Water poverty has a lot to do with health beyond the primary need to drink a couple of liters a day. Perhaps most consequentially, research shows that children exposed to lead can suffer developmental delays and brain damage. Rosinger also found that people who avoid tap water are more likely to drink sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs, in public health parlance). This alternative ups their risk for obesity, diabetes and other diet-related diseases, with the implications most long-lasting for children.
re-thinking water and food security ||
Flint is just one in a long line of high-poverty communities now recognized for catastrophically unsafe water infrastructure. The city has a 29 percent food insecurity rate among its majority-Black population. In rural McDowell County, West Virginia, which will receive federal assistance to pilot wastewater infrastructure improvements, almost 32 percent of its (majority white) residents live below the federal poverty line. Century-old pipes, in some cases made of wood, bring in water so foul that residents capture creek water and store it in tanks. The most requested item at a local food bank? Bottled water.
The Environmental Protection Agency offers grants to help disadvantaged communities fund drinking water projects, test for lead and conduct remediation in schools. Some states, like New York, offer assistance paying overdue water bills.
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Achieving food security in Africa is a critical issue, even as efforts are stymied by drought, floods, pestilence and more. To these natural disasters, we can add the challenge of a changing climate that is predicted to hit Africa disproportionately hard.
As delegates deliberate at World Water Week, I hope the blue and placid waters of Lake Mälaren will serve as an inspiration for launching the next generation of projects and programs that will spread irrigation to the farthest corners of Africa. I hope, too, that participants will learn more than they thought possible about the critical link between water and food security and commit themselves to improving irrigation to benefit people, boost production, and protect the environment.
Dear Mr Kamkwalala,we agree absolutely with your thoughts. and would like to inform you about a small project we realise in Mali to increase vegetable production with solarpumps and dripirrigation to increase also incomes of small farmers. Please send us your emailadress and we will provide you with more informations.If we can multiply this project with WB's support, we will be able to improve resilience of many people in Africa against various crisis , improve foodsecurity and mitigate and adapt to effects of climate change....thanks and best regards
Maybe I'm being dis-lexic, but maybe it is food security rather than the role of irrigation in Africa that needs rethinking. Are the choices I Need Love's Tap Tap Tap and Chicago Bull's Swooosh? Have the security help with building water wells and canals instead of bouncing.
Watering your landscape with an irrigation system is the most effective way of maintaining a green, lush garden, and at the same time ensuring that your do not waste water. A sprinkler system ensures that all the plants in your garden receive the desired amount of water, and again maintaining water usage.
Irrigation systems are widely used by farmers for their crops and harvests as their vast plantations need a thorough watering to ensure that even the tiniest roots get the water it needs in order to sprout and produce the desired product at the end of the day.
All in all, at the end of the day, nothing or no one can live without water and we have discovered many different ways of spraying it all over the landscapes. Due to our on and off water scarcities, we ensure that when we install any irrigation system, that the water usage is to a minimum and no drop is wasted.
Yet, due to the rapidly changing times we are currently immersed in, the lifespan ofconcepts and paradigms is also put to the test more qUickly. According to Kuhn (1962),scientific progress is the result of 'development by accumulation', i.e. when normal scienceis interrupted by periods of revolutionary science. The IWRM paradigm is therefore in astate of flux (GWP, 2012; L6pez-Gunn et aI., 2013). This chapter aims to identify newtrends and directions, as well as potential changes in its conceptual basis, particularlyfrom fast-emerging complementary concepts such as water security (GWP /TAC, 2000;Grey and Sadoff, 2007; Pochat, 2008; GWP, 2010; Cook and Bakker, 2012; UNWater, 2013) analysed in Chapter 6. Along these lines, are there enough anomalies in theIWRM paradigm to warrant major changes? This chapter will argue that in order to 'speedup' the implementation of IWRM it is fundamental to ask new questions about its maintenets. The chapter analyses and evaluates the main ingredients of the IWRM paradigm,looking at a) the integration of resources, b) of sectors and c) across organizations. IWRMacquires real added value once a series of clear and specific policy goals are set, e.g.those provided by water security or the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)on water (Sachs, 201 2) that in 2015 will effectively replace the merely target-orientedMillennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Current information on how the communities which depend on water from mountain snow and ice will be affected by climate change is limited, according to new research published in Nature Sustainability.
The study, led by Imperial College London, University of Birmingham, University of Zurich, the British Geological Survey and Pontifical Catholic University of Peru along with local partners, suggests this lack of integrated water security knowledge is due to poor understanding of what happens 'beyond the cryosphere' -- that is the contribution from water sources other than frozen water such as hillslopes, wetlands, and groundwater.
Emerging research is showing that the effects of global warming and climate change is enhanced in mountainous areas. Glacier-related disasters such as ice avalanches and glacial lake outburst floods are becoming more commonplace, but there are serious and life-threatening implications for the millions of people who depend on mountain water supply.
In the new study,the researchers described huge gaps in available data on how communities use water from glaciers and mountain snow in combination with other water sources. The picture is especially difficult to construct because of complex mountain landscapes, localised weather systems and a low density of data station records.
Low uptake of new monitoring technologies and approaches, particularly in lower income countries with limited institutional capacities, is hampering further our understanding of high-altitude data sparse regions. These make it hard to create models that can be scaled up across watersheds with accuracy.
Beyond these factors, the picture is further complicated by uncertainties about future water needs. Information on population growth and likely adaptation to water security threats is limited, as are data on the future expansion of irrigated agriculture and hydropower, all of which will have substantial impact on water access and allocation.
Professor David Hannah, UNESCO Chair in Water Sciences at the University of Birmingham, said: "In mountains, there are complex interconnections between the cryosphere and other water sources, as well as with humans. We need to identify the gaps in our understanding and rethink strategies for water security in the context of climate change adaptation and shifting human needs."
Lead author Dr Fabian Drenkhan, who undertook the work while at Imperial and now works at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, said: "The future is likely to lead to a more variable water supply and growing water demand, which is a real threat to water security in many mountain regions. Our current incomplete picture is hampering the design and implementation of effective climate change adaptation. A holistic perspective based on improved data and process understanding is urgently needed to guide robust, locally tailored adaptation approaches in view of increasingly adverse impacts from climate change and other human interferences."
Senior author Professor Wouter Buytaert of Imperial, who developed the original research concept for this work, said: "Our study highlights the need for scientists to work on the ground with stakeholders. A thorough understanding of the local water security context is essential to co-produce integrated local and scientific knowledge that can support local water management decisions and adaptation strategies." 2ff7e9595c
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