ScienceDaily — The endangered freshwater mussel species has been given a welcome boost by scientists from Queen's University Belfast following a 12 year cultivation project.
Over 300 of the mussels, which are threatened in many parts of Europe and North America, have been released back into the wild at a range of secret locations in Northern Ireland.
And in a novel development, the conservation scientists from Queen's will be able to keep tabs on the precious mussels after attaching tags to the outside of their shells. The Passive Integrated Transponders or PIT tags can be located by a receiver much like a metal detector, meaning the researchers can then relocate the animals in the riverbed and monitor each mussel's progress.
Conor Wilson a PhD student at Quercus, Queen's research centre for biodiversity and conservation science in the University's School of Biological Sciences said: "Queen's had been working alongside experts at Ballinderry Fish Hatchery in Co. Tyrone since 1998 in order to cultivate these precious but very slow growing mussels. They can grow to 17 cm in length and can reach 285 years old but in Northern Ireland they are currently teetering on the brink of extinction and the only counties the mussels currently exist in are Tyrone and Fermanagh.
"Freshwater mussels are an important part of the ecosystem in many rivers as they filter water keeping it clean and clear. This improves the environment for other plants and animals, and ultimately, humans.
"Our hope is that eventually, through a programme of breeding and tracking we will be able to see the equilibrium restored in these rivers and bring the levels of mussels back to what they were 100 years ago, before they were affected by a variety of factors including overfishing and habitat degradation."
The year-long release programme of the mussels has just been completed and those involved in the project say it has been a big success. Dr. Dai Roberts, academic lead on the project said: "Ultimately, this work which has been funded by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), evaluates whether captive breeding and release is a successful means to halt the decline of severely depleted populations. We hope it will be a success and that it can be replicated in many other areas of need across Europe and beyond."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100323105948.htm
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Water is worth it - OECD
Doubling annual investment in water and sanitation infrastructure from $15-billion to $30-billion would halve the share of people without access to these basic needs, OECD said this week.
Globally 1 billion people lack access to safe water supplies and 2.6 billion are without access to basic sanitation.
"It would be money well spent - saving lives and reaping benefits of 5 to 10 times the initial investment," it said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Climate change and over-use of water will mean that nearly one in every two people will live in water-stressed areas by 2030.
Households, industry and agriculture will increasingly compete for water, leaving little to sustain ecosystems.
Infrastructure a priority
In developing countries increasing investment in water and sanitation infrastructure is a priority.
Three new OECD studies show that putting the right price on water will encourage people to waste less, pollute less, and invest more in water infrastructure.
Households and industry in many OECD countries increasingly pay the true cost of the water they consume.
A study on Pricing Water Resources and Water and Sanitation Services shows this is done through tariffs – user prices- which better reflect the actual consumption and treatment costs, including water abstraction and supply as well as treatment of wastewater to avoid pollution.
Tariffs for water and wastewater services vary significantly across OECD countries with a bathtub of water in Denmark and Scotland costing as much as 10 times more than in Mexico while Irish households pay no direct fees for water.
Water bill increases over the last decade were primarily driven by higher wastewater charges to cover the costs of investment in environmentally sound treatment and disposal.
Waste is costly
In many OECD countries it now costs more to get rid of wastewater than to bring in drinking water.
"Balancing financial, environmental and social objectives in water pricing policies remains a challenge in most OECD countries," said OECD.
For example, people on low-incomes in Hungary and Mexico sometimes pay over 4 percent of their disposable income on water and wastewater services.
Today agriculture uses more water than households and industry put together - about 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals.
A study on Sustainable Management of Water Resources in Agriculture shows that while agricultural water consumption decreased in some countries, especially in Eastern Europe, some OECD countries such as Turkey, New Zealand, Greece and Korea recorded large increases since the 1990s.
With agricultural production projected to double by 2050 to feed the growing world population, farmers will need to improve water efficiency.
Farmers must pay their share
The report suggests that farmers should pay not only the operation and maintenance costs for water but also their fair share of the capital costs of water infrastructure.
In areas where the price of agriculture water has increased, agricultural production has not fallen - Australia managed to cut irrigation water use by half without loss of output.
Also, uptake of existing water-saving irrigation techniques in China and India, both large agriculture water users, is expected to help check the global agricultural water use to 2050.
Government subsidies for agricultural production can encourage wasteful water use and pollution.
The study on Sustainable Management of Water Resources in Agriculture says that in some countries lower agricultural subsidies, including for water and energy, are making farms cleaner and more efficient.
In addition, the report notes, agriculture must adopt long-term strategies to improve water usage, planting crop varieties resistant to droughts or floods resulting from climate change.
http://business.iafrica.com/news/2307820.htm
Globally 1 billion people lack access to safe water supplies and 2.6 billion are without access to basic sanitation.
"It would be money well spent - saving lives and reaping benefits of 5 to 10 times the initial investment," it said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Climate change and over-use of water will mean that nearly one in every two people will live in water-stressed areas by 2030.
Households, industry and agriculture will increasingly compete for water, leaving little to sustain ecosystems.
Infrastructure a priority
In developing countries increasing investment in water and sanitation infrastructure is a priority.
Three new OECD studies show that putting the right price on water will encourage people to waste less, pollute less, and invest more in water infrastructure.
Households and industry in many OECD countries increasingly pay the true cost of the water they consume.
A study on Pricing Water Resources and Water and Sanitation Services shows this is done through tariffs – user prices- which better reflect the actual consumption and treatment costs, including water abstraction and supply as well as treatment of wastewater to avoid pollution.
Tariffs for water and wastewater services vary significantly across OECD countries with a bathtub of water in Denmark and Scotland costing as much as 10 times more than in Mexico while Irish households pay no direct fees for water.
Water bill increases over the last decade were primarily driven by higher wastewater charges to cover the costs of investment in environmentally sound treatment and disposal.
Waste is costly
In many OECD countries it now costs more to get rid of wastewater than to bring in drinking water.
"Balancing financial, environmental and social objectives in water pricing policies remains a challenge in most OECD countries," said OECD.
For example, people on low-incomes in Hungary and Mexico sometimes pay over 4 percent of their disposable income on water and wastewater services.
Today agriculture uses more water than households and industry put together - about 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals.
A study on Sustainable Management of Water Resources in Agriculture shows that while agricultural water consumption decreased in some countries, especially in Eastern Europe, some OECD countries such as Turkey, New Zealand, Greece and Korea recorded large increases since the 1990s.
With agricultural production projected to double by 2050 to feed the growing world population, farmers will need to improve water efficiency.
Farmers must pay their share
The report suggests that farmers should pay not only the operation and maintenance costs for water but also their fair share of the capital costs of water infrastructure.
In areas where the price of agriculture water has increased, agricultural production has not fallen - Australia managed to cut irrigation water use by half without loss of output.
Also, uptake of existing water-saving irrigation techniques in China and India, both large agriculture water users, is expected to help check the global agricultural water use to 2050.
Government subsidies for agricultural production can encourage wasteful water use and pollution.
The study on Sustainable Management of Water Resources in Agriculture says that in some countries lower agricultural subsidies, including for water and energy, are making farms cleaner and more efficient.
In addition, the report notes, agriculture must adopt long-term strategies to improve water usage, planting crop varieties resistant to droughts or floods resulting from climate change.
http://business.iafrica.com/news/2307820.htm
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Water Cycle: Freshwater Storage
One part of the water cycle that is obviously essential to all life on Earth is the freshwater existing on the land surface. Just ask your neighbor, a tomato plant, a trout, or that pesky mosquito. Surface water includes the streams (of all sizes, from large rivers to small creeks), ponds, lakes, reservoirs and canals (man-made lakes and streams), and freshwater wetlands. The definition of freshwater is water containing less than 1,000 milligrams per liter of dissolved solids, most often salt.
As a part of the water cycle, Earth's surface-water bodies are generally thought of as renewable resources, although they are very dependent on other parts of the water cycle. The amount of water in our rivers and lakes is always changing due to inflows and outflows. Inflows to these water bodies will be from precipitation, overland runoff, ground-water seepage, and tributary inflows. Outflows from lakes and rivers include evaporation and discharge to ground water. Humans get into the act also, as people make great use of surface water for their needs. So, the amount and location of surface water changes over time and space, whether naturally or with human help. Certainly during the last ice age when glaciers and snowpacks covered much more land surface than today, life on Earth had to adapt to different hydrologic conditions than those which took place both before and after. And the layout of the landscape certainly was different before and after the last ice age, which influenced the topographical layout of many surface-water bodies today. Glaciers are what made the Great Lakes not only "great, " but also such a huge storehouse of freshwater.
Surface water keeps life going
As this picture of the Nile Delta in Egypt shows, life can even bloom in the desert if there is a supply of surface water (or ground water) available. Water on the land surface really does sustain life, and this is as true today as it was millions of years ago. I'm sure dinosaurs held their meetings at the local watering hole 100 million years ago, just as antelopes in Africa do today. And, since ground water is supplied by the downward percolation of surface water, even aquifers are happy for water on the Earth's surface. You might think that fish living in the saline oceans aren't affected by freshwater, but, without freshwater to replenish the oceans they would eventually evaporate and become too saline for even the fish to survive.
As we said, everybody and every living thing congregates and lives where they can gain access to water, especially freshwater. Just ask the 6 billion people living on Earth! Here's a satellite picture of the Mediterranean region during night (the full picture of the Earth is available from NASA). The most obvious thing you can see is that people live near the coasts, which, of course, is where water, albeit saline, is located. But the interesting thing in this picture are the lights following the Nile River and Nile Delta in Egypt ( the circled area). In this dry part of the world, surface-water supplies are essential for human communities. And if you check the price of lakefront property in your part of the world, it probably sells for much more than other land.
Usable fresh surface water is relatively scarce
To many people, streams and lakes are the most visible part of the water cycle. Not only do they supply the human population, animals, and plants with the freshwater they need to survive, but they are great places for people to have fun. You might be surprised at how little of Earth's water supply is stored as freshwater on the land surface, as shown in the diagram and table below. Freshwater represents only about three percent of all water on Earth and freshwater lakes and swamps account for a mere 0.29 percent of the Earth's freshwater. Twenty percent of all fresh surface water is in one lake, Lake Baikal in Asia. Another twenty percent (about 5,500 cubic miles (about 23,000 cubic kilometers)) is stored in the Great Lakes. Rivers hold only about 0.006 percent of total freshwater reserves. You can see that life on Earth survives on what is essentially only a "drop in the bucket" of Earth's total water supply! People have built systems, such as large reservoirs and small water towers (like this one in South Carolina, created to blend in with the peach trees surrounding it) to store water for when they need it. These systems allow people to live in places where nature doesn't always supply enough water or where water is not available at the time of year it is needed.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclefreshstorage.html
As a part of the water cycle, Earth's surface-water bodies are generally thought of as renewable resources, although they are very dependent on other parts of the water cycle. The amount of water in our rivers and lakes is always changing due to inflows and outflows. Inflows to these water bodies will be from precipitation, overland runoff, ground-water seepage, and tributary inflows. Outflows from lakes and rivers include evaporation and discharge to ground water. Humans get into the act also, as people make great use of surface water for their needs. So, the amount and location of surface water changes over time and space, whether naturally or with human help. Certainly during the last ice age when glaciers and snowpacks covered much more land surface than today, life on Earth had to adapt to different hydrologic conditions than those which took place both before and after. And the layout of the landscape certainly was different before and after the last ice age, which influenced the topographical layout of many surface-water bodies today. Glaciers are what made the Great Lakes not only "great, " but also such a huge storehouse of freshwater.
Surface water keeps life going
As this picture of the Nile Delta in Egypt shows, life can even bloom in the desert if there is a supply of surface water (or ground water) available. Water on the land surface really does sustain life, and this is as true today as it was millions of years ago. I'm sure dinosaurs held their meetings at the local watering hole 100 million years ago, just as antelopes in Africa do today. And, since ground water is supplied by the downward percolation of surface water, even aquifers are happy for water on the Earth's surface. You might think that fish living in the saline oceans aren't affected by freshwater, but, without freshwater to replenish the oceans they would eventually evaporate and become too saline for even the fish to survive.
As we said, everybody and every living thing congregates and lives where they can gain access to water, especially freshwater. Just ask the 6 billion people living on Earth! Here's a satellite picture of the Mediterranean region during night (the full picture of the Earth is available from NASA). The most obvious thing you can see is that people live near the coasts, which, of course, is where water, albeit saline, is located. But the interesting thing in this picture are the lights following the Nile River and Nile Delta in Egypt ( the circled area). In this dry part of the world, surface-water supplies are essential for human communities. And if you check the price of lakefront property in your part of the world, it probably sells for much more than other land.
Usable fresh surface water is relatively scarce
To many people, streams and lakes are the most visible part of the water cycle. Not only do they supply the human population, animals, and plants with the freshwater they need to survive, but they are great places for people to have fun. You might be surprised at how little of Earth's water supply is stored as freshwater on the land surface, as shown in the diagram and table below. Freshwater represents only about three percent of all water on Earth and freshwater lakes and swamps account for a mere 0.29 percent of the Earth's freshwater. Twenty percent of all fresh surface water is in one lake, Lake Baikal in Asia. Another twenty percent (about 5,500 cubic miles (about 23,000 cubic kilometers)) is stored in the Great Lakes. Rivers hold only about 0.006 percent of total freshwater reserves. You can see that life on Earth survives on what is essentially only a "drop in the bucket" of Earth's total water supply! People have built systems, such as large reservoirs and small water towers (like this one in South Carolina, created to blend in with the peach trees surrounding it) to store water for when they need it. These systems allow people to live in places where nature doesn't always supply enough water or where water is not available at the time of year it is needed.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclefreshstorage.html
Friday, March 5, 2010
Bills offered in Congress to protect Great Lakes
Measures ask for $3B in federal funding over five years for cleanup, battling invasive species
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Great Lakes environmental priorities such as toxic sediment cleanups and battling invasive species could get more than $3 billion in federal money over five years under bills offered Thursday in Congress.
Identical measures introduced in the House and Senate would authorize Congress to meet — and even exceed — President Barack Obama's funding requests to help repair the nation's largest surface freshwater system, ravaged by more than a century of industrial-era abuses.
"The Great Lakes are a unique American treasure," said Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and a sponsor of the Senate version. "Nearly a tenth of our population lives in the Great Lakes basin, relying on the life-sustaining drinking water the lakes provide, and reaping economic and recreational benefits from them daily."
Even if the bills are enacted, they won't guarantee all the proposed funding. Congress votes yearly on appropriation measures that determine how much is spent on particular programs.
But the legislation would help continue momentum toward a comprehensive Great Lakes restoration proposed in 2005 by government agencies, scientists and advocates. The plan received little funding until Obama requested — and Congress approved — $475 million in the 2010 budget.
"It shows that Congress is treating the lakes as a national priority," said Jeff Skelding, campaign director for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.
Administration officials last month released a strategy for beginning to carry out the restoration, which could take decades to complete. Obama's plan would spend $2.2 billion over five years, including $300 million in 2011.
The congressional bills would boost next year's funding to $475 million and authorize additional money for removing contaminated sediments from tributary rivers and harbors. They also propose $25 million a year to run the Environmental Protection Agency's Great Lakes Program Office.
Altogether, the bills seek $650 million annually, or $3.25 billion over five years.
"The Great Lakes represent 20 percent of the world's fresh water supply, and it is about time we put some serious effort into restoring and protecting them," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat and one of the House version's sponsors.
Aside from cleaning up some of the region's most polluted sites, the bills would restore wetlands and other fish and wildlife habitat, reduce runoff pollution that causes nuisance algae blooms, and help fend off invasions by foreign species such as the notorious Asian carp.
Exotic species already in the lakes, such as zebra and quagga mussels, cause more than $200 million a year in damages and control costs.
Environmental groups urged Congress to approve the bills despite the tight federal budget, saying the cost of healing the lakes would only go up.
"It's going to take a sustained, multi-year effort to nurse the Great Lakes back to health," Skelding said.
http://www.htrnews.com/article/20100305/MAN0101/3050589/1358&located=rss
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