Supplying water to millions is not simply an engineering and logistical challenge. As David Soll shows in his finely observed history of the nation's largest municipal water system, the task of ...providing water to New Yorkers transformed the natural and built environment of the city, its suburbs, and distant rural watersheds. Almost as soon as New York City completed its first municipal water system in 1842, it began to expand the network, eventually reaching far into the Catskill Mountains, more than one hundred miles from the city.Empire of Waterexplores the history of New York City's water system from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century, focusing on the geographical, environmental, and political repercussions of the city's search for more water.
Soll vividly recounts the profound environmental implications for both city and countryside. Some of the region's most prominent landmarks, such as the High Bridge across the Harlem River, Central Park's Great Lawn, and the Ashokan Reservoir in Ulster County, have their origins in the city's water system. By tracing the evolution of the city's water conservation efforts and watershed management regime, Soll reveals the tremendous shifts in environmental practices and consciousness that occurred during the twentieth century. Few episodes better capture the long-standing upstate-downstate divide in New York than the story of how mountain water came to flow from spigots in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Soll concludes by focusing on the landmark watershed protection agreement signed in 1997 between the city, watershed residents, environmental organizations, and the state and federal governments. After decades of rancor between the city and Catskill residents, the two sides set aside their differences to forge a new model of environmental stewardship. His account of this unlikely environmental success story offers a behind the scenes perspective on the nation's most ambitious and wide-ranging watershed protection program.
The future of water in african cities Jacobsen, Michael; Webster, Michael; Vairavamoorthy, Kalanithy
2012., 2012, 10-04-2012, 2013, 2014-05-14, 20130101
eBook, Book
Odprti dostop
The objective of this study is to assist public authorities to identify and address the future challenges of urban water supply, sanitation, and flood management in cities. In order to do that, this ...report uses the conceptual framework of Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) as a holistic set of planning and management tools incorporating all components of the urban water cycle to help develop efficient and flexible urban water systems in the future.The future of water in African cities: why waste water? argues that a new approach to urban water management is needed in Africa. Due to their rapid urbanization, cities in Sub-Saharan Africa will face increasing challenges in order to provide water supply to the growing population. Future water supply for cities will also depend on the potential to sustain water resources of good quality in the river basin and to manage competing uses within the watershed. The complexity of these challenges coupled with future uncertainty due to climate change will require a more sustainable, integrated and adaptive water management approach.Reviewing a series of case studies in Uganda, Kenya and Cameroon, and having conducted a diagnostic of 31 cities in Sub-Saharan Africa, this report suggests that the challenges faced by cities in Africa cannot be solved by the traditional approach of one source, one system, and one discharge. The 4 cases studies of this report illustrate the combination of existing technology and surface water with new sources (e.g. groundwater and greywater recycling) within the river basin that will increase water security for cities. In some cases, planning decentralized and modular solutions will bring more flexibility and adaptation to expanding cities.The future of water in African cities: why waste water? is aimed at urban planners, water managers, policy makers, development agencies
and stakeholders interested in innovative solutions to urban water management challenges. IUWM will help policymakers in African cities consider a wider range of solutions, understand waters interaction with other sectors, and secure resilience under a range of future conditions.
The welfare implications of safe water and sanitation cannot be overstated. The economic gains from provision of improved services to millions of unserved Africans in enormous. The international ...adoption of Millennium Development Goals brought the inadequacies of service provision sharply into focus. With only 58% and 31% enjoying access to water and sanitation services respectively, Sub-Saharan Africa is the only continent that is off-track in achieving the MDGs in 2015. The problem is compounded by the fact that a rigorous and credible baseline did not exist on coverage to improved water and sanitation and resources required to meet the MDGs. This book aims to contribute to this gap by collecting a wealth of primary and secondary information to present the most up-to-date and comprehensive quantitative snapshot of water and sanitation sectors. The book evaluates the challenges to the water and sanitation sectors within the urban and rural areas and deepen our understanding of drivers of coverage expansion in the context of financing, institutional reforms, and efficiency improvements. Finally, the book establishes the investment needs for water and sanitation with a target of meeting the MDGs and compares with the existing financing envelopes, disaggregated by proportions that can be recouped by efficiency gains and net financing gaps. The directions for the future draw on lessons learned from best practices and present the menu of choices available to African countries. There is no recipe book that neatly lays out the possible steps the country should adopt to enhance coverage and quality of service. The challenges differ to a significant extent among African countries and solutions must be tailored to individual national or regional conditions.
Source Separation and Decentralization for Wastewater Management sets up a comprehensive view of the resources involved in urban water management. It explores the potential of source separation and ...decentralization to provide viable alternatives to sewer-based urban water management. The book presents a comprehensive view of the state of the art of source separation and ecentralization. It discusses the technical possibilities and practical experience with source separation in different countries around the world. The area is in rapid development, but many of the fundamental insights presented in this book will stay valid.
Supplying piped water intermittently is a common practice throughout the world that increases the risk of microbial contamination through multiple mechanisms. Converting an intermittent supply to a ...continuous supply has the potential to improve the quality of water delivered to consumers. To understand the effects of this upgrade on water quality, we tested samples from reservoirs, consumer taps, and drinking water provided by households (e.g. from storage containers) from an intermittent and continuous supply in Hubli–Dharwad, India, over one year. Water samples were tested for total coliform, Escherichia coli, turbidity, free chlorine, and combined chlorine. While water quality was similar at service reservoirs supplying the continuous and intermittent sections of the network, indicator bacteria were detected more frequently and at higher concentrations in samples from taps supplied intermittently compared to those supplied continuously (p < 0.01). Detection of E. coli was rare in continuous supply, with 0.7% of tap samples positive compared to 31.7% of intermittent water supply tap samples positive for E. coli. In samples from both continuously and intermittently supplied taps, higher concentrations of total coliform were measured after rainfall events. While source water quality declined slightly during the rainy season, only tap water from intermittent supply had significantly more indicator bacteria throughout the rainy season compared to the dry season. Drinking water samples provided by households in both continuous and intermittent supplies had higher concentrations of indicator bacteria than samples collected directly from taps. Most households with continuous supply continued to store water for drinking, resulting in re-contamination, which may reduce the benefits to water quality of converting to continuous supply.
•Water quality was compared in an intermittent and continuous distribution system.•Indicator bacteria were detected at higher concentrations in intermittent taps.•A higher percentage of samples from continuous taps met free chlorine guidelines.•There was evidence of intrusion in the intermittent distribution network.•Drinking water stored in households with continuous supply became recontaminated.
Water Management and Sustainability in Asiacovers topics related to water resources management, including multi- and interdisciplinary research on flood, soil infiltration, contaminants, sediment, ...water quality, hydrological modelling, and water resources systems.
Many developing countries face daunting water resources challenges as the needs for water supply, irrigation, and hydroelectricity grow; as water becomes more scarce, quality declines, and ...environmental and social concerns increase; and as the threats posed by goods and droughts are exacerbated by climate change. As a consequence, there is a high and increasing demand for World Bank engagement. Lending for water resources and development accounted for about 16 percent of all World Bank lending over the past decade. Within the World Bank, business strategies for specific water-using sectors, such as water and sanitation, irrigation and drainage, and hydropower, are determined primarily as part of the strategies for these sectors. Water Resources Sector Strategy: Strategic Directions for World Bank Engagement focuses on how to improve the development and management of water resources while providing the principles that link resource management to the specific water-using sectors. The Strategy emphasizes the difficult and contentious issues upon which World Bank practice needs to improve and suggests that the main management challenge is not a vision of integrated water resources management but a “pragmatic but principled” approach.
Water resources and related issues are of great significance in 21st century politics. In Africa, for example, hydropolitics affect politics and policymaking at the local, national, and international ...levels. To investigate water politics, this unique work focuses on the issue transboundary water governance in Southern and Eastern Africa. Based on extensive field research, it offers a comparative study of the Orange Senqu and Nile basins in Africa, arguing that both causal and behavioral factors (such as localization and trust building) drive the multi-leveled development of cooperative management norms and foster the creation of regional communities of interest. The book combines theory, analysis, and fieldwork within the framework of Constructivism as well as a wide range of examples to identify and analyze the nature of norms in hydropolitics. By doing so, it will help shape the debate on how water conflict and cooperative governance should evolve and will interest anyone studying African politics, hydropolitics, and issues of development.
In recent months, it has directed its operations to Iraqi hydroelectric dams - in particular, the Mosul dam. The Water Convention that was forged under the auspices of the United Nations Economic ...Commission for Europe in 1992 is one such notable agreement.
PDF