Tag: water

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Thought Matters Publishes Excerpt of Hot, Hungry Planet

Thought Matters, an idea exchange for the highly opinionated, published an excerpt of Hot, Hungry Planet recently.

Here’s how the chapter on California and Syria: A Tale of Two Droughts begins:

In the late spring of 2014, while covering food sustainability at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Foods Institute, I took a trip to the Carmel Valley farm stand run by Earth-bound Farm. Earthbound Farm is the largest organic farming operation in the United States. It cultivates about 50,000 acres of produce, and I spent the morning walking in a small demonstration garden that was nothing short of paradise. Everything was a verdant green. Yet just beyond the farm, where the Carmel Mountains meet the horizon, was dry scrub and pale brown grass, a truer reflection of this parched land. The Golden State, which got its name from the grasses that turn a shade of palomino blond in summer, then green up again during the fall and spring rains, was looking more like the Brown State.

As California’s drought dragged into the next year, I couldn’t shake the sense of a crisis brewing in Carmel Valley. I was also hearing reports of conflict over water in war-torn Syria. I wondered, could water conflict on that scale ever occur here? I couldn’t blame Earthbound’s owners for choosing this idyllic spot, or other farmers for choosing any other location along California’s central coast, where morning fog moistens the otherwise dry landscape. When the founders of the farm first started growing raspberries on two and a half acres, they didn’t imagine it would expand to become America’s largest organic producer of salad greens and vegetables. But Earthbound’s growth was only one among the more recent in decades of farming expansion all across California, and especially the nearby Central Valley, since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Through the magic of irrigation, these farmers had made a desert bloom.

While Earthbound’s leafy expanse appeared intact, agriculture is in jeopardy throughout California and other western states. A 2015 investigation in ProPublica reported that California’s drought is part of a much bigger water cri-sis that is killing the Colorado River, “the victim of legally sanctioned overuse, the relentless forces of urban growth, willful ignorance among policymakers, and a misplaced confidence in human ingenuity.” Climate change will only exacerbate the problem.

Continue reading on Thought Matters and to buy your copy of Hot, Hungry Planet, please go here.

http://www.thoughtmatters.co/2017/05/hot-hungry-planet/

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The New Republic Publishes My Latest Essay “One Meal A Day”

My latest essay, “One Meal A Day,” appears in the July issue of the New Republic.

Featuring photographs by Chris De Bode, One Meal A Day,” spotlights the hardships faced by refugees who have fled to Cameroon because of climate change and Boko Haram. Constant drought, combined with government limits on farming designed to deter insurgents, have led to mass starvation in the region. “These images do not ask us to look into their eyes and see ourselves,” I write. “They ask us to look at the emptiness of their bowls and reflect on the fullness of our own. We see their hunger through what little they have. We measure their suffering in the most universal unit of all: a single meal.”

For the complete story, please see the July issue of the New Republic.

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Can Ecologists and Engineers Work Together to Harness Water For The Future?

800px-Pangani_River1

The Pangani River in Tanzania is important for many reasons: its three major dams provide 17 percent of the country’s electricity; it sustains thousands of farmers and herders living in the basin; and its flow of fresh water supports humans, industry, and ecosystems. But most interesting might be the innovative water policies that govern withdrawals, infrastructure projects, and ecosystems along its banks.

800px-PanganirivermapClimate change and population dynamics could cause trouble for the Pangani Basin and many others like it. More people are expected to depend on the flow of fresh water while at the same time rainfall and glacial meltwater from Mt. Meru, Mt. Pare, and Mt. Kilimanjaro are diminishing.

Around the world, water managers are adjusting to a similar quandary. Precipitation patterns and river flows are becoming more uncertain as the past is no longer a reliable guide for the future. Planners are adjusting to changes in the water cycle by integrating policies with flexible structures and ecosystems.

Flexibility Over Scale

In the November 2014 issue of Nature Climate Change, I wrote about how leaders in sustainable water management are finding common ground with two historically antagonistic approaches: engineering and ecology.

I talked with Mark Fletcher, a water engineer and the water business leader at UK-based Arup, a global company of consulting engineers with 14,000 employees. Modular is one way to describe his brand of sustainable water work.

“We had assumed that the world was static,” Fletcher told me. “We knew that the climate was predictable. Due to climate change or due to a changing climate, it is harder to predict things. So rather than build overly conservative monolithic solutions, we now design systems that can be tweaked and twiddled.”

A good example is osmosis desalination. “You literally stack desalination units, much like you would batteries, until you solve your problem,” he said.

From Fletcher’s perspective, the world has no need for more Hoover Dams, given the uncertainty around the global water cycle of the future. I write:

Fletcher favors natural solutions. In New York City, for example, new plans for city orchards and 9,000 grassed bio-swales, which resemble marshy depressions in the land, will slow the flow of storm water from sidewalks to water catchment basins. “Think of them as green sponges all over the city. The water gets soaked up and you avoid pumping every time it rains,” he says. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.” Furthermore, rather than design water treatment plants that can accommodate extreme rainfall, he prefers multiple local responses that can be changed and adapted, much in the way that a Lego building block is removed and added.

Fletcher suggests that the solution to water management under climate change is beyond engineering. That’s why ecologists John Matthews, coordinator of the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation, and LeRoy Poff, a professor at Colorado State University, have been leading a team of 27 researchers at the U.S. National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center in Maryland. The team includes economists, hydrologists, policymakers, and engineers. Climate change, they say, has prompted the researchers to work together on an integrated approach to freshwater adaptation. Rather than isolating water management issues within a single field, such as engineering or hydrology, the team’s multifaceted work is developing solutions for decision-makers. Think of their combined work as a chemical reaction. Instead of one element, such as engineering, working in seclusion on a freshwater adaptation project, their form of synthesis science means suddenly more ingredients are added to the beaker.

The research team that Matthews and Poff lead identifies markers of resilience of both infrastructure and ecosystems in basins. They are using the analysis so that ecological principles are incorporated into future water management projects from the very beginning.

Resilience markers include variation of flow, seasonal and temperature changes, and connections to flood plains, for instance. The specific indicators vary from river to river, but the principles remain the same.

Matthews says that the Dujiangyan system in China’s Sichuan Province is a model for integrating policies with engineering and ecology in a sustainable way. Built in 256 BC, the water diversion system still operates today.

According to Kathleen Dominique, an environmental economist at OECD, flexible approaches are necessary to adjust to changing conditions at low cost.

For the Pangani Basin, leaders have established ecosystems as a priority, keeping river flow available to wetlands, riparian forests, and mangroves, and the plan is to adjust water policies with the changing needs of communities. Similarly, the European Union’s water directive is now adjusted every six years to examine all changes and uses of rivers, not only those related to climate change.

For a deeper look at how people are working to become more resilient, improve water security, and preserve ecosystems by incorporating ecological principles into water management, read the complete article in Nature Climate Change.

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Water: The Next Sustainability Bombshell

Oil might hog the headlines, but many experts believe water is the commodity that’s particularly bad for consumer goods groups.

When brewing giant SABMiller tentatively released its “blue sky” plans in 2010 for a floating brewery that could be towed from port to port depending on where water was most plentiful, the business press immediately leaped on the idea of a “beer ship.” Many dismissed it as fanciful, or a publicity stunt. But what SABMiller and other multinationals have realized is that water scarcity is becoming business critical. Restricted access to water, or higher costs to use it, is every bit as vital to their future planning as the better-known issues surrounding oil.

The Water Resources Group, an industry body, says water supply will fall by 40 percent globally before 2030. Even allowing for a margin of error, that has profound implications. The drinks industry is a visible and intensive user of water, but others are equally at risk — food and consumer goods manufacturers are also heavy water users, and any industry which relies on silicon chips or paper-based products will face a similar chain reaction. Little wonder Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has mate water the company’s sustainability priority and said in 2008: “I am convinced that if we carry on as we are, we will run out of water before we run out of oil.”

“We all know water is both abundant and scarce. It covers about 75 percent of the earth’s surface, both in liquid and frozen form, but only around three percent of this water is fresh and able to be used,” says Jo Beatty, a Director in KPMG’s Climate Change and Sustainaiblity practice in the US. Growing populations, rapid industrialization and climate change form a triumvirate of pressures on water’s future.

Water is a global concern, yet its impacts are local. Beatty lists them as: physical risks, such as reduced water availability and quality; regulatory risks from increased standards and licensing requirements for water abstraction, qualilty, reuse and recycling, and waste water discharge; and reputational risks, including opposition to local water withdrawals and discharges.

“One reason that the issue of water goes unexamined by many leadership teams is that water is low cost. But while it may be cheap, that in itself represents a risk,” said Dr. Nick Wood, associate director with KPMG’s Climate Change and Sustainability practice in Australia. “When we do our water strategy work we turn this around. Where water supplies are at risk, we examine costs associated with alternative sources of water.”

Wood said companies are beginning to understand that the water value supply chain is full of blind spots and market failures. “Water has not been subject to strategic thinking by users or transparent economic planning by governments. The result? It may be cheap, but it can run out. Its price is not its value.”

No single business sector is exempt from the risk of water scarcity. Neither is any region. While many countries in the Middle East have spent heavily on desalination, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says the situation is “critical” in India, Australia and South Africa.

Barton Alexander, Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer at Molson Coors, says water issues affect his business across the world. And the amount of water used is only part of the equation. He points to his cotton shirt as an example. “How much water is in this? Do you care where it came from? Was the cotton grown in an area where the water came from natural rainfall, or was it grown where the water was pulled out of the ground for irrigation in an area where then people have less access to water?”

While Alexander says Molson Coors always strives for increased water efficiency, other factors make sustainability decisions complex. A facility in Canada recently changed the way it washes returnable bottles. The company found it was more energy efficient to use cold water in the new process, but this also meant more water was used. “We had to think about which was more important: energy savings or water use. There was adequate supply so we went with the cold water process and reduced our carbon footprint,” Alexander said.

A strategic focus is the best way to tackle the issue, says Wood. “Many companies tell us that they use four liters of water to make one liter of drink, But they can’t say whether the fruit providers, dairy farmers, or hop growers will be able to provide them with raw materials or even be in business next year,” said Wood.

Wood recommends conducting a water risk management right across the supply chain, factoring it into risk management and continuity planning. The results can be illuminating — and alarming. The Water Footprint Network estimates that the full life cycle of a glass of apple juice includes 190 liters of water, while a T-shirt uses 2,700 liters. Such estimates are open to question, but there is little doubt that intensive production processes, including industrial agriculture, are a major drain on water resources.

Suhas Apte, Vice President of Global Sustainability at Kimberley-Clark, wrestles with water on a daily basis. He says the company has used a variety of methods for assessing the impact of water scarcity, including a conservation program and a global risk assessment which included suppliers. “We extended the risk assessment to provide a multi-criteria analysis that brings in a number of factors such as reputational risk, water efficiency, population access to water and sanitation, regulatory risk, and future risks,” he said.

Kimberly-Clark’s sustainability team also led a water life cycle assessment on its toilet tissue brands. “It revealed that 75 percent of water use was due to toilet flushing in the home,” Apte said. The company launched a SmartFlush device which saves up to one liter of water per flush.

KPMG member firms across the globe work with clients to conduct water risk assessments for their operations and supply chains, but most of the emphasis is on identifying the metrics companies need for strategic planning: “Companies should understand the real value of water and the associated economics that impact the company. These include capital investments for new or retrofitted infrastructure and added operational costs for supply, treatment and disposal,” said Beatty.

Developing economies are wrestling with complex supply chain issues. In some areas, the local population may lack access to clean water. PepsiCo is one of a number of multinationals to formally recognize the “human right to water.” Others, says Beatty, may decide not to relocate or expand manufacturing operations in areas which could face future water issues.

There is still hope. Beatty says far-sighted companies can both improve water resources in their local communities, and adopt a “catchment” approach to water use that engages both upstream and downstream use. Those who see water as the “new oil” should consider the reality: some of the finest scientific minds are working to develop viable alternatives to oil. There is no substitute in the pipeline for H20.

This article was first published in the April 2011 issue of Consumer Currents and is copyrighted.

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Ice Flows: What do 28,000 time-lapse photos tell us about glaciers?

Colorado-based photographer-adventurer James Balog, of the Extreme Ice Survey, is working on a new series of time-lapse images of the ice and glaciers on Mount Everest. In my recent story for Slate, I obtained exclusive use of some of the earliest images from the project, including a video of the Khumbu Icefall, one of the most dramatic areas of glacial change over the past 50 years. The movement of glaciers is subtle to the human eye. But with time-lapse photography, Balog can compress nine months into 10 seconds and make glacial change patently visible.

Glaciers move at, well, a glacial pace. But in recent decades, ice has been disappearing from the Arctic and mountain ranges at a shocking rate. Ice that formed over centuries is now melting in a matter of years or months, contributing to rising sea levels and profoundly altering hydrologic cycles and water supplies to regions that rely on glaciers for their water source. Still, the movement is so gradual that its scale is invisible to the casual observer. So how do you communicate the rapid melting of glaciers to nonscientists? Forget graphs, charts, and ice core measurements. Bring in time-lapse photography, a technique to compress a massive number of sequential photographs, taken at set intervals, into what looks like a sped-up video. James Balog, pictured to the right, is the founder and director of the Extreme Ice Survey, a spectacular set of time-lapse images chronicling glacial movement—the largest project of its kind. Here, Balog stands near Alaska’s Columbia Glacier, which moves at 50 feet per day, or eight times faster than it did 30 years ago.

Click here to read my slide show essay in Slate on the Extreme Ice Survey.

(Photo courtesy of Extreme Ice Survey.)