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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.

My year in review – Water governance and policy research

Raul — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:08:32 +0000

While I blogged WAY MORE about water this year than I have in the past, I didn’t do much in terms of research. I used the field research notes that I had accumulated during my almost three years of fieldwork on wastewater governance in Mexico (2004-2006) to produce one journal article (that actually was already accepted for publication in early 2007, so it shouldn’t really count).

But other than that, I haven’t done much with it. I gave a talk this summer on wastewater governance and watershed councils, and I received really good feedback. This feedback was so solid that I have decided to pursue independent projects on each one of the research streams that emanated from this talk.

One of the reasons why I think my involvement with the social media community has become part of a very successful cross-pollination process is that I’ve learned to use many Web 2.0 tools to strengthen my own findings, to advance my research agenda, and to make it easy for me to publish research thoughts in draft form that I may be able to polish in the future (much along the lines of what danah boyd does). Furthermore, I am also in talks with Rachel Black, who also does research on water, and I wouldn’t have met Rachel if it hadn’t been for Twitter (and Anthony Nicalo, as well).

Speaking of tools that make my life easier that I wouldn’t have come across if it hadn’t been for my involvement in the tech community, Blurb is an online (free) software that Arieanna and Colleen used (in the case of Arieanna to publish the photos from their trip to Europe, and Colleen to create a Christmas gift for their families).

I’ve been mulling over publishing one version of my book (in Spanish) on wastewater governance in Mexico (a book that I had finished writing in 2006, but with the further development of the International Year of Sanitation – which was 2008) using Blurb. Another method I’ve been considering is an on-demand press, as Beth Snow did with her first book).

I REALLY, REALLY want to have at least one volume of my book printed out by the end of 2008 so that I don’t feel so terribly lousy about not having done much with such a large body of work. I mean, it’s kind of stupid. I did compare the wastewater policies of five states (the Mexican equivalent to provinces) and I really should be able to produce more stuff (particularly in the English language journals).

If I manage to publish the book with Blurb, I’ll be VERY happy. I’ll let you guys know what I managed to do with that. Overall, my 2008 wasn’t all that bad for my water research. Learned about new topics, thought more about where my water research agenda will go, and used social media tools to strengthen my research. Good stuff.

Movie review: Blue Gold: World Water Wars (2008)

Raul — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:04:28 +0000

Credit: Hypergurl on Flickr

JT and I had a chance to see the movie “Blue Gold: World Water Wars” thanks to an invite by the VIFF office. The film actually premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Blue Gold is a documentary based on the work of Maude Barlow (National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians) and Tony Clarke, Director of the Polaris Institute. From the film’s website:

In every corner of the globe, we are polluting, diverting, pumping, and wasting our limited supply of fresh water at an expediential level as population and technology grows. The rampant overdevelopment of agriculture, housing and industry increase the demands for fresh water well beyond the finite supply, resulting in the desertification of the earth.

Corporate giants force developing countries to privatize their water supply for profit. Wall Street investors target desalination and mass bulk water export schemes. Corrupt governments use water for economic and political gain. Military control of water emerges and a new geo-political map and power structure forms, setting the stage for world water wars.

We follow numerous worldwide examples of people fighting for their basic right to water, from court cases to violent revolutions to U.N. conventions to revised constitutions to local protests at grade schools. As Maude Barlow proclaims, “This is our revolution, this is our war”. A line is crossed as water becomes a commodity. Will we survive?
[Blue Gold: World Water Wars]

The documentary, directed by Jim Bozzo, is very good, and I would recommend it for the general public, as it won an Environmental Film of the Year 2008 Award. Of course, for academics like me (who do research on water), nothing that was said in the film was new. I am well aware of the various debates around privatization, treating water both as a political resource and as a commodity and the discussion on tap water vs. bottled water consumption. I was actually kind of surprised that very little discussion was offered on water as a common pool resource and the problems created by having many users sharing access to dwindling supplies. But the truth is, the social issues surrounding water consumption and pollution are such vast topics, that no documentary can touch on everything.

While the topic of water quality was discussed, neither the documentary narrators nor the interviewees really got into deep discussions of issues of water quality and wastewater management. This was kind of disappointing, as any discussions of the hydrological cycle SHOULD include a mass balance of water AND wastewater. It’s clear that the focus of the film was pretty much the privatization debate and the grassroots battles against corporate acquisition of water.

At the end of the movie, there is some (albeit not extensive) coverage of very important issues: the right to water and the concept of virtual water. While very little support has been given worlwide to a universal right to water, I would think that the recent appointment of Ms. Barlow as Senior Water Advisor to the President of the 63rd U.N. General Assembly may actually increase the visibility of the issue of a right to water.

For a layperson audience, this is a very good film to watch, although I also would recommend additional reading. I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend my own writing on wastewater policy, water governance and the proposed banning of bottled water in Vancouver.

Here is the trailer. Blue Gold: World Water Wars is showing at the Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour) December 12-18 in the following schedules: Fri 7:00 pm, Sat 9:00 pm, Sun 7:00 pm, Mon 9:00 pm, Tues 7:00 pm, Weds 9:00 pm, Thurs 7:00 pm

Check it out before Thursday Dec 18th, I’d recommend to watch the double feature (e.g. Blue Gold and Flow).

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]

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.

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?