

22wonderY
Mar 28, 2013, 2:47 pm

Here are some facts about number of gallons used per minute for a variety of fixtures and uses:

http://fi.edu/guide/schutte/howmuch.html

This is just a list to get US children started thinking about quantities used in the home.

3juniperSun
mayo 5, 2013, 12:56 am

I was just turned on to this site which has lots of info on rainwater harvesting, & water quality/conservation in general
http://harvesth2o.com/

42wonderY
Editado: mayo 5, 2013, 4:22 pm

Wow! Great site. Thanks.

Nice! My library system has a copy of Taking On Water.

52wonderY
mayo 8, 2013, 2:31 pm

My water bill in town consistently hovers around 44 cf, which translates to 329 gallons a month. That's with one person spending half time there, but actually less, because 12 hours is spent away working on many of those days. So 22 gallons a day.

In the country, I know exactly how much water I use, as I carry it out there at present. Two gallons a day. That covers drinking, cooking and personal hygiene. I use collected rainwater for all other uses, like dishwashing and gardening. I do take an occasional shower at my daughter's house.

Laundry is done off-site, at a laundromat or a daughter's house. I like the concept of sharing the specialized and expensive equipment.

6margd
Editado: Mar 18, 2015, 4:36 pm

NASA scientist: ...Right now (California) has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain...

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-drought-california-201503...

7margd
Editado: Abr 6, 2015, 1:38 pm

How Growers Gamed California’s Drought

...Agriculture is the heart of California’s worsening water crisis, and the stakes extend far beyond the state’s borders. Not only is California the world’s eighth largest economy, it is an agricultural superpower. It produces roughly half of all the fruits, nuts, and vegetables consumed in the United States—and more than 90 percent of the almonds, tomatoes, strawberries, broccoli and other specialty crops—while exporting vast amounts to China and other overseas customers.

But agriculture consumes a staggering 80 percent of California’s developed water, even as it accounts for only 2 percent of the state’s gross domestic product. Most crops and livestock are produced in the Central Valley, which is, geologically speaking, a desert. The soil is very fertile but crops there can thrive only if massive amounts of irrigation water are applied.

...One striking aspect of California’s water emergency is how few voices in positions of authority have been willing to state the obvious. To plant increasing amounts of water-intensive crops in a desert would be questionable in the best of times. To continue doing so in the middle of a historic drought, even as scientists warn that climate change will increase the frequency and severity of future droughts, seems nothing less than reckless.

...if California endures a fourth year of drought, the only way to keep household taps and farmers’ irrigation lines flowing will be to summon to the surface still greater volumes of groundwater. But that strategy can’t work forever; worse, the longer it is pursued, the bigger the risk that it collapses aquifers, rendering them irretrievably barren. Aquifers can be replenished—if rainwater and snowmelt are allowed to sink into the ground and humans don’t keep raiding the supply...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/30/how-growers-gamed-california-s-...

8justjukka
Abr 7, 2015, 2:26 pm

Mashable recently had an article that touched on efficient water use: 7 incredibly simple inventions that are changing the world.  Nice to see it prioritized, and astounding that someone didn't think of some of these before.

9margd
Abr 7, 2015, 3:38 pm

Cool! Here's an update on a traditional cooling method, a fridge that runs on sun and water (an evaptainer):
http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/07/smallbusiness/evaptainer-cooler/index.html?iid=H...

10John5918
Abr 8, 2015, 1:44 am

>9 margd: an improvement on a traditional cooling method used throughout much of Africa and the Middle East. Called a zeer pot

We used zeers for many years in Sudan. They're not so common now, but the water filter I still use in Nairobi is housed in a clay pot so the filtered water is cool.

11MaureenRoy
Editado: Feb 9, 2016, 12:24 pm

Este mensaje fue borrado por su autor.

122wonderY
Editado: Ene 20, 2016, 1:23 pm

I'm searching for any suggestions being made to the local population in Flint Michigan about water alternatives. All I can find is bottled water and tap filter distribution.

I can't find any reference to collecting and utilizing rainfall for some uses. I may not have drilled down far enough beyond the political stories.

I think it's important for people to re-gain some control of water acquisition.

132wonderY
Feb 1, 2016, 5:46 pm

First report I've seen on rainwater use in Flint

http://www.natural.news/2016-01-26-could-rainwater-collection-save-the-residents...

and concerns of gardeners that they've been depositing lead in their soil

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060031582

142wonderY
Feb 2, 2016, 11:09 am

World Water Day is March 22.

Royal Bank of Canada has been sponsoring a poll since 2008 on Canadian attitudes on water

RBC Canadian Water Attitudes Study

http://www.rbc.com/community-sustainability/environment/rbc-blue-water/water-att...

16margd
Jul 16, 2016, 5:52 am

A global overview on how we are drawing down aquifers (largely for agriculture) that will be needed for drinking water in parched days ahead:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/07/world-aquifers-water-wars/

172wonderY
Jul 16, 2016, 8:23 pm

I'm reading The price of thirst : global water inequality and the coming chaos. It focuses on multinational companies privatizing water access in developing nations on the pretext of delivering cleaner water. "It's like they think it falls from the sky and should be available free to all."

182wonderY
Dic 7, 2016, 7:00 am

Read and reviewed Running Out of Water. It's a should read for the general public, but it misses some opportunities.

My review:

This book addresses a serious issue, and does present a few excellent municipal solutions. But I think the authors were trying to be non-judgmental, and sadly fail to explore the political issues of for-profit water systems and water rights. They do skim these issues, but the avoidance of value judgments is clear for where they stop the discussion.

I saw three gaping holes in the presentation.
1. The chapter on agricultural water use focuses on increasingly high tech solutions to continue growing corn and soybean monocultures in parts of the country that are plainly not suited for them. There was not even a whisper of the possibility of switching to more adaptive crops and soil management practices that would allow sustainable agriculture.

2. The chapter on the bottled water industry wants to condemn the practice, but waffles heavily, even quoting Nestlé's chairman admiringly for his perception on the value of water.

3. The task of cleaning water for consumption is the whole thrust of the book. But industrial contaminants are hardly mentioned. There is lots of material on sewage reclamation and San Francisco's restaurant grease to biodiesel program, but the plastics, wood and oil industries, to mention just a few major polluters, are not addressed at all.

Oh, and alternatives to flush toilets should have been a topic as well.

There is a meaningful discussion on the economic value of water.

19MaureenRoy
Dic 19, 2016, 10:23 am

Missing from this water book is the fact that no water filter, even the most insanely expensive, will ever be able to remove 100% of any contaminants, for fundamental mathematical reasons (trigonometry).

Agreed that the Nestle approach to bottled water is *not* the way to go, for several reasons.

The main economic fact about water is that there is no substitute for water. Before even discussing this book further, I would recommend taking a hard look at the financial disclaimer (if any ) from these authors.

202wonderY
Dic 19, 2016, 10:39 am

>19 MaureenRoy: Are you referring to Running Out of Water? When I researched the authors to add CK on their pages, nothing jumped out at me. Peter Rogers is an academic: environmental engineering professor at Harvard. Of course, there can be ties to the industries that are not apparent. He is associated with the Global Water Partnership. What is their sustainability track record?

His co-author, Susan Leal ran the San Francisco Public Service Commission for several years, which is why there is so much material about that municipality.

21MaureenRoy
Editado: Dic 19, 2016, 11:04 am

Yes, that's the book whose content and focus concerns me. See books such as University, Inc. which do a thorough job at tracking down the very widespread corporate control of American university research and even faculty members.

University, Inc.: the Corporate Corruption of Higher Education

222wonderY
Dic 19, 2016, 11:14 am

Yes, I'm seeing those links when I get my own alumni magazine from WVU - lots of oil and gas endowments nowadays. In fact they were just boasting about developing a cleaner greener fracking fluid.

I'll check out the book.

23wifilibrarian
Dic 19, 2016, 7:44 pm

I don't know if it belongs here but I thought it interesting. In New Zealand several cities are going start testing wastewater for drugs to determine how much illicit drug use is happening.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/69948586/researchers-study-sewage-in-hunt-for-dr...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/national/87722321/Police-to-test-waste...

I'm libertarianish and think drug use/abuse is a health issue rather than legal one, but I hadn't thought about the drugs exiting the body and going back into the environment.
As >19 MaureenRoy: points out no water is completely uncontaminated.

We're looking at downsizing and going to a tiny house setup. Part of that lifestyle I'm both attracted to and put off by of is the need to think about where all your water comes from and where it goes.

Something that might make it easier for the world to reduce clean water use, and would work in any house situation, is this cool nozzle that uses 98% less water than a regular tap.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/621008351/altered-nozzle-same-tap-98-less-w...

24John5918
Dic 19, 2016, 11:52 pm

In the new home that we are building we'll be relying completely on rainwater. I suppose in industrialised countries and polluted atmospheres even rainwater is not uncontaminated, but we're hoping that here in Kenya it will be pure enough. We'll collect drinking water off the roofs, and there's a small rain-fed dam to collect water for animals and gardening. At the moment it's not holding water for very long, so we'll need to do a bit of work on it to increase its capacity, divert more water into it, and line it with a different soil.

The alternative would be to drill our own borehole, but the boreholes in our immediate area are very deep and seem to produce slightly salty water, so we'll stick with the rainwater as long as it works.

252wonderY
Dic 20, 2016, 7:30 am

John, tell us about your progress! And also, what are your plans for greywater and human waste disposal?

26John5918
Dic 20, 2016, 7:42 am

Human waste will be a biodigester. Greywater will not be comprehensively managed but we'll try to collect as much of it as we can for gardening.

272wonderY
Dic 20, 2016, 8:09 am

Your annual rainfall is low, yes? What size is your cistern? How many people will be there on a continuous basis?

Am I being too nosey? This may not be the right thread for it too. You need to start your thread over at Gardens & Books and post pictures!

28John5918
Dic 20, 2016, 10:00 am

No, not nosey - interested! I may start a thread eventually, but at the moment I prefer just to comment when it seems of interest, as in a thread on water usage.

We don't get rain too often in that part of Kenya, but when it does rain it is often very heavy, so the trick is to have enough water storage. We have a pretty good roof area for collecting rain, what with the main house, the storage/workshop area (two forty foot shipping containers with walls built between them and an overall roof) and a lean-to garage for the cars. Our neighbours who live 12 km away in a house about the same size as ours and, like us, are just two people permanently but with frequent visitors, have 80,000 litres of water storage and they tell us they have never exhausted it, even during a period when rains were poor. We're planning on around 100,000 litres of storage.

302wonderY
Editado: Abr 13, 2017, 12:03 pm

>29 John5918: Good article. But I hate that one of the greatest exploiters of water resources - Coca Cola - sound like good stewards.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/27/new-zealand-anger-as-pristine-lake...

31margd
Editado: Abr 13, 2017, 12:27 pm

Some neat development of technology out of U of British Columbia promises clean water at lower cost in remote communities. Sounds like initial investment will still be there, but will cost a whole lot less to maintain in terms of chemicals and staff: http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/how-clean-water-in-remote-communities-could-be-ch...

32margd
Dic 11, 2017, 9:52 am

Water Footprint Calculator
https://www.watercalculator.org/

33John5918
Dic 12, 2017, 6:30 am

I'm writing this in a Catholic retreat centre in South Sudan, where they recycle all their water. They have a collection of ponds and things - I'm not au fait with the technical details. Original water source is a borehole. The whole compound, including the borehole pump, is powered by solar.

Next week I'll be home in Kenya where we have been living in our new house for three months now. As I mentioned above, our only source of water is rainwater. Our 100 thousand litre tanks are now maybe only a quarter full, as we have had an eighteen month drought. During a brief and rather poor rainy season in October and November we probably had less than a couple of hundred mm of rain (I only got my rain gauge installed part way through the season so I'm guessing a bit). Unfortunately we had a break in our rainwater delivery pipe which we only noticed after 25 mm or more of rain had by-passed our tanks and run to waste. We're currently looking at buying an old ex-NATO trailer which we can put a water tank on and hook up behind the Land Rover to go and look for water somewhere if ever we run out completely.

Our sewage and grey water are separate systems - sewage goes to the biodigester and grey water to a barrel where we use it for watering plants - we've planted over fifty trees so far, as well as hedges and cacti. We use a passive solar heater for hot water, and the whole compound's electrical power is solar. We're completely off the grid, for water and electricity.

34margd
Dic 12, 2017, 7:22 am

I gave a little to help a Kenyan man deliver water to elephants and other animals*, but even as I did so, I wondered about the people. (Hoping World Food Program donations are helping thirsty as well as hungry people!)

Videos of the starving Polar Bear and the thirsty Key Deer likewise break my heart. Unconscionable that US leadership is lacking to control C emissions...

*Patrick: https://www.thedodo.com/water-man-kenya-animals-2263728686.html

352wonderY
Dic 12, 2017, 7:38 am

>33 John5918: Wow! When you begin a project you don't let the dust settle. Come over to Gardens and Books and tell us more about your spread.

36John5918
Dic 12, 2017, 8:35 am

>34 margd:

Interesting. We have some connections with one of the Tsavo conservation groups, and we hope to be down there around New Year. I'll keep my eyes and ears open.

In our own area we've been finding dead zebra, and one of our neighbours has been putting out a barrel of water every night and it's empty by morning, mainly drunk by zebra and mountain reedbuck, we think, as well as birds such as guinea fowl. We've inherited a small earth dam which we had hoped would attract wildlife but it doesn't hold water too well and anyway there's been too little rain to make any impact on it.

37John5918
Dic 12, 2017, 8:35 am

Thanks, >35 2wonderY:. I might just do that.

382wonderY
Feb 1, 2018, 10:51 am

Running Dry in Cape Town

Starting Thursday, we’re being asked to curb our use of municipal water to 13.2 gallons a day. If water levels keep falling as expected, this will be reduced to 6.6 gallons on April 16, referred to here as Day Zero, when most taps are expected to be shut off and residents will have to line up at 200 distribution points for their daily allotment.
...
For all the hardships here, I find many of the elements of this new lifestyle deeply satisfying. They have challenged our middle-class consumption patterns and expectations that “modern life” should yield certain blind comforts and conveniences. When you start thinking about water in small, specific quantities, seeing how much gray water it takes to flush offers a clear sense of how much drinking water we’ve been flushing away.
...
Cape Town is at the forefront of what’s likely to be a new way of life in our increasingly overextended world. Experiences like these challenge our perceptions of what we need and of what’s precious. You could think of it as practice for what’s to come.

392wonderY
Feb 1, 2018, 10:54 am

from the article in >38 2wonderY:

"Already, we have buckets under every faucet to capture water from hand washing, teeth brushing and food washing. This becomes the gray water we use to flush our toilets once or twice a day. Cafes and restaurants have signs asking customers to flush only when necessary. Showering has become a special (and rare) ritual; radio stations have put out playlists of songs lasting two minutes to help bathers keep it quick. Clothes are worn multiple times before washing; people try to keep their sheets clean longer by washing their feet before getting into bed. Some restaurants and gyms have replaced sinks with hand-sanitizing stations."

Time to begin changing all of our habits.

41wifilibrarian
Feb 1, 2018, 4:42 pm

>39 2wonderY: We've dramatically reduced our water consumption with our move to a tiny house on wheels. Our house is connected to well water (we call it a bore) so municipal restrictions don't apply but it's all the same water so we're still careful. We've learned to shower by rinsing, turning off the tap to soap and then rinsing again. But one of the biggest water savings has been the change to a composting toilet. Are these possible in SA?

422wonderY
Feb 1, 2018, 5:16 pm

>41 wifilibrarian:. I haven’t seen that issue discussed yet in the SA story. I myself have a very simple dry toilet in Kentucky.

44MaureenRoy
Editado: Mar 23, 2018, 2:27 pm

For johnthe fireman and everyone, regarding the use of a rain-fed dam to provide drinking water for indigenous wildlife, etc., there are a number of books in our zeitgeist thread here that discuss earthen ponds, which may be similar enough to your rain-fed dam to be helpful to you. In northern California, many rural families and farmers have smaller or larger year-round ponds to collect rainwater. It is possible to purchase various rubberized pond liners to further improve water retention. Demonstration solar panel pond/lake covers have begun to be installed at a few places around the world, to generate standalone solar power while reducing water evaporation and reducing the growth of pond algae. The gold standard in drinking water filtration currently is seen in technologies like the Berkey filter, which has an optional add-on filter to remove (most) ionizing radiation. Berkey is UN-certified and is used by UN missions in rural and war-torn areas around the world ... there may be other such companies. In Africa and other tropical and sub-tropical continents, the additional problem with any fresh waters that are surface waters is the presence of parasites. Any water filter company will be able to discuss what bacteria, parasites, plasmodiums (malaria), etc., that their technology is tested to remove, and at what level of effectiveness that "removal" can perform. PS: Before purchasing any pond liner, which is usually an expensive proposition, find out if local wildlife (such as deer) are prone to getting "trapped" in such liners and accidentally rip holes in them while trying to escape.

45John5918
Mar 23, 2018, 2:41 pm

>44 MaureenRoy:

Thanks. After two years of drought during which I never believed my dam would ever fill, it's now full to overflowing after two or three weeks of rain in which we had more than 50 mm a night on several nights. The water is now about three metres deep at its deepest point. A fair bit of that is below ground, but the water has overtopped the above-ground part and cut a notch in the top of the earth wall, and is also seeping through at one point. Tomorrow's task actually is to dig a drainage ditch for the overflow.

Incidentally my rainwater tanks for drinking water and domestic water use are also full to overflowing. We have over 100 thousand litres of rainwater storage, so that should last us a while. Next task there is to set up a system whereby we can pump water between tanks. At the moment we can only use gravity to transfer water from the higher to the lower tanks but not vice versa.

46John5918
Mar 26, 2018, 12:50 am

First of London’s new drinking fountain locations revealed (Guardian)

Mayor Sadiq Khan confirms that four of 20 outdoor fountains will be in the West End, Liverpool Street station and Southwark

I can't help repeating that we already had these drinking fountains for decades if not centuries before the fad for bottled water came in and they were allowed to fall into disuse. Madness.

In what strikes me as a parallel situation, here in Kenya a few years ago you could buy replacements for the filter "candles" in a clay or metal water filter in any supermarket or corner shop. Last week one of the filter candles broke on our water filter, and we now discover that it is extremely difficult to find a replacement. Everybody uses bottled water - who needs filters?

47margd
Dic 16, 2018, 7:16 am

A new way to turn saltwater fresh can kill germs and avoid gunk buildup
Maria Temming | December 11, 2018
The key to the improvement is keeping device components high and dry

FULL STEAM AHEAD A new device that uses sunlight to generate clean water vapor from salty or dirty water could help produce drinking water in remote, off-the-grid areas.

...The trick boils down to preventing a device’s components from touching the saltwater. Instead, a lid of light-absorbing material rests above a partially filled basin of water, absorbing sunlight and radiating that energy to the liquid below. That evaporates the water to create pure vapor, which can be condensed into freshwater to help meet the demands of a world where billions of people lack safe drinking water

...In the new device, described online December 11 in Nature Communications, the separation between the light-absorbing lid and the water’s surface helps keep the lid clean and allows it to generate vapor tens of degrees hotter than the water’s boiling point.

The lid comprises three main components: a top layer made of a metal-ceramic composite that absorbs sunshine, a sheet of carbon foam and a bottom layer of aluminum. Heat spreads from the sunlight-absorbing layer to the aluminum, from which thermal energy radiates to the water below. When the water temperature hits about 100° C, vapor is produced. The steam rises up through holes in the aluminum and flows through the lid’s middle carbon layer, heating further along the way, until it is released in a single stream out the side of the lid. There, it can be captured and condensed.

...coauthor Thomas Cooper, a mechanical engineer at York University in Toronto. A device measuring 1 square meter could generate 2.5 liters of freshwater per day in sunny regions such as the southeastern United States, and at least half that in shadier regions such as New England

This sun-powered technology could also provide an ecofriendly alternative to reverse osmosis, a water purification process that involves pushing seawater through salt-filtering membranes...

Citations

T.A. Cooper et al. Contactless steam generation and superheating under one sun illumination. Nature Communications. Published online December 11, 2018. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07494-2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07494-2

Further Reading

M. Temming. A filter that turns saltwater into freshwater just got an upgrade. Science News. Vol. 194, September 15, 2018, p. 10.

A. Witze. More than 2 billion people lack safe drinking water. That number will only grow. Science News. Vol. 194, August 18, 2018, p. 14.

T. Sumner. New tech harvests drinking water from (relatively) dry air using only sunlight. Science News. Vol. 191, May 13, 2017, p. 10.

T. Sumner. New desalination tech could help quench global thirst. Science News. Vol. 190, August 20, 2016, p. 22.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/desalination-saltwater-fresh-water-sunlight

48John5918
Dic 31, 2018, 12:35 am

Beer-brewing Trappist monks put faith in plants to reduce water waste (Guardian)

a nagging sense that money has triumphed over spirituality has prompted the monks to rethink their use of water after more than 130 years.

The Cistercian monastery on the Dutch-Belgian border is the first brewery in western Europe to construct a plant-based water filtration system that avoids the current waste of seven litres of water for every litre of beer produced.

In a large greenhouse, 70 species, including ferns and other sub-tropical plants, sit above bins of waste water that flows through pipes from the brewery. The interaction of the micro-organisms on the plants’ roots and the bacteria in the water purifies it for reuse.

“We are praying seven times a day to praise the Lord for his creation, but we were not working in the right way to stop pollution,” said Father Isaac of his brewery. “We have had to translate our faith into sustainability...”

492wonderY
Ene 6, 2019, 12:04 pm

Here is a fascinating YouTube by a landowner in Arizona who collects rainwater in a variety of ways:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-e6oOyrQ04

Here is his homepage, with various other wisdoms:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMiTb1EJ5nhn_NbUyNu003w

522wonderY
Jun 18, 2019, 9:33 am

In India

Chennai water crisis: City's reservoirs run dry

The acute water shortage has forced the city to scramble for urgent solutions, including drilling new boreholes.

Residents have had to stand in line for hours to get water from government tanks, and restaurants have closed due to the lack of water.

"Only rain can save Chennai from this situation," an official told BBC Tamil.

The city, which, according to the 2011 census, is India's sixth largest, has been in the grip of a severe water shortage for weeks now.
...
Officials are trying to find alternative sources of water, with the city's water department starting to identify and extract water from quarries.

But the big concern is the dry reservoirs and low groundwater levels.

Much more detail on the complexities here:

Living without water in Chennai

53margd
Sep 1, 2019, 6:45 am

Wonder if Coca-Cola technology for cleaning bottles with air could be applied more generally some day?

Water Stress Could Affect Half the World's Population in Just 5 Years
Jordan Davidson | Aug. 27, 2019

...One area of focus this week is how large corporations consume water and what they can do to reduce their excess usage. The textile industry took the spotlight on the opening day, acknowledging outsized water use in its manufacturing. Cotton, for example, is a thirsty crop, and, it takes nearly 1,000 gallons of water to make just one pair of jeans...industry adds about 20 percent of the pollution in fresh water sources, especially in developing countries where labor is cheap and pollution standards are lax.

...Coca-Cola is turning to new technologies that clean bottles with air rather than water...harvesting rainwater at its plants...new wetlands...to put back into nature an equal amount of water as it uses

...PepsiCo has also taken the mantle of providing clean water to people in need...delivered clean drinking water...infrastructure projects in Latin America...

https://www.ecowatch.com/water-stress-world-populations-2640060892.html

54margd
Sep 9, 2019, 8:05 am

A new solar-power device can turn salt water into clean drinking water and produce electricity at the same time
Aria Bendix | Sep. 3, 2019

... The researchers' new device is just a prototype for now, but they envision it as a way to desalinate or purify water in places where fresh water is scarce or contaminated (that includes hundreds of thousands of sites across the US).

To build the prototype, the researchers installed a water distiller on the back of a solar cell. When in sunlight, the cell produces electricity and releases heat like a typical solar panel. But instead of sending that heat back into the atmosphere, the device directs it to the distiller, which uses the heat as an energy source to power the desalination process.

To test the quality of the water that comes out, the researchers fed salt water and water containing heavy metals like lead, copper, and magnesium into the distiller. The device turned the water into vapor, which then passed through a plastic membrane that filtered out salt and contaminants. The result was clean drinking water that met the World Health Organization's safety standards.

The researchers said the meter-wide prototype could produce around 1.7 liters of clean water every hour. The ideal location for it would be in an arid or semi-arid climate, near a water source. (researchers were in Saudi Arabia)

The device could eventually be used in homes

More than 2 billion people worldwide lack safe drinking water in their home, and the team behind this new device isn't the only group working on solar-powered water production.

The Arizona-based startup Zero Mass Water, for example, makes a panel that uses solar power to condense water out of the air and filter it. The Indian startup Uravu is also working on a modular device that condenses 15 to 20 liters of water from the air per day using solar energy.

https://www.businessinsider.com/solar-panels-filter-water-generate-electricity-2...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wenbin Wang et al. 2019. Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation. Nature Communications. Vvolume 10, Article number: 3012 (2019) | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10817-6

Abstract

The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1 2wonderY:.64 kg·m−2·h−1) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11 MaureenRoy:%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.
I

552wonderY
Sep 17, 2019, 4:56 pm

This is just stupid!

Bottled Water Is Sucking Florida Dry

At least 60 springs discharge from the Floridan aquifer into the Santa Fe River, which runs 75 miles through north-central Florida. This aquifer is the primary source of drinking water in the state. The state and local governments have continued to issue water bottling extraction permits that prevent the aquifer from recharging.

In the next few months, Nestlé is set to renew its permit at Ginnie Springs, one of the most popular recreational attractions along the Santa Fe River. The permit allows Nestlé to take one million gallons per day at no cost, with just a one-time $115 application fee.

While other large water bottling companies purchase water directly from municipal water sources in Florida, Nestlé, the largest bottled water company in the world with 48 brands in its portfolio, takes water directly from the source. Nestlé’s free water extraction has incited community pushback in San Bernardino, Calif., where the company gets water for its Arrowhead brand from a national forest struggling with significant drought, and in Osceola County, Mich., where residents are fighting against the company in court to prevent surges in water extraction from local resources.

The Florida Springs Institute in August reported that groundwater extractions need to be reduced by 50 percent or more in North Florida to restore average spring flows to 95 percent of their previous levels. From 1950 to 2010, average spring flows in Florida declined by 32 percent as groundwater use increased by 400 percent.

“There is no more water to give out from the Santa Fe River,” said Robert Knight, an environmental scientist and the executive director of the Florida Springs Institute. “The aquifer levels are coming down about an inch per year on average. Every year the aquifer level drops there is less pressure and flow at the springs.”

Dr. Knight noted that average flow in the Santa Fe River has declined 30 percent to 40 percent. The Florida Springs Institute rates Ginnie Springs’s ecological health a D-plus.

He cited another Nestlé water bottling operation in Florida, at Madison Blue Spring, where declining spring flows worsen periodic backflows into the springs from the Withlacoochee River it feeds into, contaminating the aquifer. Untreated wastewater discharged into the river upstream in Georgia has made Madison Blue Springs frequently unsuitable for water bottling. The water at Ginnie Springs suffers from nitrate pollution from wastewater, pesticide and fertilizer runoff, which can cause algal blooms and hurt human health.
...
For residents near Ginnie Springs, Fla., where Nestlé is set to expand its bottled water operation, the town frequently issues boil-water advisories and Florida taxpayers spend millions of dollars annually on aquifer recharge programs. Florida should prioritize providing safe drinking water for its residents, rather than bottling that water to resell elsewhere.

The story goes on to mention Nestle's grab in Michigan, California and on US Forestry property.

56margd
Sep 17, 2019, 5:10 pm

>55 2wonderY: And in Aberfoyle near Guelph, Ontario, the largest city in Canada to rely 100% on groundwater.
To give you a taste of Nestle north of the border:
https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/nestle-continues-water-intake-despite-usa...

572wonderY
Nov 25, 2019, 9:31 am

Exporting the Nile: Outsiders Buy Up Vital Water Supply

Along its journey from Central Africa’s mountain forests, through one of the world’s largest swamps and across the vast deserts of Sudan and Egypt, the Nile has become a battleground. Countries that sit upriver and wealthy Gulf states are starting to use the Nile more than ever for water and electricity. That means less water for the 250 million-plus small farmers, herders and city dwellers in the Nile basin.

Dams funded by foreign countries including China and oil-rich neighbors like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are tapping the river to irrigate industrial farms and generate electricity. Crops grown using Nile water are increasingly shipped out of Africa to the Middle East, often to feed livestock such as dairy cows.

Securing the right to grow crops for export using river water has given water-stressed countries an incentive to support strongmen in Egypt and Sudan. Despite their Nile access and ample farmland, both countries are big food importers.

Exporting crops to feed foreign animals while borrowing money to import wheat is “almost insane,” Sudan’s new prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, said in an interview. “It’s exporting water, basically. We could be growing wheat and getting rid of half our import bill,” he said. Mr. Hamdok’s predecessor, dictator Omar al-Bashir, is in prison after an uprising sparked by rising prices for food.

Though the Nile historically carried enough water to turn vast swaths of desert into fertile farmland, it is reduced to a virtual trickle by the time it reaches the Mediterranean Sea.

In 2013, a group of U.S. military researchers at West Point predicted the Nile basin was headed toward “extreme water scarcity by midcentury with potentially catastrophic human implications.”

(it goes on, but it's so depressing)

58margd
Nov 25, 2019, 10:22 am

The Euphrates, too--marsh Arabs in Iraq are losing water to upstream development...starting with Turkey?

59John5918
Dic 12, 2019, 7:50 am

A more efficient way to turn saltwater into drinking water (phys.org)

There are many ways to desalinate water, but one of the most effective is membrane desalination. In this method, water is pushed through a thin membrane with tiny holes. The water flows through the pores, but the salt ions can't, leaving only fresh water on the other side.

In his latest research, Barati Farimani explores the potential of a new type of membrane, called a metal-conductive framework (MOF)...

60margd
Dic 16, 2019, 7:30 am

Tom Gleeson et al. 02 December 2019. Groundwater: a call to action ( CORRESPONDENCE ) Nature 576, 213 (2019) doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-03711-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03711-0

As we embark on the United Nations ‘decade of action’ (see go.nature.com/2opvyi3) and this week’s UN COP25 Climate Change Conference in Madrid, let’s remember the crucial contribution of groundwater to climate resilience and sustainable development.

Besides sustaining drinking water and ecosystems worldwide, groundwater acts as a subsurface sponge for floods. It is a resource against drought and for natural climate solutions that sequester soil carbon. And it is crucial for sustainable development because it enables food security and lifts rural populations out of poverty.

However, these essential benefits are being undermined by the long-term depletion, contamination and salinization of groundwater (see, for example, I. E. M. de Graaf et al. Nature 574, 90–94; 2019).

In our view, groundwater needs to be monitored and managed with greater rigour on regional and global scales so that it can be used more effectively to boost climate adaptation and sustainable development. As members of a global group of scientists and practitioners, we have issued a call to action* to international and national governmental and non-governmental agencies, development organizations, corporations, decision makers and scientists, to ensure that groundwater benefits society now and into the future (see go.nature.com/37gnbtb ).

__________________________________________________________

* Global Groundwater Sustainability: A Call to Action

We are a global group of scientists, practitioners, and experts calling for action to ensure groundwater benefits society now and into the future.

REASONS TO CARE

Groundwater is the drinking water source for more than two billion people, and provides more than 40% of the water for irrigated agriculture worldwide.

Groundwater use has impacted environmentally critical streamflow in more than 15% of streams globally, and could impact the majority of streams by 2050.

Around 1.7 billion people live above aquifers (geologic formations that provide groundwater) that are stressed by overuse.

Poor groundwater quality disproportionately hits poor people with access to insecure drinking water sources - often unprotected shallow groundwater resources.

STATEMENT
Global Groundwater Sustainability - A Call to Action

Action Item 1: Put the spotlight on global groundwater sustainability by completing a UN World Water Development Report, planning a global groundwater summit and recognizing the global importance of groundwater in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by 2022.

Action item 2: Manage and govern groundwater sustainability from local to global scales by applying a guiding principle of groundwater sustainability by 2030.

Action item 3: Invest in groundwater governance and management by implementing groundwater sustainability plans for stressed aquifers by 2030.

https://www.groundwaterstatement.org/

612wonderY
Dic 16, 2019, 8:43 am

'If the climate stays like this, we won't make it' say those on the frontline of Africa's drought

"I think Africans are fully realizing how urgent the need now is for worldwide climate action," Engelbrecht says. "The southern African region, in particular, is already hot and dry and is projected to become even hotter and drier under future climate change. In fact, the region is projected to warm at more or less double the global rate of warming."

Ncube doesn't need climate science to tell her how things have changed in this part of the country. As a child, they could depend on the rains to plant their maize and sorghum, a grain used to feed livestock. But no longer.

"The rain levels have been falling and they always come late," she says as she collects her allotted food aid. Even with the assistance, Ncube and her two grandchildren live off a single meal a day. The children's parents left for South Africa years ago as farming became unrealistic.

Climate models show that without substantial and sustained emissions cuts, southern Africa is heading for a tipping point.

"At the current rate, with greenhouse gas concentrations continuing to increase in the atmosphere, the southern African region five decades from now will be unrecognizable compared to the region we are living in today," says Englebrecht.

Climate models project a nightmare scenario where staple crops such as maize won't survive the heatwaves and even cattle farming -- key to the livelihood of millions -- will be impossible.

62John5918
Editado: Abr 3, 2020, 2:14 am

Preventing A Water War – Sudan PM To Restore Negotiations On Ethiopia Dam (Organisation for World Peace)

The Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has announced his intention to reignite trilateral talks between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan regarding the divisive Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) currently under construction...

“the issue of the Renaissance Dam is very urgent and should continue to be negotiated once the world has overcome the Corona pandemic disaster”...

Cairo has long been opposed to the GERD as it will essentially give Ethiopia a button to control the Nile. They have also argued that current proposals for timescales to fill the dam are too rapid, leaving the Nile without sufficient water over the next decade. The Nile is of immense importance to the Egyptian people, who rely on its freshwater for drinking, fishing, and agriculture. A portion of the country’s electricity is also generated by Egypt’s own Aswan Dam.

While the completion of the dam is imminent, Egypt is advocating for an extension to the amount of time the dam will be filled, something Ethiopia is currently reluctant to do; facing pressure from stakeholders and the public to achieve its production target. Both countries also have deep-rooted historical sentiments regarding the waters, affirming any outside dictation over its flows is a threat to their sovereignty...

the very real threat of international conflict between the two nations, with Sudan, caught in the middle. In the early days of the GERD’s development, then-Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, speaking to Reuters, accused Cairo of supporting rebels in Ethiopia to destabilize the country and its plans to build the dam.

Egypt refuted the claim, but potential offensive measures against the dam were discussed in a mistakenly televised government meeting and supposed leaked emails published by WikiLeaks. More recently, Egypt said it would use “all available means” to defend its interests in the Nile...

63John5918
Jun 25, 2020, 12:16 am

Clean water is a human right. In America it’s more a profit machine (Guardian)

When it comes to water infrastructure, America’s challenges resemble those of a developing country...

64margd
Ene 1, 2021, 9:13 am

Desalination breakthrough could lead to cheaper water filtration
University of Texas at Austin | December 31, 2020

Producing clean water at a lower cost could be on the horizon after researchers solved a complex problem that has baffled scientists for decades, until now.

...The researchers determined desalination membranes are inconsistent in density and mass distribution, which can hold back their performance. Uniform density at the nanoscale is the key to increasing how much clean water these membranes can create.

...The paper documents an increase in efficiency in the membranes tested by 30%-40%, meaning they can clean more water while using significantly less energy...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201231141511.htm

-----------------------------------------------------

Tyler E. Culp et al. Nanoscale control of internal inhomogeneity enhances water transport in desalination membranes. Science, Jan 1st, 2021 DOI: 10.1126/science.abb8518 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6524/72

652wonderY
Editado: Ene 30, 2021, 8:04 am

Mixing power plant blowdown water and fracking wastewater might clean both.
Professor Lance Lin was heading the project. I’ll add more if I find updates.

I tore a reference about this research out of a WVU Alumni magazine and went looking for any progress online. Found the initial reporting in a trade periodical:

https://www.wwdmag.com/mining/wvu-researches-fracking-power-plant-water-use

Here is another article describing the research in 2019. A couple of interesting photos of “produced water” which is what comes back up from fracked wells.

https://cen.acs.org/environment/water/Wastewater-fracking-Growing-disposal-chall...

66John5918
Feb 10, 2021, 11:10 pm

Victoria Falls is in full flow (Getaway)

Heavy rains have brought Victoria Falls to full flow. The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) says the water levels have increased significantly in comparison to the same time last year... Lake Kariba is also experiencing a slow but steady increase in water levels...


This is very good news after a period of very low water. The local name for the Falls is "The Smoke that Thunders", referring to the spray that rises in the air like smoke and the roar of the water, and once again the smoke is thundering!

67John5918
Mar 3, 2022, 11:07 pm

Sustainable groundwater use could be answer to Africa's water issues (Phys.Org)

Tapping into groundwater can help communities in Africa diversify their water supply and strengthen their drought defenses, according to a study led by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin. The study, which was published in Environmental Research Letters, tracked long-term water storage gains and losses across Africa's 13 major aquifers and found opportunities for sustainably withdrawing groundwater across much of the continent. The data showed that even though certain sub-Saharan aquifers sometimes faced water level declines, the levels consistently and quickly recovered during rainy periods, which helps guard against overuse. "Groundwater levels go up and down," said lead author Bridget Scanlon, a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology. "People need to know the dynamics of this resource and optimize for its use"...

68John5918
Abr 12, 2022, 8:47 am

Spring time: why an ancient water system is being brought back to life in Spain (Guardian)

High in la Alpujarra, on the slopes of the majestic Sierra Nevada in Andalucía, the silence is broken only by the sound of a stream trickling through the snow. Except it is not a stream but an acequia, part of a network of thousands of kilometres of irrigation channels created by Muslim peasant farmers more than a thousand years ago...

69John5918
mayo 13, 2022, 11:26 pm

California panel unanimously rejects proposal for plant to turn ocean water into drinking water (abc)

California water officials unanimously struck down a $1.4 billion plan to build a seaside desalination plant amid a water crisis sparked by megadrought and climate change... Several environmental justice and ocean groups, as well as the commission itself, opposed the project for reasons including environmental conservation, marine life and the eventual increase in water bills. "The project would kill marine life in about 275 million gallons of seawater per day," Tom Luster, the commission's desalination expert, told the panel... Among the critics were the Society of Native Nations, which spoke out to "defend, to honor and protect our oceans," and the Orange County Coastkeeper, which accused those in favor of the desalination plant of building it to "continue to hose down driveways and have lavish water wasting landscapes"... The cost of treating seawater is about $2,000 to $3,000 an acre foot. That is about two or three times the cost of the next cheapest source, which is water conservation -- such as buying water from farmers and reusing wastewater...


702wonderY
Dic 10, 2022, 12:23 pm

>69 John5918: A follow-up article on the same topic:

The Desalination Process Gives Us Freshwater — at a Huge Environmental Cost

https://www.greenmatters.com/big-impact/desalination-negative-environmental-impa...

To produce about 95 million cubic meters of freshwater at these desalination plants, the study states that 141.5 million cubic meters of brine, a waste product, is produced as well. This is is 50 percent more brine than was estimated beforehand. This is a problem because brine includes toxins like chlorine and copper. Plus, it's 5 percent salt, while typical saltwater is only 3.5 percent salt.
...
Bloomberg reports that desalination uses way too much energy. About 15,000 kilowatt-hours of power is used for every million gallons of freshwater this process makes. That's about twice as much power as wastewater reuse uses at 8,300 kilowatt-hours of power for the same amount.

Plus, the U.S. Department of Energy states that diesel fuels power the pumps that the desalination plants use. Not only does this increase the number of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, but Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization based out of Los Angeles, states desalination plants could even increase our dependence on fossil fuels.
-------------------------------
Just all around a bad idea!

71margd
Mar 2, 2023, 7:15 am

MIT {& China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong U} invents $4 solar desalination device
It could make enough drinking water for a family of four.
Kristin Houser | February 20, 2022

...a wick-free solar desalination device that uses gravity-driven convection to move the water.

Natural convection is a type of movement that occurs when a liquid isn’t one uniform density. In that situation, the less dense liquid will rise, while the denser liquid falls. (The same is true of gasses — because hot air is less dense than cold air, it rises while cold air falls.)

How it works: The new solar desalination device consists of several layers. Salt water is added to the top layer. Black paint draws the sun’s heat to that layer, causing the desired creation of water vapor for collection.

Any water left behind in that layer is then extra salty and, therefore, extra dense.

The very bottom layer of the device contains more saltwater. The layers between it and the top are designed to keep heat in the top layer, while allowing the super-dense saltwater to move downward to mix with the normal density saltwater under the power of natural convection.

Looking ahead: The device worked for a week straight with no signs of salt accumulation {the problem with wick-using solar desalination}, but we still don’t know exactly how long it could operate...

https://www.freethink.com/hard-tech/solar-desalination

722wonderY
Mar 17, 2023, 10:10 am

Photos Show U.S. Reservoirs Before and After Recent Storms

https://www.newsweek.com/photos-show-us-reservoirs-before-after-recent-storms-17...

73margd
Mar 17, 2023, 11:01 am

>72 2wonderY: Back to business as usual, I bet...

742wonderY
Mar 17, 2023, 11:13 am

>73 margd: Hoping not, but I lack confidence in their wisdom.

75margd
Mar 17, 2023, 11:20 am

>74 2wonderY: California surprises once in a while so I share your hope, but overall our society just can't seem to plan ahead... Those infrastructure $$ could make such a difference in reducing C emissions, but too many are going to "nice-to-have", visible "pat-me-on-the-back" projects...(It's overcast today--doesn't help my pessimism...)

76margd
Abr 11, 2023, 6:06 am

"Specifically, due to stark socioeconomic inequalities, urban elites are able to overconsume water while excluding less-privileged populations from basic access."

Elisa Savelli et al. 2023. Urban water crises driven by elites’ unsustainable consumption. Nature Sustainability (10 April 2023) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01100-0

Abstract
Over the past two decades, more than 80 metropolitan cities across the world have faced severe water shortages due to droughts and unsustainable water use. Future projections are even more alarming, since urban water crises are expected to escalate and most heavily affect those who are socially, economically and politically disadvantaged. Here we show how social inequalities across different groups or individuals play a major role in the production and manifestation of such crises. Specifically, due to stark socioeconomic inequalities, urban elites are able to overconsume water while excluding less-privileged populations from basic access. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we model the uneven domestic water use across urban spaces and estimate water consumption trends for different social groups. The highly unequal metropolitan area of Cape Town serves as a case in point to illustrate how unsustainable water use by the elite can exacerbate urban water crises at least as much as climate change or population growth.

Fig. 1: Global water crises. The locations of some of the direst urban water crises over the past two decades...

77margd
Editado: mayo 24, 2023, 10:26 am

New nontoxic powder uses sunlight to quickly disinfect contaminated drinking water
Mark Shwartz | May 18, 2023

A low-cost, recyclable powder can kill thousands of waterborne bacteria per second when exposed to sunlight. Stanford and SLAC scientists say the ultrafast disinfectant could be a revolutionary advance for 2 billion people worldwide without access to safe drinking water...

https://news.stanford.edu/2023/05/18/new-technology-uses-ordinary-sunlight-disin...
...............................................................

Tong Wu et al. 2023. Solar-driven efficient heterogeneous subminute water disinfection nanosystem assembled with fingerprint MoS2. Nature Water (18 May 2023) https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-023-00079-4

Abstract
...The (Al2O3@v-MoS2)/Cu/Fe3O4 nanostructures reported herein exhibit outstanding water disinfection with thorough inactivation of over 5.7 log10 colony-forming units ml−1 Escherichia coli within 1 min in real sunlight (the system thermal effect has little impact on disinfection performances) as well as facile separation and stable long cycle reuse, demonstrating broad application prospects.

782wonderY
mayo 24, 2023, 12:16 pm

>77 margd: Gee, I hope they’ve considered the historical precedent of ice-nine:

https://ninamunteanu.me/2019/07/13/vonneguts-ice-nine-and-superionic-ice/

79margd
mayo 24, 2023, 12:29 pm

Aiyiyi!

802wonderY
mayo 24, 2023, 12:37 pm

It’s what I think about whenever I consider GMO crops too.

81margd
Jun 16, 2023, 9:26 am

Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell | 12:25 PM · Jun 15, 2023:
Opening minds @openmind_mag . Unfolding research @AmSciMag . Casting pods with BillNye .

Humans have pumped so much groundwater that we have measurably shifted Earth's axis.
Image ( https://twitter.com/coreyspowell/status/1669380589479133192/photo/1 )
----------------------------------------------------------

We’ve pumped so much groundwater that we’ve nudged the Earth’s spin
The shifting of mass and consequent sea level rise due to groundwater withdrawal has caused the Earth’s rotational pole to wander nearly a meter in two decades
AGU (American Geophysical Union) | 15 June 2023

By pumping water out of the ground and moving it elsewhere, humans have shifted such a large mass of water that the Earth tilted nearly 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) east between 1993 and 2010 alone...

https://news.agu.org/press-release/weve-pumped-so-much-groundwater-that-weve-nud...

822wonderY
Sep 26, 2023, 11:19 am

New technology produces water in Death Valley, but Jevon’s Paradox looms

https://english.elpais.com/technology/2023-09-25/new-technology-produces-water-i...

832wonderY
Nov 23, 2023, 9:25 am

Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water

Collaborating scientists from MIT and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China are mimicking nature to accomplish this.

https://news.mit.edu/2023/desalination-system-could-produce-freshwater-cheaper-0...

84aspirit
Nov 24, 2023, 10:05 am

Encouraging.

"Designing for Water Scarcity: How Architects are Adapting to Arid Environment" by Nour Fakharany, Arch Daily

Encouraging to a point, anyway.

These examples are in one part of the world, while everywhere needs some. I'm having trouble finding others. An exhibition of water-saving architectural designs in the USA was planned in 2012, but I haven't been able to confirm it happened or that any construction resulted from its associated contest.

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