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World Water Day is March 22nd

Raul — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 00:51:41 +0000

Tuesday March 22nd will mark World Water Day. I was planning to give a public lecture but I’ve been sick all week and I have way too much going on with my life. But at least I will have a quick giveaway and a couple of posts around then. For those of you who know me a bit, you should know that a large part of my research is dedicated to water (specifically, to the often neglected stream of wastewater).

The theme for World Water Day 2011 is Water for Cities. Recently, I presented a paper at the Western Division of the Canadian Association of Geographers and this year I will be trying to publish on my blog (personal) a bit more about what I do for research.

Photo credit: Leonard John Matthews

The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. The United Nations General Assembly designated 22 March of each year as the World Day for Water by adopting a resolution.This world day for water was to be observed starting in 1993, in conformity with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development contained in chapter 18 (Fresh Water Resources) of Agenda 21.

It irks me when I see water being wasted, anywhere. Mexico is one of the top countries with high water stress and for the longest time, I’ve had the feeling that Canadians don’t really realize how much water they do NOT have.

Photo credit: Ben On The Move on Flickr

I will be blogging about water on World Water Day and setting up a couple of giveaways associated. But mostly it’ll be focused on my research.

Blue Gold (2009) – Salt Spring Island Documentary Film Festival 2011

Raul — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 16:45:26 +0000

I watched Blue Gold again this year, even though I already had seen it before. My research agenda is heavily focused on water, although more on the less-researched side (wastewater governance). So, whenever I see Blue Gold again, I am ambivalent towards it. It’s a great documentary for those who don’t understand much about how scarce water is. It’s a good wake up call that reminds people that privatization of water is a reality, and one that may be affecting many people’s lives.

The good side of this film is that it provides information that is much needed on water scarcity. The BAD side of this film is that it spends 1 hour and 20 minutes scaring people about how bad water privatization is BUT provides only 10 minutes worth of solutions. And some of those solutions seem rather unfeasible (from my scholarly viewpoint). Remember, I’m also a chemical engineer, not only a specialist in public policy. So I look at the technical aspects of water management too.

I am also appalled that the film makers only touch on wastewater and water quality issues from the perspective of “it’s happening and it’s bad” but not from the perspective of “hey, here are some technical solutions to wastewater”. The film makers also ignore (as Barlow and Clarke seem to do too) that wastewater IS also part of the hydrological cycle.

I was really disappointed that Mexico City’s case is only seen from the very negative side, without reminding people that Mexican environmental and civil engineers are amazing and have pushed forward wastewater treatment technologies in many ways beyond where other countries in the North have done. Really sadly poor representation of my beloved Mexico.

The description from the Salt Spring Island Documentary Film Festival’s website. And this is my review from the first time I saw Blue Gold.

The world’s fresh water is disappearing. The rampant over development of agriculture, housing and industry increase the demands for fresh water well beyond the finite supply, resulting in the desertification of the earth. As we pollute and waste away our very limited supply, corporate giants are working to make the building block of our globe a commodity, privatizing developing countries’ fresh water. This international award winning film follows various examples of people fighting back against the powers that be, from grade school protests to court cases to revolutions.

Yes, Blue Gold is worth watching. But you should also look at data summaries from the World Water Assessment Project so that you can get

Disclosure: I’m in Salt Spring Island to experience the 12th Annual Salt Spring Island Documentary Film Festival March 4th through 6th. My stay at Hastings House and my flight on Salt Spring Air have both been complimentary. Entry to the film festival is by donation and I’ve happily paid for that out of my own pocket. It’s a fantastic film festival and you should experience it next year.

Blog Action Day 2010 on October 15th: Focus on water

Raul — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:05:35 +0000

photo credit: eutrophication&hypoxia

Unless you really don’t know me or my blog, you’ll probably know that one of the biggest areas of research in my academic life is water (specifically, wastewater governance, cultural perceptions of drinking water, conflict in transboundary water bodies and adaptation of water policy to climatic change). So when I found out that Blog Action Day this year was focused on water, I told myself I could NOT not participate. This is too important an issue not to. I have written about water both on my research blog and on my personal blog. I’ve discussed concepts like the water footprint, water stress, the culture of flushing and the commodification of water.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

I research wastewater governance (a topic most academic folks eschew), mostly because I realize that every day 2 million tonnes of human waste end up in water courses. I realize that my caffeine intake procedure needs to be changed, because coffee consumes up to 140 litres of water per cup (virtual water).

On October 15th, consider (a) donating to charity:water or any other water charity of your choice and (b) writing about water on your personal or professional blog. Fridays are usually my research day, but with October 15th being Blog Action Day, I will be blogging about my water research on my professional blog, and possibly publish one or two posts here.

Hope you will join in the action. Because environment is MUCH more than just climate change.

World Environment Day #wed2010

Raul — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 17:42:20 +0000

I have dedicated the past 15 years of my life, in one way or another, to improve the environment I live in. To study, research, analyze data and synthesize models that help explain human behaviour towards its habitat. My research has focused in problems that I think receive less attention than more high-exposure ones, such as wastewater management, industrial and urban restructuring, hazardous and solid waste management and transnational environmental social movements.

photo credit: qmnonic

June 5th marks World Environment Day, and the theme for the year 2010 is Biodiversity. While I have spent years of my life analyzing environmental policies in Canada, the US, Mexico and the European Union, I have focused very, very little on the topic of biodiversity.

Except, this year I taught Global Environmental Politics, and one of the main international environmental regimes I explored along with my students was the biodiversity regime (and the Cartagena Convention on Biological Diversity). Protecting species from extinction is only one of the multifaceted elements of a biodiversity protection regime.

On this day, World Environment Day, and in the face of the recent BP oil spill (which will surely threaten a number of species of marine life and avians) I urge you to think beyond climate change as an urgent environmental problem. To think about ways in which you can reduce your impact on the environment (by recycling, reducing your water consumption, shifting to food groups that have less of an ecological footprint).

More importantly, I urge you to do something EVERY day to better your own environment.

Because we shouldn’t think about the environment only on World Environment Day, but every day.

Make small changes that will yield large societal changes.

And as I’ve read in many places (I sometimes forget who the quote is by, but I seem to think it’s by Gandhi) – be the change you want to see in the world

World Water Day 2010 – Clean Water for a Healthy World

Raul — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:30:29 +0000

884 million people live without access to safe drinking water. 2.6 billion people do not have access to improved sanitation facilities. Think about it (sources of data: UN Water Progress Report 2010).

When I first started working (even before I had completed my undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering), I was hired as a Project Assistant in a research and development centre, in Mexico. I collaborated with a number of colleagues in various research projects, primarily associated with aerobic wastewater treatment (bench scale). I learned about a variety of processes to treat domestic (municipal/urban) wastewater. I went to the municipal sewerage systems and sampled wastewater for our chemical/biochemical analyses quite frequently and learned a number of equations from the Metcalf and Eddy handbook of wastewater.

I *love* formal modelling, and thus I wrote my honors thesis on the use of multiple regressions to test a mathematical model that allowed me to determine how long would it take for bacteria to degrade the organic waste present in the wastewater I had just sampled. I learned the chemical engineering of wastewater treatment, and I loved it. After a few years, while completing my PhD degree, I fell in love with the social science of wastewater. Having studied the engineering side, I wanted to now be able to understand why people polluted the vital liquid, and what could governments do to reduce this pollution.

I have completed a couple of research projects in the field of water governance and policy in Mexico, primarily focused on the management of wastewater in central Mexico, and the governance of groundwater in adjacent aquifers. I am also starting a couple of projects on drinking water in the Metro Vancouver area and adaptation to climate change and water in Canada.

I am passionate about protecting water resources and ensuring that we have enough clean water worldwide. Water is a HUGE part of my research agenda now. That is the reason why I am so excited about March 22nd, 2010, World Water Day, with the theme “Clean Water for a Healthy World“. In 2008, the theme for World Water Day was sanitation (a topic that I have done substantial research on), and in 2009, it was Transboundary Waters (a topic I find incredibly exciting).

International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.

In celebration of World Water Day 2010, I will be giving a public lecture on Friday, March 26th, on my water governance research. I’ll be posting more details on my blog (on both of them, my research one and this one) shortly.

More environmental and policy-focused talks in 2010

Raul — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:00:34 +0000

photo credit: dannyfowler

Most of those who follow me on Twitter on either of my social media/personal and/or my research accounts may know that I’ve spent a substantial amount of 2008 giving a lot of talks about social media, online community building and how to further your message using social networking sites. This is something I will continue to do in 2010. However, I have realized that I miss the academic conference circuit, and since I’m almost done with my water governance book, I have decided that for 2010, in addition to teaching two university level courses, continuing my academic research, my consulting (both in environment and public policy and in social media), and my business coaching, I want to do more environmental and public policy-focused talks (open to the public).

I find that I have a lot of fun when I speak about what I study, and as I mentioned in my post on the Reading is Sexy calendar, I plan to read a short excerpt of my forthcoming book on water governance. If you’re interested to hear me

Conserving water and the “Largest Water Fight” in Vancouver

Raul — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:32:10 +0000

So I learned about the fact that today, a flashmob attempting to created the “Largest Water Fight” happened in Vancouver at Stanley Park. I have spent the last 13 years of my life working to reduce both the amount of water wasted as well as to increase the quality of water in every single region of the world that I have lived in and undertaken research on. So it’s hard for me to be comfortable with, be happy with or even remotely support a a flashmob that engages in a waste of the vital liquid. I know that I’ll be criticized for (in turn) criticizing a fun activity like this. After all, well, it’s summer in Vancouver, it’s hot, “we have lots of water here in Canada (this is, by the way, a complete myth, as anybody who has looked at my work on water stress and water scarcity will attest). Sure, conserving water might not seem like it’s going to do anything for people who already are experiencing water scarcity. But witnessing people engaging in irresponsible behaviours and wasteful practices towards water are exactly the kinds of things that irk me. As I suggested on Twitter, instead of doing a flashmob to waste water against each other, how about a flashmob to raise funds towards water wells? In the interest of giving everyone a voice, chime here in the comments. I might be offline for a while so if your comment is not approved yet, don’t think I’ve blocked it, it will appear eventually!

Dirty for Swain

Raul — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:35:45 +0000

Credit: Ankraut

Through my friends of Giant Ant Media. I learned about their project “Dirty for Swain”. A campaign designed to highlight the excellent activist work of Christopher Swain, and his latest project: swimming 1,000 miles from Marblehead, Massachussets to Washington, D.C. The water quality conditions that he will have to endure are (from what I can read in the website) pretty bad, but the overall goal is to raise awareness of how much pollution we are releasing into our aquatic environment

I think this is a very worthy cause, and amongst the efforts to raise awareness, they are asking the question “what will you do for @swimwithswain” on Twitter. It’s a way of letting Swain know that he’s not alone in his quest to clean up rivers and polluted water bodies. So, go to the Dirty for Swain website and let him know what you’ll do to keep him motivated in his worthy project!

World Water Day and “The Global Water Crisis” event by WaterDrop

Raul — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:08:07 +0000

You might recall that I wrote a few days back about an invitation that Jered Love and Doug Van Spronsen from WaterDrop made recently. Jered and Doug asked me if I’d be willing to speak about the state of Canadian water within the global water issues context. Of course, I accepted gladly because I believe very strongly in the work that Doug and Jered are doing in regards to highlighting the relevance of water within the context of global environmental change. As I’ve mentioned before, many people are SO focused on climate change that they tend to forget that water IS also a natural resource that faces great challenges in the very near future.

The event took place last night, with a showing of a video that WaterDrop created, a screening of the movie/documentary “Flow” and two talks, one by the folks of Run for Water (I’ll write more about them in the next few days) and my own. I’ll have my slides up on my research site in the next couple of days. On the way back, we were talking about the event and I mentioned that they should be proud, because bringing 70 people to Langley (at Trinity Western University) on a Saturday night to talk water, is not an easy task, and the participants stayed for much longer to talk to the folks who had exhibits at the event (the Township of Langley, Oxfam, the Council of Canadians). They did an amazing job and they also had several people who helped make the event successful, and I personally had a great time.

Water and energy are considered two of the most important and pressing environmental issues in the next 50 years. Unfortunately, so much emphasis is placed on the need for energy resources that not enough attention is paid to the myriad of issues surrounding water. Who has the right to access water? How can we make this access equitable? Is privatization the right way pathway for water conservation? What can we do to re-purpose wastewater and how safe is the technology? There are many, many questions regarding water that are still not answered. My research on water governance aims to tackle just a few of this questions.

Only 3% of the world’s water supply is freshwater (the rest is salt water). This fact comes as a good reminder that today, March 22nd, 2009 is not only the second day of spring, but also the celebration of World Water Day. The theme for 2008 was Sanitation (where my main focus of water research is) and for 2009 is Transboundary Water.

Over the last 60 years there have been more than 200 international water agreements and only 37 cases of reported violence between states over water. We need to continue to nurture the opportunities for cooperation that transboundary water management can provide. [World Water Day UN Site]

In my research, I have examined the way in which wastewater policy is created within a river basin that encompasses territory of five Mexican states (the equivalent of provinces in Canada). The 2009 theme of Transboundary Waters is very timely, because (as I found while conducting fieldwork for this project) water can be used not only as a natural resource but also as a political resource. When water bodies (aquifers or lakes or rivers) are shared amongst two political entities, conflicts about jurisdiction over the water bodies may potentially ensue. Right now, we don’t have water wars, but given the irresponsible consumption patterns that many individuals have, we may see real water fights in the near future.

How many transboundary river basins are there?

There are 263 transboundary river basins. Over 45 percent of the land surface of the world is covered by river basins that are shared by more than one country. Over 75 percent of all countries, 145 in total, have within their boundaries shared river basins. And 33 nations have over 95 percent of their territory within international river basins.

While most transboundary river basins are shared between just two countries, there are many river basins where this number is much higher. There are 13 basins worldwide that are shared between 5 to 8 countries. Five river basins, the Congo, Niger, Nile, Rhine and Zambezi, are shared between 9 to 11 countries. The river that flows through the most countries is the Danube, which passes through the territory of 18 countries.[UN World Water Day]

On this World Water Day, I encourage all my readers to re-think their consumption patterns, to think of ways to conserve and recycle water, to ponder how can each one of us contribute to the work of non-governmental organizations that are fighting tirelessly to provide safe drinking water to the many people in developing nations that don’t have access to clean water. Happy World Water Day.

Water Drop: The Global Water Crisis on March 21st, 2009 – I’m speaking

Raul — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:38:33 +0000

The kind folks of Water Drop invited me to give a short speech on the state of Canada’s water on March 21st, 2009. Here are the details of this amazing event. It will be a lot of fun, and very informative!

Date: Saturday, March 21st, 2009
Time: 7:00PM
Location: Trinity Western University – Northwest Auditorium 7600 Glover Road Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1 Canada

- Screening of FLOW: For the Love of Water

http://cannedcumulus.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/flow-719407.jpg

- Speech by Ken Baerg of Run for Water on his experiences abroad in Ethiopia working on water well projects. Jet Takoaka, Hope International’s Development Officer, will also be speaking.

- Additional speech by Dr. Raul Pacheco (He has 10 years of experience in research on wastewater governance, comparative environmental policy in North America, urban sustainability and environmental NGO mobilizations.)

- Free door prizes

- Opportunities to get involved with the global water crisis through OxFam Canada, TWU, Council of Canadians, Run for Water, Ryan’s Well Foundation and WaterDrop.

For more information please go to: WaterDrop.ca
Or contact us at info@waterdrop.ca
Or give us a call at 778.868.0776

Virtual water: Should drinking coffee make you feel guilty?

Raul — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:01:34 +0000

While admittedly my research strength is on wastewater governance, I am well versed on the water scarcity literature. One of the concepts that has gained notoriety in the social science literature is the idea of virtual water. From the World Water Council’s website:

Virtual water is the amount of water that is embedded in food or other products needed for its production. For example, to produce one kilogram of wheat we need about 1,000 litres of water, i.e. the virtual water of this kilogram of wheat is 1,000 litres. For meat, we need about five to ten times more.[World Water Council]

Credit: Ianiv and Arieanna

Darren recently wrote about Salt Spring Island Coffee and how much guilt they put into their coffee cup paper sleeves with the phrase “the cup of coffee you’re consuming travelled 20,000 miles to get to you” (I’m paraphrasing). In my comment to Darren, I indicated that this kind of guilt was nothing. I would like to share with you just how much water was consumed in producing that one cup of coffee you can’t give up: 140 litres, according to the latest calculation of the World Water Council. Yes, you heard right. 140 litres of water go into producing each cup of coffee.

People who are unaware of the negative environmental impact of excess water consumption argue that, after all, it’s *just* a cup of coffee and that we have enough water in the world. My question to them is - How much of the world’s water is available for human consumption? Yeah, I told you about that a few months ago, remember? 0.38% – not nearly enough to sustain our current consumptive patterns.

Credit: Snap(R)

I’ll be the first to admit (disclosure time) that I do enjoy a cup of coffee, particularly when it comes to meetings with colleagues, friends, clients or the like. But I always feel guilty about it, and I try to find ways to diminish my water consumption, all the time. Moreover, a vast majority of my research work is on wastewater recycling and water conservation. Furthermore, I work hard at educating the public about the current state of the world in regards to water scarcity and the need to recycle and reuse wastewater.

The concept of virtual water isn’t new, but it is a powerful tool that helps us understand how negative our consumption patterns are. I just hope that the great work that water-focused researchers (myself included) are doing to highlight the negative consequences of our day-to-day activities and over-consumptive patterns can resonate with the public. Please remember that water is VERY, very scarce, before flushing your toilet, before purchasing bottled water, before taking long showers. Thank you.

Water stress: Beyond water availability

Raul — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:57:03 +0000

Having lived in Vancouver (and in Canada) for the better part of the past 12 years, it still shocks me that people who live in this beautiful country think that we actually have A LOT of water simply because it rains a lot.

The concept of water stress (water extracted/demanded in relation to water that is really available) is a good metric to understand why we need to conserve water (and stop flushing so much water into the sewage streams!). In situations of high uncertainty, we need to ensure that the availability of water exceeds forecasted demands.

With growing population and increased demands on the precious liquid, the general feel I get from my conversations with the general public is that there is a broad perception that water is readily available in Canada. For the record, only 0.06% of the 2% of the global water availability is actually drinking water. The rest is neither readily available nor appropriate for human consumption.

This graph (the worldwide map of global water stress from the World Water Council) shows that North America actually has a high degree of water stress, despite conventional perceptions.

Source: World Water Council

My hope is that in the near future, the public will realize that 1 billion people lack access to improved water supplies (source: World Water Assessment, UNESCO) and that a global water balance is going to leave many millions of people without access to water while we waste it here in Canada shamelessly. Remember that nothing is local anymore, we need to think globally.

The echo chamber in water research (social sciences)

Raul — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:24:03 +0000

One of the benefits that I’ve gained from engaging with the social media community at large (I can no longer say I only engage with social media in Vancouver, as I have Twitter followers from all over the world) is that the terminology from one field (and the ideas) cross-pollinate other fields. That is the case with my research on water. The concept of echo chamber that has been coined in mainstream media and new media is very much applicable to social science research on water.

I can’t tell you how often I have read the same discussions over, and over, and over again. Water is scarce, we should learn how to manage the common pool resource, we need to design more robust institutions for water management, integrated watershed management is the way to go, etc. All of these are phrases that have become commonplace in the literature on water governance. I have gotten to a point where I feel as though there is an echo chamber in the social science literature on water research. I want the discussion to move forward!

Credit: Ankraut

Sadly, one of my areas of specialization (wastewater governance and policy) has been paid very little attention by social scientists. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy that I have carved some sort of a niche in this field (I do know some other researchers do study the topic to some extent, but this is a recent phenomenon). But it would be so much nicer if we advanced the water research agenda much further than it is right now. I have written about the topic both in the academic literature and here on my blog, and I have insisted and encouraged people to think about the hydrological cycle in a holistic way. If we stop having this “culture of flushing” that allows us to forget about the water we just polluted as soon as we see it flush away, if we begin to think forward with new analytical tools, then we can move the conversation forward too!

Yes, I am frustrated. I am particularly frustrated because despite the fact that 2008 was the International Year of Sanitation, very little progress has been made. I would hope that in the near future, we learn more about how to advance the water research agenda. And yes, the phrase I wrote before still applies – before we learn how to govern water we need to learn how to govern ourselves.

Opinions on wastewater treatment plant in Victoria

Raul — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:04:03 +0000

Many of you dear readers may (or may not) know that one of my research areas is the governance of wastewater. You may also have heard about the plans for a wastewater treatment plant in the city of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada). The city of Victoria currently dumps its wastewater untreated into the ocean, although plans are being made to build a wastewater treatment plant. Some people agree and would like this to happen, some people disagree.

Although I’ve seen reports by some scientists that this effluent has no negative impact whatsoever (a concept very much in line with the old US Environmental Protection Agency saying “the solution to pollution is dilution“), I am somewhat skeptical and thus would like to explore this issue more. One of my former undergraduate students wrote her term paper about this topic but that was a year and a half ago, so I’m looking to actually do this research on my own.

If you live in Victoria (or in Vancouver Island) and know of some people who’d be interested in sharing their opinions, please feel free to forward this post and/or give them my email address (hummingbird604 AT gmail.com).

[One of the things I love about Twitter and blogging is that I can reach far more people using Web 2.0 tools than I could by just using plain old cold calling or emails]

Statistics Canada provides us a full RSS feed of statistical goodness!

Raul — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:34:35 +0000

Hat tips to Greg Andrews (TechVibes) and Darren Barefoot (Capulet) for pointing me out to Statistics Canada’s RSS data feeds. You’ll see – even though I’m a chemical engineer, during my Masters and PhD degrees, and in my post-graduate work I have done quite a lot of qualitative research.

My personality traits work to my advantage when using qualitative research methods. I am pretty good at interviewing people, analyzing textual data, coding using Strauss and Corbin’s axial coding methods, undertaking ethnography, etc. I am considered a specialist in institutional analysis because, well, I know how to study rules and routines. And the majority of these studies are undertaken by observing and interviewing.

The thing is, during the course of my PhD, I became REALLY quantitative. Since my advisor’s training was quantitative, he impressed it upon me. I’m quite grateful to him for doing that because thanks to his sage advice and training, I have examined wastewater governance and policy using quantitative methods (something that is rather atypical in this body of literature). And of course, there’s my love of game theory and econometric methods. WOWSA.

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I drooled (just as Greg tweeted earlier this morning) when I saw StatsCan’s RSS feeds. Given the kind of research I do, economic, government, population and environmental indicators are the RSS feeds I grabbed. You can grab any others as you may see fit.

Unfortunately, and this is quite sad, I can’t get any quantitative data on water through those RSS feeds (or at least I haven’t been able to get any so far). I do know where to find some water-related statistics in Canada, but the state of the art in regards to accurate water stats in Canada is (as mentioned in Karen Bakker’s edited book) rather appalling.

If I manage to get my hands on some good data, you’ll see some pretty graphs here sometime soon.

The International Year of Sanitation was 2008 – how much progress have we made?

Raul — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:23:18 +0000

Credit: Stuck in Customs

When I see how little do people think about wastewater and the right of humans to clean water, sometimes I wish I didn’t do research on wastewater governance. Admittedly, I was entirely thrilled at the beginning of the year, as the UN had announced that 2008 would be the International Year of Sanitation.

However, as time has gone by, I have begun to wonder (and a recent tweet by my friend Nadia Nascimento) made me dig a bit deeper in my archives.

Well, I can’t say that there’s been much progress. The “culture of flushing” still seems quite prevalent, and the only recent local news story about water pollution that I read was related to a Langley mushroom farm. Um, do people in Vancouver really think that we have made great strides in the way we manage our wastewater. I sure hope they don’t. Because if they do, they’re in for a big surprise.

I’m going to embark in doing some serious research on local (Metro Vancouver) wastewater governance and I’ll report back with some of my results. In the mean time, I should just say that if you want to be more environmentally conscious, you should make efforts in reducing the amount of wastewater you generate.

Upcoming environmental events in Vancouver – September 2008

Raul — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:00:12 +0000

Two upcoming events are rather relevant to me and both fall on the same day.

Green Drinks Vancouver happens again on the third wednesday of the month (Sep 17th, 2008) at Steamworks.
The Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfasts series continues, and this time, they will focus on the discussions we’ve been having on bottled water. I am SO definitely there!

About the Community Sustainability Breakfast [Metro Vancouver's website]:

Sustainability Community Breakfasts – Nature’s Health Drink – Always on Tap
Wednesday, 17 September, 2008
from 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM
British Columbia Institute of Technology
555 Seymour Street, Vancouver

About Green Drinks Vancouver Sep 2008 [Green Drinks Website]

WHEN the next regular Green Drinks is: Every 3rd Wednesday of the month (except in Dec and July) Our next event is on Sept 17th, 2008
WHERE: Steamworks pub at 375 Water Street on the edge of Gastown near Waterfront Station.
Please be aware that due to changing space availability we cannot guarantee we’ll be in the same room each month – if you can’t find us just ask Steamworks staff which room we are in.
TIME:5:45pm-until?

It’s lucky that both of these events fall on the same day, and that I’ll be back in Vancouver by then! And again, I’ve got a full week booked (Brew 2.0, Green Drinks, Launch Party AND a special day!). Can someone please clone me? Thanks.

Adaptation and vulnerability to floods and climatic events in Mexico

Raul — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:18:32 +0000

This post is worthy of much more in-depth content, but I just wanted to show that the municipality where my parents live is really unprepared for extreme rain. The photos and video shown below show the local river almost entirely flooded (and rather polluted, as you can see).

As you can see, cars are at serious risk of being taken by the river. The local authorities are rather unprepared for these extreme rain events. But the funny thing is, I wonder how prepared are the Metro Vancouver municipalities. I will be doing some research on this topic upon my return to Vancouver.

Water footprint: A new tool to examine water scarcity and use

Raul — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:34:20 +0000

Water is a topic that I’m actually rather passionate about (and I’ve previously written about it, like my discussion of the culture of flushing and the concept of water governance). I love researching it and writing about it, particularly because a professor whom I really respect a lot (part of my doctoral committe) told me that the two issues he saw were going to be the most important in the future were water and energy issues. I came across the concept of water footprint via the Max Gladwell blog (actually their twitter account – Hat tips to Max Gladwell!).

What is the water footprint? Well, I am guessing it is modelled after the ecological footprint that Mathis Wackernagel and Bill Rees coined in 1992. The website WaterFootprint.org defines:

The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. Water use is measured in terms of water volumes consumed (evaporated) and/or polluted per unit of time. A water footprint can be calculated for any well-defined group of consumers (e.g. an individual, family, village, city, province, state or nation) or producers (e.g. a public organization, private enterprise or economic sector). The water footprint is a geographically explicit indicator, not only showing volumes of water use and pollution, but also the locations.[Water Footprint.Org]

It’s an interesting concept, particularly when we apply it to our day-to-day staples, like a cup of coffee (that according to calculations by Hoekstra and Chapagain is about 140 litres of water per cup). As indicated by the Environmental News Network, the concept of water footprint gaining adepts. I was kind of pleased to find that the writer of the ENN article was associated with the World Resources Institute (WRI). One of my very best and closest friends is also associated with WRI as he did a post-doc there, and their datasets on water are some of the finest that I have encountered. Truly speaking, I would not mind doing a post-doc there.

I would like to know if any of my readers actually thinks much about his/her water consumption patterns. Do you ever think about your water footprint or your ecological footprint?

Car washing and sustainability

Raul — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:40:03 +0000

While covering EPIC 2008 as a FrogSquadder for HappyFrog (you can read all my content on HappyFrog here), I came across an eco-friendly carwash in North Vancouver, Easywash . Rebecca helped me set up an interview with Geoff Baker, the CEO of Easywash, around mid-July but unfortunately, I couldn’t interview him as I’ve been in Mexico (and under a lot of stress).

This weekend, I went to wash Mom’s car, and I used the same carwash she’s been using for years. I was reading some books on water while I was waiting for the car to be washed but I didn’t see a lot of environmentally-friendly features.

However, the funny thing is that I saw a sign that said “At this carwash, we don’t waste water, we recycle it”. But I couldn’t see where they recycled it, nor any type of water treatment. I didn’t ask, but I’ll be back to investigate.

In the meantime, I just thought I’d include a couple of photos and some video of the process (sorry if the music is too loud, but I was bored inside the car).

I also plan to interview Geoff Baker upon my return, once I get all my other interviews out of the way (I still haven’t interviewed Al Pasternak about Bokashi composting, and we’ve been trying to talk about this for months!).

The governance of wastewater and the culture of flushing

Raul — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:09:13 +0000

One of the things that has struck me a lot throughout the past five years that I have studied water policy is the absolute disconnect that exists between our understanding of the different elements of the hydrological cycle and their interconnectedness. The social sciences literature has examined in great detail issues of water scarcity, but water quality and wastewater treatment are, for the most part, absent from the discussion.

Photo credit: The Joy of the Mundane

I know that I have always chosen difficult and non-explored questions for my own research, and in this regard, I have created some sort of a niche because very few people study the governance of wastewater. Amongst those very few Canadian scholars who have done work in wastewater and that I know of are Dr. Arn Keeling (whose PhD dissertation was an environmental history of wastewater in Vancouver) and Dr. Jaimie Benidickson (whose book, “The Culture of Flushing“, is a great environmental and social history of flushing in Canada, the United States and Great Britain).

My own work hasn’t dealt with Canadian wastewater, but I do have a fairly solid understanding of the way things work here. I am sure you’ll find it appalling that the city of Victoria, the capital of the province of British Columbia, does NOT have a wastewater treatment plant. The effluent comes straight into the ocean (with some preliminary screening).

A recent post by Matt Collinge about water quality in False Creek reminded me of how little do people in Vancouver AND in Canada think about wastewater. This is something that is prevalent at the larger scale. Professor Dickinson indicates that this is part of “the culture of flushing”, or what I often call, the OOSOOM phenomenon (out of sight, out of mind).

One of my personal pet peeves is that both scholars and non-academics in Canada are SO focused on climate change issues that sometimes they forget other environmental problems that have NOT been solved, including solid waste management (Vancouver’s landfill is about to be entirely full) and wastewater management (we are nowhere near some of the developing countries’ technologies for wastewater treatment, hard to believe as that may be).

My research focus in the area of water policy (I’ve done research in other areas) has examined primarily the role of institutions and the types of rules found in wastewater governance, and the role of watershed councils in strengthening sanitation policy. I found, after that presentation, and having had discussions with other scholars, that I will have to pursue two separate agendas in the future: one on wastewater governance itself and one on watershed councils, and I am very excited about this.

I am curious to know if my readers do think about water scarcity more than they think about what happens once they flush the toilet. Or does even water come into their minds, with so much focus on climate change issues? What do you think?