WEEK 6

1. Lecture slides and notes:

Overview

• water use inventory
  • review direct water flow
  • embedded water in products or processes
  • LCA
• ecological restoration to increase water resources
  • positive feedback in watershed
• appropriate scale technologies

In the news:

NYT Water treatment and the Yuck factor

Accounting for individual water use:

accounting approach

• don't want to miss ("completeness")
• don't want to double count
• examples:
  • need water for your crops
    • how much do you pay to pump
    • groundwater
    • rain
    • mist/fog
  • water crops
    • evaportation
    • rains upland
    • runs back to farm
  • you owe two farms
    • paid not to use water on one of them
    • use more on another farm
    • call "slippage"

individual budget of water flow

per capita consumption of your society

water embedded in food

There's an App for that - embedded water - http://www.virtualwater.eu

a liter here is not worth the same as a liter there:

LCA for water and diaper

Large water projects

• used to tie civilizations together
  • Aztec
  • Mayan
  • Anasazi in Chaco (New Mexico)

• current water projects
  • California Aqueduct - 1150 km
    • map
  • China South to North project > 1200 km

Ecological restoration to increase water available

healthy, forested watersheds deliver more water as an ecosystem service

• leaves intercept the rain
• plants cover the bare soil
• surface humus and plant material act as a sponge
• roots break up the soil and sub-strata to allow water to percolate
• loss of plants results in a positive feedback for loss of ecosystem water

restoring deforested or damaged watersheds can produce water

The Nature Conservancy model

NY Times article on Niger

Wangari Mathai - video (extras/Green Belt Movement/environmental conservation)

Greenbelt - short video

other examples:

rainwater harvesting in India

• traditional methods of retaining water in small catch dams johads that provide water for stock and also recharge groundwater
• in 1940's government policies encouraged logging
• loss of trees meant more erosion and loss of johads
• viscious cycle - from a negative tipping point
• trying to correct this by revegetating stream channels and building johads
• opposite of a tragedy of the commons because:
  • good immediately for those who build it (stock watering)
  • builds a community resource (well water) over longer time and larger spaces

Water for People

Green Empowerment in San Jose de Bocay, Nicaragua

• combination project
• microhydro - renewable energy with some excess capacity
  • allows for enterprise use of power
• community development lead to
  • protect and reforest the watershed
    • clean drinking water
    • constant source for micro-hydro
  • sustainable farming techniques
  • biomass rice drier
  • agro-forestry training center

Watershed protection

in Nicaragua - Cerro San Geronimo
general watershed protection guide

my capstone - June 18 to 26
http://oia.pdx.edu/ea/details/renewable_energy_and_micro-development_in_nicaragua/

 

Rio Calico, Nicaragua

Mitigating climate change through reforestation

• land use changes may improve land use and quality of the resource
  • more reliable water
  • better food security through variety of crops
• maybe able to tap carbon offsets or credits to pay for reforestation projects

week 6 in class assessment

Appropriate technologies to fit the scale

smaller scale technologies are often very useful

examples relating to water:

• windmill driven water pumps
  • Aeromotor
• solar (photovoltaic) driven water pumps
  • deep wells need bigger arrays (1 kwatt)
  • shallow wells and shorter distances - smaller arrays (80 watts)
• shallow water treadle pump
  • Paul Polak - Out of Poverty
• drip irrigation
  • as installed in Nicaragua

importance of this scale of technology (not just for water)

• individual installations are cheaper and can be funded locally
• community is involved
• can be fixed locally
• can be changed or improved more easily
• innovation can spread through the adoption of the components in fresh ways

Energy and water resources are intertwined

Simple cases

• pumping water
• reservoir storage vs. power production

medium complexity

• biofuel vs. water requirements
• water requirements and pollution from mining such as oil-shale or fracking

high complexity situations

 

In Class Assessment

link

 

3. Reading in the text - "Multiple Perspectives and Approaches to Complex Environmental Problems"

We will be referring back to both Systems and Accounting

 

4. Readings from Wikipedia and Encyclopedia of Earth:

read the links that are embedded in the notes above

 

5. On-line activities:

Video:

Anupam Mishra: Small scale projects

Simulations:

 

Case study / Example:

 

 

 

6. Learning objectives:

week 6 learning objectives

 

7. Link to the on-line assignment:

This "quiz" or "on-line assignment" pulls questions from the learning objectives. You are expected to study the material and then take the quiz. You can use the website to answer the questions but you cannot, ethically, use your friends or classmates as resources. All work that you write down is to be a reflection of your understanding.

The quiz has several straight forward questions and one question at the end that is in the format of a analysis (identify important parts) and synthesis (put back together).

go to D2L and look for week6-quiz

 

8. Quiz feedback

normally posted after the quiz is due