Climate Change and Water Supply

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With climate change such a huge issue nowadays, how can we, as designers of water supply system tackle or not worsen the present situation?

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25 Answers

  1. Только проектировщики и смогут повернуть сознание человечества к сохранению климата. Отстоянная использованная вода в септике и др. устройствах может быть возвращена по специальным водопроводам для смыва из унитазов. Объемы этих вод достаточны для полной ликвидации централизованной канализации. И обширных отстойников канализационных вод. Значительный шаг по сокращению искусственных испарений, от которых зависит климат.

  2. Do what water suppliers have always done. Anticipate the usual ups and downs of rainfall and have adequate storage capacity. If you are in an area of increasing population and strained access to natural water, build a wastewater recycling system so you will get multiple use of the water that you have and thus be more independent of the water source and become more sustainable. Of course, you might have to think about periodic water use restrictions, but keep in mind that drinking water represents less than 1% of the treated water that is delivered. Non potable uses far exceed the drinking water, so place restrictions on non potable uses. Also, Fix the leaks in your distribution system. Most systems have very high water losses because they do not provide adequate distribution system maintenance and replacement.

  3. Hi David, we believe that rain water which is transformed into a waste water when it currently enters the stormwater system is the single largest waste of what is currently a free water resource  and is the major contaminator of our stormwater receiving environments not to mention the stormwater system is the major collector and conduit of solid plastic to these above waterways.

    At source treatment opens up not only the water cleaning up our waterways but many different stormwater re-use options.

    The issue is Governments and Councils has almost ignored stormwater and all the associated negative effects because there was no solution available.  There is now a proven solution available.

    Craig UST Pty Ltd

    1 Comment

    1. Spot on Craig; microbial degradation is currently the front runner. To resolve many other issues society needs to switch over to a decentralized (in-situ) system. Zero waste is possible when in-situ is used.

  4. Hello Carmen;  I do agree you need long term planning for natural cyclical environmental events. As in any calculation it helps to have pertinent data.  We already know the climate change hoax was made to scare uneducated people into giving their money to government hacks for their personal use. Many people say Man is responsible for the GHG's.  Not even I/10,000 of 1%.  Unknown to the average citizen is modern science and technology and locate, predict, and allow plenty of time before our solar system throws an object at Earth causing all of the things grouped as Climate Change. The really big problem is Green climate change organized crime is taking the money and time away from the public that should have been used since the 1980's to prepare for this very soon to hit event.  Never too late to get prepared. Now the hoax is exposed people are feverishly making preparations. 1. under ground shelter, 2. food and water for 2 years, 3. survival/hunting weapons, 4. anything you need to live, clothes, medicines, saws, axes, cooking items etc.   One other item. Get as far away from populated areas as possible. Unprepared people will be cold, hungry and thirsty. It won't be pretty.

  5. Hello dear Mr. Long

     

    I do not know how late I am to answer the question from my point of view. Climate change as "environmental or natural" ""hazard""need to take into the most accurate spatial planning techniques. The best way of tackling current and future water related hazards  is an accurate assessment with spatial planning. what the results are have to taken in planning system. We all know the climate change impacts are worsen by the human activities. Hence, this is so clear that planning and planning system is the biggest human impact on environment "even in terms of urban and rural design, agriculture, industry and so on". Technically, at the first step water problems and climate change should be addressed in planning system where different stakeholders participate. 

    In addition, tackling current and future impact of climate change need an integration in planning system with spatial techniques, methods, and approaches. Indeed, adaptation "refers to human activities" and mitigation " reducing GHG" should take into planning system and spatial planning "together".

  6. Through designing of climate proof infrastructure and embracing green energy and sustainable use of water resources.

  7. Reuse and efficient conservation. The problem is due to population growth in areas that have limited water availability. Water suppliers and governments  historically dealt with adequate supply with impoundments, canals, long pipelines, reservoirs. Now that water recycling technology is readily available (and desalination of seawater and brackish groundwater) they have more tools available. It is all in the planning for future population demand growth. Most importantly-charge appropriate water rates so that the water supplier is funded and the users are not subsidized and wasteful.

  8. The water suppliers need to push, bully or level punitive charges against companies that dont clean and reuse their waste water, where they can.

    Many companies, not only in the emerging nations, only look at short term cost and not long term savings. Also governments don't help by forcing companies to recycle.

    There is enough equipment on the market, some designed for small companies, to help with reuse of water.

  9. Wastewater reuse would be more efficient if some products ending in wastewater would not be so costly and difficult to treat, there is therefore a need to change the supply chain. My company is acting to influence the wastewater content by distributing the some of the dividends of wastewater recycling to the suppliers of wastewater as follows: https://www.pranasustainablewater.ch/en/advantages/index.php  Substituting some inputs by organic or easy to recycle products  might sometimes comes to more expensive at production but it can be the opposite if the margins of related wastewater are compensating financially the costs for a more sustainable supply chain. 

    1 Comment

  10. Minimisation of real and apparent losses in the distribution system is one way. There is need to integrate systems which focus on water resource management. Secondly systems to fully explore ground water resources is also equally important

  11. Hi David Long,
    There is no simple answer to your question.
    Firstly, we ​need to ​understand how ​the value of ​water changes ​through ​different ​climate cycles ​and regulatory ​frameworks.
    We need to minimize the losses - by digitalization of the water sector, collecting information and using augmented intelligence to interpret an array of structured and unstructured data. That way we can get real-time information and react in time to prevent any inefficiencies.
    Circular economy and the holistic approach are extremely important (but not only recycling and reusing water, as much as using water efficiently).
    Moreover, resilience-based performance metrics are the key for long-term water resources management, especially considering water supply design.

    1 Comment

  12. Apart from more storm water capture and storage and dams the most widely available and sustainable source is recycling sewage. The technologies produce water that is higher quality than 'natural' water. See the 2017 WHO Guideline for direct and indirect water reuse. There is also desalination of sea and brackish water when accessible, but more expensive.

  13. Technically speaking:

    One way of achieving best practices is to take in account the amount of energy we use in the water supply system. Many times we have systems were we can use much less energy than we are really using. Sometimes this goes from the conception of the system itself. Sometimes in hilly cities we have a succession of pumping stations and energy lost valves when we can think in better ways of not doing that. Other times the pumping stations aren't enough effcient because they are dimensioned to work in several stages of pumping, very different between them. In this case I will recommend an elevated tank before the network and one pumping station to the tank, design to work to just one stage of pumping.

     

    Policy making:

    Using preferably the storm water (dams and reservoirs) instead of using groundwater. This saves the water on the ground and helps to prevent desertification and it prevents the salt from the see to arrive to the groundwater in costal areas (wish leads to desertification too). 

    Doing a balance between the needs of water and the amount of water that actually exists or may be collected is a very good exercice to do. If we are heading to a shortage of water, it' better to be prepared before and not growing big cities or industrial zones.

  14. Several projects I'm associated with are exploring how to tap impaired groundwater for use as potential drinking water sources.  The groundwater is highly contaminated with a variety of both organic and inorganic constituents -- the ultimate result of remedial investigation and risk assessment will be the construction of  treatment plants specifically designed to decrease concentrations of these compounds to acceptable levels.  Clearly, this isn't a solution for all cities because of the expense, but it does point to the determination to utilize every drop of water, no matter how seemingly unusable it might be.  These challenges will only increase in the future, and it's our job as consultants to find creative solutions.

  15. Dear Mr. Long

     

    Recently I had the opportunity to work in a project, which aims at estimating the amount of water available for irrigation in ungauged semiarid catchments based on a global water balance model developed by the FAO (grid size: 10 km by 10 km). The idea of the project is to first understand the water cycle and the water balance within a specific catchment and then determine the maximum amount of water, which can be “extracted” or supplied to human users as e.g. agriculture without causing (major) damage to the ecosystem of the catchment.  Climate change affects / alters the water balance in a specific catchment and can be best assessed with different scenarios of future hydro meteorological conditions (precipitation, temperature,..)

     

    In this sense water supply systems design should not only consider the demand but also the offer-side and its changes (actual water balance and the future water balance influenced by climate change).

     

    I am however aware of the fact that estimating the changes in the water balance and determining the amount of water, which can be “extracted” without causing damages to the ecosystem of the catchment, is not a straightforward exercise.  

     

    With kind regards

     

    Richard Kuntner

  16. Hi

    1. Take care of your waters source, having the best way to keep it in the best levels

    and

    2 reducing the lost water to the maximal through the technologies and  knwolegment you hace (no waste)

  17. HI MR David,First of all we have verify the present storm water and sewage water system and networks and any clogging and blockages and maintenance should be done.

    As per design point of view we have to consider pipe sizing and sloping should be upgrade and rain water survey should me 100 years history should be consider for piping and peak flow with safety factors should 2 to 3 is bettor.And maintain good sloping for collection piping.Storm lift  pumping station should be high size(Inorder predict wastage of water & loss)

    High range storm water harvesting system should be designed in each house and streets inorder to eliminate wastage of water.

    Efficient Filtration system - clarification followed with sand filtaration and cartridge station and chlorination system should be designed with efficient reservour management..

    In the case of flooding Mobile treatment plants should be available for drinking water supply to public.

  18. Hi David,

    Stormwater is the last, untapped, natural water resource we have and in the majority of cases it simply washes into drains and is carried to outfalls.  Sadly due to the waste entering the drains stormwater is also a contaminator of receiving water environments such as wetlands, lakes, rivers and coastal oceans.

    We can demonstrate that when installing new UST CBI technology we are capturing the waste and filtering the water to such an extent stormwater can be considered a new water resource. An example is Hartfield Park in the Shire of Kalamunda in Perth Western Australia.  The CBI is installed into the drains, the water is then taken from a main drain for further filtration prior to being pumped 45m into a local aquifer for reuse in summer for Public Open Space and other High water load requirements.  Any excess water captured and stored can then be possibly sold on.  Hope that helps?  C

    1 Comment

    1. Great focus Craig. To avoid contamination and eliminate the expensive infrastructure collect rain water. If you fear any airborne items just set up a bioremediation processing tank and use the RNA microbes. 40 years of no pathogens and no toxins. Insitu is now the accepted norm.

  20. I honestly believe nature has more than sufficient regenerative capabilities than any thing man could ever dream of.  Since every single worldly disaster in the entire history of our planet was caused by an unseen but very real natural celestial event. This can easily explain why profiteering opportunistic set up this scam years ago and still push it even after it has been proven to be a hoax. BTW! Not a good idea to wait for polar ice caps to melt for more water. Sea levels dropping. Year round ice caps increasing, extra hot at equator and extra cold at the poles equals massive convection systems. = rain, flooding, hurricanes, tornados earth quakes, volcanic eruptions, creating many small nuclear winter scenarios.  None of which man could not do at all by himself. Do the math yourself. get updates with Nasa  and USGS. Don't be scared, BE prepared.  

  21. THE NEW PARADIGM FOR WASTEWATER-PROCESSING / WASTEWATER-RECYCLING

    • · RE-USE… RE-USE… RE-USE

    We suggest that it’s time for our industry, our governments and our municipal utilities to see the solutions for our water shortages and water quality: a wastewater system that totally eliminates all organic wastewater sludge (the number one contaminant on this planet) and RECYCLES the wastewater effluent to be 100% re-usable and even potable!

    The only system that does that: (a) has recently received its U.S. Patent approval; and (b) has been manufacturing these systems for the U.S. Military (Special Forces) for base camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, Navy EOD & Seals, and oil and gas offshore drilling operations for almost 10 years : the Global Water Group (Dallas, TX.) “WWR” (Wastewater-and Wastewater Recycling) technology.

    In the simplest terms, what makes the Global WWR System so different, so good and so needed is that:

    (1) At the end of the day, all of the organic sludge shall have been eliminated with no organic sludge required to be physically removed or disposed of; and

    (2) 100% of the effluent shall meet the qualities required for re-use: even potability.

    Global Water has been manufacturing water systems, primarily for the U.S. Military, since 1990. During these 28 years it has been a niche business with systems deployed to five continents and over 40 countries. Now Global is ready to provide municipal systems which will be the water solutions for the next century. Global has developed a Public Private Partnership financing concept to fund most new municipal water systems without increasing current water rates and without requiring new municipal bonds. Global’s modular building technology makes systems faster to build and install, easier to operate and easier to maintain.

    The best way to see the scope of these systems and Global’s patents: www.globalwater.com .

    Alan M. Weiss. President,

    Global Water Group,

    Dallas, TX 75247

  22. We can simply increase the total volume in storage region by region with a view to supply the environment and civil demand consistently. More water is becoming available with the melting of the Ice caps and so it real is as simple as retaining more rain fall and increasing water storage capacities.  And we can achieve this with CDP systems.

  23. There several ways to tackle this:

    Civil engineering : the compulsory set-up of buffer stock infrastructures for storing clean water and for collecting floods water is integrated in our W2AREX tool https://www.pranasustainablewater.ch/en/advantages/index.php

    Economy : productions should be produced and consumers where it makes sense, for example producing flowers in a water scarce region and export those water intensive flowers should not happen

  24.                                                                                                                       On Climate Change

     

                                                                                                  Khalidullin Oleg

                                         

     

    Climate degradation is a single problem for the whole planet and it is useless to look for any local causes of natural disasters, heavy rainfall or drought. The Paris Agreements of 2015 call for a reduction in the emission of carbon dioxide. This is not a proven assumption. There are no convincing arguments for the direct dependence of the increase in the level of the oceans on the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. "Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation," the need for which, 750 experts say, lead to humility with climate change. This leads to a distraction of humanity from finding out the true causes of climate change, the loss of time, to a catastrophe. Attempts to reduce fuel combustion are certainly necessary, but they are microscopic in performance.

    As a result of human activity, the functions of the main part of the water have changed. Water at every moment of its movement must fulfill its labor mission - to go the way programmed by nature - to supply biota, mineral and organic substances, and clean it, to escape into the atmosphere with the moisture of breathing, transpiration and other excretions of living organisms. Man destroys this link. Water comes with precipitation and returns to the atmosphere by artificial evaporation from arable land, asphalt, reservoirs, dumps. In total, people took from nature 63% of the inhabited land (data of 2015) for these purposes, each hectare of which contained 20 tons of underground living creatures. These are microbes, worms, and so on living creatures that, in symbiosis with plants and terrestrial populations, absorb moisture, transform in food chains and exhale purely individual pairs, which we call natural or organic vapors. Human intervention in the circulation of water reduces food chains, and water from asphalt and other destroyed areas evaporates immediately after precipitation. We call these evaporation artificial. Even more artificial fumes are produced by industry and utilities around the world. The total artificial evaporation creates unprecedented volumes of water in the atmosphere, which destroyed the mechanism of atmospheric phenomena, perfected for millions of years. The cyclicity, massiveness and places of precipitation have changed. The melting of glaciers, perhaps, has not changed - this is also an assumption. The new regime of water circulation does not ensure the former accumulation of snow in the Arctic regions. Reduced water path in the clouds and premature precipitation and leads to an increase in the level of the oceans.

         Only the all-round and worldwide return to nature of organic fumes and artificial reduction can stop raising the level of the ocean and solve your problems.

            Among the measures to reduce artificial fumes should be the total total water saving in everyday life by every person, every enterprise of all branches of agriculture and industry. Reconstruction of all agriculture with the introduction of shallow plowing, drip irrigation, other ways to reduce water consumption. And all this should be done on every scrap of the remaining land around the world and not only on agriculture - in all branches of human life.

    One of the most capacious in artificial evaporation are man-made reservoirs. Now the construction of new hydroelectric power stations with the flooding of large areas is increasing everywhere. Full stop of projects and construction of new reservoirs, gradual liquidation of existing for restoration of a historical biota is necessary. There are interesting technical solutions for the conservation of power generation without dams and the accumulation of water above the surface of rivers.

    Urgently begin landscaping of roofs and walls of all structures in the world, and the construction of new industries, urban infrastructure and even housing to be moved underground and under water. There are such projects.

     

     


     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  25. It isn't a new issue. Water suppliers have always had the responsibility of planning for dry years and having adequate backup water sources for access when the need arose. In addition, the population migration to urban areas has placed greater stress on demand and available water sources. One of the best sustainable approaches is to reprocess wastewater for multiple uses from irrigation, industrial, to drinking water. That makes the  water supply much less hostage on the variations and unreliability of weather. The WHO has recent (2017) detailed guidance on direct and indirect potable reuse. Many are moving in that direction in water short areas.

    1 Comment

    1. he issues on climate change is no longer a new discuss because of the changes that we are witness in our environments regarding water supply.However the greatest threat has been the near absence of factors that can turn the issues in favour of providing the water for the teaming population especially in the third world Countries: Policy,Up to date laws including Regulations to allow private participation in the provisions of adequate potable water for the citizenry.We should therefore put  measures that can make both the Government and Governed to accept reforms that can impact on the adequate provision of water for our overall interest.