Water Saving Technologies: Film Farming
I recently ran across an article on an amazing new technology being introduced in the farming industry called film farming. This system was released by Dubai-based owners Agricel back in March, but has been in development for a number of years. Realizing that the world will be facing water and food shortages in the coming years Agricel wanted to come up with a solution, and it looks like they did. This technology reduces the amount of water and fertilizer neededcontinue reading
Alternatives to Dams: The Free Flow Kinetic Hydropower System
If you follow my facebook page (facebook.com/hydratelife) you may have noticed that I post links to a lot of articles about dams and their negative impacts on the environment and the people living around them. While I do understand that countries need energy in order to prosper I also believe that there are sustainable ways of going about this, and that dams are not the answer. Well, if I’m going to say that dams are not the answer then Icontinue reading
Water Heroes: Lynn Henning – Battling Livestock Pollution
Welcome to this week’s edition of Water Heroes. This week we’re talking about Lynn Henning who has gained notoriety due to her persistence in fighting for clean water in Michigan. Since 2000 she has been working to stop water pollution coming from large livestock farms around her home, throughout Michigan, and now in other states in the country. Her advocacy and hard work has earned her the prestigious Goldman Prize in 2010 and the 2012 Planet Defender Award, and shecontinue reading
World Bank-RWSN COWASH Webinar
Yesterday I sat in on another webinar talking about Community-Led Accelerated WASH in Ethiopia, or COWASH. The presentation was given by Arto Souminem who is the Chief Technical Advisor of the COWASH program in Ethiopia. Arto also works for Ramboll Finland which is a large consulting firm, and has a Master’s of Science in water supply and sanitation as well as over 25 years experience in leading rural and urban bilateral water and sanitation projects funded by the Finnish governmentcontinue reading
Water Heroes: Rajendra Singh – The “Waterman of India”
Welcome to this week’s edition of Water Heroes where we’ll be meeting Rajendra Singh, also known as the “waterman of India”, “bearded man of check dams”, or “elder brother” depending on who you ask. As a big proponent of traditional water harvesting methods and appropriate technology I was amazed at all that Rajendra has done over the years to help people in India to revive their watershed, and in turn return to their traditional ways of life. Also impressive iscontinue reading
WASH and Equity Webinar – Part 2
Welcome to part 2 of my WASH and Equity Webinar summary. If you missed part 1 it’s below this post so just scroll down. Let’s get started. This first slide shows the inequality of urban drinking water coverage between the rich and the poor (note there’s a typo in the heading, the poorest 20% should say “left” end of the bar). It’s pretty shocking and makes it very easy to see the divide between rich and poor. This information wascontinue reading
WASH and Equity Webinar – Part 1
Yesterday I listened in on a webinar give by Andrew Trevett – Senior Adviser, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, UNICEF, and Rolf Luyendijk, Senior Statistics and Monitoring Specialist, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, UNICEF. The webinar talked about WASH and equity, focusing primarily on rural populations vs urban and was based off of a WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report on drinking water. This presentation was talking mainly from a monitoring standpoint so it’s mainly a look at statistics gathered over the past 10continue reading
Lifesaver Bottle
Even though the Lifesaver Bottle has been out on the market for a couple of years I think that it’s a great product and is worth writing about for the people that haven’t heard about it. The Lifesaver Bottle is a portable water filtration system that only needs a puddle to give you clean water. It filters out any contaminates down to 15nm which essentially gets rid of anything that could harm you (the smallest virus is 25nm). Lifesaver Systemscontinue reading
Water Heroes: Ma Jun – 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize Winner
Welcome back for another edition of Water Heroes. This week I’ll be talking about Ma Jun who has just received the Goldman Environmental Prize for “bringing unprecedented environmental transparency and empowering Chinese citizens to demand justice”. Ma is no stranger to the environment. He has been an environmentalist in China for years, and is also a writer, environmental consultant, journalist, and is director of the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs, or the IPE. Let’s take a look at somecontinue reading