WaterWired

Lake Balkhash: the Aral Sea Revisited?

Lake Balkhash, in southeastern Kazakhstan, may be on its way to the same fate as the Aral Sea, which was decimated by the diversion of two major rivers, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya, so that the old Soviet Union could grow cotton in the desert (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea). The Aral Sea's surface area is about 25% of what it was in 1960, and the sea has actually split into two lakes, the North Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea. I should note that the North Aral Sea is starting to recover, thanks to increased inflow and the completion of a dam across its southern portion to isolate it compeletly from the South Aral Sea. The fishery is also recovering. So stay tuned.

Lake Balkhash (www.grid.unep.ch/activities/sustainable/balkhash/index.php), not to be confused with the much larger, deeper, and more famous Lake Baikal (whc.unesco.org/en/list/754/ and www.unep-wcmc.org/sites/wh/baikal.htm), about 1600 km north, is large (17,000 square kilometers) but not very deep (average depth = 6 m, maximum depth 26 m, volume = 106 cubic kilometers). Compare it to Lake Baikal, which holds 20% of the earth's fresh unfrozen surface water (23,000 cubic kilometers) and is the deepest (1,700 m) and oldest (25 million years) lake in the world. The Balkhash basin is endorheic, which means there is no surface outflow other than by evaporation and transpiration.

Lake Balkhash has a drainage basin about the size of California - 413,000 square kilometers; about 85% of it is in Kazakhstan and 15% in China. The western arm of the lake is fresh, whereas its eastern arm is saline. Seven major rivers feed it - indeed, the land south of the lake is known as the "Land of Seven Rivers". Of the seven rivers, the ones that experience the most diversions are the IIi and the Karatal.

In its 8 March 2007 edition, the New York Times(www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/world/asia/08kazakhstan.html?ex=1174363200&en=bd466a54651d15ef&ei=5070&emc=eta1)

reported that China and Kazakhstan are wrangling over the lake. At a recent conference, the two countries tried to map out an economically and environmentally sustainable plan for the lake. Kazakhstan wants to keep the rivers that head in China and feed the lake from being diverted to rice, cotton, and sugar farms and for drinking water. China's "Go West" policy is encouraging people to move to its Xinjiang region, and that will only exacerbate water use. China would not buy into a plan that would swap its water for free/subsidized food from Kazakhstan for 10 years.                  

Kazakhstan is not entirely blameless, as 20% of its people rely on the lake for drinking water and agricultural and industrial facilities have polluted the lake. Water is also diverted for irrigation.

The article reported that Kazakhstan's President Nazarbayev urged partcipants to adopt conservation strategies.

Let's hope that reason prevails, and that we won't soon be writing the obituary of Lake Balkhash. But time is indeed running out.

"In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong, there is nothing that can surpass it." -- Lao-tze, 6th century BC
                                  

Hydrophilanthropy Special Session at the AWRA Annual Conference

         Let me put in a plug for a conference related to hydrophilanthropy.

   

     At this year’s American Water Resources Association (www.awra.org) Annual Water Resources Conference, Dave Sabatini ([email protected]) of the University of Oklahoma and I will convene a special session on hydrophilanthropy. To our knowledge, no AWRA conference has ever hosted such a session and we want to make this not only a memorable session but also a model for future AWRA conferences. The conference will be in Albuquerque, NM, November 12-15, 2007, at the Embassy Suites Hotel.

      For the purposes of this session, we define hydrophilanthropy as those activities designed to: 1) improve access to potable water, health, and sanitation for people in developing countries or poor areas in developed countries; 2) empower poor communities to solve their own water, health, sanitation, and related economic problems; 3) assist developing countries in building water resources capacity by training students, professionals, and lay persons in water and related health and sanitation issues; 4) employ water as a mechanism to foster peace, conflict management, and cooperation; and 5) train students, professionals, and lay persons from developed countries to improve the lives of “those less fortunate” through water and water-related projects. Implicit in the concept of hydrophilanthropy is that the work is done for little or no personal financial gain.

     We seek abstracts and posters on topics consistent with the aforementioned definition of hydrophilanthropy. We encourage individuals from a broad spectrum of organizations and individuals to present: PVOs (private voluntary organizations, both faith-based and secular); NGOs (non-governmental organizations); donors; private industry; academic institutions; US governmental organizations (USAID, et al.); and foreign organizations (UN, EU, OSCE, CIDA, SIDA, DFID, et al.).

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

·          Project case studies, including lessons learned from unsuccessful efforts

·          “Dos and Don’ts” of working in developing countries

·          Recruitment and training of volunteers

·          Fundraising and consciousness-raising

·          Training of aid recipients

·          Courses centered on hydrophilanthropic projects

·          How to get involved

    To submit an abstract, go to www.awra.org/meetings/New_Mexico2007/abstracts.html and follow the instructions. On the submittal form, please enter “A” in the Special Session code section so the abstract will be routed to our session. Note that there is a $25 fee for abstract submittal and all presenters must pay the conference registration fee. Please let us know you are submitting an abstract, and contact Michael E. Campana ([email protected]) should you have any questions. Abstracts are due May 14, 2007.

      I have attached a pdf of the announcement.  Download awra_2007_hydrophilanthropy_session.pdf

     Also - at the upcoming Ground Water Summit (Albuquerque, April 29 - May 3, 2007) Dave Sabatini and Vic Heilweil of the USGS will be convening a session on Ground Water In Developing Countries and yours truly will be doing the same for The Many Facets of Transboundary Ground Water. For information, visit

www.ngwa.org/e/conf/0704295095.cfm.

"Beyond mountains there are mountains." -- Haitian proverb

Invasion of...."Rock Snot"?

Yes, that's what it is - "rock snot". That is the slang name for the alga (diatom) Didymosphenia geminata, aka "didymo", or the more descriptive term, "rock snot", that is threatening aquatic ecosystems and fouling intakes.

The Christian Science Monitor (1 March 2007) had an excellent article on didymo, from where I got the information for this post. Take a look at:

www.csmonitor.com/2007/0301/p13s01-sten.html

It first appeared in the streams around Vancouver, BC, in the early 1980s and has now appeared in the Ozarks, Rockies, Iceland, Quebec, and Europe. In 2002 it appeared in South Dakota's Rapid Creek, causing a near-collapse of that stream's brown trout fishery. It recently jumped (2004) to the Southern Hemisphere, appearing in streams of New Zealand's South Island, where it is not native. It blooms in large rug-like mats that can foul infrastructure and disrupt the aquatic food web. When dry and dead, it actually looks like toilet paper.

What is puzzling is that the diatom is native to many of the streams it has "invaded". This leads to the oxymoronic description "endemic invasive species". It could be that the alga has mutated into a "superstrain". And although it is thought to be native to cold, nutrient-poor streams, it is now appearing in warm, nutrient-rich streams.

So how did it spread to New Zealand? Perhaps by globe-trotting anglers? In New Zealand, didymo has so far been kept off the North Island by a careful educational program aimed at anglers and watersports enthusiasts - disinfect your clothing and gear. Analysis of Vancouver data indicates that it may have been spread by anglers there as well. One particular culprit may be felt-soled boots, which remain wet for some time after immersion and can harbor freshwater organisms.

For precautions, see: www.biosecurity.govt.nz/didymo and www.protectyourwaters.net

So, to zebra and quagga mussels, we can add "rock snot".

And speaking of quagga mussels, they have jumped from the USA Midwest to Lake Mead in the USA Southwest. Read all about it the 5 March 2007 issue of the High Country News (www.hcn.org):

www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16861

"Eternal boredom is the price of constant vigilance."

Hydrogeologists Without Borders

I've just learned of another hydrophilanthropic organization - Hydrogeologists Without Borders (www.hydrogeologistswithoutborders.org)

Here is what HWB's homepage says:

"HWB is a group of hydrogeologists, water well technicians, groundwater specialists, and groundwater organizations who share a concern about the very high importance of groundwater in developing countries.  HWB places a particular emphasis on potable water supply to the most impoverished areas of the world and seeks to build hydrogeologic capacity to apply local solutions to the development,use, management and long-term protection of groundwater resources in developing countries."

David Bethune, a friend at the University of Calgary, is on the Steering Committee. Other committee members are Laura Olmsted, Cathy Main, and Craig Robertson. Looks like another outstanding group working to make the world a better place through water.

More information can be obtained by emailing HWB at [email protected].

"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it."-- Chinese proverb