« October 2009 | Main | December 2009 »
Emily's week-end post highlights quotes and associated links that illustrate a variety of water stories: too much water, too little water, bad quality water, bottled water, big dams, rubber dams, water conservation, Volkswagen-sized rocks, and more!
Will Gov. Sonny try to move the Georgia-Tennessee border north to tap the Tennessee River?
Enjoy!
“Good God.” — An Australian response to the relative laxity of California water conservation
Yes, duty calls - I'm off to San José, Costa Rica, for a meeting. I know it sounds like a junket - going to Costa Rica in late November but I will be spending most of my three days there in the Radisson's meeting rooms.
The meeting is the Americas Follow-up Meeting of the Fifth World Water Forum. I will be representing the American Water Resources Association along with Executive Vice President Ken Reid.
The meeting has three objectives:
1) strenghten the mobilization process initiated on the occasion of the Fifth World Water Forum and work towards the Sixth World Water Forum (March 2012 in Marseille, France);
2) continue to build momentum and promote the water agenda at the policy level; and
3) support regional initiatives that promote the global water policy recommendations.
The meeting conveners are Roberto Olivares (Mexico), Maureen Ballesteros Vargas (Costa Rica), and Bendito (Ben) Braga of Brazil.
The meeting will also launch the Water Forum of the Americas, designed to get the region on track for the Sixth World Water Forum.
I am also looking forward to seeing our three SUSIE participants from Costa Rica: Marilyn Manrow Villalobos, Gloriana Araya, and Esteban Lobo Perez.
"En boca cerrada no entra mosca." -- Latin American proverb [English: A closed mouth gathers no flies.]
The current (29 November 2009) issue of the weekly Christian Science Monitor has a nice little story by Douglas Fox about the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta's sinking problem, brought about primarily by the oxidation of the organic materials in the soil caused by drainage of the marshy lands so that they could be farmed. Lowering of the water table allowed oxygen to penetrate the soil, fueling microbial growth, which consumed organic detritus. Upshot: land sinks (around 2 inches per year) and CO2 is produced.
But for me, that was not the intriguing part of the story. What was fascinating to learn was that the Dutch did the same thing to their country: they drained it, lowering the water table, allowing oxygen to penetrate the soil and fuel microbe growth - you now know the drill.
So the image of the tenacious Dutch reclaiming land from the recalcitrant North Sea is true, but there is another angle - the Dutch caused the land to sink below sea level in the first place, starting in the early 13th century.
Fox writes:
"Before settlement, the country comprised an expanse of dome-shaped peat bogs rising above sea level. Around 1200, the farmers dug channels to darin off the domes, and the land sank, setting off a centuries-long race between technology and water. As sinking and and higher water tables threatened crops, the Dutch found better ways to drain the land - sluices, followed by dikes and windmill-powered pumps - and this lowered the water table further, enabling oxygen and microbes to penetrate deeper, devour more peat and deflate additional land."
"Today's Netherlands lies up to 20 feet below sea level and gushes million of tons of peat-derived carbon into the atmosphere each year."
Fox's story cites Dr. Robert Hoeksema, a professor of engineering at Calvin College, and Guus Borger, a Dutch historian at the University of Amsterdam. Fox notes that Borger helped unearth the truth; he discovered 16th century government documents indicating that wheat was grown in present-day low-lying areas. But wheat would have required lands much higher than those today. This fact led Borger to additional discoveries, and the result was a new account of how the Dutch created today's country.
Hoeksema has written a book on the subject, Designed for Dry Feet: Flood Protection and Land Reclamation in the Netherlands.
Now, at last, I can rest.
"God made the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands." -- Dutch saying
Recent Comments