Archive for June, 2010

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Two mln people threatened as China’s largest lake keeps rising

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

More than 2 million people in eastern Jiangxi Province are at risk as China’s largest freshwater lake continues to rise causing parts of the protective embankment to leak, provincial authorities said Wednesday.

Hundreds of soldiers and local residents are patching the leaking sections of the embankment for Poyang Lake in Poyang County. Should they fail, homes and property of nearly 10,000 people will be flooded.

A part of the embankment in Yugan County is also being repaired after three seepages were found Monday. Leaks have also been detected on other sections, according to a statement from Jiangxi’s Drought Prevention and Flood Control Headquarters.

Villagers, officials and soldiers are patrolling all sections of the embankment around the giant Poyang Lake, an important source of water on middle reaches of the Yangtze River, China’s longest, to prevent and fix leaks. The lake covers an area of around 3,050 square km when it’s at an average level. It can expand to 3,583 square km during the rainy season.

Dai Huaixiang, 63, has been paroling the embankment for three days. He does so to protect his hometown Tubei Village, 500 meters away from the embankment.

“No matter how tired, we must keep on watching and prevent the embankment from being breached. Floods are more dangerous than tigers,” Dai said. He fought a massive flood that left more than 3,000 people dead in southern China in 1998.

The lake’s water level has risen to 20.29 meters, 1.29 meters above the alert level, and a record high since 1999, said Luo Xiaoyun, secretary-general of the Drought Prevention and Flood Control Headquarters in Jiangxi Province.

The water level is expected to keep rising as China’s Central Meteorological Observatory has forecast rains in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Rains are also forecast in northern Jiangxi.

The government has invested more than 2 billion yuan (294.2 million U.S. dollars) to strengthen the embankment around Poyang Lake since the flood in 1998. But some parts of the embankment have degraded due to lack of maintenance, said Wen Lin, deputy head of Jiangxi’s water resources department.

To maintain round the clock watch, Changdong Township’s official Yu Zhongqin with other officials, villagers and technicians have moved to the tents on a 795-meter section assigned to Qiangang Village.

At the side of the embankment, stands a post with the names, contact information and responsibilities of patrollers on it.

Li Chunhong and more than 30 other villagers and officials of Ruihong Township have been living in tents on the embankment for over a week. He said all township officials are on duty on the 15-km section of the embankment.

Ye Wei, resident of Ruihong’s Jiangjia Village, with four other villagers, has been walking back and forth to monitor a 300-meter part of the embankment during the morning. Dozens of villagers are taking turns to patrol the embankment round-the-clock.

“No mistakes can be allowed. Or, it will be a catastrophe,” Ye said.

Source: Two mln people threatened as China’s largest lake keeps rising – ReliefWeb

Date: 30 June 2010

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Calls to green ‘concrete jungle’

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
Trees in urban areas deliver a range of benefits, the report says

Trees in urban areas deliver a range of benefits, the report says

Trees can play an essential role in improving the quality of life in UK towns and cities, a report has said.

The Woodland Trust says planting more trees has been shown to improve air quality, reduce ambient temperatures and benefit people’s health.

The trend of declining tree cover in many areas needs to be reversed in order to improve access to green spaces in urban areas, the study adds.

The trust is also launching a campaign to plant 20m native trees each year.

“Towns and cities tend to put into sharp relief some of the key problems we are facing as a society,” said lead author Mike Townsend.

“So they are a good place to start when try to illustrate just where green spaces can deliver significant improvements for relatively little cost.”

The issues outlined in the report included physical and mental health problems, childhood obesity, air pollution, soaring summer temperatures, flash flooding and diminishing wildlife.

The trust estimated that 80% of the UK population live in urban areas, yet less than 10% of people have access to local woodlands within 500m of their homes.

“If you look back over history, Victorian times saw a real move towards parks and street trees; some of the big street trees that you find in our cities today go back to these times,” explained Woodland Trust conservation policy expert Sian Atkinson.

“What we have seen more recently is that there has been reduction in the number of trees being planted, and there has also been a loss of the lovely Victorian trees with big canopies,” she told BBC News.

“We are starting to miss these from our towns and cities, and not enough thought has been given to replacements and to ensuring that there is going to be enough tree cover in the future.”

The report also highlighted the role urban trees could play in preventing flash floods.

Ms Atkinson said: “Hard surfaces in towns and cities have increased in recent years, and we are seeing more flooding.

“One of the problems is surface water drainage. It has been shown that trees and woods are key to help control this sort of flooding.

“As well as absorbing groundwater, tree canopies help reduce the volume of rainfall hitting the ground and relieve pressure on urban drainage systems.

She called on civic planners to address the issues highlighted by the report.

“This is quite a lot of talk about green infrastructure,” she observed,

“and our message is that we hope that trees and woods are a really big part of that.”

In its Programme for Government report, the coalition government announced that it would initiate a national tree planting campaign.

During a speech in May, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said:

“If any organism has demonstrated an ability to multi-task, it’s trees.

“They capture carbon and hold soils together, prevent flooding and help control our climate. They also add immeasurably to the quality of life of our towns and cities.”

She added that in some parts of inner London, it was calculated that each tree was deemed to be worth as much as £78,000 in terms of its benefits.

Ms Atkinson welcomed the government’s announcement:

“The UK has very low woodland cover compared with the rest of Europe. We are actually looking for a doubling in native woodland cover.

“There are some areas that have more cover than others, but – overall – there is quite a big job to do in order to increase tree cover to a level that provides all the benefits outlined in the report.”

To coincide with the publication of the report, the Woodland Trust is also launching a More Trees More Good campaign, which will look to plant 20m native trees across the UK for the next 50 years.

Source: Calls to green ‘concrete jungle’ - news.bbc.co.uk

Date: 30 June 2010

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Arctic Climate May Be More Sensitive to Warming Than Thought, Says New Study

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
From left to right, Ashley Ballantyne of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Dara Finney of Environment Canada and Natalia Rybczynski of the Canadian Museum of Nature search for fossils in a peat deposit at Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island in Canadas High Arctic. (Photo courtesy Dara Finney, Environment Canada)

From left to right, Ashley Ballantyne of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Dara Finney of Environment Canada and Natalia Rybczynski of the Canadian Museum of Nature search for fossils in a peat deposit at Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island in Canada's High Arctic. (Photo courtesy Dara Finney, Environment Canada)

A new study shows the Arctic climate system may be more sensitive to greenhouse warming than previously thought, and that current levels of Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide may be high enough to bring about significant, irreversible shifts in Arctic ecosystems.

Led by the University of Colorado at Boulder, the international study indicated that while the mean annual temperature on Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic during the Pliocene Epoch 2.6 to 5.3 million years ago was about 34 degrees Fahrenheit, or 19 degrees Celsius, warmer than today, CO2 levels were only slightly higher than present. The vast majority of climate scientists agree Earth is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping atmospheric gases generated primarily by human activities like fossil fuel burning and deforestation.

The team used three independent methods of measuring the Pliocene temperatures on Ellesmere Island in Canada’s High Arctic. They included measurements of oxygen isotopes found in the cellulose of fossil trees and mosses that reveal temperatures and precipitation levels tied to ancient water, an analysis of the distribution of lipids in soil bacteria which correlate with temperature, and an inventory of ancient Pliocene plant groups that overlap in range with contemporary vegetation.

“Our findings indicate that CO2 levels of approximately 400 parts per million are sufficient to produce mean annual temperatures in the High Arctic of approximately 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees F),” Ballantyne said.

“As temperatures approach 0 degrees Celsius, it becomes exceedingly difficult to maintain permanent sea and glacial ice in the Arctic. Thus current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere of approximately 390 parts per million may be approaching a tipping point for irreversible ice-free conditions in the Arctic.”

A paper on the subject is being published in the July issue of the journal Geology. Co-authors included David Greenwood of Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada, Jaap Sinninghe Damste of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Adam Csank of the University of Arizona, Natalia Rybczynski of the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa and Jaelyn Eberle, curator of fossil vertebrates at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and an associate professor in the geological sciences department.

Arctic temperatures have risen by about 1.8 degrees F, or 1 degree C, in the past two decades in response to anthropogenic greenhouse warming, a trend expected to continue in the coming decades and centuries, said Ballantyne. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million during the pre-industrial era on Earth to about 390 parts per million today.

During the Pliocene, Ellesmere Island hosted forests of larch, dwarf birch and northern white cedar trees, as well as mosses and herbs, including cinquefoils. The island also was home to fish, frogs and now extinct mammals that included tiny deer, ancient relatives of the black bear, three-toed horses, small beavers, rabbits, badgers and shrews. Because of the high latitude, the Ellesmere Island site on the Strathcona Fiord was shrouded by darkness six months out of the year, said Rybczynski.

Fossils are often preserved in a process known as permineralization, in which mineral deposits form internal casts of organisms. But at the Ellesmere Island site known as the “Beaver Pond site,” organic materials — including trees, plants and mosses — have been “mummified” in peat deposits, allowing the researchers to conduct detailed, high-quality analyses, said Eberle.

Ballantyne said the high level of preservation of trees and mosses at Ellesmere Island allowed the team to measure the ratio of oxygen isotopes in plant cellulose, providing information on water absorbed from precipitation during the Pliocene and which yielded estimates of past surface temperatures. The team also compared data on the width of tree rings in larch trees at the Beaver Pond site to trees at lower latitudes today to help them estimate past temperatures and precipitation levels.

The researchers also analyzed the distribution of ancient membrane lipids from soil bacteria known as tetraethers, which correlate to temperature. The chemical structure of the fossilized tetraethers makes them highly sensitive to both temperature and acidity, or pH, said Ballantyne.

The last line of evidence put forward by the CU-Boulder-led team was a comparison of Pliocene ancient vegetation at the site with vegetation present today, providing a clear “climate window” showing the overlap of the two time periods.

“The results of the three independent temperature proxies are remarkably consistent,” said Eberle.

“We essentially were able to ‘read’ the vegetation in order to estimate air temperatures in the Pliocene.”

Today, Ellesmere Island is a polar desert that features tundra, permafrost, ice sheets, sparse vegetation and a few small mammals. Temperatures range from roughly minus 37 degrees F, or minus 38 degrees C, in winter to 48 degrees F, or 9 degrees C, in summer. The region is one of the coldest, driest environments on Earth.

“Our findings are somewhat disconcerting regarding the temperatures and greenhouse gas levels during the Pliocene,” said Eberle.

“We already are seeing evidence of both mammals and birds moving northward as the climate warms, and I can’t help but wonder if the Arctic is headed toward conditions similar to those that existed during the Pliocene.”

This is an artists rendering of the Beaver Pond site on Ellesmere Island, in Canadas High Arctic, as it may have looked about 3 to 5 million years ago. (George)

This is an artist's rendering of the Beaver Pond site on Ellesmere Island, in Canada's High Arctic, as it may have looked about 3 to 5 million years ago. (George)

Elevated Arctic temperatures during the Pliocene — which occurred shortly before Earth plunged into an ice age about 2.5 million years ago — are thought to have been driven by the transfer of heat to the polar regions and perhaps by decreased reflectivity of sunlight hitting the Arctic due to a lack of ice, said Ballantyne. One big question is why the Arctic was so sensitive to warming during this period, he said.

Multiple feedback mechanisms have been proposed to explain the amplification of Arctic temperatures, including the reflectivity strength of the sun on Arctic ice and changes in vegetation seasonal cloud cover, said Ballantyne.

“I suspect that it is the interactions between these different feedback mechanisms that ultimately produce the warming temperatures in the Arctic.”

In 2009, CU-Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center showed the September Arctic sea ice extent was 649,000 square miles, or 1,680,902 square kilometers, below the 1979-2000 average, and is declining at a rate of 11.2 percent per decade. Some climate change experts are forecasting that the Arctic summers will become ice-free summers within a decade or two.

In addition to its exceptional preservation of fossil wood, plants, insects and mollusks, the Beaver Pond site on Ellesmere Island is the only reported Pliocene fossil site in the High Arctic to yield vertebrate remains, said Rybczynski.

Eberle said there is high concern by scientists over a proposal to mine coal on Ellesmere Island near the Beaver Pond site by WestStar Resources Inc. headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia.

“Paleontological sites like the Beaver Pond site are unique and extremely valuable resources that are of international importance,” said Eberle.

“Our concern is that coal mining activities could damage such sites and they will be lost forever.”

Source: Arctic Climate May Be More Sensitive to Warming Than Thought, Says New Study – x-journals

Date: 29 June 2010

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Deforestation Statistics

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

Deforestation is the practice of clearing the natural forests for the purpose of agriculture, logging etc. It is one of the numerous environmental issues which are threatening the basic existence of several plant and animals species of the world today. Even if you are not sure as to why does deforestation happen, a look at the deforestation statistics is good enough for you to understand how it can trigger a series of domino effects on the lifeforms of the planet.

It’s obvious that humans will bear the brunt of the same in the long term, but the effects of deforestation are bound to be much more prominent on the life forms endemic to the particular region.

Deforestation Statistics Worldwide

The statistics of deforestation reveal that seven countries of the world amount to around 60 percent of the total deforestation on the planet. These seven countries include Brazil in Latin America, Canada and the United States in North America, Indonesia and China in Asia, Russia in Europe and the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa.

The data compiled by the World Resources Institute reveals that the planet has already lost 80 percent of its forest cover to deforestation, and going by the alarming rate at which the trees are being cut, it won’t take much time for that figure to reach the 100 percent mark. The West African region, which boasted of lush green tropical forests in the 19th century, has been stripped of 90 percent of its forest cover over the last century. The same trend of deforestation continues in the two remaining rainforest biomes in South America and Asia respectively.

Going by the statistics compiled by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agriculture is the most important cause of deforestation on the planet. While subsistence farming accounts for 46 percent of the total deforestation in the world, commercial agriculture is responsible for 32 percent. Other prominent causes of deforestation include logging at 14 percent, and fuel requirements at 5 percent.

Amazon Deforestation Statistics

Even though the vast area of Amazon Basin may make it look insignificant, the rate of deforestation in the Amazon is much higher than in any other part of the world. The Amazon rainforest which roughly account for about 2,488,642 square miles, has lost 15 percent of its forest cover since 1970 alone. For instance, Brazil, which is home to approximately one-thirds of the remaining rainforests of the world, has been experiencing an average loss of 21,536 square miles of forest cover annually, over the last few years. This, however, appears to be insignificant as it accounts to only 0.8 percent of the total forest cover of the country.

The rainforest deforestation statistics reveal that 60-70 percent of the deforestation in Amazon can be attributed to cattle ranches, while a significant part of the remaining 30 percent can be attributed to small-scale subsistence agriculture. Recent studies pertaining to the facts about deforestation have revealed that deforestation for the purpose of large scale farming is relatively low.

As far as the deforestation statistics for the United States are concerned, the country has lost 831 square miles of the forest cover between 2001 and 2005. Regeneration of depleted forest cover, new forest plantations, declaring forested areas as reserved etc. are some of the popular deforestation solutions being implemented around the world today. Even though the forest cover raised by these methods is inferior as compared to the primary forest cover, it can still keep the various problems associated with deforestation at bay.

Source: Deforestation Statistics - buzzle.com

Date: 29 June 2010

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Conservationists warn of hay meadow decline

Monday, June 28th, 2010

“Constable? Turner? Give me a hay meadow any day,” says Tony Bullough as we get our first glimpse of New House Farm.

And the National Trust warden has a point – the fields surrounding this small farm are a glorious sight.

Perched in a small valley near the village of Malham, in the Yorkshire Dales, the meadows provide a blaze of colour in the more typical green of the rural landscape.

Yellow buttercups mingle with pink clover and red sorrel flowers, all scattered in amongst a seemingly endless number of grass species.

Pollen-laden bumblebees buzz from flower to flower, dodging fluttering butterflies; curlews and lapwings soar overhead.

Traditional hay meadows like this one used to be the mainstay of rural Britain.

The grass and flower-packed fields were set aside and left to grow from spring to mid-summer, before being cropped and then dried out to provide fodder for livestock during the harsh winter months.

But as farming methods have changed and intensified, these pretty meadows have all but vanished from the face of the countryside.

Ecologist Professor John Rodwell says: “Over England and Wales, the last reliable overall survey showed us that in the last century we have lost about 97% of the hay meadows that we had.”

This study was carried out in the 1980s, and more recent surveys have revealed that the decline has been continuing around the whole of the UK, he explains.

“We’ve only got a tiny fraction left now – agriculture is a different sort of operation now,” he adds.

We head next door to Lee Gate Farm to meet Frank Carr.

This farm has been in his family since 1927.

“When I was a boy, all our meadows were the same as those that you’ve seen,” he says. “But as time has gone on, progress and lack of staff has meant that we have had to move with the times.”

Green silage fields have replaced the traditional hay meadows.

These fields contain just a few grass species, such as sturdy rye, which is grown, then cut and fermented to provide a wet feed for livestock.

Silage fields like these are a more economically viable option for modern farmers, says Mr Carr.

“Hay time involves much more manual work and a lot more people,” he explains. “With silage making, you can use much bigger machinery and do a lot in a little time.”

The success of the crop is also less dependent on weather.

“Hay time depends on a good five days of good weather, whereas with silage, if you have 24 hours of good weather you can get a good crop in,” he adds.

Wildlife losses

But the loss of hay meadows is having a worrying impact on biodiversity, says Professor Rodwell.

“When you shift to a more intensive form of agriculture, first of all the diversity drops. Then the differences from field to field – the particularity of the place – is lost, every field looks like every other.

“And then all of the other associated organisms – the butterflies, the bees, birds – they seem to decline too.”

It is also extremely difficult to “turn back the clock” once a hay meadow has been transformed into a more uniform pasture.

“Once a hay meadow is gone, it’s gone,” he says.

Organisations like the National Trust and Natural England want to safeguard the last few remaining hay meadows.

Pete Brash, an ecologist from the National Trust, says: “We want to keep the last few in as good a condition as possible – it is really important to conserve them as they are incredibly important for wildlife and they also have a huge cultural significance.”

The National Trust has been purchasing farms and hay meadows, such as New House Farm, through auctions to maintain and protect them where possible.

Farmers throughout the UK are also offered incentives to protect their hay meadows.

Dr Richard Jefferson, a senior specialist from Natural England, said: “We have been notifying the best ones as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) through the Countryside and Wildlife Act (in Northern Ireland they are designated as Areas of Special Scientific Interest). “And that actually gives them statutory protection, allowing us to control what actually happens on the site.”

Outside of this other hay meadows are also eligible for the environmental stewardship scheme.

“We are very dependent on these agri-evironment payments to provide this incentive, because [traditional hay meadows] have relatively low productivity compared with silage fields or other hay fields which receive artificial fertilizers.”

With schemes like these in place, conservation organisations hope the decline in hay meadows is slowing.

But they warn that we cannot be complacent, or hay meadows like those at New House Farm could risk becoming a hazy memory of rural summers past.

Source: Conservationists warn of hay meadow decline – BBC

Date: 28 June 2010

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Geoscientists call for reducing soot emissions

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

More aggressive action is required to reduce soot emissions in a bid to achieve climate policy goals such as those set forth in last December’s Copenhagen Accord, says a study.

The Princeton University researchers assessed the climatic contribution of ‘carbonaceous aerosols,’ fine particulates emitted into the air, known as soot.

Soot is a term that refers to the impure carbon particles produced by the incomplete combustion of organic matter and comes from diesel engines and coal combustion to biomass cook stoves, crop burning and wildfires.

Soot has complex effects on the global climate when airborne or deposited on snow. It has two main components: black carbon and organic carbon.

Black carbon is dark and absorbs radiation, thus warming the atmosphere; organic carbon is light coloured and reflective, so tends to have a cooling effect.

Their effects on climate are complicated, in part because they depend on how they are mixed with other particles in the atmosphere, and in part because both types of aerosols can cool the climate through their effects on cloud formation.

Black carbon also warms the Earth’s surface when it falls on snow or ice.

‘Because of uncertainties in these many effects and because of differences in whether and how these effects get incorporated into various models, past studies of soot’s contribution to global warming have ranged widely,’ said Robert Kopp, post-doctoral researcher jointly in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs and its Department of Geosciences.

‘We took several key studies, put them all on a common footing, and assessed what emerged,’ Kopp said.

Using four sets of highly cited but disparate studies that span the range of past estimates, Kopp and Denise Mauzerall, associate professor of environmental engineering and international affairs at Princeton, attempted to reconcile and standardise the results into one, common global metric.

‘Unfortunately, most climate change mitigation scenarios used in policy contexts have focused exclusively on heat-trapping gases,’ Mauzerall said, according to a university release.

These findings were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: Geoscientists call for reducing soot emissions - southkoreanews.net

Date: 26 June 2010

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Canada to phase out coal-fired plants

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Canada plans to phase out its coal-fired electricity plants as part of its goal to become a “clean energy superpower,” said Environment Minister Jim Prentice.

Prentice said two-thirds of the country’s 51 current coal units should be retired by 2025.

“Our regulation will be very clear,” said Prentice in announcing the regulations Wednesday.

“When each coal-burning unit reaches the end of its economic life, it will have to meet the new standards or close down.”

Prentice said the retired coal-fired plants would have to be replaced with low-emitting electricity such as clean coal, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, wind and tidal power.

Regulations covering new coal power plants would come into effect at the end of 2011.

“A responsible, clear phase-out of the electricity sector’s inefficient coal-fired generation will allow ample time for the implementation of cleaner generation technologies. This will create new jobs in the clean-energy sector, while helping Canada meets its commitment to greenhouse gas reductions,” Prentice said.

The phase-out of traditional coal-fired electricity generation, along with coal closure commitments from provinces and companies, will reduce emissions by about 15 million tons, an amount equivalent to Canada taking about 3.2 million cars off its roads, the government said.

Under Ottawa’s current international commitment, its emissions are supposed to fall to about 440 million tons by 2020.

Coal-fired plants make up 13 percent of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

Steve Snyder, president and chief executive officer of TransAlta, said the power supplier sees opportunities to replace its oldest coal plants with a mix of natural gas generation, clean coal technology and renewable energy.

But he warned that Canada’s transition must be done in a “careful and orderly fashion” to maintain the critical reliability of the country’s electricity infrastructure.

Noting that coal accounts for more than 50 percent of current global electricity production, Roger Gibbins, president and chief executive of think tank the Canada West Foundation, said the United States, China and India are not likely to take coal out of their energy mix going forward.

“They will work for cleaner coal, but coal will not disappear from their energy strategies. Why should it for us?” Gibbins told the Calgary Herald.

Prentice also announced that Canada would provide $400 million this year for an international climate fund to help poor countries combat climate change, as negotiated at the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen last December.

Source: Canada to phase out coal-fired plants - upi.com

Date: 25 June 2010

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Why a hosepipe ban in England’s wettest region?

Friday, June 25th, 2010
UK reservoir capacity vs rainfall - Aug 2009 to May 2010

UK reservoir capacity vs rainfall - Aug 2009 to May 2010

Six months ago parts of north-west England flooded and residents waded knee-deep in muddy water. Now, heading into high summer, a hosepipe ban looms. So why is it suddenly so dry?

Measures of rainfall, soil moisture, river flows and reservoir stocks all show north-west England is low on water.

UK reservoirs

This week United Utilities, the water company that provides water to the region’s seven million people, applied for a drought permit. A look at reservoir stocks across England and Wales shows only the Colliford reservoir on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, has above average stocks.

In the past six months the North West has had much less rain than normal, with certain areas having less than 60% of the long term average. In the past five months, the North West has had its lowest rainfall since 1929, says the Environment Agency.

As rainfall has dropped, so has the water level of its reservoirs. This is because the region is unusual in that it lacks large underground aquifers that can soak up and store rainwater, and so is far more reliant on regular rainfall to keep its supplies topped up.

“Despite receiving record-breaking levels of rainfall in November 2009 in Cumbria, our drinking water relies on water from rivers, lakes and reservoirs,” says an Environment Agency spokesperson. “These are sensitive to changes in the weather, responding quickly to heavy rainfall or dry periods.”

Source: Why a hosepipe ban in England’s wettest region? – BBC

Date: 25 June 2010

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Report offers first worldwide estimate of investments in combating water pollution

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

An innovative market in water quality is rapidly emerging worldwide, as cash-strapped governments in countries as diverse as China, the United States, Brazil and Australia invest billions of public and private dollars in schemes that reward people who protect water resources, according to a new report that is the first to quantify payments for watershed services that could help avert a looming global water quality crisis. Calling the water crisis a threat to humanity that exceeds global warming, the authors of the study released today at the global Katoomba conference in Hanoi said that a number of regions of the globe seem to be responding to such frightening indicators as the steady proliferation of “dead zones” in waterways around the world.

In the United States, for example, years of unchecked fertilizer run-off along the Mississippi River have generated algae blooms that have created massive oxygen-starved dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico the size of a small US state.

“Our findings suggest growing awareness by the public and private sectors worldwide of the water quality crisis, and acknowledgement that the problem is too big to be solved by traditional approaches alone,” said Michael Jenkins, Forest Trends President and CEO.

“But the billions of dollars that are being spent on strategies aimed at protecting water resources represent only a snapshot of the potential for using market-based incentives to reduce threats to water.”

In the report, State of Watershed Payments: An Emerging Marketplace, experts at Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing markets for “ecosystem services,” identified roughly 288 programs yielding an estimated US$9.3 billion in payments for watershed protection in 2008. These include payments for watershed services (PWS), in which “land managers” such as farmers and forest communities are paid to maintain water quality, and water quality trading programs (WQT), in which industry and other polluters meet quality standards by buying and selling pollution reduction credits.

Over the last few decades, the total investment was about US$50 billion and affected about 3.24 billion hectares of watershed, which is land that funnels water into major waterways like the Chesapeake Bay in the US and the Yangtze River in China.

“Clearly, a global movement is building that could be rapidly scaled-up to reduce water pollution much the same way carbon markets are intended to reduce greenhouse gases,” Jenkins said.

Marta Echavarria, one of the report co-authors, said that their analysis of payments for water services, as well as for water trading schemes, revealed that many programs around the world are focused on more effective management of forests. Thus, she said it makes sense to link water quality issues to the climate change discussion regarding the use of payments and trading exchanges to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, or REDD.

“The same activities in forests that can affect climate change influence water quality and biodiversity, as well,” she said.

“We need to broaden the lens and look at how payments for environmental services can purchase multiple benefits, from clean air to clean water to biodiversity. Then, we can design programs that allow markets to put a value on all of these benefits.”

Trading in Credits for Water Pollution

Water quality trading programs totaled only about US$11 million in 2008, but the authors believe this sector could grow rapidly, much in the way carbon trading has skyrocketed from relatively small investments early in the decade to become a market worth US$144 billion in 2009.

The report highlights the potential for attracting private sector participation by setting up exchanges that would facilitate trading in water pollution credits. Like carbon trading, water trading allows polluters to meet a mandated limit, either by reducing their discharges or by purchasing a credit tied to a reduction achieved elsewhere in the watershed, such as by a farmer, forest owner, or wastewater treatment plant.

“Water trading is poised to expand rapidly as a way to protect water quality,” said Tracy Stanton, Water Program Manager for Ecosystem Marketplace and lead author of the report.

“We found a number of programs already well-established, but to see wider adoption, we need governments to stimulate the markets by setting clear water quality standards that will drive greater demand for pollution credits. Likewise, government is uniquely positioned to help lower the barriers to private sector investors by lowering the perceived risks.”

Most of the 72 trading programs studied in the report are located in the US, but they also can be found in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

For example, in New South Wales, Australia, the Hunter River Salinity Trade Scheme allocates salinity credits that can be traded among 23 coal mining and power generation facilities as a way to meet government-mandated caps on pollution discharge.

The report finds evidence that trading schemes could greatly expand in the US, especially now that the Department of Agriculture has established an Office of Environmental Markets. Already, efforts are underway to develop ecosystem markets in the Chesapeake Bay, the Florida Everglades, the salmon habitat in the Pacific Northwest, the forests in the Northeast and in the Ohio River Basin. In addition, China has been conducting water trading pilot programs since the early 1980s and appears to be laying the groundwork around the country for establishing large trading exchanges in ecosystem services, and Europe has been developing a trading scheme to combat declining water quality along the Danube.

Payments for Water Services

The authors note that government funds still make up the bulk of payments for water quality, but there are indications of interest from major players in the private sector. Global beverage companies such as Coca-Cola and SAB Miller have been engaged in watershed protection programs for the past several years. And in France, since the mid 1990s, Nestlé has paid farmers to manage animal waste and reforest sensitive areas to protect the mineral water used in its Vittel line of bottled water.

“While this type of payment may seem quite small at the moment, this is an area in which we are most likely to see tremendous growth,” said Jenkins.

“After all, if the private sector does not start paying for watershed services, then we are missing an important potential solution to this problem. “

For now, the public sector is funding most of the programs of “payments for watershed services,” and the greatest number of programs are in China and the United States.

In China, for example, where 700 million people lack access to safe water, payments in exchange for watershed protection increased from US$1 billion in 2000 to US$7.8 billion in 2008, and the number of programs expanded from 8 to 47. Thus far, these initiatives have protected or restored 270 million hectares. A significant portion of the payments are subsidies for farmers to reduce their pollution in and around forested areas. And in the United States, payments for watershed services have grown from US$629 million in 2002 to US$1.35 billion in 2008, and could expand rapidly, as the federal government has recently taken unprecedented actions to address critical gaps in watershed restoration polices across the country.

But the authors argue that China and the United States could learn much from innovations introduced in the nations of Latin America, where governments are experimenting with new ways of making payments and new methods for measuring and monitoring their impact.

Latin America has emerged as the global leader in innovative market-based clean water programs. Today, there is a range of local, state, and national initiatives underway in ten countries, led by Costa Rica and Mexico, but also including Colombia, Guatemala, and Brazil. In 2009, for example, the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo established a new program that encourages dairy farmers in three river basins to close off pastures in order to improve water quality and flow. Farmers are paid for each liter of milk lost due to the closures, with much of the money coming from water tariffs as well as royalties from oil and gas exploration and hydropower production.

In the nations of Africa, the report identified 20 programs totaling about US$62.7 million, though the authors suggest that the number could grow as new initiatives are underway, including programs supported by the World Wildlife Fund in South Africa and Kenya.

“We now know that payments for watershed services are no longer a series of isolated incidents,” said Stanton.

“Though much remains to be done, we have documented the beginning of a global movement; an emerging marketplace in the protection of water resources.“

Source: Report offers first worldwide estimate of investments in combating water pollution – esciencenews

Date: 23 June 2010

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Right to food threatened globally by runaway prices in 10 years

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

The country must brace for a huge problem– a food crisis — in 10 years.

This dire warning was raised by Chairwoman Leila M. de Lima of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in a speech delivered during the 4th general assembly of the FoodFirst Information and Action (FIAN) at the Religious of the Good Shepherd Retreat House in Tagaytay City last June 19.

De Lima said a report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showed that:

“over the next ten years, the average prices of wheat and coarse grain will rise from 15 percent to 40 percent. Vegetable oils are projected to rise by more than 40 percent. And dairy prices are expected to increase anywhere from 16 percent to 45 percent.”

This does not augur well for the basic human right to food, the CHR chief stressed, since the total number of undernourished people now is one billion, a sixth of the global population.

Even as food production manages to keep up with growing demand, these agencies said the world is in for a regime of “more hunger and increased food insecurity.”

“One billion people for whom the right to food is a cruel joke or a mere mirage. One billion people whose health will continue to flounder because of poor nutrition. That number includes countless adults who will face significant difficulty carrying out their work, or finding work in the first place. And it includes countless children for whom the day’s lessons fade inevitably into the background, while the emptiness that is their hunger gnaws away at their being,” De Lima noted.

“The report points to a number of reasons for increasing prices, from growing demand for biofuels created using food crops, to increasing consumption of food from emerging nations which are becoming more prosperous, as well as rising production costs, such as the cost of energy,” she added.

Higher food prices would penalize the poor, De Lima explained,

“since they spend a far larger share of the family budget on food. It is clear that at the international level, across continents and countries, the right to food will face significant peril over the coming years. Therefore in response, we must redouble our efforts to help protect and fulfill the right to food.”

She lashed out at the “vested interests have worked to stymie genuine comprehensive land reform, through intimidation, the use of legal action, and acts of violence, including murder. And actions arising from economic, political and other interests have deprived vulnerable groups of their access to food, because of water contamination, home demolition, harvest confiscation and worse.”

De Lima said “one of the primary institutions which has been there and which has continuously stepped up, in order to advocate strenuously, knowledgeably and passionately on behalf of the right to food has been the FoodFirst Information and Action Network or FIAN.”

Source: Right to food threatened globally by runaway prices in 10 years — CHR – mb.com.ph

Date: 23 June 2010

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