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World Water Crisis (LIFE) RSS Feed

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https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu

 

This forum is committed to informing and educating our visitors. A life threatening problem exists involving dramatically declining supplies of pure, safe, delicious water which is affecting nearly every living man, woman and child around the globe; what experts label as the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century -

AND the noble investment opportunities designed to support those who are adversely affected.

http://water.org/FileUploads/H2OCrisisFactSheet08.pd

"The scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty & inequality... "       UNDP, 2006

 

Click Here for: Global Water Crisis Overview

 

World Water Crisis 

In the extraordinary new book Blue Planet Run, hundreds of photographers from all over the world track mankind's vital race to provide safe drinking water to the one billion people who lack it... Presented by TIME in Partnership with CNN

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1724375,00.html

The Staff of Life
Water, Earth's most precious resource, serves simultaneously as habitat, nourishment and cleanser. Brazil's Pantanal River, for example, is home to 3,500 species of plants, 400 kinds of fish, 650 bird species, 100 kinds of mammals and 80 types of reptiles. It is not only a vital waterway for man, but an essential filter for the impurities he leaves behind.

Source
Underground aquifers, dozens of miles deep and hundreds of miles wide, are the Earth's second-largest reserve of fresh water, after ice caps and glaciers. Filled over billions of years, they are today being drained at two to four times their natural recharge rate. In this photo, a team of recreational spelunkers drop into the 160-foot deep Neversink Pit in Alabama, which local cavers have bought to preserve for future generations.

Sacred Bath
Shamans in Ecuador perform a soul-cleansing ritual at Peguche Falls during the Inti Raymi fiesta, an ancient Incan celebration of the sun. It is believed that water gives a person power to work and the courage to dance for the fiesta.

Dried Up Seabed
The Aral Sea has lost two-thirds of its volume because its source rivers were diverted for cotton irrigation during the Soviet era. Once the fourth-largest lake in the world, it is now a dusty graveyard of rusting shipwrecks.

Digging Deep
More than two billion people worldwide rely on wells for their water. As water tables continue to drop, many of them, like these Kenyan villagers on Pate Island, devote countless hours to collecting and hauling the valuable resource. The pits in this photo, taken less than 300 feet from the ocean's edge, yield a brackish, but drinkable water.

Short Supply
Residents of a slum in a Delhi, India scramble for the water that is delivered to them daily. The camp is home to approximately 4,000 migrant workers, but lacks a clean water supply, so the workers are dependent on public and private trucks to bring it to them.

Yuck
Students of Miyun elementary school in Beijing discover the dirty condition of a water sample taken from their local reservoir. Twenty-five to thirty-three percent of Chinese do not have access to safe drinking water.

Fishing Holes
Ice fishermen work their lines on Russia's Ural River, in the shadow of Lenin Steelworks. Worried that the fish are too contaminated to eat, many of these winter anglers send their catch to distant markets for sale.

Pipeline
Because water in Mumbai, India is prohibitively expensive, many residents of this slum rely on leaks found — or created — in the massive tubes that carry water to more affluent neighborhoods. The poor of the city avoid the garbage and human waster surrounding their dwellings by walking on top of the pipelines.

Factory Filth
Wastewater from the state-owned Lianhua MSG Factory in China's Huai River Basin runs out of a pipe. Lianhua, which means "lotus flower" is largest polluter in the region.

Dirty Water
Foul-smelling water mixed with coal had been running from Kenny Stroud's faucet for more than a decade before clean tap water was finally provided by the city of Rawl, West Virginia. Residents of the town with similar problems blame Massey Energy, a coal mining company for the bad water, saying that the problem, caused by the company's practice of dumping coal slurry into local streams and waterways, has caused numerous health problems. In 2007, Massey settled a $30 million lawsuit filed by the state.

Desalination
Spain's drive to develop its southern coast for tourism has required it to tap the Mediterranean Sea for fresh water. The country's 700 desalination plants produce 800 million gallons yearly.

Filtration
Two Sudanese boys drink with specially fitted plastic tubes provided by the Carter Center to guard against the water-borne larvae which are responsible for guinea worm disease. The program has distributed millions of tubes and has reduced the spread of this debilitating disease by 70 percent.

Outhouses
The waters of the Niger River Delta are used for defecating, bathing, fishing and garbage. Despite the fact that oil companies have removed more than $400 billion of wealth out of the wetland, local residents have little to show for it.

Toilet Solution
Children in developing countries are afraid of using outhouses and the like because they are dark and smelly and they fear falling into the hole. For this school in India, WaterAid, a British NGO dedicated to delivering safe domestic water, provided funding to build child-friendly toilets.

Research and Development
Engineers work at Caroma, an Australian company that is developing improved low-flow toilets. Their product uses only three-quarters of a gallon of water to flush, compared with standard low-flow toilets, which use more than a gallon and a half.

Slow the Melt
The glaciers that provide Europe with drinking water have lost more than half their volume in the last century. In this photo, workers at the Pitztal Glacier ski resort in Austria push a fleece-like blanket down the glacier's slope to protect the snow during the summer months.

Emergency Supply
Chinese soldiers examine bottled water in Harbin after the city's 3.8 million residents lost access to drinking water for five days due to a chemical plant explosion in 2005. The announcement of water stoppages led to panic buying of water and food, sending prices soaring.

Seedling
The low-cost KB Drip system provides small time farmers in India with the ability to channel irrigated water, thus giving them the opportunity to work more efficiently and lift themselves out of poverty. The project was developed by International Development Enterprises, backed by the New York-based Acumen fund, which recruits machine shops to make the materials and enlists local retailers to distribute them, all for a profit.

Ring Around the Well
The Chilukwa Primary School in Malawi provides its students with a sound education, but until recently the school had no running water or bathrooms. The Peer Water Exchange (PWX), a platform for crafting local solutions to specific water problems, helped secure funding for a local organization to build a community tap, latrines and bathing facilities.

Refreshing
Vietnamese children like Tran Quoc Xu, 11, used to spend a significant portion of their day fetching water. Today, a water system funded by the Blue Planet Run Foundation and PWX means that villagers in Dong Lam hamlet need not travel great distances or pay lots of money for their water.

World Water Crisis

In the extraordinary new book Blue Planet Run, hundreds of photographers from all over the world track mankind's vital race to provide safe drinking water to the one billion people who lack it... Presented by TIME in Partnership with CNN

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1724375,00.html

 

    

 

National Geographic News: NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/NEWS
 
 

UN Highlights World Water Crisis

Hillary Mayell
for National Geographic News
June 5, 2003
 
To more than two billion people, fresh, pure water is more valuable
than gold.

Water—Two Billion People are Dying for It! is the theme of World Environment Day, an annual event celebrated on June 5—today.

"One person in six lives without regular access to safe drinking water; over twice that number—2.4 billion—lack access to adequate sanitation," said Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations. The event is sponsored by the UN to highlight important environmental issues facing the planet.

Despite the fact that 75 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water, only 2.5 percent of it is fresh water, and three-quarters of that is locked up in glaciers and permanent snow cover. Only 0.3 percent of the water is surface water, found in rivers and lakes. The rest is buried deep in the ground.

In many regions of the world, fresh water, both groundwater and surface water, is being used faster than it can be replaced. West Asia faces the greatest threat. Over 90 per cent of the region's population is experiencing severe water stress.

But the problem is not confined to the developing world. In the United States, 400 million cubic meters (520 million cubic yards) of groundwater is being removed from aquifers annually in Arizona; about double the amount being replaced by recharge from rainfall. In Spain, more than half of the nearly 100 aquifers are over-exploited.

Already about one-third of the world's population lives in countries suffering from moderate-to-high water stress, according to the most recent Global Environment Outlook (GEO-3) report. Water stress is defined as areas where water consumption is more than 10 percent of renewable freshwater resources.

The GEO-3 scientists project that more than half the people in the world could be living in severely water-stressed areas by 2032.

Dying for Water

When access to water is within one kilometer (0.62 miles) of a dwelling, meaning it would take about 30 minutes a day to collect water, the average consumption is 20 liters (5 gallons) per day per person, according to a 2003 joint report by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. In homes with multiple taps, the average daily consumption is 100 to 200 liters (roughly 25 to 50 gallons) per person.

If the water source is farther than one kilometer, per capita consumption drops to around five liters (a little more than a gallon) per day, if that.

With so little water, basic hygiene is frequently compromised. The report estimates that households getting water from taps may use 30 times more water for child hygiene compared with those who have to collect water from a communal source.

This brings the added burden of illness to families already living in poverty. Infectious waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid, and cholera are responsible for 80 percent of illnesses and deaths in the developing world, many of them children. One child dies every eight seconds from a waterborne disease; 15 million children a year.

Women and female children who have to travel to collect water pay a high cost. Less time is available for caring for children, preparing food, or pursuing alternate economic activities. In some regions the women and girls must travel through unsafe areas and are vulnerable to attack. Families in many cases must forego sending their girls to school, perpetuating the grinding cycle of illiteracy and poverty.

The amount of water a person needs can vary; a person doing manual labor in the tropics will need more water than someone sitting at a computer in a temperate zone. WHO suggests 2 to 4.5 liters (0.5 to 1 gallon) a day for drinking, and another 4 liters (1 gallon) for cooking and food preparation are the bottom-line limits for survival. This doesn't take into account water needs for growing food.

The minimum quantity of water recommended by the U.S. Agency for International Development for household and urban use alone is close to 100 liters (26.4 gallons) per person per day.

Mismanagement Not Scarcity

"This crisis is one of water governance, essentially caused by the ways in which we mismanage water," conclude the authors of the UN's World Water Development Report (WWDR) issued in March. Freshwater resources are being further squandered due to pollution and the way in which we use water.

Some two million tons of waste per day are disposed of within receiving waters, including industrial wastes and chemicals, human waste and agricultural wastes, according to report. World Watch Institute estimates that every minute, 1.1 million liters (300,000 gallons) of raw sewage are dumped into the Ganges River, the primary source of water for many Indians.

Only about 35 percent of the wastewater is treated in Asia, and about 14 percent is treated in Latin America. Only a negligible percentage of treatment has been reported in Africa. Even in industrialized countries, sewage is not universally treated, according to UNEP.

Agriculture accounts for over 80 per cent of world water consumption, and yet around 60 percent of the water used for irrigation is wasted, lost to leaky canals, evaporation, and mismanagement. Fertilizer and pesticide residues from agricultural activities also contribute to contamination of fresh water resources.

In large cities of developing countries, the percentage of unaccounted-for water is also very high, around 40 percent. Most of this water is simply lost to leaky systems.

Many of the remedies available for conserving and managing freshwater resources are politically and socially difficult; many rivers, lakes, and underground aquifers cross national boundaries and can be shared by several countries.

But water experts are agreed that adopting long term goals is imperative.

"The difficulty in managing groundwaters lies in the fact that they are often easy and relatively cheap to tap for large numbers of users," said Brian Morris, principal hydrogeologist at the British Geological Survey.

"What is needed is pragmatic management such as increasing public and government awareness, properly resourcing the agencies that manage groundwater, supporting community management, and encouraging the use of incentives and disincentives particularly in poorer countries and rural areas," he said. "It is vital we give groundwater value like any other scarce resource."
 

 

World water crisis worsened by corruption, repression: UN report

20 February 2006 – Corruption, restricted political rights and limited civil liberties are all factors that lie behind the planet’s growing water crisis, says a new United Nations report that focuses on the precious resource of fresh water.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said today that the second edition of the UN World Water Development Report shows the global water crisis is largely a crisis of governing systems that “determine who gets what water, when and how, and decides who has the right to water and related services.”

The report will be released on 9 March in Mexico City by Gordon Young, Coordinator of the UN World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), and Cristobal Jaime Jazquez, Director-General of the National Water Commission of Mexico.

Entitled “Water, a Share Responsibility,” the report builds on the conclusions of the first water development study published three years ago. It presents a comprehensive picture of freshwater resources in all regions and most countries as it tracks progress towards the water-related targets of the UN Millennium Development Goals. Known collectively as the MDGs, these targets were set at a 2000 UN Summit and aim to reduce major global ills such as poverty, illiteracy and hunger by 2015.

The report examines a variety of key issues, including population growth and increasing urbanization, changing ecosystems, food protection, health, industry and energy. It also looks at risk management and how water is valued and paid for. A set of conclusions and recommendations to guide future actions and encourage the sustainable use and management of the world’s increasing scarce freshwater resources are also included.

The UN World Water Development Report is a joint undertaking of 24 UN agencies in partnership with governments and other stakeholders and is produced on their behalf by the Water Assessment Programme, whose secretariat is hosted by UNESCO.

The second edition will be launched one week before the Fourth World Water Forum that will be held in Mexico City from March 16 to 22. The report will be formally presented by UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura.

     

Atlas of a Thirsty Planet

 Source:  http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/water/

 

We are grateful to Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security for assistance in collating these data.


 Energy and Water - The Ignored Link

 http://www.watercrisis.org/waterways/EnergyAndWater_Uexkull.pdf

Water Facts

http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/

Today’s water crisis is not an issue of scarcity, but of access. More people in the world own cell phones than have access to a toilet. And as cities and slums grow at increasing rates, the situation worsens. Every day, lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills thousands, leaving others with reduced quality of life.

Choose a Topic:

 

Water

  • 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people. (5)


    3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease. (11)
    The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns. (1)
    Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city. (1)
    An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day. (1)

Sanitation

  • Only 62% of the world’s population has access to improved sanitation – defined as a sanitation facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact. (5)


    Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection. (9)
    2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion people who have no facilities at all. (5)
    Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most occupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no sanitation facilities. (8)

Children

  • Dirrahoea remains in the second leading cause of death among children under five globally. Nearly one in five child deaths – about 1.5 million each year – is due to diarrhea. It kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. (13)
    Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. (2)
    Diarrheoa is more prevalent in the developing world due, in large part, to the lack of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as poorer overall health and nutritional status. (13)


    Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time. (8)
    In the developing world, 24,000 children under the age of five die every day from preventable causes like diarrhea contracted from unclean water. (13)
    1.4 million children die as a result of diarrhea each year. (11)

Women

  • In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women’s time is consumed for the most basic of human needs — collecting water for domestic use.
    This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target, and Kroger, according to Gary White, co-founder of Water.org.


    Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources. (1)
    A study by the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) of community water and sanitation projects in 88 communities found that projects designed and run with the full participation of women are more sustainable and effective than those that do not. This supports an earlier World Bank study that found that women’s participation was strongly associated with water and sanitation project effectiveness. (7)

Disease

  • At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. (1)
    The majority of the illness in the world is caused by fecal matter.9
    Almost one-tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Such improvements reduce child mortality and improve health and nutritional status in a sustainable way. (14)


    88% of cases of diarrhea worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene. (9)
    90% of all deaths caused by diarrheal diseases are children under 5 years of age, mostly in developing countries. (8)
    It is estimated that improved sanitation facilities could reduce diarrhea-related deaths in young children by more than one-third. If hygiene promotion is added, such as teaching proper hand washing, deaths could be reduced by two thirds. It would also help accelerate economic and social development in countries where sanitation is a major cause of lost work and school days because of illness. (6)

Economics

  • Over 50 percent of all water projects fail and less than five percent of projects are visited, and far less than one percent have any longer-term monitoring. (10)
    Investment in safe drinking water and sanitation contributes to economic growth. For each $1 invested, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates returns of $3 – $34, depending on the region and technology. (14)


    Almost two in every three people who need safe drinking water survive on less than $2 a day and one in three on less than $1 a day.
    Households, not public agencies, often make the largest investment in basic sanitation, with the ratio of household to government investment typically 10 to 1. (15)
    Investment in drinking-water and sanitation would result in 272 million more school attendance days a year. The value of deaths averted, based on discounted future earnings, would amount to US$ 3.6 billion a year.(15)

Environment

  • Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use. (12)
    More than 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated, polluting rivers, lakes and coastal areas. (16)


    The UN estimates that by 2025, forty-eight nations, with combined population of 2.8 billion, will face freshwater “stress” or “scarcity”. Our Water.org High School Curriculum
    Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater by far: about 70% of all freshwater withdrawals go to irrigated agriculture. (14)
    At home the average American uses between 100 and 175 gallons of water a day. That is less than 25 years ago, but it does not include the amount of water used to feed and clothe us.
    Conserving water helps not only to preserve irreplaceable natural resources, but also to reduce the strain on urban wastewater management systems. Wastewater is costly to treat, and requires continuous investment to ensure that the water we return to our waterways is as clean as possible. Water.org High School curriculum

Water in the News

Resource Links

Look for more facts in our collection of Water Resource Links.

References

  1. 2006 United Nations Human Development Report.
    Number estimated from statistics in the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report.
    Asian Development Bank web site. 2009.
    The Discovery Channel web site. 2009.
    UNICEF/WHO. 2008. Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation.
    UN. 2007. International Year of Sanitation Global Launch
    UN Water. 2008. Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy Brief.
    UN Water. 2008. Tackling a Global Crisis: International Year of Sanitation 2008
    Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). 2008. A Guide to Investigating One of the Biggest Scandals of the Last 50 Years.
    Rajesh Shah of Blue Planet Run Foundation.
    World Health Organization. 2008. Safer Water, Better Health: Costs, benefits, and sustainability of interventions to protect and promote health.
    World Health Organization Fact Sheet Health in Water Resources Development.
    Diarhhoea: Why children are still dying and what can be done. UNICEF, WHO 2009
    United Nations World Water Development Report, “Water in a Changing World”
    http://www.dfid.gov.uk/consultations/past-consultations/water-sanitation-background.pdf" rel="nofollow">DfiD [Department for International Development] Sanitation Reference Group. 2008.
    2004, Wastewater Use in Irrigated Agriculture
    (sewer illustration) Boston Water and Sewer Commission

 

Peter Gleick: Peak Water

Saturday, 22 January 2011 16:17

Peak water is coming. In some places, peak water is here.

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/peter-gleick-peak-water/?utm_source=Circle+of+Blue+WaterNews+%26+Alerts&utm_campaign=c6766a9689-Weekly_Water_News_February_1_20111_31_2011&utm_medium=email

We’re never going to run out of water — water is a renewable natural resource (mostly). But increasingly, around the world, in the U.S., and locally, we are running up against peak water limits. The concept is so important and relevant that The New York Times chose the term “peak water” as one of its 33 “Words of the Year” for 2010 (along with “refudiate,” “top kill,” and “vuvuzela”), a term that a colleague and I defined in a new research paper in May in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (available here).

Water Number: Three (3) definitions of “peak water.”

Peak Renewable Water: This is the limit reached when humans take the entire renewable flow of a river or stream for our use. Water is renewable, but there is a limit to how much can be used. Humans have already reached “peak renewable water” limits on the Colorado River. We use it all and can’t take any more. In fact, of course, we probably shouldn’t even take as much as we do, for ecological reasons (see “Peak Ecological Water” below).

Increasingly, we are reaching peak renewable limits on many of our rivers and streams. The Yellow River in China no longer reaches the sea much of the year. The Aral Sea has been devastated because the entire flows of the Amu and Syr Darya rivers have been consumed. The Nile Delta is typically dry much of the year.

Peak Non-Renewable Water: While much of our water supply is renewable, there are “non-renewable” water sources as well, where our use of water depletes or degrades the source. This most typically takes the form of groundwater aquifers that we pump out faster than nature recharges them — exactly like the concept of “peak oil.” Over time, groundwater becomes depleted, more expensive to tap, or effectively exhausted. Central Valley aquifers are overpumped, unsustainably, to the tune of 1-to-2 million acre-feet a year. So are groundwater aquifers in India, China, the Great Plains, and other places. This cannot continue indefinitely — it runs into peak non-renewable water limits.

Peak Ecological Water: The third definition, and perhaps the most important (and difficult) one, is peak “ecological” water — the point where any additional human uses cause more harm (economic, ecological, or social) than benefit. We’re good at measuring the “benefits” of more human use of water (semiconductors manufactured, or food produced, or economic value generated), but we’re bad at measuring on an equal footing, the ecological “costs” or harm caused by that same use of water. As a result, species are driven to extinction, habitat is destroyed, water purification capabilities of marshes and wetlands are lost. For many watersheds around the world, we are reaching, or exceeding, the point of “peak ecological water.”

California as a whole may not have quite reached peak water, but parts of California and some of our water systems are long past the point of peak water, in all three definitions of the term. We’ve done a great job in this state at capturing, storing, moving, and using water. But there are limits — an idea still lost on some of our policymakers, such as those who recently lamented our inability to capture and use every drop of water that fell in the recent extreme storms — a 19th century notion long ago overwhelmed and overtaken by physical, economic, and environmental realities. Large new surface water storage is simply not going to happen (though California could do far more with smarter flood-control projects and improved groundwater storage, as I described in a recent Sacramento Bee op-ed. This is a topic for another post).

Many of our groundwater basins are past the point of peak ecological water. The Sacramento-San Joaquin river systems, at some times of the year, are past the point of peak renewable water and peak ecological water because of the devastating ecological impacts of our water use on wetlands, migrating birds, fisheries, aquatic flora, and more. Our water rights allocations from the State and Federal projects exceed peak water limits because they promise more water to users than can ever be delivered.

We struggle from one year to the next, hoping for rain. We refuse to measure and monitor all of our water uses in a system with limits. We shy away from needed conversations about water use priorities and rights. As a result, we’re racing toward peak water limits and we can no longer afford to pretend all the water we want will be available, when we want it, at a cheap price, without consequences. A wet December and January doesn’t change that reality.


Curious About Drinking Water But Didn't Know Who To Ask???

http://www.cyber-nook.com/water/index.html

More Informational Resources

These Web sites may be helpful for anyone seeking to learn more about water quality, pollution or how to evaluate or treat their drinking water.

DRINKING WATER


The Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water Environmental Protection Agency
Local Drinking Water System Lookup Environmental Protection Agency
Drinking Water and Ground Water Statistics for 2008 (PDF) Environmental Protection Agency
Drinking Water and Ground Water Statistics - 1998-2008 Environmental Protection Agency
An Assessment of Water Quality From Domestic Wells U.S. Geological Survey
A National Assessment of Tap Water Quality The Environmental Working Group

ARSENIC IN DRINKING WATER


Draft assessment on arsenic, raising the toxicity determinations Environmental Protection Agency
Arsenic in Drinking Water, 2001 Update National Academy of Science
A history of rule-making regarding arsenic in drinking water Environmental Protection Agency
Arsenic in Drinking Water and Adult Mortality Epidemiology

STUDIES REGARDING ILLNESSES AND DRINKING WATER


How to Access Local Drinking Water Information Environmental Protection Agency
National Public Water Systems Compliance Report, 1996-Present Environmental Protection Agency
Risk of Waterborne Illness via Drinking Water in the United States National Center for Biotechnology Information
Quality of Water from Domestic Wells in Principal Aquifers of the United States, 1991–2004 United States Geological Survey
Drinking-Water Herbicide Exposure in Indiana and Prevalence of Small-for-Gestational-Age and Preterm Delivery Environmental Health Perspectives
Health Risk of Bathing in Southern California Coastal Waters Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health
The Association of Drinking Water Source and Chlorination Byproducts with Cancer Incidence Among Postmenopausal Women in Iowa American Journal of Public Health
Cancer and Drinking Water in Louisiana: Colon and Rectum International Journal of Epidemiology

WATER FILTERS


Consumer Guide to Water Filters Natural Resources Defense Council

CHEMICALS AND RISK ASSESSMENTS


Safe Drinking Water Act Standards Environmental Protection Agency
Drinking Water Health Advisories Environmental Protection Agency
Integrated Risk Information System Environmental Protection Agency
Health-Based Screening Levels United States Geological Survey

GOVERNMENT ASSESSMENTS ON TETRACHLOROETHYLENE (PERC), TRICHLOROETHYLENE AND PERCHLORATE


IRIS Assessment of Perchlorate Environmental Protection Agency
Internal Assessment on Tetrachloroethylene in Rats Environmental Protection Agency
Internal Assessment on Tetrachloroethylene: Toxicological Review Environmental Protection Agency
National Academy of Sciences on Tetrachloroethylene National Academy of Sciences
Trichloroethylene: Assessing the Human Health Risks National Academy of Sciences

 People are talking about water on the blogosphere and the activity is being tracked here -

http://www.blogpulse.com/trend?query1=water&label1=&query2=&label2=&query3=&label3=&days=30&x=27&y=12


Committed to Taking Responsible Action

 

http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/


  Committed to Charitable Contributions

 

http://www.water.org/

We envision the day when everyone in the world
can take a safe drink of water.

WaterPartners International is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization committed to providing safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries. Working in partnership with donors and local communities, we have helped thousands of people develop accessible, sustainable, community-level water supplies. WaterPartners not only offers traditional, grant-funded programs, but is also harnessing the power of micro-finance to address the world water crisis.


 Committed to Highlighting Investment Opportunities

Water Stocks

It's Time to Get in Water

By Nick Hodge
Friday, December 5th, 2008

Each day news stories break that smart investors treat as a series of "dots."

They absorb these dots, and connect them in such a way that trends emerge.

And if you've been paying attention, you'll have recognized a serious trend emerging.

Here are a few of those big dots:

One-third of China's Yellow River polluted

ADB approves $300 mln for water, sanitation in small cities of Sindh

ITT completes first Rural Drinking Water Safety Project in China

Water Filtration Plant Costs Skyrocket

S.Korea's Doosan partners win $293 mln Saudi deal

Those are recent water headlines—from just the last three days—that I plucked from a series of news sites and industry newsletters.

As you can see, new deals in the water sector are rampant.

Increased demand, crumbling infrastructure, and now, the possibility of a second infrastructure-focused stimulus, have reignited interest in this sometimes seemingly cyclical sector.

Millions of dollars are changing hands everyday.

The headlines above discuss projects and deals worth well over $4 billion. That's only five headlines from three days.

Fact is, water is here to stay as a long-term bull. And you'll want to start thinking about staking an early claim in the profitable water stocks that will emerge.

Water Stocks

I've dissected and analyzed water stocks and related scenarios in these pages, and pages of our sister publications, many times.

The sector can be broken down into three basic vehicles for investment:

Water utilities

Water ETFs & funds

Water infrastructure and related companies

Your investment goals should dictate which sector you go after.

Looking for slow, incremental growth and dividends? Check out water utilities.

After long-term value and steady growth? Try water ETFs and funds.

More often than not, I seek out the best water stocks with the highest growth scenarios, most advanced products and services, and the best chance to capitalize on niche solutions to big water problems.

Here are a few of the companies in that position right now, along with their specialty:

Layne Christensen (NASDAQ: LAYN), wastewater treatment, source identification, pipeline rehabilitation

Tetra Tech Inc. (NASDAQ: TTEK), water quality assessments, pollution remediation and control

Flowserve Corp. (NYSE: FLS), pumps, valves, seals, systems automation

Insituform Technologies (NASDAQ: INSU), in-ground pipe rehabilitation and replacement

Water stocks are great for some investment objectives. For others, a managed fund or ETF is in order.

Let's review some of those now.

Water ETFs

Here's a list of the four main water exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the market:

PowerShares Water Resources (NYSE: PHO)

PowerShares Global Water (NYSE: PIO)

Claymore S&P Global Water (NYSE: CGW)

First Trust ISE Water (NYSE: FIW)

The last thing I want to address is the core group of stocks that call these ETFs home.  

I've exhaustively researched the top ten holdings of each of these water funds. And I found some interesting trends.

Most notably, I found the the same few stocks continually appear in the top ten holdings of each ETF, namely Tetra Tech (NASDAQ: TTEK), ITT Corp. (NYSE: ITT), Veolia Environment (NYSE: VE), and Nalco Holding (NYSE: NLC).

That research gave me a good idea of what the funds are including, so I can decide whether to recommend water stocks a la cart or funds.

A good start with microcap water companies -

UGSI - http://www.undergroundsolutions.com/ - http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=6066

GWTR - http://www.gwtr.com/ - http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=2768

GSPH - http://www.geospatialcorporation.com - http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=7572

HYFXF - http://www.hyflux.com/home.php - http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=12741

CNFO - http://www.cnfowater.com - http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=14600

ESPH - http://www.ecospheretech.com/ - http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=9667

Great big board choices -

NLC - New Position - http://www.nalco.com/ASP/index.asp - http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=15024

Berkshire did buy one new stock during the fourth quarter, initiating a position in Nalco Holding (NLC), which is a company that offers water treatment products and services.


Related Links -

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=12656

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=3118


Please Visit:

The Sister Board... World Food Crisis -

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=16715

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