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Water News: What’s Ahead in 2012

Brett Walton — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:00:43 +0000

News headlines are often dominated by the big, unexpected events — BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, for example, or Japan’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear catastrophes in 2011 — but some events come with advance warning. Here is a preview of the water news to look for in 2012.

Photo © Aubrey Ann Parker/Circle of Blue

Panama is one of the fastest-growing economies in the Western Hemisphere, largely thanks to a new free-trade agreement with the U.S. and an ongoing $US 5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal. Slated for completion in 2014, the expansion will double the canal's capacity, which will reduce emissions, and the new system will recycle 60 percent of the water in each transit, along with an overall decrease of 7 percent less water than is used by the existing locks.

By Brett Walton
Circle of Blue

Food
The food crisis in the Horn of Africa will continue this year, according to a famine early warning system funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Though the famine early warning system has global forecasts, the Horn of Africa is the only emergency spot forecasted in the near term.

In response, the United Nations, which said in a statement that the situation is “expected to get worse”, has called for more than $US 2.3 billion in aid to help Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti to cope with refugee settlement and the short-term effects of the drought. At the same time, the executive director for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says that a million children in Africa’s Sahel region are at risk of malnutrition in 2012 because of poor harvests caused by insufficient rain.

Health
Global health leaders are hopeful that 2012 is the year that Guinea worm, a water-borne parasite, will be eradicated. Infections have fallen from 3.5 million in 1986 to 1,056 during the first 10 months of 2011. Following small pox, Guinea worm would be the second-ever human disease to be eradicated. Polio, another water-borne disease, is next in line. Advocates anticipate a polio-free world in 2013.

Energy
Thanks to the payroll tax cut compromise, U.S. President Barack Obama has 60 days to approve or deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The 2,700-kilometer (1,700-mile) oil conduit from the Canadian tar sands to refineries in Texas would have an initial capacity of 700,000 barrels per day. The president’s decision should come by the end of February.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will make several final decisions this year that could have consequences for water resources, and the agency will start the rule-making process for several new regulations. In the spring, the EPA will decide what pollution controls are necessary for the Navajo Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant that provides nearly all the electricity to move Arizona’s annual share of the Colorado River, 3.5 billion cubic meters (912 billion gallons).

The EPA will also submit a draft rule, expected to be released in January, to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants.

By the end of 2012, preliminary results from the EPA’s investigation into drinking water contamination from hydraulic fracturing will be available. Already this year, Ohio has suspended operations at five deep wells used to dispose of fracking-related fluids, citing concerns of a possible link between well activity and nearly a dozen quakes in the area.

Governments could determine the fate of several large dams on major rivers this year: the Grand Inga on the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the Xayaburi on the Mekong River in Laos; the Mphanda Nkuwa on the Zambezi River in Mozambique; and a cascade of dams on the Nu River in China.

Barring any delays, two World Bank-funded studies on Tajikistan’s proposed Rogun Dam will be completed by the end of the year. The studies are a prerequisite for possible World Bank financing for the project. One study assesses the dam’s technical and economic merits; the other looks at potential environmental and social effects. At 336 meters (1102 feet), Rogun would be the world’s tallest dam, trumping the Nurek Dam, also in Tajikistan.

Policy
In Australia, water management officials are expected to release the final versionof the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, a controversial policy that will reduce the amount of water withdrawn from the basin’s rivers.

During the first half of the year, the U.S. EPA will hold public meetings to formulate a draft version of its new “integrated planning” policy, which will reduce the cost of complying with water quality violations. In October 2011, the agency’s acting assistant administrator for water used a three-page memo to introduce the concept.

March 31 is the target deadline for the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to decide whether or not to approve a plan for removal of four dams in the Klamath River Basin in Oregon and California. The Klamath agreements also include projects for environmental restoration, fisheries, water conservation, and tribal programs.

The Chinese government is expected to release its latest Five-Year Plan for the energy sector. The plan is expected to guide the country’s next phase of hydropower development.

Law
On January 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about landowner rights and government power. The case, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, began when the EPA claimed an Idaho couple was building their home on a wetland — in violation of the Clean Water Act — and threatened fines of $US 32,500 per day until the couple complied. The Supreme Court will decide whether the EPA violated due process laws. If so, the agency may have to seek permission from a judge before using compliance orders, its most common enforcement tool.

The Nevada state engineer will decide by March whether to grant groundwater rights in four rural valleys to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the wholesale provider for the Las Vegas area.

In August the International Court of Arbitration will submit its final decision on India’s Kishanganga hydroelectric project, a point of contention between India and Pakistan since construction began five years ago. In the fall of 2011, the court issued an interim decision that ordered India to halt construction of works that would permanently affect the river’s flow.

This could be the year that the International Maritime Organization’s convention on ballast water management is approved. The convention would reduce the risk of invasive aquatic species by requiring cargo ships to manage the water they use to balance their loads. For the convention to enter into force, it must be ratified by countries representing 35 percent of the world’s merchant shipping tonnage. To date, the convention is 9 percentage points below that threshold.

Meetings
The sixth edition of the water-sector’s largest gathering, the World Water Forum, will take place March 12 through 17 in Marseille, France. The fourth World Water Development Report will be released that week.

In June, sustainable development advocates will come together in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit, a landmark conference that produced agreements on climate change and biological diversity. This iteration will focus on the green economy and poverty.

Arts
Several water-themed documentaries will be released in 2012. The global water crisis is the subject of Last Call at the Oasis, while actor and director Robert Redford narrates The River Red, a film that considers a new “water ethic” for the Western United States. Hidden history is the topic of Under the City, in which filmmakers go underground to explore rivers buried by urban development in London and New York City, among others.

Photographer Edward Burtynsky, who has turned his lens on the mining and oil industries, is now working on a series about water, which will be completed in 2013.

Brett Walton is a Seattle-based reporter for Circle of Blue. Walton can be reached at brett@circleofblue.org.

Photo Slideshow and Q&A: Om Prakash Singh Documents the Perception and Harsh Realities of Water and Sanitation in Delhi, India

Circle of Blue — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:55:17 +0000

Delhi reportedly has a high percentage of coverage for sanitation and water supply. But one photographer has 74,000 images spanning the last 10 years that challenge the perception of progress.

Photo courtesy of Om Prakash Singh

With no water at home, some Delhi residents bathe in the heavily polluted waters of the Yamuna River.

Om Prakash Singh, a Stockholm-based visual anthropologist and director of WaterZoom, has spent the past decade documenting water and sanitation challenges in India. Through his work, mostly in the poorest areas of Delhi, he has captured more than 74,000 images of private, everyday moments of life with limited water and without a proper toilet to use. His exhibit of photographs, “Urban Right to Water & Sanitation,” was on display at World Water Week 2011 in Stockholm. It was produced with his wife, Nandita Singh.

J. Carl Ganter, Circle of Blue: Tell us about the show; what are you finding through your work?

Om Prakash Singh: It exposes imagery of real situations. In the reports that we see, [we hear that a particular] area is covered for water facility, as well as for sanitation. But, when I visited, I found a different story. And this is where we depict the realities.

For example, these pictures come from Delhi. Half of these pictures are only seven days old. But, according to reports and other places, Delhi is 100 percent covered for water supply, as well as for sanitation. This absolutely is not [consistent with] my observation. Through these photographs, I am trying to expose the reality. And, also, through this exhibition, we are sensitizing the different stakeholders, big actors, to get back to the real situation and organize a realistic action plan. And, thirdly, with this exhibition, I am trying to convince and push a lobby for the use of documentary photography as a means of effective communication in water resources management. It’s emotion, and you get involved immediately, and you get sensitized. And you help your own intelligence to understand that and get involved immediately. We have covered 15 states in India – that are huge, it’s like 50 countries – and depicted different issues on water resources management and sanitation.

You are finding disparities between official reports and what’s happening in the neighborhoods. People who stand in line to use the toilet or to get a drop of water when, you say that, on paper, the problems don’t exist. Give me an example of a recent experience photographing in the streets of Delhi. Take us there. What is it like to be that bridge between the perception and the reality, between the numbers, and, literally, on the ground?

Om Prakash Singh: When you go in the field, and, especially I want to cover border situations – the successful, as well, where things have happened — and I want to see it. And at the same time I want to see the problems; where the problems are. For example, [in theory] this area has been covered by the government or maybe by some development agency. But I would like to see what the reality is. So, in many places, in most of the places, in 90 percent of the cases, I have found that the area is [in theory] totally covered; it is a successful story [according to official information]. But, [in fact], it’s contradictory – nothing is there. And the photographs are speaking about this situation. And in such situations, I really feel it’s very pathetic.

So in books, in records, Delhi is 100 percent covered, but this is [not the real] situation. You feel very emotional that, “Oh my God, for such a basic need, they have to queue for hours and hours, and they can’t even be sure that [water] will turn up. They have to wait for hours and hours, even just to have it fail.” I’ve waited for hours and hours with the people. Just seven days ago, I was in Delhi, and I was there at 6:00 in the morning. It’s a daily activity, you know – the tanker is supposed to go there to deliver the water supply. But many people have been waiting much before then. I started at 6 o’clock, and I waited until 9:30. The tanker didn’t [come], and people had to return without water, even after waiting so many hours. See, you can now imagine the hardship. The statements of the people are so touching sometimes: “We are here to own a glass of water.” So most of their productive time goes for waiting for water or for procuring the water for their domestic use.

What will happen to these people now? No agencies, no NGOs, nobody will be bothered about them because “that area is covered. So let’s go to a new area!” Because they [the agencies and NGOs] have limited resources and funding, and they want to go to new areas to make things work.

And, on the other side of this, is the sanitation piece. You have pictures of people going to the bathroom in the open, in fields, along railroad tracks. Your pictures are of very private moments.

Om Prakash Singh

Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue

Om Prakash Signh, a documentary photographer, at Stockholm World Water Week 2011, where a sample of his collection of 74,000 images were on display.

Om Prakash Singh: We have made it public; it is very public now. They also don’t mind, because this is the realistic situation – anywhere else, anybody would have objected, “Why are you taking this photograph?” But they want to highlight their situation. I have never been objected; rather they have helped me, “Ok, sir, you are here for something very good. Let this thing go to somebody. Show our situation – how pathetic our condition is, in what condition we are living here.” Going out to defecate; it is early in the morning, at 5 o’clock, and they have to queue for hours, and most of them sleep while standing in the queue. The photographs are there, depicting that.

And [it is] such an unhygienic condition – you can’t stand it for even a moment. Yet, they are standing there for hours and hours. And we are talking about hygiene – what is this? So the most private thing has become a public thing.

So what’s the response of the authorities when they see something that’s so frank and so revealing, and that in most of society, it would be far too open?

Om Prakash Singh: Yes, when they see a situation like this, they don’t have any words to say. But, of course ,they want to cover it and blame each other. “I was responsible for that, and I was cheated.” So all kinds of blame games and shifting the situation. But the picture speaks – if this had been words and statistics, they would have said, “We doubt your integrity, we doubt the authenticity of this information or this statistic. What was your sample size?” But with pictures, you can’t do this. So they have to accept that this is a problem. But they say, “Oh my God, I didn’t know about it, but I’ll take care of it.” So, at least you get some response, you get some response. My thing is that I will genuinely take the issue and bring it to the right forum, the right platform, and put it before the right authorities, the responsible authorities. And this is what I am doing, and I am proud of it.

Let’s take a walk over to your booth here at World Water Week, and maybe you can describe some of the images here. Pick a couple of pictures and walk me through the situation here.

Om Prakash Singh: Let’s talk about the first picture. You see small children queuing up, and you can see the source of water – basically, they are collecting from the leaks of the pipe that is going to the elite colonies. This entire area doesn’t have safe drinking water. So they are collecting from these drops. And you can imagine the amount of time it must be taking. [The children] are also missing school, because it’s their responsibility [to bring water]… And that is why the drop-out rate for girls is higher in schools.

And that’s such a small child, carrying such a big load of water. That means, at the same time, he doesn’t have time for recreation, which will certainly undermine his whole development. It’s not just a question of rich-poor colonies or slums.

And they are holding up signs that say, “We want water, give us water”?

Om Prakash Singh: Yes, so it’s not just the situation in the slums, poorer areas, or unsettled colonies. But even the best colonies want water, and that’s why they have to get the water in a very democratic way. It’s the reality.

And in this photograph you see [leaking pipes with hoses collecting every drop]. Normally people say that there’s wastage of water to leaks, but, just imagine if this water were not there — there would be no water, in fact. So, the people are basically utilizing the water. Thousands of people are collecting from the leaks of the pipeline. And see the amount of water they are carrying? Because they have to walk on this pipe, with this heavy load of water in their hand, they always get injured.

And about the sanitation, look at this picture along the Yamuna River: is this water – physically or visually – is there anything that tells you that you can use this water for any purpose?

What we see here is a man basically bathing in sewage.

Om Prakash Singh: But, of course, that’s what I am trying to show. But, for him, this is the only source of water, so he has to do it.

Similarly, in the case of sanitation, this is a mobile van [with bathrooms]. You can practically see that the ladies are asleep. They are completing their sleep here, because they have to come early in the morning to get chances first. If they don’t turn up, they will be far behind in the queue, if the pressure comes. They have to go out; they are forced to go out [early in the morning]. And that is why they are defecating openly — some of them are defecating in storm water drains. And how safe are storm water drains? They are destined to go to fresh water, maybe ponds, lakes.

So it all becomes an open sewer?

Om Prakash Singh: Yes.

Q & A: Charles Fishman on The Big Thirst

Circle of Blue — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:52:51 +0000

Welcome to Circle of Blue Radio’s series 5 in 15, where we’re asking global thought leaders five questions in 15 minutes – more or less. These are experts working in journalism, science, communication design, and water; I’m J. Carl Ganter. Today’s program is underwritten by Traverse Internet Law – tech-savvy lawyers representing internet and technology companies.

CHARLES FISHMAN

Photo courtesy Charles Fishman

Our guest today is Charles Fishman, an award-winning investigative journalist and author of the best selling book The Wal-Mart Effect. We caught up with Fishman during his tour for The Big Thirst, his latest book focusing on water issues around the world. In the course of reporting about water to write The Big Thirst, Fishman has stood at the bottom of a half-million-gallon sewage tank, sampled water directly from the springs in San Pellegrino, Italy, and carried water on his head for 3 kilometers with a group of Indian villagers.

So Charles, as a journalist working at Fast Company, how did the water issue pop onto your radar?

Charles Fishman: I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, so I grew up in an era before the business of bottled water. Literally — for those who are too young to understand — until very very recently, there was no bottled water industry; there were no little bottles of water with brand names on them. So I wrote a story about the business of bottled water and how it is that we came to pay 3,000 times the price in a convenience store of what the water costs in our homes – why is there water from Fiji anyway? I did a little research on Fiji, and it turns out that 53 percent of the people in Fiji do not have clean, safe drinking water. So it’s easier for someone in the United States to walk into a convenience store and get clean safe water from Fiji than it is for most of the people in Fiji to get clean, safe water from Fiji. And that just sort of seemed incredible. So I ended up writing a book – not about bottled water; in fact, bottled water is a small part of the book – but about this moment in time with water, which I think is a real important moment in time, and how our relationship to water is about to change.

Why is important to understand and consider our water future?

Play Author Charles Fishman: The Big Thirst

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Charles Fishman: You know, of course, I’m a journalist, so I always think that what I’m writing about is the most important thing at that moment, but I think I stumbled into writing about water at, what I’ve come to think of, as a turning point in our relationship to water. It’s interesting — exactly 100 years ago, around 1910, our relationship to water changed. At that moment, there was, what I think of as, the first water revolution. Human beings discovered that you could clean water relatively simply and make it safe to drink, just by running it through a sand filter and then adding a little bit of chlorine to it. And that changed municipal water, not just in the U.S., but around the world. In the U.S., it helped increase the life expectancy of ordinary people 40 percent – it increased life expectancy from 47 years to 63 years. Just clean water.

I think we’re on the verge of another revolution like that, about a different topic. And that is, we’ve sort of lived through 100 years where water has been unlimited, safe, and free in the developed world. Yeah, everybody gets a water bill, but it’s so small that no one manages their water use based on price. And there’s never a chance that the water’s going to run out of the tap. And people love to sort of argue about the quality of their tap water in their city compared to other cities – they actually like to run it down, typically — but, in fact, the quality of the tap water in the U.S. is incredibly safe.

I think the era when those three things will be present together is over. I don’t think we’ll have “unlimited,” “safe,” and “free” together, going forward. We’ll have more than enough water to drink, but it won’t be so cheap that we never think about it. And, I think, we’ll have more than enough water to water the lawns and wash the cars, but I hope that, 20 years from now, we are not watering our lawns with purified drinking water or flushing our toilets with purified drinking water — which is a kind of absurdity; it’s like, anybody who’s old enough remembers the era when we used to smoke cigarettes on airplanes. Well, somebody lights up a cigarette on an airplane today, you know, you tackle them and summon the air marshal, right? The idea that we flush our toilets with purified drinking water is just absurd; it’s just an old habit.

So I think we’re on the cusp of moving from this era of abundant water – the golden age of water – to an era where we’ll use less water, and we’ll use water more smartly. We’ll use the right water for the right purpose, and we’ll pay the right price for it. So we won’t have to dry out our lives, but we will change how we think about water and how we use it.

You’re talking about change – well, what is it that’s going to motivate this change in our perspective about water?

Charles Fishman: That’s a great question – what’s going to motivate the change, what’s going to motivate people to change their behavior? And I would say there are two things that are going to motivate the change. The most important thing is scarcity; is water itself. When scarcity comes on with typical products – gasoline is something people are really familiar with, of course – the price goes up. And that’s how you know that supplies are what everybody would like them to be, and they’re managing supply by price; people use less because it costs more. I just filled up the tank of our mini van while we were up in Traverse City visiting – 70 bucks! To me, 70 bucks is still a lot of money; 70 bucks is like the cable bill – it’s twice the water bill! It’s just a tank of gas that will be gone in two days, you know?

The price of water doesn’t change when scarcity comes on, but people know about scarcity because there ends up being this huge discussion of what the state of the reservoir is, what the state of the river is, what the state of the lakes are . . . and, instead of managing it by price, which actually wouldn’t be a bad idea, people end up imposing rules. The problem is when scarcity isn’t episodic; when it ends up being a long term condition – Las Vegas, Atlanta two years ago – then you really need rules that help people change their behavior. Rules like different kinds of plumbing requirements. Rules like, Orange County, Florida — the county where Orlando sits – 25 years ago changed the rules about outdoor lawn watering. They required all new homes, businesses, schools, and parks to use reuse water. And they created facilities for making reuse water and putting it back into a separate plumbing system. They didn’t require anyone living in Orlando or Orange County to change what they were doing at that moment, but, going forward from 25 years ago, everybody new had to install a second set of pipes; purple pipes.

Orange County, Florida, now pumps, every day, exactly the same amount of reuse water for landscaping as potable drinking water for indoor use. Well that’s incredible; that’s a huge behavior change! But they didn’t swat people on the knuckles with a ruler, they didn’t impose fines – they changed the rules about how water was going to be used in the community. They also didn’t change everything by a week from next Friday or by a year from when the rules were changed. It takes a long time for a community to change. But, now, most of the people who live in central Florida use reuse water for lawn watering, and they think it’s absurd to use drinking water on the lawns, because they never have.

So I think scarcity and some foresight, some imagining of what we want the world to look like 25 years ago, given the nature of our water supplies, the growth of population, shifting climate, and shifting water availability. I don’t think our relationship to water is going to change overnight. But, I think, 20 years from now, we will think about the water we use every day differently. I think scarcity is going to be the primary motivator, and I think communities will impose different kinds of rules to motivate different kinds of behavior.

So, we’ll continue to see water scarcity as a primary motivator for policy – what about infrastructure? In the book you identify how much water is wasted by our aging water system. Has scarcity encouraged municipalities to revamp their water infrastructure like Orange County, Florida, or do public funds dry up before water is even considered?

Charles Fishman: I actually live just outside of Philadelphia, but the city of Philadelphia is a good example of water infrastructure issues. Philadelphia has 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers) of water mains, and they replace 20 miles (32 kilometers) a year – they’re on a 160-year replacement cycle. “Mr. Fishman, we can take care of your water mains in 2110, but, if that looks like it’s not going to be a convenient year, we’ll take care of you in 2147.” I mean that’s just insane; a 160-year replacement cycle? How fast do we upgrade the cell phone network? When was the last time anybody thought about upgrading water infrastructure in most communities? Most people have water meters that need to be read by hand: someone comes along and uses a little metal pole and pops up the water meter and reads the water meter by eye and then puts the lid down and walks to the next one. The average long-haul truck for Wal-Mart has more intelligence built into it — reporting back through the network to Wal-Mart headquarters — than the average water system does for the people who run it.

The water systems are really old; they’re at least 50 years old, and in many places they’re 100 years old. And Philadelphia is proud to say they have water mains in use that are 150 to 160 years old; that’s kind of amazing. There is something lovely about that, but, if you saw the inside of a 60- or 70- or 80-year-old water pipe, you wouldn’t say, “Boy, I’m happy to be drinking out of that.” And there’s no intelligence built into the system, in the sense that, water-systems managers have no ability to understand, for instance, where water is leaking. Overall, the U.S. water system leaks 16 percent of the water it pumps. Every week, we lose an entire day’s water – it just dribbles out into the ground. Unfortunately, in a place like New York or Detroit or L.A. or Houston or Orlando, there’s not four big leaks that need to be fixed. Every one of those cities has 1,000 leaks that are relatively small. But, if the system had sensors on it that could tell water managers how the pipes were doing, you could fix those leaks. The easiest water to get back — the cheapest water to get back — is the water we’ve already got, that we let leak away before it even gets to a customer.

So the water system does a great job day to day, but, in fact, it’s way out of date compared to lots of other systems. It’s hidden underground; it’s literally invisible. And people say, “Well gosh, man, look at the country – we’re in desperate shape. There’s no money for water.” Today, we spend $US 21 billion a year on bottled water as consumers, just in the U.S. We spend $US 29 billion a year maintaining the entire water system. So, if we just cut back our bottled water consumption by, say, 50 percent, we could increase the amount we spend on the water system by a third. There’s not only money to be spent on the water system, we’re already spending it on water – just one little half liter bottle at a time.

So, I think the water system has done a great job, but it’s success has made it invisible – we never think about it. And you don’t maintain something, you don’t take care of something that you never think about or never see. You know, how often do people think about their roofs? Only when they start to leak and need to be replaced!

Yeah, and, thanks to your reporting, we can hear the steady “ker-plink” in those pots and pans and buckets under the leaky roof of our public water infrastructure. We have been talking with Charles Fishman, author of The Big Thirst, a timely and positive look at water issues today and paths to a sustainable water future. Learn more on his website, www.thebigthirst.com

To find more articles and broadcasts on water design, policy, and related issues, be sure to tune into Circle of Blue online at www.circleofblue.org. This interview was produced by Travis Miller. Our theme is composed by Nedav Kahn. Circle of Blue Radio is underwritten by Traverse Internet Law. Join us gain for Circle of Blue Radio’s Five in 15. I’m J. Carl Ganter.

Photo Slideshow: Xilinhot, City of Coal on the Inner Mongolia Steppe

J. Carl Ganter — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:38:02 +0000

Xilinhot—an Inner Mongolian outpost of 177,000 residents, separated from Beijing by a 12-hour train ride—is at the center of the Xilin Gol Grassland, one of China’s largest prairies and livestock production regions. The north’s coal mines, trucks, and power plants of Inner Mongolia are representative of the nation’s coal dependency, a lifeline with an insatiable thirst for water.

Wu Yun, 23, and her father, Bao Zhu, are agropastoral farmers on the brink of modernization. On one side, yurts and lambs. On the other, 300-meter-high (1,000-foot-high) buttes made of tailings from Datan International Shengli Mine, China’s largest brown coal mine, which officials say could become China’s largest open-pit mine in a few years.

This slideshow was made to accompany the article Energy Economy Brings Change to Shepherd Life: Modernization Comes to the Dry Grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Photos and text by J. Carl Ganter director for Circle of Blue. Reach him at carl.ganter@circleofblue.org.

Infographic: How Desalination Works

Circle of Blue — Thu, 19 May 2011 19:24:46 +0000

What is the process, and how much energy does it take? This video describes two common methods—reverse osmosis and flash distillation—for obtaining water from the sea.

One of the barriers in desalination technology is the amount of energy required for the process. For example, at the desalination plant in Perth, Australia, it can take up to 5 kilowatt-hours to desalinate just one cubic meter (264 gallons) of water—which is roughly equivalent to leaving a 60-watt light bulb on for roughly one month.

Click through the interactive infographic below for a brief description of desalination techniques and how the numbers stack up at desalination plants across the globe.

Graphic © Ball State University for Circle of Blue

Infographic: How does desalination work? View infographic in a separate window.

Map and graphic by Greg Hudson, undergraduate student at Ball State University.

Reverse Osmosis

A basin holds raw water collected from the sea. This water then moves into the pre-treatment stage where it is infused with chemicals to stabilize it. The water passes through the first set of filters to sift out some of the salt and brine.
Once treated, pressure moves the water through a series of membranes, which further separate water from concentrate. The salt, brine and concentrate that are removed are collected in a separate basin.
This concentrate is infused with seawater and returned to the original body of water.
The purified water is blended with chemicals and minerals to prepare it for consumption and the sanitized, desalinated product is ready for use and distribution.

Multi-Stage Flash

In a brine heater, incoming water is heated to 90-110° Celsius.
Cold water then passes through coils in the flash chambers. This cold water flows through multiple chambers, each at a slightly lower pressure than the previous one.
This lower pressure causes the hot seawater to boil immediately upon entering each stage, causing a portion of the seawater to vaporize—or flash—into steam.
The cleansed vapor passes around the outside of the tube carrying cold seawater, where it is condensed into pure, distilled water.
The water and concentrate are collected in separate basins.
Collected concentrate is blended with seawater and returned to the original body of water.
The distilled water is blended with chemicals and minerals to prepare it for consumption and the desalinated product is ready for use and distribution.

Infographic: Underground Coal Conversion — Creating Fuels and Fertilizers With Less Water

Circle of Blue — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:30:05 +0000

Though the chemistry and industrial processes for coal gasification were developed early in the 20th century by European scientists, Chinese engineers have recently developed a number of technical advances. And more efficient processes means using less coal to produce more chemicals.

Near Xilinhot, in eastern Inner Mongolia, China is testing a gasification process that doesn’t need a plant at all, but instead collects hot gases produced from an underground coal seam that was deliberately set on fire. The experimental “in-situ” coal-gasification practice has proven so efficient—using less coal and saving the water needed for coal mining and processing—that China has approved three additional demonstration projects across the northern and western regions.

Infographic: Underground coal conversion to fuels and fertilizers. View the interactive infographic in a separate window.

Graphic by Season Schafer, Greg Hudson, Valerie Carnevale, Chelsea Kardokus, and Vicki Rosenberger, undergraduate students at Ball State University.

Infographic: China Leads Top 10 Coal Producing and Consuming Nations

Circle of Blue — Mon, 16 May 2011 15:18:56 +0000

Since 2000, global coal consumption has grown faster than any other fuel, with the biggest market for coal in Asia.

The infographic below shows global statistics for coal and how these relate to water.

Infographic: Global coal mining statistics. View infographic in a separate window.

Graphic by Season Schafer, Greg Hudson, Valerie Carnevale, Chelsea Kardokus, and Vicki Rosenberger, undergraduate students at Ball State University.

Infographic: Tree Map of Freshwater Withdrawal by Country — A Comparison Between Continents

Circle of Blue — Thu, 12 May 2011 12:30:19 +0000

Entry in the 2011 Urban Water Design Challenge, sponsored by Visualizing.org and Circle of Blue.

Alberto González submitted this infographic for the 2011 Urban Water Design Challenge—sponsored by Circle of Blue and Visualizing.org.

Infographic: Freshwater withdrawal tree maps by country. View / download the infographic PDF.

Does the population of a country impact its freshwater withdrawal? What about the effect of its geographic location? Are there differences between continents? What about within them? How is the availability of freshwater spread around the economic sectors?

This visualization contains a composition of 20 heat maps which try to answer these questions and, more importantly, establish a comparative framework between continents and variables, such as economic sectors. The lighter the color, the less water is withdrawn.

Note, however, that tree maps by continent have the same area and are not being comparable between each other, just within the continent itself: e.g. Australia does not have a higher population than the U.S., but its population is the biggest in the Oceania continent.

See the other winning designs here.

Did you miss your chance to participate? Designers can continue to share their visualizations throughout the year by uploading to visualizing.org.

Infographic: Three Types of Coal Mining—Process and Facts

Circle of Blue — Wed, 11 May 2011 17:34:51 +0000

Opencast mining involves scraping at the ground’s surface, while room and pillar mining occurs below ground. Likewise, longwall mining uses heavy machinery to dig at coal seams beneath the surface.

Click through the interactive infographic to learn more about the different processes involved with coal mining.

Infographic: Three types of coal mining. View infographic in a separate window.

Graphic by Season Schafer, Greg Hudson, Valerie Carnevale, Chelsea Kardokus, and Vicki Rosenberger, undergraduate students at Ball State University.

Infographic: Three Eras of Water — The History of the Relationship Between Civilization and Nature

Circle of Blue — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:33:11 +0000

Entry in the 2011 Urban Water Design Challenge, sponsored by Visualizing.org and Circle of Blue.

Carlo Llacar submitted this infographic for the 2011 Urban Water Design Challenge—sponsored by Circle of Blue and Visualizing.org.

Infographic: The Three Eras of Water. View / download the infographic PDF (19MB).

This “info-art,” or infographic*, is based on Peter Gleick’s essay, “Facing Down the Hydro-Crisis.” It encapsulates the relationship history between man and water, as divided into the three eras described by Gleick.

The infographic portrays the evolution of water technology, including its immediate successes of human progress and the disadvantages of that progress. Peter Gleick’s scientific, social, and historical findings detailed in his essay are translated into this piece, putting those patterns in a contemporary light.

See the other winning designs here.

Did you miss your chance to participate? Designers can continue to share their visualizations throughout the year by uploading to visualizing.org.

*”Facing Down The Hydro-Crisis” was originally published in the World Policy Journal (©2009 World Policy Institute : used by permission), and this infographic originally appeared in the book Safe Agua (©2010 Designmatters at Art Center College of Design).