WaterWired

Feast or Famine? Fixating on Nitrogen

This nifty map (click to enlarge; also visit the WWW site to view the interactive version) is from National Geographic.

The interactive version shows the nitrogen flows by continent. Here is an article and diagram of the nitrogen cycle.

Managing the nitrogen cycle is one of the 21st Century's Grand Engineering Challenges. Here is what the GEC site says about the nitrogen cycle:

A further but less publicized environmental concern involves the atmosphere’s dominant component, the element nitrogen. The biogeochemical cycle that extracts nitrogen from the air for its incorporation into plants — and hence food — has become altered by human activity. With widespread use of fertilizers and high-temperature industrial combustion, humans have doubled the rate at which nitrogen is removed from the air relative to pre-industrial times, contributing to smog and acid rain, polluting drinking water, and even worsening global warming. Engineers must design countermeasures for nitrogen cycle problems, while maintaining the ability of agriculture to produce adequate food supplies. 

Here is a good, brief discussion on managing the nitrogen cycle, with references.

We can thank Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch for developing artificial nitrogen fertilizer, which revolutionized agriculture. Haber developed the chemistry to produce ammonia

N₂ + 3 H₂ → 2 NH₃   (ΔH = −92.22 kJ·mol⁻¹)   exothermic reaction

from nitrogen and hydrogen and Bosch engineered the process, now known as the Haber process or Haber-Bosch process. The engineered process is one hundred years old; 2013 is the 100th anniversary. Both Haber (1918) and Bosch (1931) won Nobel prizes for their efforts.

You can also produce explosives from the ammonia. 

Who would have imagined we'd have a huge problem with too much soluble nitrogen one hundred years later. Think 'dead zones' in the ocean, water pollution...

Unintended consequences in spades.

"A lot of people ask, 'Do you think humans are parasites?' It's an interesting idea and one worth thinking about....If the biosphere is our host, we do use it up for our own benefit. We do manipulate it. We alter the flows and fluxes of elements like carbon and nitrogen to benefit ourselves—often at the expense of the biosphere as a whole." - Carl Zimmer

Wednesday Wake-Up - CRS Report: 'Drought Issues in the US: Causes & Issues for Congress' (22 April 2013)

An excellent report (dated on Earth Day!) from Peter Folger, Betsy A. Cody, and Nicole T. Carter of the Congressional Research Service: Drought in the United States: Causes and Issues for Congress. This is an update of their July 2012 report.

Download CRS Drought in the U.S. - Causes and Issues for Congress

Summary

Drought is a natural hazard with often significant societal, economic, and environmental consequences. Public policy issues related to drought range from how to identify and measure drought to how best to prepare for, mitigate, and respond to drought impacts, and who should bear associated costs. Severe drought in 2011 and 2012 fueled congressional interest in near-term issues, such as current (and recently expired) federal programs and their funding, and long-term issues, such as drought forecasting and various federal drought relief and mitigation actions. Continuing drought conditions throughout the country contribute to ongoing interest in federal drought policies and responses.

As of April 2013, drought has persisted across approximately two-thirds of the United States and is threatening agricultural production and other sectors. More than 1,180 counties so far have been designated as disaster areas for the 2013 crop season, including 286 counties contiguous to primary drought counties. In comparison, in August 2012, more than 1,400 counties in 33 states had been designated as disaster counties by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Most attention in the 112th Congress focused on the extension of expired disaster assistance programs in separate versions of a 2012 farm bill. Attention in the 113th Congress again is expected to focus on farm bill legislation; however, other bills addressing different aspects of drought policy and response have also been introduced. (For information regarding drought disaster assistance for agricultural producers, see CRS Report RS21212, Agricultural Disaster Assistance. For information on the 2012 bill, see CRS Report R42552, The 2012 Farm Bill: A Comparison of Senate-Passed S. 3240 and the House Agriculture Committee’s H.R. 6083 with Current Law.)

Although agricultural losses typically dominate drought impacts, federal drought activities are not limited to agriculture. For example, the 2012 drought raised congressional interest in whether and to what extent other federal agencies have and are using authorities to address drought. Similarly, the President in August 2012 convened the White House Rural Council to assess executive branch agencies’ responses to the ongoing drought. The Administration shortly thereafter announced several new administrative actions to address the drought.

While numerous federal programs address different aspects of drought, no comprehensive national drought policy exists. A 2000 National Drought Policy Commission noted the patchwork nature of drought programs, and that despite a major federal role in responding to drought, no single federal agency leads or coordinates drought programs—instead, the federal role is more of “crisis management.” Congress may opt to revisit the commission’s recommendations. Congress also may consider proposals to manage drought impacts, such as authorizing new assistance to develop or augment water supplies for localities, industries, and agriculture—or providing funding for such activities where authorities already exist. Congress also may address how the two major federal water management agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, plan for and respond to drought.

This report describes the physical causes of drought, drought history in the United States, and policy challenges related to drought. It also provides examples of recurrent regional drought conditions. For information on federal agricultural disaster assistance and related legislation, see the CRS reports noted above.

Thanks to Jan Schoonmaker for sending this my way. 

For information on Federal water activities, see:

CRS Report R42653, Selected Federal Water Activities: Agencies, Authorities, and Congressional Committees, coordinated by Betsy A. Cody.

CRS Report R42947, Water Resource Issues in the 113th Congress, coordinated by Betsy A Cody.

And don't forget the excellent 2009 CRS report by Betsy A. Cody and Nicole T. Carter, 35 Years of Water Policy: The 1973 National Water Commission and Present Challenges. 

Enjoy!

"Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought." - Dwight Morrow

Video: 'Social Media and the Colours of Water'; Sunsetting the Rainbow Water Coalition

Friend and hydrogeologist extraordinaire Todd Jarvis produced this video (for a UK audience - hence the spelling 'colours') about greywater (graywater? gray water? grey water?), the other colors of water, and social media.

As a hydrogeologist, Todd is well-positioned to deal with the spelling issue. Ground water, anyone?

If you are perplexed about the significance of the various 'colors' of water, check out the right sidebar on Todd's excellent Rainbow Water Coalition blog.

 

When Todd snet me the link to this video, he informed me that, sadly for us, he will be sunsetting his blog after becoming the 'go-to guy' on greywater in three short years. The water world will be a little poorer for its demise. But he's got a lot of irons in the fire so it is time to move on.

But I expect him to return to blogging this fall. The topic? Groundwater conflicts. Stay tuned.

One last question: is it 'wastewater' or 'waste water'? 

"All good things must come to an end, but bad things can continue forever." - Thornton Wilder 

Happy Earth/Triage Day: My First Earth Day, Godzilla's Revenge, Conspiracy Theory Alert!

Today is an auspicious day: it is Earth Day, first celebrated in 1970. It is also the 19th anniversary of Richard M. Nixon's death. Recall that EPA was created on his watch. Somewhat ironic, no?

Unlike many things I did in college, I vividly recall what I did on that inaugural event: build a dam. 'What?", you say, "A dam?" Yes, a dam, at the College of William and Mary.

Read on:

Runoff (I knew some hydrologic terms even then) from a construction site was dumping (I knew environmental lingo even then - 'dumping', not 'transporting') sediment into our beloved Lake Matoaka, hallowed site of many ancient and sacred rituals (annual 3.2 beer can regatta, etc.). Thomas Jefferson, he who founded The University but attended W&M, reputedly lost his virginity there every week or so, an event that was celebrated nightly by many reverent, tradition-conscious undergraduates and wayward faculty. 

W&M didn't have an engineering program, so dam construction was left to geologists. What, we were going to ask the physics majors? We'd still be arguing about strength of materials, charge density, and moments.  

So build we did.

My sed-strat classmates (I had none who would admit to being geomorphologists) protested our plans because they wanted to witness an event that normally took millennia to complete: formation of a delta. But led by Dr. Gerry Johnson, we won the day, constructed the dam (a replica of which is shown here), and saved our beloved waterway from premature infilling. 

There was much celebrating that evening at the lake. And much contamination the next day. Something for Earth Day 1971 to address. 

So there!

Fast forward to 2013. My youthful enthusiasm and naïveté have waned, replaced by ennui and cynicism. Instead of Earth Day, I tend to lean toward the curmudgeonly view
recently espoused (tongue-in-cheek) by Joe Romm in his post, Let's Rename Earth Day, a reprise of a 2008 piece in Salon.

Here is how he concluded:

We have fiddled like Nero for far too long to save the whole earth or all of its species. Now we need a World War II scale effort just to cut our losses and save what matters most. So let’s call it Triage Day. And if worse comes to worst — yes, if worse comes to worst — at least future generations won’t have to change the name again.

As a penultimate thought, I suspect that many environmentalists and climate science advocates will have their own, private name: “I told you so” Day. Not as a universal as “Triage Day,” I admit, but it has a Cassandra-like catchiness, no?

Finally, perhaps we should call it “science day.” We don’t have a day dedicated to celebrating science, and don’t we deserve one whole day free from the non-stop disinformation of the anti-science crowd?

As always, I’m open to better ideas….

Eaarth day?  

Finally, one of Earth's creatures is not taking our malignant neglect of his homeland lying down. Yes, Godzilla, himself a creation of our abuse of Earth, decided to take things into his own stubby claws and make things right: he destroyed the ASARCO stacks at its defunct El Paso copper smelter. Yes, tired of years of air pollution, on 13 April 2013 Tokyo's worst nightmare popped up in west Texas and vented his rage on the ASARCO chimneys that had belched noxious gases into the skies for over 100 years. 

Friend and colleague Ari Michelsen braved cohorts of Federal agents (who wanted us to believe that the stacks were brought down purposely), automatic weapons fire from Ciudad Juárez, and the great beast himself, to snap this picture.

Thanks to his courage, the shroud of silence about this seminal event has been breached and the nefarious intent of the US goverment exposed! Conspiracy theorists (and I know you're out there), rejoice!

So Happy Earth/Triage Day!

"A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking." - Jerry Seinfeld The Week, 27 April 2012 

TEDx Video: 'Iconic Toilets' by Matthew Lippincott

Seriocomic presentation on toilets, sanitation and related issues by Matthew Lippincott at Concordia University in Portland, OR.

Thanks to Abby Brown for sending this my way.

From the YouTube site:

Mathew is of the opinion that the future needs better instructions. An artist and designer working in technology development and education, he splits his time between creating low-cost science kits and restroom reform. A founding member of the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab), and MDML design, Mathew's recent life highlights include his Balloon Mapping Kickstarter being listed as one of the 10 best projects of 2012, MDML's Sewer Catastrophe Companion being exhibited at the Center for Disease Control and approved by the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, and developing signage for the Beacon Food Forest in Seattle.

 

Wonder if Lippincott has checked out the winner of the Gates Foundation's 'Reinvent the Toilet' competition?  I hope not...

"Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet." - Chuck Palahniuk