Water
Soumis par jgeeslin le 26 décembre, 2009 - 13:16
If you live in the eastern United States, then you are no doubt dealing with plenty of snow this winter. Ever wonder just how the snow removal systems work that make your life that much easier trying to get to school and work in the morning?
The snow is "removed" by the use of sodium chloride. The melting snow, ice and rain cause salt to run off roads onto nearby vegetation and soil, eventually seeping into streams, lakes and rivers. This is of course very harmful to wildlife and vegetation in the area. This runoff salt has also been found in residential drinking wells in some Northeastern and Midwestern states.
Soumis par Live Earth le 23 décembre, 2009 - 09:35
A women using her water storage tank in Guinnee-Bissau. Photo: Paul Akkerman
Rain falls unto roofs and then runs off. And then? You could catch it and drink it. Any suitable roof surface -- tiles, metal sheets, plastics, but not grass or palm leaf -- can be used to intercept the flow of rainwater and provide a household with high-quality drinking water. Rainwater harvesting systems have been used since antiquity, and examples abound in all the great civilizations throughout history.
Soumis par Live Earth le 21 décembre, 2009 - 12:02
Every Monday we profile a Dow Live Earth Run for Water partner organization that works toward providing solutions to the nearly 1 billion people who lack access to clean, safe water. To donate to one of these projects, visit liveearth.org/give.
Project WET is an award-winning global non-profit organization celebrating its 25th year in 2009. Since its beginning, Project WET has dedicated itself to the mission of reaching and empowering children, parents, teachers and community members of the world with water education. Project WET achieves its mission by:
Soumis par jgeeslin le 20 décembre, 2009 - 08:00
Water security, like food and energy security, is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity. Businesses everywhere are beginning to find out that their water supply can no lo Worldwide Water Crisis: Time is Running Out nger be taken for granted.
Yet around one third of the population already lives in areas where water is physically or economically scarce due to insufficient investment in the necessary infrastructure, according to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
Soumis par Live Earth le 15 décembre, 2009 - 07:30
A team of 5 drilling a well in Bolivia
If you want to make a borehole (the quickest way to make wells), you have two options. The first is hiring a big machine, which will arrive on a truck from the city, and gets the business done in a few hours. For at least $5,000 up to $20,000. Quick, easy, but far from cheap. The second is doing it by hand, using a manual drilling technology. It takes longer, it is heavy work, but it also gets the job done. For about $500. Now there is an interesting difference in price, don't you think?
Of course, manual drilling does not work everywhere. Clay, sand, and compacted sand are ok, but rock or large stones are not ok. But it just happens to be the case that hundreds of millions of people live in areas which have just the right soil types. One such country with the right soil type is Bolivia. It is home to two different manual drilling technologies, the EMAS method (which we will meet in one of the next blogs) and the Baptist method.
Soumis par Live Earth le 14 décembre, 2009 - 09:10
Every Monday we profile a Dow Live Earth Run for Water partner organization that works toward providing solutions to the nearly 1 billion people who lack access to clean, safe water. To donate to one of these projects, visit liveearth.org/give.
For 20 years, Water.org has been empowering communities in Africa, Central America, and South Asia to meet their own water and sanitation needs. Co-founded in 2009 by Matt Damon and Gary White, Water.org is the result of a combination of WaterPartners, founded in 1990, and H20 Africa.
Soumis par jgeeslin le 10 décembre, 2009 - 15:51
According to a new report from the New York Times, more than 20% of the nation's water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years.
The Act requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But apparently since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage!
Soumis par jgeeslin le 9 décembre, 2009 - 05:00
The massive lack of clean drinking water around the world affects nearly one billion people.
Soumis par Live Earth le 8 décembre, 2009 - 07:30
Do you like chlorine? I do. Although I might not particularly like the taste of it, it is by far the easiest and cheapest way to disinfect water and make it drinkable, and it probably helped to save more lives than any other single chemical substance on Earth. Using simple techniques, it can be produced and sold locally in developing countries.
In the USA, chlorine began to be widely used as a disinfectant in the early 1900s, and it is credited with playing a key role in increasing Americans' life expectancy from 45 in the early 1900s to about 76 years at present, an increase of 50%. No more cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Today, 98% of all drinking water purification in the USA uses chlorine. Very useful stuff to have around. So what about its use in developing countries?
Soumis par Andy Sternberg le 7 décembre, 2009 - 14:35
Every Monday we profile a Dow Live Earth Run for Water partner organization that works toward providing solutions to the nearly 1 billion people who lack access to clean, safe water. To donate to one of these projects, visit liveearth.org/give.
Blue Legacy International was founded in late 2008 by Alexandra Cousteau to “tell the story of our Water Planet and shape society’s dialogue to include water as one of the defining issues of our century by illustrating the interconnectedness of all water issues.” A non-profit organization Blue Legacy develops and distributes traditional and new media projects that inspire people to take action on critical water issues in meaningful ways.
