Interactive map of water scarcity

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Beneath Booming Cities, China’s Future Is Drying Up

Hundreds of feet below ground, the primary water source for this provincial capital of more than two million people is steadily running dry. The underground water table is sinking about four feet a year. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater.

Above ground, this city in the North China Plain is having a party. Economic growth topped 11 percent last year. Population is rising. A new upscale housing development is advertising waterfront property on lakes filled with pumped groundwater. Another half-built complex, the Arc de Royal, is rising above one of the lowest points in the city’s water table.

“People who are buying apartments aren’t thinking about whether there will be water in the future,” said Zhang Zhongmin, who has tried for 20 years to raise public awareness about the city’s dire water situation.

For three decades, water has been indispensable in sustaining the rollicking economic expansion that has made China a world power. Now, China’s galloping, often wasteful style of economic growth is pushing the country toward a water crisis. Water pollution is rampant nationwide, while water scarcity has worsened severely in north China — even as demand keeps rising everywhere.

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In Beach Enclave, Affluent Are Split Over Effluent

Septic tanks or sewers? The question of how to treat wastewater in this exclusive beachfront community is pitting neighbors, surfers and environmentalists against one another.

Surfers have long complained about getting sick at the world-class surf break here that straddles Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. And blame for the pollution has long been laid on the septic tanks of the multimillion-dollar homes in the gated enclave of Rincon Point.

After nine years of debate and several lawsuits, homeowners are to vote next month on whether to convert from the tanks to a sewer system. While most residents appear to back the conversion, a vocal group of residents is questioning its wisdom, with several saying they feel bullied into paying for an expensive system that would only encourage more development and more pollution.

“There is no evidence that our septic tanks are polluting anything,” said a homeowner, Billy Taylor, who with his wife, Brook Harvey-Taylor, is a surfer and an outspoken opponent. “Are we cleaning up the ocean? Or are we just moving our waste into another part of the ocean?”

Tests in 1999 showed signs of human waste in a creek that runs through Rincon Point into the ocean. But no fecal coliform bacteria were found upstream, which proponents of a sewer system say proves the septic tanks are responsible.

Opponents of the change say that since 1999 malfunctioning or old septic tanks have been repaired or replaced. Laura Orlando, a wastewater expert from Boston University whom they brought in, said that the tests proved nothing and that the bacteria could have come from the diaper of a child swimming in the creek or ocean.

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Dwindling farm water threatens Turkish disaster

An environmental catastrophe is threatening central Turkey, once the country's breadbasket, where farmers are depleting the water table after the hottest summer in living memory.

A shepherd since his childhood, 60-year-old Kamil Gurel reckoned he knew the terrain on the southern edge of Turkey's vast Konya plain as well as anyone. Until one moonless night recently, when walking his flocks back home, he fell at least 40 metres down a sink-hole that hadn't been there the week before.

Luckily, he survived. But like the dozens of other sink-holes to have formed in recent decades, the chasm Mr Gurel fell into is "a warning sign of an impending catastrophe", according to Tahir Nalbantcilar, the head of the Chamber of Geological Engineers in the regional capital of Konya.

On the Konya plain – an area more than twice the size of Wales that stretches south from Ankara almost all the way to the Mediterranean – water is the region's biggest problem.

Mr Nalbantcilar described it as a matter of simple arithmetic. Devoid of rivers, hemmed in by mountains on all sides, the plain has no source of water other than groundwater. For the past 40 years, farmers have sucked it up faster than rain can replenish it. The result is a water table that is sinking fast.

"We used to pull water by hand out of wells five metres deep," said Tahsin Ata, a farmer in the small village of Cirali, up the road from Mr Gurel's sink-hole. "Now you have to go 80 metres down."

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A trickle of water might save Colorado River Delta

The Colorado River Delta was once a watery labyrinth of willow thickets, mesquite and cottonwood, bigger than the state of Rhode Island and teeming with bird and animal life. Today it is a barren expanse of salt-stained mudflats where the river used to meet the sea south of Yuma.

About 90% of the delta's wetlands and natural habitat dried up over the last half century, as water from the Colorado was captured in reservoirs and diverted to farms and cities from Las Vegas to Mexicali.

For more than a decade, conservation groups in the U.S. and Mexico have tried unsuccessfully to restore North America's largest desert estuary. Now the Sonoran Institute is warning that unless restoration is undertaken before a prolonged dry spell, which many scientists are predicting, it could be too late.

In its forthcoming analysis of the delta, the nonprofit Arizona institute paints a dire picture of the once-vibrant ecosystem. But it also puts forth a proposal for replenishing much of the area by replacing a tiny fraction of the river water that once flowed through the delta, saying it would be enough to restore much of the area's natural wealth.

Under the institute's plan, the delta would get about three-tenths of a percent of the river's historic annual flow, making it one of the more modest claims on a river that serves 30 million people. But even that amount could be a hard sell.

Eight years of drought in the Colorado watershed have raised the likelihood of shortages in the near future, and as officials in the U.S. and Mexico look for creative ways of limiting future cutbacks, every drop will count.

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Planting the seeds of conservation

Ellen Keys knows about drought. She grew up during the Great Depression in Sallisaw, Okla., depicted in the early pages of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's epic saga of drought and poverty.

She paid closer attention than most Long Beach residents to the pleas for water conservation issued earlier this year by the city Water Department in the face of the Southern California drought and looming water shortages.

"We had signed up for a new sprinkler system and a new lawn, front and back," Keys said, "but I read three months ago where this water is getting awfully scarce, and I asked my husband, 'Do you think we should spend all this money?' "

So the couple canceled their order, and Keys, 83, signed up for a free class on low-water gardening held Saturday at Water Department headquarters. She began thinking of a new lawn design for her home near Long Beach Airport that would feature bricks and drought-tolerant plants.

Keys' instincts proved right.

Three days ago, the Water Department drew statewide attention by issuing the most stringent water-use restrictions of any city in the region. Water experts predict that other cities will soon follow suit. The most talked-about rule will forbid residents to water lawns, plants and gardens more than three times a week -- and even then, only between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Water officials in this waterfront city of 461,000 already were doing research on desalination processes and mailing out notices in water bills, urging residents to curtail showers and change gardening habits. The new rules, which go into effect Friday, are not just short-term measures, they say.

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Problem dams on the rise in US

The Kaloko dam in Hawaii stood 116 years – until last year when it collapsed after heavy rains, killing seven.

Potential disaster was averted in April in Hollis, N.H., when a dozen families were evacuated and engineers made a controlled breach of an old pond dam to keep it from failing .

Such incidents are warning signs that many of the nation's more than 87,000 dams are in need of repair. Last month's high-profile collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis focused America's attention on bridge problems. The nation's dams are worse off.

In 2005, the last time the American Society of Civil Engineers rated America's infrastructure, bridges received a "C" grade; dams earned a "D."

Even that rating may be generous, a Monitor analysis of dam-inspection data shows. Since 1999, the number of "high-hazard" dams rated "deficient" has more than doubled, according to data from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) in Lexington, Ky. High-hazard dams are those whose failures could cause fatalities. In 1999, the US had 546 such dams rated deficient. By last year, it had 1,333.

A second category of "significant-hazard" dams (so-called because they threaten substantial property loss) saw a rise from 339 to 949 deficient dams over the same period. In all, 2.6 percent of the nation's dams are deficient, according to the ASDSO.

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Peru's glacier meltdown threatens water supplies

As glacier meltwater trickles down mountainsides in the Andes, some places in Peru may already be seeing temporary increases in water supply, according to new research published in ES&T (DOI: 10.1021/es071099d). But as the ice disappears, researchers say, so will the water that flows from it, and people will be hit especially hard during the dry summers when glaciers normally release water. How severe will local shortfalls be, and how soon will they affect millions of people in South America?

In the city of La Paz (Bolivia) and its suburb El Alto, more than 2 million people get about a third of their drinking water from glaciers—and those glaciers have shrunk by more than half since the 1960s, according to Walter Vergara, a World Bank expert on climate change in Latin America. The situation in less monitored areas is more of a mystery. Satellite images show that glaciers are shrinking, but they don't provide a reliable estimate of how much water is released or where it goes, and climbing glaciers to get better measurements is risky and expensive.

To overcome these limitations, a team led by geographer Bryan Mark of Ohio State University developed a stable-isotope method that can determine how much of a community's water supply is glacier-fed, without scaling the glaciers. The technique relies on differences in the levels of naturally occurring isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen from glaciers compared with rainwater and other sources. Water samples collected from streams are analyzed for isotope levels by mass spectroscopy to determine the percentage of glacier-fed water they contain and that fraction can be monitored for changes over time.

more from ES&T online news

Study: Farm runoff feeds dead zone

Soil erosion and runoff from farms along the 2,300-mile-long Mississippi River and its tributaries are feeding the algae that create the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, a study compiled by environmental groups shows.

Hypoxia, a lack of oxygen in the water, occurs yearly when a combination of warm weather and nutrients from farming operations, urban runoff and sewage dumped into the Mississippi River cause algae and microscopic organisms in the water to flourish. This year's dead zone is predicted to be the third largest on record, threatening Louisiana's fisheries.

At a gathering of fishermen in Grand Isle this week, crabbers complained that all along the coast they're pulling up pots of dead crabs and fishermen said their catch has little fight left in it. Some shrimpers said they aren't even bothering to take their boats out.
Crabs, eels and other creatures usually found on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico are swimming on the surface because there is too little oxygen in their usual habitat.

Louisiana's dead zone usually is farther out into the Gulf, but satellite photos show this year's is much closer to shore. The 7,900-square-mile area - about the size of New Jersey - has almost no oxygen.

"Louisiana doesn't contribute a whole lot to the problem," said Matt Rota of the Gulf Restoration Network, one of the study's contributors, "but it ends up being our problem."

more from Gannett News Service

Cleaning up the mess

When the Blue River turned bright orange for a few hours last year, it was the first time many visitors - and even local residents - realized that the bustling gold and silver mines of yesteryear still can have a tangible impact on day-to-day life in Summit County.

The message hit home again this year in early August, when a rainstorm sent a surge of chocolate-brown sediment and pollution sweeping down Peru Creek and into the Snake River, killing hundreds of stocked trout. Most of the fish in the stream may have died within just a few days, according to Colorado Division of Wildlife biologist Jon Ewart, who tied the fish kill to a sudden change in acidity.

Local officials have long known that the abandoned shafts and tunnels are the perfect breeding ground for a toxic witch's brew of heavy metals. And while the risk to human health is often described as minimal, the metals - especially zinc - have a measurable impact on aquatic life.

more from the Summit Daily News

Parched summer on way

UP to two million Australians in the lower Murray-Darling catchment are facing the worst summer of water restrictions and shortages in 70 years.

The warning by the head of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Wendy Craik, was just one of several issued yesterday by some of Australia's top experts on drought and climate change.

Some predicted that Australia may never fully recover from the current dry.

Water Services Association of Australia executive director Ross Young said the outlook for capital cities apart from Sydney, Hobart and Darwin, was "not looking good".

"It is going to take a concerted effort to make sure we implement appropriate restrictions and water conservation measures to get through this summer and the next one," he said.

"Around Australia, Brisbane, of all the capitals, is the one that really does have its back to the wall."

He added that Adelaide "has got to ask how reliable the Murray is going to be this summer and next summer, given that the tank really is empty."

Adelaide draws at least 40per cent of its water from the Murray.

Dr Craik detailed the gravity of the Murray's situation from an "unprecedented combination of low storage levels and low inflows".

The nation's biggest river system is holding 1700 gigalitres less water in storage this year than at the same time last year, the worst on record.

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NASA Satellites Eye Coastal Water Quality

Using data from instruments aboard NASA satellites, Zhiqiang Chen and colleagues at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg, found that they can monitor water quality almost daily, rather than monthly. Such information has direct application for resource managers devising restoration plans for coastal water ecosystems and federal and state regulators in charge of defining water quality standards.

The team's findings, published July 30 in two papers in Remote Sensing of Environment, will help tease out factors that drive changes in coastal water quality. For example, sediments entering the water as a result of coastal development or pollution can cause changes in water turbidity - a measure of the amount of particles suspended in the water. Sediments suspended from the bottom by strong winds or tides may also cause such changes. Knowing where the sediments come from is critical to managers because turbidity cuts off light to the bottom, thwarting the natural growth of plants.

"If we can track the source of turbidity, we can better understand why turbidity is changing. And if the source is human-related, we can try to manage that human activity," says Frank Muller-Karger, a study co-author from the University of South Florida.

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Multiyear shortage of water discussed

Water managers warned yesterday that San Diego County is on the verge of multiyear shortages comparable to those caused by the early 1990s drought.

Fears about the fragile water supply grew after a court ruling Friday that is expected to dramatically reduce state water deliveries to Southern California.

Soaring temperatures added to the unease by spiking the demand for water. At the same time, the Colorado River – the county's other major source of water – remains shriveled by a long dry spell that is likely to worsen with climate changes related to global warming, scientists say.

While the full effect of the judge's order is uncertain, water officials are talking about raising prices to promote conservation and imposing urban water-use restrictions next year. North County farmers already were expecting cutbacks of at least 30 percent starting in January.

more from the San Diego Tribune

NEW CONCERNS OVER WASTEWATER SLUDGE

After sewage is cleaned at a wastewater treatment plant, sludge is left behind. This sludge is often used on farms as fertilizer. But the wastewater treatment doesn't get rid of all the drugs and chemicals we flush down the drain. Kinna Ohman reports researchers are finding some of these chemicals are affecting wildlife and could be getting into our food:


Take a tour of any wastewater treatment plant and you'll soon understand the main objective: to separate the liquids from the solids. Until the mid 90s, most of these solids, or sludge, used to go into landfills or were dumped in the ocean. But in 1994 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency started a program to promote the use of sludge on farm fields as fertilizer. The EPA thought this was the perfect solution... turning waste into a useful product.

But scientists have found something which could turn the EPA program on its head. Rolf Halden is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Water and Health. He says sludge contains most of the chemicals we use:

"If you look at municipal sludge, it really is a matrix that reflects the chemical footprint of our society."

Halden's focused on one chemical he's found in sludge called Triclosan - and there's a lot of it out there. It's in antibacterial soaps, and can even be in our toothpastes, deodorants, and shampoos. Until recently, most if it was thought to break down. Now, Halden says they found something different:
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Smelt ruling may cut into water supply

A federal judge Friday ordered protective measures for a tiny endangered fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a mandate state water officials warned could cut Northern California water exports to Southern California by a third or more.

Environmental lawyers disputed the officials' draconian assessment of U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger's decision to protect the delta smelt, a creature that biologists say is facing extinction in large part because of increased pumping from the delta. The fish are weak swimmers and tend to be sucked into the water system's massive pumps and killed.

Water officials said the judge's decision could be the most significant ever on the state's ability to deliver water through the delta, the key crossroads for the movement of water supplies to Southern California.

In a normal water year, they said, deliveries through the delta could be cut by up to 37% -- a loss of enough water to supply upward of 4 million households. Dry years could see smaller cuts, but there would be less water to begin with.

"It means there will be less water delivered than we normally do," said Jerry Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, which runs the California Aqueduct.

The decision comes in a suit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice against the Department of Interior and water agencies, among others.

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