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Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 09 June 2011
Climate change will have major impacts on the availability of water for growing food and on crop productivity in the decades to come, warns a new FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] report.
 Loss of glaciers will eventually impact the amount of surface water available for agriculture ‘Climate Change, Water, and Food Security’ is a comprehensive survey of existing scientific knowledge on the anticipated consequences of climate change for water use in agriculture.
These include reductions in river runoff and aquifer recharges in the Mediterranean and the semi-arid areas of the Americas, Australia and southern Africa — regions that are already water-stressed. In Asia, large areas of irrigated land that rely on snowmelt and mountain glaciers for water will also be affected, while heavily populated river deltas are at risk from a combination of reduced water flows, increased salinity, and rising sea levels.
Additional impacts described in the report:
An acceleration of the world’s hydrological cycle is anticipated as rising temperatures increase the rate of evaporation from land and sea. Rainfall will increase in the tropics and higher latitudes, but decrease in already dry semi-arid to mid-arid latitudes and in the interior of large continents. A greater frequency in droughts and floods will need to be planned for but already, water scarce areas of the world are expected to become drier and hotter.
Even though estimates of groundwater recharge under climate change cannot be made with any certainty, the increasing frequency of drought can be expected to encourage further development of available groundwater to buffer the production risk for farmers. Continue reading Water warning for agriculture
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 05 May 2011
At the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs of South Africa Edna Molewa, Chairman of Nestlé and Chairman of the Water Resources Group Peter Brabeck-Letmathe announced today a Declaration of Partnership.
 Water demand is expected to rise by 52% within 30 years while supply is sharply declining Recognizing the critical role that water plays as a catalyst for both economic growth and social development, the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) of South Africa forges a partnership with the Water Resources Group (WRG), an influential public-private global network on water supported by the World Economic Forum and the International Finance Corporation.
This new public-private group, chaired by the director-general of the DWA, will oversee the activities of a partnership called “South Africa Strategic Water Partners Network” to address critical water issues in South Africa: water conservation, demand management and developing more sustainable management of groundwater resources.
“This new partnership between the Government of South Africa and the Water Resources Group will help identify how South Africa’s plans for growth can be met with the water it has safely available. The foresight and leadership of Minister Molewa in this regard should be applauded” remarked Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman of Nestlé and Chairman of the Water Resources Group.
In South Africa, water demand is expected to rise by 52% within the next 30 years while the supply of water is sharply declining. If current trends of leakage from aged and poorly maintained municipal infrastructure and the loss of wetlands persist, this growth in demand will intensify competition for water resources across all sectors of the economy (agriculture, energy industry and domestic).
Should status quo in management practices remain, a gap of 17% between water demand and supply is forecast by 2030. This gap will have serious social and political implications and strongly impact South Africa’s plans for economic growth. Continue reading Water partnership launched to protect SA’s water resources
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 12 April 2011
Farming is moving indoors, where the sun never shines, where rainfall is irrelevant and where the climate is always right.
 Indoor rice field in Tokyo. The perfect crop field could be inside a windowless building with meticulously controlled light, temperature, humidity, air quality and nutrition. It could be in a New York high-rise, a Siberian bunker or a sprawling complex in the Saudi desert.
Advocates say this, or something like it, may be the answer to the world’s food problems.
“In order to keep a planet that’s worth living on, we have to change our methods,” says Gertjan Meeuws of PlantLab, a private research company.
The world is already having trouble feeding itself. Half the people on earth live in cities, and nearly half of those – about 3 billion – are hungry or malnourished.
Food prices, currently soaring, are buffeted by droughts, floods and the cost of energy required to plant, fertilise, harvest and transport produce.
And prices will only get more unstable. Climate change makes long-term crop planning uncertain.
Farmers in many parts of the world already are draining available water resources to the last drop.
And the world is getting more crowded: by mid-century, the global population will grow from 6.8 billion to 9 billion, the UN predicts.
To feed so many people may require expanding farmland at the expense of forests and wilderness, or finding ways to radically increase crop yields. Continue reading Indoor farming may solve world food problem
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 11 April 2011
By: Ingi Salgado
Coal of Africa chief executive John Wallington said the group’s controversial Vele colliery, located 6km from Mapungubwe National Park and World Heritage Site, would have “the most monitored water use licence in the country”.
 Vele’s water-use licence is valid for five years He was responding to an announcement last week by a coalition of civil society groups that they would take a Department of Water Affairs decision to grant a water-use licence for Vele on appeal at the water tribunal. Coal of Africa intends to defend the appeal.
The NGOs are also appealing Vele’s mining right and environmental management plan with the Department of Mineral Resources. At the same time, Vele is undergoing a “rectification process” after Coal of Africa was served with a compliance notice in August by the Department of Environmental Affairs to stop construction of the colliery.
News of the water use licence approval immediately pushed Coal of Africa’s shares 14 percent higher on the JSE when the announcement was made to shareholders last Monday, but the counter had lost about half of these gains when it closed at R9.42 on Friday.
“The terms and conditions are going to be very specific for this mine,” Wallington said of the Vele water licence. “Once, and if, we get approval to run, we need to earn the right to stay there.”
He could not say what volumes Vele was licensed to use, although he indicated it was “significantly less” than a previous farm allocation on the land on which the mine was located. Continue reading Controversial colliery to use ‘significantly less’ water
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 06 April 2011
In its desperate efforts to battle chronic water shortages, Jordan, one of the world’s 10 driest countries, is mulling “unconventional” and “environmentally unfriendly” plans, experts say.
 The plan is to provide the capital Amman with water for 50 years. The challenge is huge for this tiny country where desert covers 92% of the territory and the population of 6.3 million is growing.
Critics said the government’s efforts to manage the country’s limited water resources and generate new ones are being hindered by a strategy which at best is chaotic.
Jordan is tapping into the ancient southern Disi aquifer, despite concerns about high levels of radiation, while studies are underway to build a controversial canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.
“Unconventional projects, like Disi for example, are environmentally unfriendly,” said water expert Dureid Mahasneh, a former Jordan Valley Authority chief.
Radiation
The $990m project seeks to extract 100 million cubic metres of water a year from the 300 000-year-old Disi aquifer, 325km south of Amman, officials said.
The plan is to provide the capital Amman with water for 50 years, said water ministry official Bassam Saleh, who is in charge of the project that was launched in 2008 and is due to be completed in 2012.
A 2008 study by Duke University in the US, shows that Disi’s water has 20 times more radiation than is considered safe, with radium content that could trigger cancers. Continue reading 300000 year old Disi aquifer to quench water shortage
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