water
lborkowski | April 14, 2014The Washington Post's After the Wars series offers an in-depth look at the challenges facing veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. This past week, it's featured Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "The Other Wounds," about veterans' injuries and illnesses that aren't the direct results of enemy attacks, and Stephanie McCrummen's "The Choice," about one of the difficult decisions facing survivors of military sexual assault.
An unprecedented release of Medicare data has allowed for a lot of reporting on how much Medicare pays physicians; Puneet Kollipara rounds up several articles in Wonbook. Two…
pgleick | April 9, 2014California, and much of the southwestern US, is in a severe drought. Again.
And as appropriate, there is growing debate about what we, as citizens, communities, corporations, and governments should do to tackle water shortages and the bigger question of sustainable water policy. Suggestions range from the large-scale and comprehensive (build more dams, transfer more water from farther and farther away, rethink the entire agricultural sector, use high-quality treated wastewater to meet certain needs) to the small-scale and local (replace your lawns and inefficient water-using fixtures, stop…
lborkowski | March 21, 2014Tomorrow, March 22nd, is World Water Day, and this year's theme is Water and Energy. UN's World Water Day website explains why:
Water and energy are closely interlinked and interdependent. Energy generation and transmission requires utilization of water resources, particularly for hydroelectric, nuclear, and thermal energy sources.
Conversely, about 8% of the global energy generation is used for pumping, treating and transporting water to various consumers. In 2014, the UN is bringing its attention to the water-energy nexus, particularly addressing inequities, especially for the 'bottom…
pgleick | March 6, 2014In the last few months, as the severe California drought has garnered attention among scientists, policymakers, and media, there has been a growing debate about the links between the drought and climate change. The debate has been marked by considerable controversy, confusion, and opaqueness.
The confusion stems from the failure of some scientists, bloggers, reporters, and others to distinguish among three separate questions. All three questions are scientifically interesting. But the three are different in their nuance, their importance to policy, and their interest to politicians and water…
egrossman | February 25, 2014On January 9, 2014 a leak was reported at Freedom Industries’ storage tanks on the banks of the Elk River just upstream of a water treatment plant that services tap water for about 300,000 residents in and around Charleston, West Virginia. The resulting release of at least 10,000 gallons of toxic chemicals used to clean coal contaminated the community’s water supply, making it unfit for use. More than a month later, it remains unclear if this water is truly safe to drink and what the health consequences of exposure to these chemicals may be.
But this is far from the only disastrous toxic…
pgleick | February 20, 2014We’ve entered a new era: politicians can now talk loud and clear about the reality of human-induced climate change and the growing threats to humanity. With strong, unambiguous statements by President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, and a growing chorus of other top-level voices, the wholesale denial of climate science is increasingly relegated to a tiny group of industry-funded voices and their followers (directly mirroring the tobacco story decades ago); confused or ignorant politicians; and those who hope to avoid the difficult policy discussions by…
pgleick | February 5, 2014
It is time to recognize the serious California drought for what it is: a bellwether of things to come; a harbinger of even more serious challenges to California water resources allocation, management, and use.
The drought could end next month. It could go on for more years. But it will not be the last drought and it is vital that we take the opportunity -- amidst the serious problems farmers, cities, and the environment all face -- to rethink those aspects of California water policy created in the 1900s and 2000s that no longer make sense in the 21st century.
We must also consider this…
pgleick | January 16, 2014 Figure 1: Monthly average precipitation showing the seasonality of precipitation in different parts of California, from the iconic California Water Atlas.
California has a “Mediterranean” climate, which means that each year it has a concentrated rainy season, followed by a long temperate and dry period. California’s rainy season typically runs from early October to late March, with very little precipitation outside of these months. (Figure 1 shows the average monthly rainfall for California.) It is now early 2014 and the rains have not come, for the third year in a row. While the …
Let's not call it a "spill," thousands of gallons of MCHM in water supply of 300,000 West Virginians
cmonforton | January 13, 2014When a glass of milk tips over, that's a spill. When thousands of gallons of a chemical used to separate coal from rock, flows into the source water of 300,000 West Virginia residents, it is not a spill, it's a public health emergency.
Headlines from this weekend's Charleston (WV) Gazette describe the story on the ground:
"State ignored plan for tougher chemical oversight" (here)
"Wasn't there a plan?" (here)
"What is 'Crude MCHM'? Few know" (here)
"Crisis pulls back curtain on water threats" (here)
"Water being given out in many locations, updated list" (here)
"Without water, soup…
dr. dolittle | January 8, 2014 Frog with an extra foot. Image from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Image of a frog with a missing leg from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Since 1995 deformed frogs have been turning up. Call them the canaries in the coal mine for environmental health. Frogs are showing signs of some kind of stress.
So is it a parasite? Pollution? A natural phenomenon? Cannibalism? Fungus? Ultraviolet light? Something in the water?
Video from YouTube
The tap water data referred to in the video in which they placed embryos in tap water collected from different sites in Minnesota…
pgleick | December 3, 2013Water policy and water problems always seem to be someone else’s responsibility. Those farmers who use all the water; the guy down the street who lets his sprinklers run all over the sidewalk; the Central Valley cities that don’t even have water meters; the environmentalists who are demanding water for some inconsequential fish we can’t even eat; those swimming pool owners in hot Los Angeles.
The reality, of course, is that water problems belong to all of us. We all contribute in various ways through our choices of appliances, or diets, or Congressional representatives, or gardens. And every…
pgleick | November 7, 2013In the 20th century, water policy seemed easy: figure out another source of water to satisfy some projected demand, and find the money to build it. The money was almost always federal “pork barrel” funding for big water projects, or occasionally state bond financing. The vast number of dams built in the United States (see the figure) is an indication of how extensively this approach was used. But the leveling off of the curve below also shows that traditional dam construction can no longer be considered the only solution to our water problems. Moreover, most major water projects were designed…
pgleick | October 14, 2013Snow. Glaciers. Icecaps, River flows. All of these are vulnerable to climate change, especially rising temperature. This isn't just theory. It’s now observable fact.
Scientists worry about the growing threat of climate change because the global climate is tied to everything that society cares about: human and environmental health, food and industrial production, water availability, extreme events, and more. Figuring out how all these pieces tie together is difficult. And many of us, from scientists to the public to policy makers, have only a partial understanding of the true implications of…
esiegel | October 5, 2013“Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he's carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you're drunk.” -Jack Handy
The diversity of the world's animals is one of the most fantastic natural marvels that life on Earth has delivered. From the sea to land to the air, there's no shortage of wonders to explore. Today, though, I want to talk to you about one of the most bizarre sights of nature, as the 1989 supergroup Strength in Numbers once played…
pgleick | September 27, 2013The latest in a long series of science summaries on climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just been released. While the report has a massive amount of information in it, related to a wide range of geophysical implications of climate change, here are some of the key water-related findings for precipitation, evaporation, glaciers, ice mass, and more. While many other findings are reported that have hydrologic implications (such as all the findings related to temperature and warming), I have not usually included them here. Definitions of the confidence of…
dr. dolittle | September 9, 2013You have to see this to believe it. This video from CNN shows how a 31-pound cat is losing weight by walking on an underwater treadmill.
I wonder how they were able to get this cat to even stay in the water. I think my cat would lose more weight in the process of fighting to stay out of the water. I would also have to buy A LOT of bandaids before attempting it. In fact, I am pretty sure the cat in this YouTube video "saying no" to a bath is a close relative of my cat:
pgleick | August 19, 2013
Dropping water levels in Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam. (Source: Peter Gleick 2013)
It is no surprise, of course, that the western United States is dry. The entire history of the West can be told (and has been, in great books like Cadillac Desert [Reisner] and Rivers of Empire [Worster] and The Great Thirst [Hundley]) in large part through the story of the hydrology of the West, the role of the federal and state governments in developing water infrastructure, the evidence of droughts and floods on the land, and the politics of water allocations and use.
But the story of water in the West…
milhayser | August 12, 2013Water may be the most abundant molecule on the surface of the Earth, but more than 99% of it is frozen, underground, or too salty to drink. Only .007% of the planet's water runs in rivers and lakes, yet this precious amount sustains massive populations worldwide. Agricultural societies have long gone to war over water, and as the Earth's population balloons toward 10 billion, global warming destabilizes weather patterns, and pollution sullies what little is left to count on, the conflicts will only get worse. On Significant Figures, Peter Gleick traces Syria's civil war in part to "drought…
pgleick | June 27, 2013For some time now, proponents of the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” have claimed there was little or no evidence of real risk to groundwater. But as the classic saying goes: “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” of a problem. And the evidence that fracking can contaminate groundwater and drinking water wells is growing stronger with every new study.
As most people now know, fracking is a method for enhancing the production of natural gas (or oil, or geothermal energy wells). Fracking involves injecting fluids -- typically complex mixes of water and…
pgleick | June 20, 2013With Matthew Heberger. This is a version of a post from the blog "Pacific Institute Insights"
How much water is there in America’s rivers, and where is it? Perhaps unsurprisingly, people have little sense of how their local water resources compare in size to other water resources. “Is that a big river? A little river?”
One of us [Gleick] grew up along the Hudson River on the East Coast, and encountered rivers that seemed to be about the same size: the Susquehanna, the Delaware, the Potomac. Anyone living in the West working on water issues becomes more familiar with the Colorado, the…