Tag Archive: drinking water


Syrian 45.2 million refugees managing drinking water

GENEVA (AP) — The Syrian civil war contributed to pushing the numbers of refugees
and those displaced by conflict within their own nation to an 18-year high of 45.2 million
worldwide by the end of 2013, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday.
Those are the highest numbers since 1994, when people fled genocide in Rwanda and bloodshed
in former Yugoslavia. By the end of last year, the world had 15.4 million refugees, 937,000
asylum seekers and 28.8 million people who had been forced to flee within the borders of their
own countries, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a
report.
Of those, 17 percent were new to their situations in 2012: 1.1 million new refugees and 6.5
million internally displaced people — many from conflicts in Mali, Congo and Sudan. That
translates into someone becoming a new refugee or internally displaced person somewhere in the
world every 4.1 seconds during the last year, said Antonio Guterres, head of the Geneva-based
agency, also known as UNHCR.
“Which means each time you blink, another person is forced to flee,” he told reporters in Geneva.
The overall numbers rose by 6 percent from the 42.5 million refugees and internally displaced
people at the end of 2012.
Children below the age of 18 accounted for 46 percent of refugees worldwide. There were
21,300 asylum applications by children who were either unaccompanied or separated from their
parents — the highest such number the agency has recorded.
Most of the refugees in the world have fled from five war-affected countries: Afghanistan,
Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Sudan. Of those, Afghanistan has for the past 32 years held the top spot;
one of every four of the world’s refugees is an Afghan — and nearly all of them have fled to
Pakistan or Iran.
The next biggest source of refugees is Somalia’s long-running conflict, but the rate slowed a bit
last year. Iraqis and Syrians were the next biggest refugee populations. It’s the poorer countries
that generally show the most generosity — Germany being a major exception — in a trend that
keeps accelerating. Some 81 percent of the world’s refugees are hosted by developing countries,
up from 70 percent a decade ago.

Pakistan, home for 1.6 million refugees, continues to be the biggest host. Next is Iran, with
868,200, followed by Germany, with 589,700 refugees.

AP Afghan refugee children, swim in muddy water created from a broken water
pipe, on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, Monday, June 17, 2013. Pakistan hosts over
1.6 million Registered Afghans, the largest and most protracted refugee population in the
world, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
As drinking water travels on its way, it can become contaminated in many ways. The multibarrier
approach to managing drinking water supplies is a preventive risk management
approach that identifies all known and potential hazards and makes sure barriers are in place
to reduce or eliminate the risk of contamination. Refugees will not get access to safe drinking
water and hygiene services. So what’s the answer?
Flow Innovation Technology (FIT) produces millions of liters of pure drinking water per day.
FIT has the responsibility for making sure drinking water supplies are safe and shared
between the provincial, territorial, federal and municipal governments.
“Green Water Technology”
http://www.flowinnovationtechnologies.com

Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a less recognized reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and now Iran has been rising food prices, directly linked to a growing regional water crisis.
The diverse states that make up the Arab world, stretching from the Atlantic coast to Iraq, have some of the world’s greatest oil reserves, but this disguises the fact that they mostly occupy hyper-arid places. Rivers are few, water demand is increasing as populations grow, underground reserves are shrinking and nearly all depend on imported staple foods that are now trading at record prices.
For a region that expects populations to double to more than 600 million within 40 years, and climate change to raise temperatures, these structural problems are political dynamite and already destabilizing countries.
In recent reports they separately warn that the riots and demonstrations after the three major food-price rises of the last five years in North Africa and the Middle East might be just a taste of greater troubles to come unless countries start to share their natural resources, and reduce their profligate energy and water use.
“In the future the main geopolitical resource in the Middle East will be water rather than oil. The situation is alarming,”
“Unless there is a technological breakthrough or a miraculous discovery, the Middle East will not escape a serious [water] shortage,”
Autocratic, oil-rich rulers have been able to control their people by controlling nature and have kept the lid on political turmoil at home by heavily subsidizing “virtual” or “embedded” water in the form of staple grains imported from the US and elsewhere.
But, now the price of food hits record levels and the demand for water and energy soars.
Water is a fundamental part of the social contract in Middle Eastern countries. Along with subsidized food and fuel, governments provide cheap or even free water to ensure the consent of the governed. But when subsidized commodities have been cut, instability has often followed.
Water’s own role in prompting unrest has so far been relatively limited, but that is unlikely to hold. Future water scarcity will be much more permanent than past shortages, and the techniques governments have used in responding to past disturbances may not be enough.
The problem will only get worse. Arab countries depend on other countries for their food security – they’re as sensitive to floods in Australia and big freezes in Canada as on the yield in Algeria or Egypt itself.
In the Arab countries’ food imports cost $30bn. Then, rising prices caused waves of rioting and left the unemployed and impoverished millions in Arab countries even more exposed. The paradox of Arab economies is that they depend on oil prices, while increased energy prices make their food more expensive.
The region’s most food- and water-insecure country is Yemen, the poorest in the Arab world, which gets less than 200 cubic meters of water per person a year – well below the international water poverty line of 1,000m3 – and must import 80-90% o f its food.
“Water shortages have increased political tensions between groups. We have a very big problem,”
Two internal conflicts are already raging in Yemen and the capital has been rocked by riots this month. “There is an obvious link between high food prices and unrest [in the region]. Drought, population and water scarcity are aggravating factors. The pressure on natural resources is increasing, and the pressure on the land is great.
Other Arab countries are not faring much better. Jordan, which expects water demand to double in the next 20 years, faces massive shortages because of population growth and a longstanding water dispute with Israel. Its per capita water supply will fall from the current 200m3 per person to 91m3 within 30 years, says the World Bank. Palestine and Israel fiercely dispute fragile water resources.
Algeria and Tunisia, along with the seven emirates in the UAE, Morocco, Iraq and Iran are all in “water deficit” – using far more than they receive in rain or snowfall. Only Turkey has a major surplus, but it is unwilling to share. Abu Dhabi, the world’s most profligate water user, says it will run out of its ancient fossil water reserves in 25 years; Libya has spent $20bn pumping water from deep wells in the desert but has no idea how long the resource will last; Saudi Arabian water demand has increased by 500% in 25 years and is expected to double again in 20 years – as power demand surges as much as 10% a year.
Meanwhile, says the UN, farm land is becoming unusable as irrigation schemes and intensive farming lead to water logging and desalination.
Some oil-rich Arab countries are belatedly beginning to address the problem. Having drained underground aquifers to grow inappropriate crops for many years, they have turned en masse to desalination. More than 1,500 massive plants now line the Gulf and the Mediterranean and provide much of North Africa and the Middle East’s drinking water – and two-thirds of the world’s desalinated water.
The plants take salty or brackish water, and either warm it, vaporize it and separate off the salts and impurities, or pass it through filters. It’s an expensive, energy intensive and greenhouse gas-emitting way to get fresh water, but costs.
Solar-powered plants are being built for small communities but no way has been found to avoid the concentrated salt stream that the plants produce. The impurities extracted from the water mostly end up back in the sea or in aquifers and kill marine life.
Only now are countries starting to see the downsides of desalination. Salt levels in the Arabian Gulf are eight times higher in some places than they should be, as power-hungry water plants return salt to an already saline sea. The higher salinity of the seawater intake reduces the plant’s efficiency and, in some areas, marine life is suffering badly, affecting coral and fishing catches.
Desalination has allowed dictators and elites to continue to waste water on a massive scale. Nearly 20% of all Saudi oil money in the 1970s and 80s was used to provide clean water to grow wheat and other crops in regions that would not naturally be able to do so. Parks, golf courses, roadside verges and household gardens are all still watered with expensively produced clean drinking water. The energy – and therefore water – needed to keep barely insulated buildings super-cold in Gulf States is astonishing.
Water awareness is definitely, member of an eco club at the large Indian school in Abu Dhabi. “People were amazed when we showed them how much they use in a day. We stacked up 550 one-liter bottles and they refused to believe it. Now schools are competing with each other to reduce water wastage.”
More than 2,000 mosques in Abu Dhabi have been fitted with water-saving devices, which are saving millions of gallons of water a year when people wash before prayer. Other UAE states are expected to follow, but not drinking water!
Wars can and will erupt because of water. Using groundwater for agriculture is risky. If it doesn’t harm us it will harm other generations. Jenny WaterMicronWorld
http://www.watermicronworld.com .

India: The drinking water crisis continued to worsen in the Marathwada belt. According to government statistics last revised on August 22, only 9 per cent usable(live) water was available in reservoirs in this region. With rains playing traunt in many parts of the state, the drinking water stock available in reservoirs across the state was 52 per cent of their full capacity. At this time (August 22) last year, these reservoirs had 62 per cent water stock. Reservoirs in Nashik contain 41 per cent water, Amravati 56, Pune 61,Nashik 69, and Konkan 82.
The solution is to extract water from a new source “THE AIR”, one that is plentiful, renewable and accessible to most people around the world. WaterMicronWorld is committed to provide pure drinking water around the world to all those people that need it most and to provide critical emergency pure drinking water to first responders, relief agencies and government institutions.
The WaterMicronWorld Atmospheric Water Generators, AWG-C Series units can generate from 100 , 200, 500, 1,000, 3000, 5000 liters of pure drinking water per day. Our unique compact systems are ideal for Hotels, Schools, Office buildings, Housing developments, Hospitals, Marine and small Municipal applications.
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Agriculture, the largest industry in the world, is also the biggest threat to the environment. Inefficient food production and harmful agriculture subsidies are causing deforestation, water shortages and pollution.

Agriculture wastes 60% or 1,500 trillion liters, of the 2,500 trillion liters of water it uses each year – this is 70% of the world’s accessible water.

Many big food producing countries like the US, China, India, Pakistan, Australia and Spain have reached, or are close to reaching, their renewable water resource limits.

The lack of sustainable agriculture harms the environment by sucking rivers, lakes and underground water sources dry, increasing soil salinity and thereby destroying its quality, and by washing pollutants and pesticides into rivers that in turn destroy downstream ecosystems such as corals and breeding grounds for fish in coastal areas.

The main causes are:
 leaky irrigation systems;
 wasteful field application methods;
 pollution by agric-chemicals; and
 Cultivation of thirsty crops not suited to the environment.
The waste and pollution of water is made worse by misdirected subsidies, low public and political awareness of the crisis, and weak environmental legislation.

A WWF report identifies cotton, rice, sugar cane and wheat as the ‘thirstiest’ crops in 9 large river basins rich in biodiversity. Together, these 4 crops account for 58% of the world’s irrigated farmland.
The solution is to extract water from a new source, one that is plentiful, renewable and accessible to most people around the world. WaterMicronWorld is committed to provide pure drinking water around the world to all those people that need it most and to provide critical emergency pure drinking water to first responders, relief agencies and government institutions.
We bring an ecologically friendly and new source of pure drinking water to industry, businesses and home users alike. We provide truly affordable, state-of-the-art technology that is easy to operate and maintain. Our technology taps into a water source that does not place more demands on Mother Earth–Pure water from the air we breathe!
This Atmospheric Water Generator machine is humidity and temperature driven self contained unit makes pure drinking water from air, depending on the specific atmospheric conditions of a particular geographic region. WaterMicronWorld simply replaces the need to rely on municipal water systems, transport, storage and consumption of bottled water.
This machine can reliably manufacture pure fresh drinking water in environmental humidity levels as low as 35%. WaterMicronWorld is the solution for a growing demand to supply safe and pure drinking water worldwide.
WaterMicronWorld Atmospheric Water Generators, AWG-C Series units can generate from 100 , 200, 500, 1,000, 1,200, 3000, 5000 liters of pure drinking water per day. Our unique compact systems are ideal for Hotels, Schools, Office buildings, Housing developments, Hospitals, Marine and small Municipal applications.
Website: http://www.watermicronworld.com

Atmospheric Water Generator Hawaii Honolulu.
Think Hawaii, and likely the images that come to mind are of rainforests and lush green paradise. That was “then.” If you’ve been to the islands lately or have seen recent pictures other than tourist brochures, drought is the “now” in many places. Hotels and golf courses still flaunt rich, emerald lawns mixed with brilliant pink and purple tropical blooms among swaying palms. But a closer look reveals the edges of those manicured lawns–especially the golf courses–are tinged with brown. Outside of tourist Mecca’s, entire hillsides are burned brittle by the tropical sun.
Hawaii is home to some of the wettest spots on Earth, yet drought has hit this paradise. If paradise isn’t immune from the throes of water shortages, what does that portend for the rest of the nation and world? From East Coast to West and points in between and beyond the water picture is increasingly grim. Even south-central Alaska is suffering through abnormal dryness, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor.
We bring an ecologically friendly and new source of pure drinking water to industry, businesses and home users alike. We provide truly affordable, state-of-the-art technology that is easy to operate and maintain. Our technology taps into a water source that does not place more demands on Mother Earth–Pure water from the air we breathe!
This home/office atmospheric water generator machine is a humidity and temperature driven self contained unit making water from air.
The AWG-88HK generates up to 30 liters of pure drinking water per day depending on the specific atmospheric conditions of a particular geographic region. WaterMicronWorld AWG-88HK simply replaces the need to rely on municipal water systems, transport, storage and consumption of bottled water.
This machine can reliably manufacture pure fresh drinking water in environmental humidity levels as low as 35%. WaterMicronWorld AWG-88HK is the solution for a growing demand to supply safe and pure drinking water worldwide.
The solution is to extract water from a new source, one that is plentiful, renewable and accessible to most people around the world. WaterMicronWorld is committed to provide pure drinking water around the world to all those people that need it most and to provide critical emergency pure drinking water to first responders, relief agencies and government institutions.
The WaterMicronWorld Atmospheric Water Generators, AWG-C Series units can generate from 100 , 200, 500, 1,000, 3000, 5000 liters of pure drinking water per day. Our unique compact systems are ideal for Hotels, Schools, Office buildings, Housing developments, Hospitals, Marine and small Municipal applications.
http://www.watermicronworld.com

For an island country, one possible solution is obvious. Desalination, or the process of converting salt water to drinking water, might seem a sure-fire solution.
Thames Water opened the first large-scale desalination plant in London in 2010. The £270m London facility was opened as a safeguard against water shortages like those in 2005 and 2006, and can supply 400,000 homes or 1m people with water.
The plant is only operational during periods of drought because of the costliness of running it.
Desalination remains a “very expensive, very power hungry” process”
We can always engineer water, we can build desalination plants all around the coast, but the cost and carbon impact would be huge.
Water is “heavy and incompressible, so if you start pumping it uphill, you pay lots of money”
Even after the water has been purified there’s the remaining challenge of what to do with the leftover salt.
Dropped back into the sea?
The WWF also warns large-scale seawater desalination could endanger marine life and is calling for further research into the tolerance of marine organisms and ecosystems to higher-salinity and brine waste.
WaterMicronWorld produces pure fresh drinking water from the air we all breathe.
http://www.watermicronworld.com

But what radical steps can be taken to stop the water crisis?
Spend billions on reservoirs?
One way to tackle temporary shortages is to keep more stock and that means more reservoirs.
Water companies have been keen to build new reservoirs for years, but permission from the authorities has not always been forthcoming, with the government instead demanding companies reduce leakage.
Thames Water wanted to build a £1bn reservoir in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, but the plans were rejected by the government. Anglian Water has also toyed with it in the past.
The water companies are keen, but Ofwat and the Environment Agency don’t seem to be.
That may be about to change though, as earlier this year, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman pledged that changes to the planning system would make it easier to build reservoirs.
The EA says a number of new reservoirs are planned for after 2020 in southern England.
However the downside of reservoirs is they take a long time to plan and build, and come at a cost. Critics also argue they damage the environment and can create a substantial carbon footprint.
Colin Green, professor of water economics at the University of Middlesex, says part of the problem with reservoirs is they are a huge investment, and it is hard to predict how things will change in the next 40 years.
We built a lot of reservoirs in the 1960s in expectation of a lot of growth in industrial water consumption, which didn’t take place.
We don’t really want to build a lot of reservoirs now and then find we just spent hundreds of millions of pounds and the water sort of just sits there looking nice and we using it for boating.
WaterMicronWorld produces pure fresh drinking water from the very air we all breathe.
http://www.watermicronworld.com

With hosepipe bans imminent, there is growing concern over drought in parts of the UK. But with population rising, how can a water crisis be averted?
After two unusually dry winters – which have left reservoirs, aquifers and rivers below normal levels – seven water companies across southern and eastern England are about to impose water restrictions.
If the dry weather continues during spring, the Environment Agency (EA) has warned the drought could spread.
The dire warnings bring back memories of 1976 – a year synonymous with sun, widespread water rationing and standpipes in the streets.
The so-called Great Drought of 1976 saw reservoirs dried up and turned into giant cracked mosaics of mud.
In Dorset, there were 45 days without any rain and for an unbroken stretch of 14 days, southern England clocked up temperatures in excess of 32C.
A Drought Act was passed, a minister was made responsible for handling the water shortage and stand-pipes were set up to provide a rationed supply of water.
But experts say population growth and climate change could spell a much grimmer future.
The Office for National Statistics predicts the population of the UK will rise by 10 million in the next 18 years – reaching 71.4 million by 2030, and 78.4 million by 2050.
Climate change projections for the UK also suggest that by the 2050s summer temperatures will increase and summer rainfall will decrease.
The worst-case scenario, according to the EA, is that total water demand in England and Wales could increase 35% by the 2050s.
Climate change projections, which indicate the temperature may rise by 1.3C to 4.6C across southern England by 2050, would lead to an 80% decrease in summer run-off water – gatherable rainfall – available.
It would also leave half of the river basins across England and Wales’s deficient during the summer months.
The scenarios are made up of complex social and economic assumptions, and the projections are not definite.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) and Northern Ireland Water say they have no short-term concerns about the current water storage situation, but Sepa says it is working on long-term projections.
WaterMicronWorld produces pure fresh drinking water from the very air we all breathe.
http://www.watermicronworld.com

Angola.
The Angolan Government has been developing several water projects countrywide with a view to securing potable water to every citizen.
The vice minister said so, following calls for supply of improved water, particularly to schools, as part of the effort to control cholera and other endemic disease.
“The goal is to make water available to every citizen as near as possible to their homes,” stressed the deputy minister, adding that for the time being it is not possible to get drinking water in desired quantities all over the country.
The current shortage of water will be lessened in a near future, with the ongoing rehabilitation programmers’ and extension systems.
Luanda alone, for example, requires five years to invest in the rehabilitation or launch of some thousand kilometers of the distribution network.
WaterMicronWorld New Innovative Product, Atmospheric Water Generator Technology provides the freshest, cleanest, and purest drinking water from the air available on the planet today, directly from the same air we breathe.
It’s applicable to a wide range of markets. “Our product is a household/office based unit that makes pure drinking water from the air up to 30 liters per day purer than any source on the planet. WaterMicronWorld,Ltd are distributing license agreements for large industrial Atmospheric Water Generators capable of producing 100, 200, 500, 1000, 1,200, 3,000 and up to 5,000 liters in a single day from the air we breathe. “Our strategic plan is to supply pure drinking water for industry applications, e.g. irrigation, aquaculture etc… The strategic competitive advantages are its performance and cost advantages Technology. Atmospheric Water Generator is a humidity and temperature driven machine that makes water from air. This means the machine depends on the level of humidity in the air and the temperature to produce pure drinking water. Ideally, the humidity level should be at least 35% or above to achieve the machines maximum performance. In regions with lower humidity levels, the machine will manufacture pure drinking water at a lesser capacity than in regions with high levels of humidity. The period of time to achieve optimal water production is directly related to humidity. As an example, in a household environment, higher levels of humidity tends to be around kitchens or any spacious room. The Atmospheric Water Generator works by converting the humidity in the air to pure drinking water. The units also act as an effective dehumidifier and in areas with high humidity the unit not only acts as a perfect pure drinking water generator but it also works to condition and dehumidify the air within the specific environment where the unit is placed.
A simple design, smaller size and low-pressure operation also provide a substantial cost advantage in production. These performance and cost advantages are sustainable in the short to medium term as a result of the intellectual property protection built around the technology.
The Government will spend large amounts towards Pure Drinking Water.
By Jenny WaterMicronWorld

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