2030 Water Resources Group Report

There’s a new report out documenting global water scarcity and outlining strategies for meeting future water demand.

The report was issued by the 2030 Water Resources Group, of which Syngenta CEO Michael Mack is a member. He says agriculture accounts for approximately 71 percent of global water withdrawals today. Although agriculture has improved its water use efficiency, Mack says more can—and must—be done.

“Getting more productive in agriculture on the existing farmland is the highest priority. We have the means to do this, and it is just a question now of how to bring that together in a very sensible and focused way,” Mack says. “Making water more efficient—more crop per drop, which is a phrase that’s used increasingly so—is the key.”

The group’s report says that, unless steps are taken to address water issues, the gap between global water supply and demand will reach 40 percent by 2030. The report points out that solutions will vary by country, and even by watershed.

http://brownfieldagnews.com/2009/11/23/group-release-global-water-report/

What is Freshwater?

Freshwater is chemically defined as containing a concentration of less than two parts per thousand (<0.2%) of dissolved salts.

Freshwater can occur in many parts of the environment. Surface freshwaters occur in lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams. Subsurface freshwater occurs in pores in soil and in subterranean aquifers in deep geological formations. Freshwater also occurs in snow and glacial ice, and in atmospheric vapors, clouds, and precipitation.

Most of the dissolved, inorganic chemicals in freshwater occur as ions. The most important of the positively charged ions (or cations) in typical freshwaters are calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), sodium (Na+), ammonium (NH4+), and hydrogen ion (H+). This hydrogen ion is only present if the solution is acidic; otherwise a hydroxy ion (OH−) occurs. The most important of the negatively charged ions (or anions) are sulfate (SO42−), chloride (Cl−), and nitrate (NO3−). Other ions are also present, but in relatively small concentrations. Some freshwaters can have large concentrations of dissolved organic compounds, known as humic substances. These can stain the water a deep-brown, in contrast to the transparent color of most freshwaters.

At the dilute end of the chemical spectrum of surface waters are lakes in watersheds with hard, slowly weathering bedrock and soils. Such lakes can have a total concentration of salts of less than 0.002% (equivalent to 20 mg/L, or parts per million, ppm). For example, Beaverskin Lake in Nova Scotia has very clear, dilute water, with the most important dissolved chemicals being: chloride (4.4 mg/L), sodium (2.9 mg/L), sulfate (2.8 mg/L), calcium (0.41 mg/L), magnesium (0.39 mg/L), and potassium (0.30 mg/L). A nearby body of water, Big Red Lake, has similar concentrations of these inorganic ions. However, this lake also receives drainage from a nearby bog, and its chemistry includes a large concentration of dissolved organic compounds (23 mg/L), which stain the water the color of dark tea.

More typical concentrations of major inorganic ions in freshwater are somewhat larger: calcium 15 mg/L; sulfate 11 mg/L; chloride 7 mg/L; silica 7 mg/L; sodium 6 mg/L; magnesium 4 mg/L; and potassium 3 mg/L.

The freshwater of precipitation is considerably more dilute than that of surface waters. For example, precipitation falling on the Nova Scotia lakes is dominated by sulfate (1.6 mg/L), chloride (1.3 mg/L), sodium (0.8 mg/L), nitrate (0.7 mg/L), calcium (0.13 mg/L), ammonium (0.08 mg/L), magnesium (0.08 mg/L), and potassium (0.08 mg/L). Because the sampling site is within 31 mi (50 km) of the Atlantic Ocean, its precipitation is significantly influenced by sodium and chloride originating with sea sprays. More continental locations have much smaller concentrations of these ions in their precipitation water. For example, precipitation at a remote place in northern Ontario has a sodium concentration of 0.09 mg/L and chloride 0.15 mg/L, compared with 0.75 mg/L and 1.3 mg/L, respectively, at the maritime Nova Scotia site.

http://www.bookrags.com/research/freshwater-woes-01/

Experts convene to save freshwater fish

A plan to save Australia's freshwater fish from becoming extinct is being worked out at a meeting of experts from around the world at the Adelaide Zoo which begins today.

The 25 delegates will discuss a series of freshwater fish management strategies to tackle the issue.

The head of Zoos SA, Chris West, says the drought, over-extraction and the drainage of wetlands have all led to diminished native fish numbers in Australia.

"In Australia, about 95 per cent of our wetlands have either been destroyed or very severely compromised by urban and rural developments," he said.

"So the freshwater fish, which in a way are canaries in the coalmine for a lot of our ecology, our natural health, are really under a great deal of pressure."

He says public awareness about the threatened state of Australia's freshwater fish numbers is far too low.

"These small and sometimes not terribly glamorous fish are disappearing as well as things like the Murray Cod, and our wellbeing, as humans, is bound up with the natural health and ecology, and that has to do with the wetlands," he said.

"So it's so important that the public realise that it's part of their health to make sure that we have good fresh water."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/australian-news/6501062/experts-convene-to-save-freshwater-fish/

Freshwater Inflow Needs of the Matagorda Bay System

The Matagorda Bay system is the second largest estuary on the Texas Gulf Coast covering approximately 352 square miles. The abundant production of finfish and shellfish make this environmentally sensitive area important not only as a ecological resource, but also as a source of economically significant commercial and sports fisheries. Many factors contribute to this high natural productivity, but the most significant is an ample source of freshwater. Freshwater inflows are vital to the continued health of the natural ecosystems in and around the Matagorda Bay system.

To determine the freshwater inflow needs of the Matagorda Bay system, the LCRA entered into a cooperative agreement with TPWD, TWDB and TNRCC in 1993. The LCRA agreed to adapt or modify existing methods for estimating freshwater inflow needs used by the TPWD and TWDB and apply those methods to compute alternative freshwater inflow needs for the estuary. The participating state agencies provided technical assistance and advice to the LCRA.

Methodology for Estimating Freshwater Inflow Needs

This method involved the synthesis of three components: (1) development of statistical relationships between freshwater inflows and key indicators of estuarine conditions, (2) computation of monthly and seasonal freshwater inflows to optimize estuarine conditions subject to specific constraints at key estuarine locations and (3) evaluation of estuarine-wide salinity conditions to ensure conditions remain within desired limits.

The first major component is the development of statistical relationships for the varied and complex interactions between freshwater inflows and important indicators of estuarine ecosystem conditions. The key estuarine indicators considered are: salinity, species productivity, and nutrient inflows.

Statistical relationships were developed between seasonal freshwater inflows and biomass for nine finfish and shellfish species that are ecologically and economically important to the estuary. In general, most species demonstrated negative responses to freshwater inflows during winter months (November through February), and positive responses to freshwater inflows occurring from March through October.

The salinity conditions in upper Lavaca Bay and the eastern end of Matagorda Bay were found to be largely dependent on the freshwater inflows from the Lavaca and Colorado Rivers, respectively. These relationships were quantified into statistical relationships.

Similarly the nutrient inflows were related to total inflow to the estuary. A nutrient budget was prepared for the estuary which indicated that a minimum annual freshwater inflow of 1.7 million acre-feet was needed to replenish the estimated nutrient losses from the estuary.

The second essential process involves using the statistical functions noted above to compute optimal monthly and seasonal freshwater inflow needs. This is accomplished using the TWDB's Texas Estuarine Mathematical Programming (TXEMP) Model. TXEMP determines mathematically the best set of freshwater inflows needed to maximize specific conditions within the estuary while meeting a variety of limits on salinity, species productivity and nutrient inflows.

The third major component of the process of developing inflow needs is the simulation of the salinity conditions throughout the estuary using the TXBLEND estuarine hydrodynamic and salinity transport model developed by TWDB and modified by the LCRA. The simulated salinity is then compared to desired salinity ranges over broad areas of the estuary. If salinity is not within those ranges then constraints in TXEMP are modified to achieve the desired salinity.

Freshwater Inflow Needs

The freshwater inflow needs for the estuarine ecosystem associated with Matagorda Bay System were estimated for two levels of inflow needs: Target and Critical.

The Target inflows needs are the monthly and seasonal inflows that produced 98% of the maximum total normalized biomass for nine key estuarine finfish and shellfish species while maintaining certain salinity, population density and nutrient inflow conditions. The salinity condition requires that estimated salinity fall within predetermined monthly ranges preferred by most species. The productivity of any species must not be less than 80% of its historical average. Finally, the total inflow of nutrients are at least equal to the natural nutrient losses from the ecosystem. The 98 percent level of maximum biomass was selected for the target needs based on achieving the best tradeoff between productivity and freshwater inflows.

The Critical inflow needs were determined by finding the minimum the total annual inflow needed to keep salinity near the mouths of the Colorado and Lavaca Rivers at no more than 25 parts per thousand. These inflows needs are termed critical since they provide a fishery sanctuary habitat during droughts. From this sanctuary, the finfish and shellfish species, particularly oysters, could be expected to recover and repopulate the bay when more normal weather conditions returned.

The Target inflow need from all sources was calculated to be 2.0 million acre-feet per year (Table 1). Inflow needs from the Lavaca and Colorado Rivers were estimated at 346,200 and 1,033,100 acre-feet annually, respectively. The remaining contributing areas are estimated to provide an additional 620,700 acre-feet yearly.

The TXBLEND hydrodynamic and salinity transport model was used to simulate salinity conditions in the Matagorda Bay system with the Target inflow needs indicated in Table 1. The resulting simulated salinity regime was found to give acceptable salinity conditions throughout the estuary, thus the Target needs are anticipated to provide adequate salinity within the Matagorda Bay system.

A total annual freshwater inflow of about 287,400 thousand acre-feet was found to meet the Critical inflow needs (Table 2). Approximately 27,100 and 171,000 acre-feet yearly would be provided from the Lavaca and Colorado River basins, respectively, with the remaining annual inflow of 89,200 acre-feet coming from the other contributing from the other contributing drainage basins.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/water/conservation/freshwater_inflow/matagorda/index.phtml
 

The effects of Lake Michigan

SOUTH BEND -- Lake Michigan is the sixth-largest freshwater body in the world. It has a wide-ranging impact on our area -- from lake-effect snow and thunderstorms, to our economy and our history.

With its more than 1,600 miles of shoreline, Lake Michigan holds nearly 1,200 cubic miles of water. Anything that big is going to have a huge effect on everything around it.

"I think the biggest thing is it tends to be a moderating influence," said Mike Lewis, a National Weather Service meteorologist in northern Indiana.

That means it keeps our temperatures from becoming extremely hot or extremely cold. So how did the lake get here?

"The best understanding that we have is that it was a glacial push," Lewis said.Millions of years ago, our entire area was covered in ice. When temperatures began to rise, the glaciers started to melt.

"As they retreated, you started seeing the melt of the ice collecting in those water basins," Lewis said.

The Great Lakes were formed, and ever since they have changed the climate of our area -- depending on your point of view, for better or for worse.

How does it work?

Our cities, our culture and our weather all have been influenced by Lake Michigan. And as all continue to change, so does Lake Michigan. But how is still a huge question."There's so much more to learn, but we're just now starting to fully grasp the influence of that, of Lake Michigan," Lewis said.

But will Lake Michigan always be here? Are water levels rising or falling?

"Can we understand how these lakes actually work together and is there a normal level? So, they're going to go up and down -- sort of like our temperatures. They're going to go up and down, or (like) our weather, we're going to see extremes. What is that normal, and what is that definition of normal? And that has to be yet to be determined."

One thing is clear: "If we were to lose the water, that warming influence or that cooling influence, we would end up with an entirely different climate around here."

Grape growing wouldn't be possible in southwest Michigan if it wasn't for the lake. Mike Merchant, winemaker at Tabor Hill, has been in the wine business for 30 years."In the fall, what it does most of the time is it extends the growing season," he said. "It modifies things to keep things warmer, longer."

The opposite is true in the spring.

"In the spring it keeps things cooler, the area or the climate cooler," Merchant said. "That would delay bud break, which is very important to avoid spring frosts."

Lake Michigan allows wineries in the area to thrive, but that's not all. Grant Black, a professor of economics at Indiana University South Bend, says the lake has always had an effect here.

"It has had, historically, a substantial impact," he said. "Obviously the area that we're in really developed because of access to the waterways."It has had a huge effect on our local economy.

"Well, certainly a lot of things in the broader sort of recreation and tourism industries," Black said. "It could be things like wineries. It could be things like casinos, just the natural resources of the dunes and things like that."

The development of our cities has depended on Lake Michigan. Cities near the western coast see nearly 35 inches of snow per year. Cities near the eastern coast see nearly twice that with about 70 inches per year.

"Obviously weather patterns and those kinds of things would have affected where people located," Black said. "Obviously lots of other things would have come into play as well. So it certainly is a component of how cities developed and population growth occurs."

How cold is it?The biggest thing Lake Michigan tends to affect is our temperature.

"It tends to keep temperatures from dropping as rapidly as if there wasn't a body of water," Lewis said.

This happens because water changes temperature more slowly than air. That is why the lake keeps us cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

Those relatively warmer lake temperatures in the winter lead to something we are all very familiar with: lake-effect snow.

Areas closer to the Great Lakes see significantly higher snowfall totals each year compared to areas farther from the lake. The entire Midwest is susceptible to synoptic, or system snow events. After the initial storms pass, if you live near Lake Michigan, more snow can develop."All of a sudden you end up with these relatively strong bands of snow that will set up," said Lewis

They can add several inches or several feet of additional snow. If the conditions are right, lake-effect rain is even possible.

But Lake Michigan affects more than just our rain and snow. It also can mean increased clouds playing a role in severe weather.

"You can actually see that as a band of clouds that pushes in, and sometimes it can be a focus for actual thunderstorm development, or we can look for it enhancing some of our severe potential," Lewis said.

Thunderstorms need rising air to grow, and another key ingredient."With thunderstorm development, you need moisture. If it's warm enough over the lake, and a cool enough air mass comes in, you can end up with a great source of water for that storm."

There also is very little friction over the lake. That means winds can become incredibly strong.

"The storms can hit that and accelerate and rush through."

In many ways, Lake Michigan can increase our potential for severe weather, but cooler temperatures over the lake can sometimes decrease our severe weather potential as well.

http://www.southbendtribune.com/article/20091114/News01/911140406/-1/XML
 

Restoring China's disappearing wetlands

China has been making great efforts to re-draw the disappearing Sanjiang Plain Wetlands on its maps. The country's largest freshwater wetlands have changed dramatically in the face of the country's rapid agricultural development in recent decades.

Located in the eastern region of Heilongjiang province, huge sections of the Sanjiang Plain Wetlands were converted by local farmers, soldiers and Zhiqing, or urban educated youth, between the early 1950s and the 1970s, responding to the central government's call to develop the Great Northern Wilderness or "Beidahuang".

The Sanjiang Plain area, a low plain that borders the Heilongjiang, Ussuri and Songhuajiang rivers, has gone through extensive agricultural development.

Today, a broad sweep of rice paddies and farmlands stretch toward the horizon. Large wilderness areas became rich black farmlands. The Chinese people gave a new name to the region: "Beidacang" - the Great Northern Grain Barn.

According to statistics, annual grain production reached 42.3 billion kg in 2008 of the country's total 528.5 billion kg in grain production last year.

Beidahuang, which has 5.5 million hectares of fertile land, has become China's largest grain production base, growing more than 138 billion kg of grain for the country over the past six decades.

After half a century, the Sanjiang Plain Wetlands tell a very different story. Extensive agricultural development and population growth have resulted in a considerable loss of wetlands.

The Sanjiang Plain contains the largest area of wetlands in China. It contains six national wetland reserves and 10 provincial wetland reserves.

But they are disappearing at a frightening speed. After more than 50 years of economic development, the area of the Sanjiang Plain Wetlands decreased by 4.32 million hectares, or nearly 80 percent. As a result, only 1 million hectares of wetlands can now be seen on the map of the Sanjiang Plain.

The wetlands, often referred to as the earth's "kidneys", have played a significant role in water purification and conservation, as well as the prevention of erosion and flooding.

Worsening droughts

Since the 1990s, the Sanjiang Plain area, with a total arable land area of 3.5 million hectares, has suffered worsening droughts.

The worst drought struck as much as 40 percent of its farmlands, and there are now more than 808,000 hectares of farmland that are vulnerable to droughts.

Scientists said an increase in droughts, floods and sandstorms afflicting northern China in recent years are closely linked to the shrinking wetlands.

Related ecological damage has caused economic losses equal to 4 percent to 8 percent of the country's GNP, according to statistics.

"As the country's largest ecological province, environmental protection in Heilongjiang province has huge effects on northeastern and northern China," said Sun Yao, vice governor of Heilongjiang province.

Many rivers and water systems in Heilongjiang reach neighboring Russia, so the ecological effect stretches beyond China's borders, he said.

Sun said Heilongjiang, especially the Sanjiang Plain, also is important to China's food and energy security future.

Experts said the wetlands in Sanjiang Plain are considered globally important and represent one of the more important breeding sites and migratory routes for waterfowl in northeastern Asia.

The wetlands are also significant for the numbers and species of globally threatened waterfowl.

The Chinese government has realized that it must speed up its efforts to save its dwindling wetlands.

A pioneer of wetlands protection in China, the Heilongjiang provincial government has banned any cultivation and excavation of wetlands since 1999.

The 2003 Heilongjiang Wetlands Regulations gave official authority for wetlands management to the Heilongjiang Provincial Forest Department (HPFD).

Farmland-to-wetlands

With funding from the National Development and Reform Committee, HPFD is managing a project that will restore 150,000 hectares of farmland to wetlands and replant 68,500 hectares yearly by 2010.

To better protect the wetlands, the Sanjiang Plain Wetlands Protection Project has been under way since March 2007, co-financed by the Heilongjiang provincial government, Asian Development Bank and Global Environment Fund.

The project is expected to cost about $55 million, including $12.14 million in Global Environment Fund grants and $15 million in loans from the Asian Development Bank.

"The project is to promote sustainable use of natural resources through integrated conservation planning and to improve the well-being of local communities," said Robert Wihtol, China director of the Asian Development Bank.The project is targeting 13 counties, including six nature reserves within five contiguous watersheds.

Yoshiaki Kobayashi, a water resources management specialist for the Asian Development Bank, said the project will involve 11,900 hectares of new forest plantations.

Already, 8,457 hectares of new forests have been planted, he said. The project also involves maintenance of about 43,700 hectares of existing forest lands.

"Forests increase the water retention capacity of the lands and mitigate soil erosion, which is the first step of wetlands protection," Kobayashi said.

Kobayashi said the prospect of a net annual income of $210 to $256 per hectare from dry-land grain production (wheat-soy-corn) has served as a strong motivator for farmers to expand the farmlands in any way possible, including draining the wetlands.

Meanwhile, pesticide and fertilizer pollution, burning, grazing and other agricultural practices within or near the natural reserves have adversely affected the area's ecology, according to a recent Asian Development Bank report.

"Alternative livelihoods for these farmers who are affected by the farmland-to-wetlands plan must be provided to discourage such harmful natural resource exploitation in the wetlands," Kobayashi said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-11/09/content_8933093.htm

Climate change threatens quarter of Swiss farmland

GENEVA (AFP) – Climate change is already threatening more than a quarter of Switzerland's farmland with frequent and lengthy water shortages, according to official research published Tuesday.

The Swiss federal agricultural research station Agroscope said about 10 times more land would need to be irrigated to avoid lost harvests, some 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres) instead of the 38,000 hectares that currently receive regular irrigation.

But researcher Jurg Fuhrer told AFP that such huge irrigation to cope with more frequent drought might not be economically viable or feasible.

Twenty-six percent of usable agricultural land and 41 percent of arable land is at risk due to the drier climate that has been emerging in recent years, the scientific study found.

The conclusions were based on a range of research including detailed observations of local climate, hydrological data and crop patterns between 1980 and 2006.

It showed that the Alpine country's prime arable land, spread across lower lying northern plains and valleys, had been the hardest hit by a growing frequency of summertime drought, including the Rhine valley.

"I was surprised to see the size of the area," said Fuhrer. "The area is expanding, that's the significant part."

Swiss farmers should expect a period of damaging drought at least once every three years, the researchers predicted.

The Rhine is one of Europe's biggest rivers, flowing northwards through Germany from its source in the Swiss Alps. The Rhone valley in southwestern Switzerland, which stretches into southern France, is also at risk.

"There are implications for anybody who lives along these rivers," Fuhrer pointed out.

Climate research cited by Agroscope has indicated that summer rainfall in Switzerland could be cut by up to a fifth by 2050.

Agroscope predicted that three months of sun without a drop of water would become a common feature for Swiss summers -- comparable to the severe European heatwave of 2003.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091027/sc_afp/switzerlandclimatewarmingfarm_20091027162315

Biodiversity: It's In The Water

Hydrology may be more important for predicting biodiversity than biology, say an international group of scientists whose study in the latest issue of Nature challenges current thinking about biodiversity and opens up new avenues for predicting how climate change or human activity may affect biodiversity patterns. Their new method for predicting biodiversity, described by them as "ridiculously simple," uses only the geomorphology of a river network and rainfall measurements to accurately predict the biodiversity of fish species in a river system.

For their study, the researchers examined the Mississippi-Missouri river basin, which covers all or part of 31 US states, spanning diverse habitat types and encompassing very different environmental conditions. Using geomorphological data from the US Geological Survey, the researchers identified 824 sub-basins in the network. In these, the simple presence (or not) of 433 species of fish was established from a database of US freshwater fish populations. Data on the average runoff production -the amount of rainfall that ends up in the river system and not evaporated back into the air - was then used to calculate the habitat capacity of each sub-basin.

With just four parameters, it's "an almost ridiculously simple model," explains researcher Andrea Rinaldo. The model results were compared to extensive data on actual fish species distributions. Various different measures of biodiversity were analyzed, and the researchers were surprised to find that the model captured these complex patterns quite accurately. The model is all the more remarkable for what it does not contain - any reference, anywhere, to the biological properties of individual fish species.

It is a formulation that could be applied to any river system, or in fact, any network at all. The model is general enough that it could be used to explore population migrations or epidemics of water-borne diseases in addition to biodiversity patterns. The researchers plan to extend their work to explore the extent to which simple hydrology can act as the determining factor in a wide range of biodiversity patterns.

"These results are a powerful reminder of the overarching importance of water, and the water-defined landscape, in determining patterns of life," said co-researcher Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe. "It provides a framework that could be used to connect large scale environmental changes to biodiversity. Changes in precipitation patterns, perhaps due to global climate change, could be mapped to changes in habitat capacities in the model, ultimately providing a way to estimate how climate change would alter large-scale patterns of biodiversity. It could also be used for an assessment of the impact of specific, local human activities, such as flow re-routing or damming, on the biodiversity patterns in a river network."

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20080407194721data_trunc_sys.shtml