With half of Africa’s forests and water resources and trillion-dollar mineral reserves, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could become a powerhouse of African development provided multiple pressures on its natural resources are urgently [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 10 Oct 2011

With half of Africa’s forests and water resources and trillion-dollar mineral reserves, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could become a powerhouse of African development provided multiple pressures on its natural resources are urgently addressed.

About 50% of Africa’s total water resources are concentrated within the Congo basin

A major Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment of the DRC by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) underlines the global significance and extraordinary potential of the country’s natural and mineral resources.

However, the study warns of alarming trends including increased deforestation, species depletion, heavy metal pollution and land degradation from mining, as well as an acute drinking water crisis which has left an estimated 51 million Congolese without access to potable water.

The outcomes of the two-year assessment have been released today in Kinshasa, by UNEP’s Executive Director, Mr Achim Steiner, and the DRC’s Environment Minister, Mr José Endundo.

Conducted in conjunction with the DRC’s Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism, the assessment highlights successful initiatives and identifies strategic opportunities to restore livelihoods, promote good governance and support the sustainability of the DRC’s post-conflict economic reconstruction, and reinforce ongoing peace consolidation.

The study’s good news is that most of the DRC’s environmental degradation is not irreversible and there has been substantial progress in strengthening environmental governance.

For example, through steps such as regular anti-poaching patrols, the Congolese Wildlife Authority has secured the Virunga National Park, which at the peak of the DRC’s crisis was losing the equivalent of 89 hectares of forest each day due to illegal fuelwood harvesting.

However, the country’s rapidly growing population of nearly 70 million people – most of whom directly depend on natural resources for their survival – and intense international competition for raw materials are adding to the multiple pressures on the DRC’s natural resource base.

Key findings include:

• The DRC has the highest level of biodiversity in Africa, yet 190 species are classified as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Elephants and mountain gorillas are among the species under threat.
• Up to 1.7 million tonnes of bushmeat (mainly antelope, duiker, monkey and wild boar) are harvested annually from unregulated hunting and poaching, contributing to species depletion.
• The DRC’s tropical rainforests extend over 1.55 million km2 and account for more than half of Africa’s forest resources – making them a critical global ecosystem service provider and a potential source of up to US$900 million in annual revenue up to 2030 through REDD+.
• The DRC has the largest artisanal mining workforce in the world – around two million people – but a lack of controls have led to land degradation and pollution. Its untapped mineral reserves are of global importance and are estimated to be worth US$24 trillion.
• Around 15 tonnes of mercury are used annually in the DRC’s artisanal gold mining operations, making it the second largest source of mercury emissions in Africa.
• The Congo basin supports Africa’s largest inland fisheries with an estimated production potential of 520,000 tonnes per year. While at the national level this resource is under-exploited, there are many instances of serious over-fishing pressures at the local level.
• The most alarming climate change-related issue is the vulnerability of rain-fed small-scale agriculture. For example, as of 2020, the duration of the rainy season in the drought-prone region of Katanga is expected to reduce from seven months to five months.
• There is a remarkable rise of ‘people-based’ social enterprises, most of which rely on natural resources. Yet with a fragile banking system and limited incentives to formalize transactions, the informal sector’s growth has become a critical structural problem as businesses can operate beyond environmental and labour laws.
• As it is still emerging from a long period of State decline and protracted crisis, the provision of basic services, including energy and water supply, and environmental problems in urban centres remain key challenges for the DRC.
• To support the DRC’s development challenges, a doubling of aid is urgently needed, including an estimated US$200 million per annum for the environment.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said the assessment highlights strategic opportunities that can support the sustainability of the DRC’s post-conflict economic reconstruction and serve to accelerate peace consolidation efforts.

“This assessment confirms the DRC’s unique endowment of natural resources and how they can contribute to sustainable economic growth, but also reveals the legacy of using these resources in fuelling much of the conflict and human tragedy that has plagued its people for too long,” he said.

“It is UNEP’s hope the assessment’s outcomes will galvanize action and greater support from the international community and help set the nation on a more sustainable course, capitalizing on the opportunities offered by a green economy in the DRC,” the UNEP Executive Director said.

The assessment aims to support the creation of enabling conditions for a transition to a ‘green economy’ in the DRC and promote a fundamental rethinking of the country’s ‘frontier’ approach to the use of its natural resources.

Speaking at the launch, the Environment Minister, Mr José Endundo, said the government welcomed the assessment which sheds light on important issues and opportunities, including the potential of the carbon market and ecotourism as sources of large-scale financing.

“We know from this two-year joint study that the DRC’s vast mineral reserves are again the object of intense foreign competition and that this is placing great pressures on our forests, wildlife and water resources,” Minister Endundo said.

“The REDD+ scheme in which the DRC is already engaged could potentially generate the necessary funding to address a wide range of development and environment challenges and we look to such mechanisms to support a sustainable recovery in the DRC,” the Minister said.

Funded by the Government of Norway, the UNEP post-conflict environmental assessment covers all of DRC, not only conflict-affected areas, and provides 70 recommendations covering 15 sectors and 13 environmental degradation ‘hot spots’.

Key recommendations include:

• Engaging in a ‘green economy’ transition whereby sustainable reconstruction in the DRC includes capitalizing on the DRC’s emerging social economy to generate ‘green jobs’ and other employment, including for former combatants.
• Diversifying energy sources as a basis for restarting economic activity. The DRC has a hydropower potential of 100,000 megawatts – or 13% of the world’s hydropower potential – which could meet domestic needs and generate export revenue from the sale of electricity.
• Overcoming the considerable environmental liabilities of a century of mining – with immediate action to remediate mining pollution ‘hotspots’ in Katanga – by introducing a new, modern mining approach and formalizing the artisanal mining sector to introduce better environmental and occupational health standards.
• Promote trans-boundary collaboration for sustainable fisheries management in the internationally shared Great Rift Valley Lakes.
• Strengthening institutional capacities for disaster preparedness – such as epidemics, volcanic eruptions, floods and forest fires – including early warning systems.
• More detailed surveying and mapping of natural resources and integrating the economic valuation of ecosystem services into all development planning.

UNEP’s Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment of the Democratic Republic of Congo: Synthesis Report for Policy Makers is available online at: www.unep.org/drcongo. The study includes input from more than 50 partners including NGOs, universities and the UN family.

Source: UNEP

By Kristin Palitza

South African scientists have developed an environmentally friendly method to clean highly toxic water and convert it into drinkable water. Once available commercially, the method could drastically reduce the negative impact [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 07 July 2011

By Kristin Palitza

South African scientists have developed an environmentally friendly method to clean highly toxic water and convert it into drinkable water. Once available commercially, the method could drastically reduce the negative impact industry has on water pollution worldwide.

Eutectic freeze crystallisation could be used in the mining sector

Called eutectic freeze crystallisation, the technique freezes acidic water – or brine – to produce potable or drinking water as well as useful salts, such as sodium and calcium sulphate.

Alison Lewis, professor for chemical engineering at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, who has led the research since 2007, claims 99.9 percent of the polluted water can be reused after applying the new technique. Unlike other water cleaning methods, it practically doesn’t produce any toxic waste.

“It’s an environmentally friendly and cost-effective technology that can be used pretty much in all industrial sectors that pollute water and thus produce brine,” explains Lewis. This includes sectors like mining, the oil and gas industry, chemical industry, paper processing or sewerage.

The simultaneous separation and purification method is based on bringing the contaminated water temperature down to reach its eutectic point – the lowest possible temperature of solidification. At this point, toxins crystallise to form salts and sink to the ground, while the clean water turns into ice, floating on the surface.

“By its nature, ice is the purest form of water because it repels any impurities. It’s actually very simple,” explains Lewis. “The method is ecologically significant because it can turn toxic waste into a useful product.”

Industrial firms in South Africa, but also in Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia have already expressed interest in the new approach, she says.

The water purification method has also received support from the South African Water Research Commission. “Eutectic freeze crystallisation is a brilliant water recycling method that is superior to all existing methods for cleaning toxic water,” confirms the commission’s research manager Dr. Jo Burgess.

Up until now, industrially polluted water is purified using two methods: the brine is either stored in huge evaporation ponds, which bring the danger of ground water pollution, or through an evaporation- based crystallisation method, that uses huge amounts of electricity. Eutectic freeze crystallisation, however, uses six times less electricity than the conventional evaporation method, says Lewis.

“In addition, both existing methods leave toxic waste products behind and are therefore not ecologically sustainable,” notes Burgess. Conventional methods produce poisonous solids, the accumulation of all toxins in the brine, that then need to be disposed of correctly.

Eutectic freeze crystallisation, in contrast, produces 99 percent usable products – clean water and pure salts. “It is therefore completely environmentally friendly,” says Lewis. She points out that companies can make additional revenue from selling those salts, hoping this will be an additional incentive to use the new method.

Recycling scare water resources also makes economic sense. A report of the Green Economy Initiative (GEI) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – which assists governments in shaping policies, investments and spending towards a range of green sectors, including clean technologies, industry, renewable energies and water services – shows that every dollar invested in safe water, creates health, social and ecological “revenue” worth three to 34 dollars.

“Investing in clean water will pay multiple dividends,” promises UNEP executive director Achim Steiner. “Meeting the wastewater challenge is not a luxury but a prudent, practical and transformative act, able to boost public health, secure the sustainability of natural resources and trigger employment in better, more intelligent water management.”

In South Africa, eutectic freeze crystallisation could be used in the mining sector, which has for decades produced more brine than companies can recycle. Mining is the most important sector of the economy of the country, which is rich in gold, platinum, diamonds and coal. For years, the polluted water has been stored all across the country in huge evaporation ponds.

“The problem is that we produce much more brine than we can evaporate. And even if we succeeded to evaporate it all, non-recycable waste materials would remain. Evaporation ponds are therefore not a sustainable, ecological solution,” warns Burgess.

Eutectic freeze crystallisation could save the South African government huge sums of money. The department of environmental affairs recently announced it needs at least 30 million dollars to drain brine from only the biggest mining areas around country’s main city Johannesburg.

Acid mine water is standing in the canals of Gauteng, the province in which Johannesburg is located, only 500 metres below the surface and its disposal should be made top priority, warned environment minister Edna Molewa.

Unfortunately, it might take another four to six years until the eutectic freeze crystallisation method will be available for use by private industry. Lewis’ research team plans to build a pilot site later this year. The 1.3 million dollar project is supposed to become operational within the next two to three years and will be able to purify one cubic meter of brine per hour. After the pilot stage, it will take another two to three years to develop the technology for industry use.

Source: IPS

The Guidelines are regarded globally as the most authoritative framework on drinking-water quality

Every year, two million people die from waterborne diseases and billions more suffer illness. But much of this ill-health and [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 04 July 2011

The Guidelines are regarded globally as the most authoritative framework on drinking-water quality

Every year, two million people die from waterborne diseases and billions more suffer illness. But much of this ill-health and suffering is preventable.

The WHO drinking-water guidelines, released today, calls on governments to improve the quality of their drinking-water. The Guidelines compel water suppliers to systematically assess the risk of contaminants entering the water supply and to take action based on their findings.

Read an overview on the drinking-water guidelines

Download the Guidelines for drinking-water quality

Drought on China’s Yangtze River has led to historically low water levels that have forced authorities to halt shipping on the nation’s longest waterway, the government and media said Thursday.

The Yangtze is [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 12 May 2011

Drought on China’s Yangtze River has led to historically low water levels that have forced authorities to halt shipping on the nation’s longest waterway, the government and media said Thursday.

The Yangtze is China's longest waterway and is indispensable to the economies of many cities

The water level along the lower reaches of the river near the city of Wuhan was just above three metres (10 feet) on Thursday, the Chang Jiang Waterway Bureau said on its website.

A day earlier, the bureau closed a 228-kilometre (140-mile) stretch above Wuhan to ocean-going vessels due to shallow water in an effort to prevent the ships from bottoming out.

Further up the river, the massive Three Gorges Dam, the world’s biggest hydroelectric project, has discharged more water to alleviate the drought conditions down river, state press reported.

It was not immediately clear if the measures would be effective, as the drought along the middle reaches has sent water levels to their lowest point in five decades, the China Daily said.

At least two ships have been stranded in recent days as dozens of emergency teams have been dispatched to prevent accidents along the middle reaches, where the river has shrunk to an average width of about 150 metres, it said.

According to Wang Jingquan of the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee, damming up the river at the controversial Three Gorges Dam has aggravated the drought by diverting water flow to the lower reaches, the paper said.

The 6,300-kilometre Yangtze is China’s longest waterway and is indispensable to the economies of many cities along its route.

The drought has left 400,000 people in Hubei province without drinking water and has threatened nearly 870,000 hectares (2.15 million acres) of farmland in the grain-growing region, the paper said.

October to May is normally the dry season along the river and ocean-going ships are only allowed to go up river past Wuhan at the end of April when the rainy season usually begins, state media said.

“Even though heavy rains are expected in coming months, it’s possible they won’t raise the water level much,” the China Daily quoted Wu Heping, director of the Wuhan waterway bureau, as saying.

- AFP

Methane leaks are contaminating drinking water near shale gas drilling sites in the eastern United States, scientists said on Tuesday, placing a further question mark over this fast-growing energy source.

Shale gas carries [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 11 May 2011

Methane leaks are contaminating drinking water near shale gas drilling sites in the eastern United States, scientists said on Tuesday, placing a further question mark over this fast-growing energy source.

Shale gas carries a greater carbon footprint than oil, coal and conventional gas, using current extraction techniques

Scientists tested water samples taken from 68 private wells in five counties in Pennsylvania and New York to explore accusations that “hydro-fracking” – a contested technique to extract shale gas – contaminated groundwater.

Methane was found in 85 percent of the samples, and at sites within a kilometre of active hydraulic-fracturing operations, levels were 17 times higher than in wells far from such operations, said the study by researchers at Duke University in North Carolina.

“In these rural areas, almost everybody has a well. They are using the groundwater for some purpose – they are using it for drinking, for their livestock, for agriculture,” lead author Stephen Osborn told AFP.

However, little is known about the health impacts of consuming methane in drinking water.

“We were surprised, and we have spoken with many health officials,” he said.

“There is really no literature that addresses that particular issue – the physiological response – is methane really non-reactive in the body? What are the effects of consuming high concentrations of methane?”

The paper found no evidence of contamination from the chemicals used to fracture the rock or from “produced” water – the wastewater that emerges from the wells after the shale has been fractured.

Shale gas is found in dense sedimentary rock which is fractured by large volumes of water, sand and chemicals that are piped in horizontally at very high pressure.

After the fracturing, large amounts of water return to the surface within a few days, along with significant amounts of methane, which comprises the bulk of the shale gas.

The gas is enjoying a boom in North America and Europe, buoyed by high prices and fears over the political risks of imported fossil fuels.

Opponents say the technique is environmentally destructive because the methane can contaminate groundwater and, if leaked to the air, add to the greenhouse effect.

“Definitely natural gas is cleaner than coal but if you do it without regulation or without careful monitoring, you might harm the environment,” said co-author Avner Vengosh, also of Duke University.

“There is no really comprehensive oversight of what is going on. There is not enough scientific research,” he added.

“We are just revealing something that should have been revealed long ago before the boom took place. In some places it might be too late.”

The study, published on Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), said the methane sampled near the fracking sites had an isotopic fingerprint that pointed to its source.

Water from wells farther from the gas sites had lower levels of methane and a different isotopic signature.

As a gas, methane is flammable and can cause suffocation.

In April, scientists from New York’s Cornell University found that current extraction techniques meant that shale gas carried a greater carbon footprint than oil, coal and conventional gas over at least a 20-year period.

According to the US Department of Energy, total domestic production of natural gas will grow by 20 percent by 2035. Shale gas alone will increase its share of production from 16 percent in 2009 to 45 percent in 2035.

- Sapa-AFP

Many fastest-growing cities, especially those in the developing world, stand to suffer disproportionately from the effects of climate change, a new study reported on Thursday.

In cities, prolonged hot weather can exacerbate existing [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 April 2011

Many fastest-growing cities, especially those in the developing world, stand to suffer disproportionately from the effects of climate change, a new study reported on Thursday.

In cities, prolonged hot weather can exacerbate existing levels of air pollution, causing health problems.

Few urban areas are taking the necessary steps to protect their residents – billions of people around the globe – from such likely events as heat waves and rising seas, according to research to appear in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability and European Planning Studies.

They are also failing to cut their own emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases, the study found.

“Climate change is a deeply local issue and poses profound threats to the growing cities of the world,” study author Patricia Romero Lankao, a sociologist specialising in climate change and urban development, said in a statement.

Because half of Earth’s population is in cities, scientists like Romero Lankao are focusing on the potential climate change impacts in these areas.

Air pollution

The mere fact that they are cities, with densely packed construction, places their populations at greater risk from natural disasters, including those expected to be made worse by climate change.

Storm surges can inundate heavily populated coastal areas and heat waves can warm up paved cities more than surrounding areas, Romero Lankao found. And these events can be amplified in an urban environment.

In cities, prolonged hot weather can exacerbate existing levels of air pollution, causing health problems. Poorer urban neighbourhoods that lack reliable sanitation, drinking water or roads are at increased risk, according to Romero Lankao, of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research.

The number of city-dwellers worldwide has quadrupled since 1950, the study found, projecting that by 2020, more than 500 urban areas will have a million residents or more.

But urban leaders are largely failing to prepare for coming natural disasters that could affect their people, including building public transport that would cut greenhouse emissions, Romero Lankao said.

“Cities can have an enormous influence on emissions by focusing on mass transit systems and energy efficient structures,” she said. “But local leaders face pressures to build more roads and relax regulations that could reduce energy use.”

She noted that some cities’ efforts to cut emissions are part of a larger push to ease traffic and other problems. She cited central London’s Congestion Charging Zone, which aims to encourage more use of public transit, as one example. In Latin America, Curitiba, Brazil, and Bogota, Colombia, are integrating new development with mass transit systems.

Romero Lankao’s study was conducted in association with the UN Human Settlements Program and funded by the US National Science Foundation.

- Reuters

More than one third of 231 ­local municipalities do not have the capacity to perform their ­sanitation functions, a new study by the Council for ­Scientific and Industrial ­Research (CSIR) has found.

Overflows [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 28 March 2011

More than one third of 231 ­local municipalities do not have the capacity to perform their ­sanitation functions, a new study by the Council for ­Scientific and Industrial ­Research (CSIR) has found.

Overflows of raw sewage are severely detrimental to the environment.

The report, discussed at a United Nations water ­conference in Cape Town, includes a comprehensive survey of South Africa’s levels of water pollution.

It also tracks access to clean, safe water and sanitation. And it warns that South Africa is heading for ­disaster unless it tackles the problem of water pollution, ­including its failing sewage treatment ­systems.

It found that the situation was so bad, it called for waste-water facilities that did not comply with their licences to be prosecuted.

Water quality, the report ­stated, was excellent in metropolitan areas, but in many rural areas and towns, drinking water quality and waste-water effluent quality were frequently below the standards set.

Short-sighted planning

In some areas, short-sighted planning resulted in bucket eradication schemes causing deterioration instead of ­improvement in the provision of sanitation.

In some Free State settlements the replacement of buckets with waterborne systems left residents with no sanitation at all. The water supply was insufficient to flush toilets.

In other places, large ­increases in sewage inflow ­volume led to overloading of waste-water treatment works and pollution of downstream river systems.

The estimated current ­replacement cost of municipal water services stock, according to the report, is R169bn (R103bn for water and R66bn for sanitation).

Much of this infrastructure “is not in a fit state to continue delivering high-quality and ­reliable water services”.

The widely held belief in South Africa was that water service “backlogs” concerned those who did not have access to services in the past.

Yet other needs “far surpass” these, the report said. This ­included the rehabilitation, ­replacement or provision of ­neglected sanitation infrastructure.

Poor leadership

The capital required to ­address infrastructure backlogs made up 17% of total infrastructure requirements, the ­report stated. By comparison, the rehabilitation or replacement of neglected infrastructure ran to “a staggering 49%”.

The failure of many ­municipalities to deliver reliable sanitation services was mainly due to poor leadership and ­inadequate budgets, skills and experience.

Many health problems were the direct result of the collapse of existing sanitation systems. Untreated, polluted drinking water was a major contributor to diarrhoea-related deaths and diseases, the report said.

Johan Erasmus, operational manager of Mahlatsi Enterprises, a firm contracted by the ­department of water affairs to monitor water purification plants in Mpumalanga, warned that many of them were in a ­“disastrous” state.

These municipalities, he said, never took seriously their duty to deliver clean water and proper ­sanitation to people.

“They never budgeted money for this; not for maintenance and also not for new plants. In many cases we discovered that the town manager had not even purchased the chemicals ­needed for their water ­purification plants.”

Irrigation

He added that very few of the water and/or water purification plant officials he had to deal with had the qualifications or the experience to do their jobs properly.

“None of the water ­purification plants was up to standard because the personnel were not up to standard.”

The result, he said, was ­“horrifying” – raw sewage ­running down the streets of small towns like Evander.

Bethal’s water, he said, was so bad that farmers could not use it for irrigation.

- City Press

By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with absolute water scarcity and two-thirds of the world’s population may experience water-stress conditions. Forests capture and store water and can play an important [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 21 March 2011

By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with absolute water scarcity and two-thirds of the world’s population may experience water-stress conditions. Forests capture and store water and can play an important role in providing drinking water for millions of people in the world’s mega-cities. Given this fact, the members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), international organizations involved in forests, call upon countries to pay more attention to forest protection and management for the provision of clean water.

One third of the world's biggest cities draw a portion of their drinking-water from forested areas.

“Forests are part of the natural infrastructure of any country and are essential to the water cycle”, said Eduardo Rojas-Briales, Assistant Director General of the FAO Forestry Department.

“They reduce the effects of floods, prevent soil erosion, regulate the water table and assure a high quality water supply for people, industry and agriculture.”  He was speaking prior to the UN World Water Day which will be celebrated this year on 22 March.

Forests are in most cases an optimal land cover for catchments supplying drinking water. Forest watersheds supply a high proportion of water for domestic, agricultural, industrial and ecological needs.

“The management of water and forests are closely linked and require innovative policy solutions which take into account the cross-cutting nature of these vital resources”, said Jan McAlpine, Director of the United Nations Forum on Forests Secretariat.  “The International Year of Forests, 2011 provides a unique platform to raise awareness of issues such as the water-soil-forests nexus, which directly affect the quality of people’s lives, their livelihoods and their food security.”

Moreover, forests and trees contribute to the reduction of water-related risks such as landslides, local floods and droughts and help prevent desertification and salinization.

Today, at least one third of the world’s biggest cities, such as New York, Singapore, Jakarta, Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá, Madrid and Cape Town draw a significant portion of their drinking-water from forested areas. If properly utilized, forest catchment areas can provide at least a partial solution for municipalities needing more or cleaner water.

Generating momentum on forests and water

It is well known that water used by forests can be influenced and reduced by prudent forest planning and management practices such as the planting of appropriate tree species. Countries are stepping up policy and project activities to increase forest areas for the protection of soil and water.

Eight percent of the world’s forests have soil and water conservation as their primary objective. While every hectare of forests make a huge contribution to regulating water cycles, around 330 million hectares of the world’s forests are designated for soil and water conservation, avalanche control, sand dune stabilization, desertification control or coastal protection. This area increased by 59 million hectares between 1990 and 2010. The recent increase is largely due to large-scale planting in China for protective purposes.

Topics related to forest and water interactions have gained international attention in recent years. Many relevant conferences and events have been organized between 2008 and 2010, each of them looking at forests and water issues from a different perspectives (e.g. integrated water catchment area management and the role of forests in precipitation). Based on the outcomes of these meetings, a set of practical actions on forests and water supply are currently being developed for policy-makers and technicians.

Work is also continuing at the project level, particularly in transboundary water courses. One very prominent example is the “Fouta Djallon Highlands (FDH) Integrated Natural Resources Management Project” in West Africa.

This ten-year project, supported by the Global Environment Facility and jointly implemented by FAO, UNEP and the African Union, involves eight countries (Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Sierra Leone).

The Fouta Djallon Highlands are the point of origin of a number of international water courses, notably the Gambia, Niger and Senegal rivers. Shifting agriculture and tree felling for charcoal production led to heavy deforestation and depleted water resources in the area. In order to improve local livelihoods and water resources, the project aims to ensure the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources through the restoration of forest cover.

Source: FAO

Postwar Angola is keen to expand irrigation for much-needed development, Namibia is prioritising clean drinking water and sanitation, while Botswana wants to preserve the integrity of the world-renowned Okavango Delta for tourism.

The [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 12 March 2011

Postwar Angola is keen to expand irrigation for much-needed development, Namibia is prioritising clean drinking water and sanitation, while Botswana wants to preserve the integrity of the world-renowned Okavango Delta for tourism.

The Okavango Delta is the world’s largest inland delta

All three depend on an equitable share of quality water from the Okavango River, the fourth largest in Africa, running 1,600 kilometres from Angola to its inland delta in Botswana.

In other parts of the world, conflicting interests like these, against a backdrop of uncertainty due to climate change, have led several observers to predict water wars might lead to water wars. But the three countries are putting in place a cross-border plan to manage the river.

A trans-boundary diagnostic analysis of the basin led to a strategic action plan which encompasses national priorities. To this end National Action Plans (NAPs) are currently being formulated in the three countries.

“The realisation has dawned that issues in the basin are much larger than just the river that runs through it,” says Steve Johnson head of the USAID funded Southern African Regional Program (SAREP) that facilitates the NAPs.

“The topics range from trans-boundary management to biodiversity aspects, to water supply and sanitation, livelihoods, flood preparedness and HIV/AIDS,” he said.

“Livelihood strategies are critical and we have to look at diversifying economic opportunities, such as promoting tourism where realistic. It’s a challenging process, a balancing act to find equilibrium between the different needs of the three countries,” says Ebenizãrio Chonguiça, executive secretary the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM) that coordinates the trans-boundary river management.

“Angola is pursuing a much needed development agenda after the war, where other countries are perhaps looking at building on the existing benefits” says USAID regional environmental program manager Steve Horn. “The challenge is to establish a constructive dialogue within a science-based decision framework.”

Of the 15 river basins in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) OKACOM is a pioneer in establishing a common understanding on sharing benefits. Rather than being a top-down institution, it evolved from informal cooperation between the countries into a commission with more authority.

“What use of the river constitutes the best return on investment?” asks Chonguiça. “Is it agriculture? Is it tourism? How do we convert the river’s capital into improving living conditions for the people?

“Feasibility studies based on the best available technology have to answer these questions. Whatever the national needs are, water supply and sanitation and ecosystem integrity have to be leading in this quest.”

There will be trade-offs in this process, says Johnson. “If a country wants to start projects that might negatively impact downstream there should be some kind of compensating mechanism.”

A unique process of community consultation underlies planning. Consultants went into villages and asked the people to tell them what the river meant for their daily lives. “It became clear that water supply and sanitation and early warning systems for floods were the most important issues for communities. Especially with the flood-prone character of the basin,” says Johnson.

The people living along the banks of the Okavango River in Angola, Namibia and Botswana are among the poorest in all three countries.

“People have been living in the river basins for millennia. But as areas become more populated the opportunity for them and their livestock to move to higher ground is limited. This leads to conflicts between humans, between livestock and humans and between livestock and the abundant wildlife in the area.”

Part of the trans-boundary decision-making process will be a dynamic decision support system that accurately supplies data on conditions of the basin at any given point in the season.

Johnson: “Good data needs to be available to correctly evaluate the resource that the river offers. This system, consisting of a number of databases, would recommend a course of action to SADC on projects that countries want to start. This of course, without duplicating efforts that are already in place.”

As an example he points to Namibian hydrologists that have secured access to NASA satellite images which they use to warn the region about impending floods.

Towards the end of March, according to Laura Namene of the Namibian Department of Water Affairs, the three countries will meet in Maun, Botswana, to harmonise the national priorities in an overall strategic plan for the basin.

“The point is to develop a common understanding of the conditions in the basin as a whole,” says Chonguiça.

By: Servaas van den Bosch
Source: IPS

Tap water in SA could be undrinkable in the next 19 years if the country does not change the way it uses water, or how it treats used water, scientists say.

Already, some of [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 09 March 2011

Tap water in SA could be undrinkable in the next 19 years if the country does not change the way it uses water, or how it treats used water, scientists say.

Already, some of the tap water in SA contains poisons.

Blue-green algae produce toxins that rob water bodies of oxygen.

Poor quality water will negatively affect the economy, curbing the manufacturing sector directly and indirectly, says limnologist Bill Harding. Limnology is the study of freshwater bodies.

Despite Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica promising a turnaround in the parlous state of wastewater treatment almost a year ago, there has been no visible action taken to curb the risk from semi-treated water discharged into SA’s rivers and reservoirs, the scientists say.

Last year’s Green Drop (wastewater quality) report showed that only 32, or 3%, of SA’s estimated 850 wastewater treatment works complied with requirements for safe discharge. The report noted that only 449 of the works had been assessed, with the rest either ignoring, or being unable to comply with, the call to submit to scrutiny.

Only 32 (7%) complied with the Green Drop criteria after being measured for E. coli bacteria, nitrates, phosphates and ammonia and other nasties.

The national Green Drop Programme was launched in 2008 and was meant to cover all wastewater treatment works so as not to harm the water bodies into which they discharge their product.

However, the Department of Water Affairs says it has established an emergency response facility for the worst cases identified in the report. Also, various steps were taken to ensure improvements in the Green Drop performance for the next reporting cycle. The 2011 report would be released later this year, said spokeswoman Linda Page.

Mbangiseni Nepfumbada, acting deputy director-general, says while SA’s water and water treatment challenges are real, scaremongering is not helpful.

“Our biggest problem is the cost of cleaning the water, but … SA is known as a country where you are able to drink water from the tap, unlike in some developed countries. We clean our drinking water to SANS 241 (South African National Standards level 241 for drinking water, meaning the water does not pose significant risk to health over a lifetime of consumption, including during infancy and other vulnerable periods) so that we can safely drink our water. We tell people not to drink from streams.”

SA’s “rigorous” wastewater treatment plant standards are not the problem, says Democratic Alliance water affairs and environment spokesman Gareth Morgan. “The problem is that a huge amount of treatment plants take in more effluent than they were designed for. Our bulk water infrastructure has not kept up with new infrastructure developments.”

Water experts point to the deterioration of municipal -level capacity, especially infrastructure and skills, to ensure water quality, as evidenced by the low participation in the Green Drop reporting process.

SA has an annual water infrastructure maintenance spending backlog of R2,66bn, says business analyst Richard Holden, a member of the South African Association of Water Utilities.

Dr Harding says treatment works should be upgraded in Gauteng first because it has the widest eutrophication problem. Eutrophication is the addition of artificial or natural substances, such as nitrates and phosphates, through fertilisers or sewage.

Eutrophication’s most common symptom is an increase in microcystis, blue-green algae producing toxins that rob water bodies of oxygen, making water sterile. Since 2005 it has caused toxic cyanobacterial “blooms” every year in Gauteng’s Hartbeespoort, Roodeplaat, Klipvoor and Rietvlei dams and KwaZulu- Natal’s Shongweni Dam, says the Department of Water Affairs.

Mr Nepfumbada says the department is reviewing the national water resource strategy, due to be published for public comment towards the end of the year. It also has a Water for Growth and Development Strategy, planning 30 years ahead.

“We can’t develop (our water infrastructure) as we have done in the past …We need to conserve water and manage demand, so our policy is crafted to address the very things these people are asking questions about.”

A big step in the right direction is to promulgate legislation banning phosphorus from fertilisers, laundry detergents and personal hygiene products, says Dr Harding.

This is something the department is “very seriously” considering, says Mr Nepfumbada.

By: Sue Blaine
Source: Business Day