water management
New stationarities: avoiding problems in the solutions
06/03/12 13:27
Most of the things that are wrong with water are easy to identify: the massive quantities of largely untreated sewage, industrial pollution that has been the legacy of the industrial revolution worldwide, chemical fertilizer and pest management runoff that is the legacy of the agricultural revolution in the most productive countries, building “bad dams” that are designed and/or operated in ways that significantly an negatively alter the ecosystems and livelihoods of rivers, invasive species, and the overconsumption and diversion of water resources, killing rivers for great lengths or draining lakes and marshes into cities, fields, and factories.
You could call these “first-order problems” with managing water. Read More...
You could call these “first-order problems” with managing water. Read More...
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"Difficult Hydrologies" for Everyone
29/05/11 12:31
David Grey and Claudia Sadoff wrote a wonderful paper in a 2007 issue of Water Policy that grouped countries into three categories: “those that harnessed hydrology, those hampered by hydrology, and those held hostage by hydrology.” One of the memorable phrases in the paper is "difficult hydrologies" (e.g., frequent weather extreme, high inter- and intra-annual water availability variations, many ephemeral/temporary surface water bodies, etc.), and how this acts as a constant impediment to maintaining growth trajectories. They estimate, for instance, that a single drought in Ethiopia can reduce economic growth at the national level over a twelve-year period. (Their discussion, incidentally, reminds me of an essay from the nineteenth century ecologist Alfred Russell Wallace, who reflected on how the tropics were so harsh compared to the “temperate” temperate zones of gentle England and western Europe, and how lucky we in the West were to have had the advantage of developing in a moderate, more friendly and less savage vision of nature.)
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Guest blog: Climate services for Latin America
03/05/11 10:35
Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm
Water & Sanitation Advisor, Inter-American Development Bank
As a society, one of the main deficiencies we encounter in dealing with climate change is the access to reliable climate information that is central to the design of effective policies related to mitigation, adaptation, dealing with climate-related risk and reducing vulnerability. Read More...
Water & Sanitation Advisor, Inter-American Development Bank
As a society, one of the main deficiencies we encounter in dealing with climate change is the access to reliable climate information that is central to the design of effective policies related to mitigation, adaptation, dealing with climate-related risk and reducing vulnerability. Read More...
Video: Sundarbans and Climate Change
08/09/10 04:44
John Matthews from World Wildlife Fund and Sara Tynnerson from Stockholm Resilience Center from Stockholm University talks to Deepak Menon, India Water Portal. John talks about the impact of climate change on the Sunderbans in the eastern part of India.
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A Cold Controversy: Himalayan Glaciers
05/01/10 16:17
A controversy has been brewing over glaciers and climate change, especially the glaciers of the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau, a vast region that spans India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, the Tibetan region of China, and other parts of China too. The conflict began last November after the Indian government produced a report on their part of the Himalayas, focusing on how the leading edges of their glaciers (called the snout) have been trending over the past century or so. Were the snouts advancing? Retreating? Using many lines of evidence, the report stated that the snouts of their glaciers were mostly retreating, but some were advancing. The most important conclusion of the report was that the movement of the snouts did not seem to be related to climate change.
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Guest Blog: Farming with the Titimangsa: Losing Weather (and Water) in Time
23/12/09 17:02
By Nikolai Sindorf, WWF-US, based in Laos
In 1997 I went to the western part of Java in Indonesia to research on agricultural water management. Java is one of the most densely populated regions and high-yielding rice paddy lands in the world.
The focus of my research was how rice farmers dealt technologically and organizationally with ongoing reforms in large, engineered irrigation systems. During this research I met a farmer who had meticulously typed out his traditional cropping calendar. This cropping calendar — a titimangsa — read like a beautiful poem, describing the smell of the dew, the color of the sunset, the touch of the soil, and the observation of insect life cycles.
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In 1997 I went to the western part of Java in Indonesia to research on agricultural water management. Java is one of the most densely populated regions and high-yielding rice paddy lands in the world.
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Video: More Water Asks at the COP
17/12/09 06:47
Quick update: a video on the UNFCCC COP15 site of me speaking last week on water and climate from an event sponsored by the Global Water Partnership, Stakeholders Forum, and the Stockholm International Water Institute. Read More...
Guest Blog: A National "Climate Service"?
19/06/09 18:08
Paul Fleming works on freshwater climate adaptation issues for the US City of Seattle, Washington. Seattle obtains much of its water from large rivers, and much of that water during the summer and fall is derived from the melting of annual snowpack — a process that is shifting rapidly as a result of climate change. 
Among his other responsibilities, Paul helps the city’s water supply utility think about how to manage their water resources in fiscally prudent, flexible ways, given that Seattle’s “normal” climate is altering rapidly. In early May, Paul spoke before the U.S. Congress in regard to the Waxman/Markey bill (discussed in several previous blogs here, most recently here) about the need for a National Climate Service — modeled in part on the existing National Weather Service. Such a group would likely focus on delivering analytical services for how climate is changing in critical parameters in particular regions — an excellent idea, which would be a great boon for facilitating and groundtruthing climate adaptation efforts. Below is his statement, as well as the statement of marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, who is now the head of NOAA, which is the agency that would host both the Weather Service and the Climate Service. Many thanks to Paul for supplying his remarks! — JM
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Dragons of Change?
19/05/09 21:55
Most of the people I work with today don’t know that I began my career as a biologist studying dragonflies. For at least a year or two, I was probably the world’s expert on a single species of North American dragonfly. Seem obscure? My dissertation didn’t start off as a study of climate change impacts on this species (the common green darner or Anax junius), but four years of fieldwork in rural Ontario revealed that 40 years of shifting precipitation patterns correlated closely with an altered the rate of development of the species’ larvae.
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Elevator Stories: Moving Up at the World Bank
05/04/09 09:35
There are three major global water-related meetings: the World Bank’s Water Week every February, World Water Week in Stockholm every August, and the World Water Forum, which occurs every three years (and is discussed in another recent entry). Last February, I was invited to speak about some work I was leading for a team at the Bank’s Water Week. Water Week occurs in Washington, DC, where the World Bank’s global headquarters is located. The World Bank was founded after World War II at the Bretton Woods Conference along with the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund to promote equitable economic development. Water is a critical element in the Bank’s strategy: reliable and sustainable water use and infrastructure development are critical to development in most (all?) parts of the world, so the Bank advises on and funds projects such as dams, irrigation programs, and even habitat restoration. But the World Bank is not a normal place to be for a conservation biologist. Either from the Bank’s perspective or from the biologist’s. We don’t really go to the same kinds of parties. Read More...
Nine Challeges to Freshwater Management from Climate Change
10/08/08 11:21
One of my key hunches is that climate change alters the framework of economic development and conservation. My proprietary and parochial interest is in freshwater ecosystems, but the insight (if insight it be) extends more broadly. Here, I propose a list of some of the climate-related elements I think we should be debating in regard to freshwater management. It is not complete, but these cover many of the big points we should probably be resolving now and over the next few years. Read More...
Managing Water Managers
08/08/08 12:19
In London in late July, I met a several people who represent government and private bodies that “manage”’ the river Thames. The UK government owns the water, at least in theory, and this ownership devolves onto private businesses that manage portions of the watershed, including treating river water and sewage and moving water to houses. It’s an old an complex process, and there are a lot legacy (i.e., inherited and old fashioned) components to the systems. For instance, not many homes or businesses in the UK have water meters, so usage rates are often estimated. Many much less developed countries have much better metering systems simply because they have newer water distribution systems. Also, many of the facilities and pipes themselve are well over a century old, designed for quite different times and usage levels. Read More...
