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It has been informed that Bill Gates would be funding a machine which would be used for converting the waste water of toilet into drinking water. Sarah Haigh from the Manchester University said that the invention would actually help in making the water safer for drinking.
 It is believed that the invention would prove successful especially in the Third World. The researchers noted that the water thus procured from the waste water would be used to provide drinking water in the regions where clean water is not available.
Sarah Haigh was reported as saying, “There has been a lot of research into biofuels. There is a lot of energy already present in human waste. Nano-scale materials mean that you can harvest the hydrogen and turn it into hydrozene – which is basically rocket fuel”.
The sewerage water would not only be recycled into drinking water but would also be used for the creation of fuel. Although the revelation has win applause from all over the world, soon critics would be throwing comments upon the whole idea of transferring waste water into drinking water.
However, the researchers working over the machine are least bothered about the critics. It has been informed that the residents of Virginia have been using recycled water since 70s. Besides, Singapore has also invested huge money over the water purification facilities.
It has come to light that one in eight people all over the world doesn’t have the supply of clean water. There is a need to make clean water available to all. The researchers are hopeful that the invention of the machine would ensure adequate supply of drinking water to the regions where clean water is not available.
By: Makomborero Midzi
Source: Newspoint
In 10 years Cape Town’s population has rocketed from 2,9m to 3,7m and it will hit 4,4m in 2020. What is not growing is the city’s already precarious water supply.
 Appeals to save water, and a ban on watering gardens between 10am and 4pm is making little difference “Even in a year of normal rainfall our dams are being drawn down faster than they are filling,” says Jeremy Taylor, founder of water conservation specialist Water Rhapsody. Sharing his view, Peter Johnstone of the University of Cape Town’s Climate Systems Analysis Group (CSA G) warns: “Water supply is falling below demand.”
This, says Taylor, is evident in the level of Cape Town’s six dams, which have fallen despite a 17% increase in total capacity created by the new Berg River Dam in 2009.
The six dams, reports the City of Cape Town, stood at 57,4% of combined capacity on March 19, down from 74% of five dams four years earlier. Dam levels are falling by almost 2%/week as the Western Cape faces its second year of below-average winter rainfall.
“Until the end of May and even into June it appears that the Western Cape will get very little rain,” says Johnstone. The CSAG’s forecast indicates that in March, April and May, rainfall will be 50%-80% of average, while June will see 80%-100% of average.
“Forecasts are tricky, but so far this year, our prediction of below-average rainfall has been accurate,” says Johnstone. He adds that the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research’s Western Cape rainfall forecast to June is in line with the CSAG’s. “If there is no rain by the end of March, the city must act swiftly to curb water use,” he says . Continue reading Cape Town water in danger of running dry
The City of Cape Town’s Scientific Services Branch has isolated and identified an algal species called Melosira in the water of the Molteno Reservoir, and is assuring the public that it poses no medical risk to public health.
 Melosira falls into the class Bacillariophyceae which are diatoms. In drinking water can give the water a grassy or fishy odour Melosira are commonly found in drinking water reservoirs worldwide. The Melosira species belongs to the family of algae called Bacillariophyceae and is a diatom that forms long filaments. They are known for clogging filters in water systems.
The mechanism of the sudden and unexpected bloom of this species in the reservoir is being carefully examined to determine the causal factors so that appropriate corrective and preventative action can be taken.
Molteno Reservoir is a balancing reservoir situated above the city in Oranjezicht and is supplied by a blend of water from the Theewaterskloof, Wemmershoek, Steenbras and Voëlvlei Dams. The algae have not been detected in the incoming water supply. The water level in the reservoir rises at night when the demand in the city area is low and falls during the day while the peak demands prevail. The reservoir is cleaned annually during low demand periods in winter. Continue reading Drinking water algal bloom poses no medical risk
By: Deon Nel – head of the biodiversity unit of WWF South Africa.
With Human Rights Day fresh in our minds, it is appropriate to reflect on the words of the late Kader Asmal, an unrelenting defender of human rights and a former minister of water affairs. Speaking as the patron of WWF South Africa’s Water Balance Programme, Asmal observed that “water runs through our every aspiration as a society”.
 The World Economic Forum ranked a “water supply crisis” as the second most important global risk in its Global Risks 2012 report. Photograph: Mahesh Kumar A/AP Water affects everything we do, both positive and negative. From a governance point of view, this complicates things. To illustrate, some of the most important strategic decisions affecting water – for instance, mining, agriculture, urban planning and energy – are not led by the Department of Water Affairs, which merely plays an administrative role of issuing water licences, often after the fact. Added to this, the minister of mineral resources is currently asking the Constitutional Court to further exempt mining from the normal planning processes that apply to all other forms of economic development.
This would be problematic. However, when we consider the dire water situation, it reaches a critical scale.
The nascent National Planning Commission (NPC) provides a unique opportunity to deal with such a highly integrative and complex issue at its appropriate national strategic level. The first report produced by the NPC, the national diagnostic report, recognised the fundamental role of water. Continue reading We need to plan for water security
Extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were “very likely” caused by manmade global warming, a study in the journal Nature Climate Change said on Sunday.
 The high amount of extremes is not normal Scientists at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Research used physics, statistical analysis and computer simulations to link extreme rainfall and heat waves to global warming. The link between warming and storms was less clear.
“It is very likely that several of the unprecedented extremes of the past decade would not have occurred without anthropogenic global warming,” said the study.
The past decade was probably the warmest globally for at least a millennium. Last year was the eleventh hottest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said on Friday.
Extreme weather events were devastating in their impacts and affected nearly all regions of the globe.
They included severe floods and record hot summers in Europe; a record number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic in 2005; the hottest Russian summer since 1500 in 2010 and the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history.
Last year alone, the United States suffered 14 weather events which caused losses of over $1 billion each. Continue reading Humans most likely to have caused extreme weather
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