Water and its Troubles

Water is not being made, or nor is it being used up, but rather we are using more water for many more purposes than before. This creates a problem for people who depend on water for their life, rather than using them for applications and industry, people that need to drink and survive have relatively less water, a crisis that must be answered.

Awareness of water problems is also a crisis. The amount of the world’s population that are oblivious to many of the crises in the world create a blind eye to all the existing problems, not only allowing problems to grow more severe, but also allow corporations to take full advantage without any bothers.

With current trends and methods of water use in agriculture, we cannot support food for the next fifty years.

The average person’s daily diet needs 3000 liters of water converted from liquid to vapour (1 litre per calorie), and about2-5 litres per day for drinking. However, in the future, we will require more water for food, fiber, industrial crops, livestock and fish. The way people consume and how they use water to produce food can all be changed to counteract some water crises.

A canal 10m deep, 100m wide, 7.1mil kilometers long (enough to encircle globe 180 times) is the amount of water needed each year to produce food for 6.5 bil people (today’s population)

Total global freshwater withdrawals per year = 3800 cubic kms, 2700 cubic kms of that (70%) is used for irrigation (agriculture) to produce our food. Althoguh now all the water is “lost”, it goes back to the environment in lower quality than its original state.

0.017% of water available in lakes, inland seas, streams - 2.15% in ice caps and glaciers –fresh

Charles Ye

2038 5018

Condensed Information from Previous Blog

By 2030, food and energy demand will increase by 50%, fresh water by 30%

Food and agriculture use 70% of water collected from rivers and groundwater, half of this lost to evaporation, half absorbed for plant growth.

Water is major in the energy production energy, from the hydroelectric dams to making use of the change of level in tides.

On Average thermoelectric power withdraw 39% of total withdrawn freshwater in 2000

Water use for thermoelectricity increases over the years.

Irrigation fed water provide 45% of world’s food supplies, irrigation is currently drawing water at rate that is not sustainable.

Of 70% studied cities, half of urban agricultural land irrigated with waste water, creating health risks in the grown food esp in vegetables, cereals, rice

Only 1 percent of water is available for human use, 97.5 percent is salty, most fresh water is frozen, yet studies show careful control of our future actions can prevent a water crisis.

Charles Ye

2038 5018

Microhydro power generation

Microhydro power generation is small-scale and low-impact hydroelectric generation that produces 100kW or less of electricity.
Unlike large-scale hydro dams it does not require the diversion of large rivers, the construction of expensive infrastructure or significant alteration of the surrounding ecosystem.
Microhydro facilities can be installed anywhere where there is a fast-moving stream, where the water drops from a higher to lower location.
The amount of electricity that can be generated depends on the head (height from which water flows) and flow rate (amount of water flowing past a certain point).
Microhydro has a large potential in Canada because there are many streams, rivers and springs where plants can be installed.
British Columbia, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec are the provinces with most potential for Microhydro because these provinces have either an abundance of steep streams and reliable precipitation.
Energy from microhydro facilities can be used directly (as AC power), converted to DC, or stored in batteries.  Facilities can be connected to the grid or be grid-independent.
The main drawback to microhydro is the cost of labour and expertise required during the installation process, as all the equipment need to be extremely site specific.

Citation:
"Micro-Hydro Systems- A Buyer's Guide," Natural Resources Canada, accessed December 8th, 2010,
http://canmetenergy-canmetenergie.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/fichier/79276/buyersguidehydroeng.pdf

Mona Dai
December 9th, 2010

If we could reduce the world's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:

The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific

51 would be male, 49 would be female

82 would be non-white; 18 white

67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian

80 would live in substandard housing

67 would be unable to read

50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation

33 would be without access to a safe water supply

39 would lack access to improved sanitation

24 would not have any electricity (And of the 76 that do
have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)

7 people would have access to the Internet

1 would have a college education

1 would have HIV

2 would be near birth; 1 near death

5 would control 32% of the entire world's wealth; all 5 would be US citizens

33 would be receiving --and attempting to live on-- only 3% of the income of "the village"

http://www.familycare.org/special-interest/if-the-world-were-a-village-of-100-people/

Wastewater Irrigation

In water-scarce developing regions, urban wastewater is used to irrigate agriculture

Some factors contributing to this phenomenon include water scarcity and reliability of waste water supplies.  Also, crops irrigated with wastewater= higher profits.

This is an informal, unplanned, and ungoverned practice.  Officials see wastewater irrigation as a burden to govern and regulate.

The WHO has established guidelines on the usage of waste water for irrigation in attempt to reduce risks to human health and the environment.  However, the stated guidelines for waste water treatment prior to use for irrigation may be too costly for developing countries (at a price of US$125 to prevent one case of infection).

  

Currently, in Pakistan, approximately 32500 ha of land is irrigated directly with wastewater from cities. Crops irrigated with wastewater are mostly vegetables because they can fetch high prices in nearby urban markets (farmers using wastewater irrigation earned approximately $300 more per year than those using freshwater), and also because wastewater is a reliable supply than treated freshwater.

In some cases, wastewater is auctioned by the municipal council to the highest bidder, often a group of wealthier farmers who rent out their fields to poor landless farmers.  Under these conditions, wastewater irrigation is considered a win-win situation for both the authorities, who want to dispose of the wastewater, and the farmers, who get a reliable supply of water with a high nutrient content.

In Vietnam, irrigation with wastewater is a centuries old tradition.  Natural ponds collect wastewater and drainage from cities and discharge wastewater to canal systems. The ponds provide some level of natural treatment process for untreated sewage.  When the supply of irrigation water  is insufficient, city pumps discharge waste water to irrigation canals. Some farmers also use wastewater irrigation (at the tail end of sewage systems) where irrigation infrastructure is inadequate.

To mitigate health risks associated with wastewater irrigation, sprinkler use should be minimized because sprinklers have the highest capacity to spread illnesses.  Instead, the "bubbler, drip, or trickle methods" (localized methods that minimize possible area of contamination) should be used.  Protective clothing should also be worn.  If sprinklers are used, a buffer zone between farms and more urban areas should be set up.

-SEE CASE STUDIES ON NAIROBI, KENYA AND KUMASI, GHANA

citation:

Scott, Christopher, Faruqui, Naser I. and Liqa Raschid, eds. WASTEWATER USE IN IRRIGATED AGRICULTURE Confronting the Livelihood and Environmental Realities. IDRC, 2004. Accessed November 7 2010. http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/112-4/

Mona Dai

November 19th, 2010

HARVESTING RAIN.

As the name suggests, this practice involves collecting rainwater for
everyday use - drinking water, irrigation, and livestock.

It is especially effective in areas where groundwater is scarce or
contaminated or in places with high population density. It is
conservative of natural resources and takes full advantage of one
natural disaster, floods, to combat another, namely drought.

These benefits have made rainwater harvesting particularly popular in India,
where rainwater harvesting is an ancient tradition and is likely the
primary reason why society could flourish. As far back as 4500 BC,
water has been collected from rivers, floods, monsoons, underground
streams, surface water and deep inside the earth.

While practices differ according to region and climate, this is how
India generally addresses the three steps of rainwater harvesting:

1. Catchment: Water is collected from rooftops and courtyards
(where water is least susceptible to contamination), glaciers, ground
surface coverings that catch monsoon runoff, and river banks.

2. Conveyance: Rain gutters, pipes, and ditch systems.

3. Storage: simple "kuis" or "beris" wells that prevent evaporation
of fallen rainwater, more developed wells known as "kundis" or
"kunds", step-accessible "bundela" and "chandela" tanks (surrounded by
orchards and pavilions)



Eveline Lam
November 19, 2010

Water Use by the Natural Resources Sectors In Alberta

As a whole, the entire natural resources sector in Alberta is responsible for 2% of pollutants released to water in 2003.


The main concern is that high volumes of water are withdrawn, which could create stress in areas where water is scarce. However, the water withdrawn is usually returned to the source quickly, so consumption rates are low.


For oil and gas production, the main issue is that water use could be considered to be consumptive, meaning that it is not returned to the location from which it was withdrawn.  Water is either injected into oil reservoirs or, in the case of the oil sands, held for years in tailings ponds. 


Water use intensity (per unit of energy generation) is highest for hydroelectric installations, followed by nuclear and fossil fuel-fired plants.


Thermal-electric power generationThermal-electric power generation has the highest water withdrawal rate of all natural resources sectors in Canada.  It used 36 345 MCM of water in 2005, or 60 percent of the Canadian total.  Water was used mostly for cooling and thus was not consumed. Gross water use in the thermal-electric power generation industry has increased moderately since 1991. 


Water consumption levels are low in plants with open-loop cooling systems.  However, the volumes of withdrawal are high. Withdrawal levels could be decreased with closed loop systems, with the effect of increasing consumption due to evaporation


Most of the cost for thermo-electric generation originates from the construction, operation, maintenance of machinery used to withdraw, circulate, treat water.


Oil and Gas Industries From 2001 to 2005, the amount of water allocated to oil and gas industry in Alberta increased by 54% and accounted for 7% of Alberta’s total water allocations.  However oil/gas companies usually use significantly less than the amount they are allocated.Surface-mining oil sands production uses 3.0 to 4.5 barrels of water (net)/ barrel of bitumen produced. In-situ oil sands production: uses ~1 barrel of water (net) per barrel of bitumen produced.


Currently, Natural Resources Canada scientists at CanmetENERGY (formerly CANMET Energy Technology Centre) are working with oil sands mining companies to develop technology that may reduce the water consumed by tailings ponds. Their goal is to decrease the net water use in mining operations to 2 barrels of water/barrel of bitumen.  This would result in dry tailings, eliminating the need for extensive tailings ponds and their associated environmental risk.


By 2015, oil sands productions expected to increase by two times.  The resulting increases in water 
requirements will place pressure on availability of water in Athabaska region.  Some companies have committed to improving their water-use efficiency so they can expand their operations without increased water allocations.

The oil refining industry uses water primarily for cooling, condensing and steam, with a relatively small amount consumed.  In 2005, the petroleum- and coal-products manufacturing industry used 869 MCM of water, 58% of it in the form of recycled water.  The industry requires high-quality water for its operations---41 % ($210 million) of its total water costs in 2005 were devoted to the treatment of intake water. 

Citation:
Natural Resources Canada. “Water Use by the Natural Resources Sectors - Facts” last modified October 14th, 2010,http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/com/resoress/publications/wateau/energ-eng.php



Mona Dai Nov 19, 2010