I Love ME Some Water

[Matty]

says the baby duck

[oceanloverOH]

I love animal videos....thanks for posting that one, Willow!

[fyrenza]

No kidding! Fun is ... FUN! lol

[Dr. Who]

Wheeeee!

[Matty]

it's astonishing they can zip up such a steep incline without any stairs.

[Dr. Who]

it's astonishing they can zip up such a steep incline without any stairs.

When you think about it though, apart from swimming, their disproportionately large webbed feet are meant to carry them up slippery river banks. The slide is probably very similar to something that little ducklings would do in the wild - slide down slippery river banks into the water and back up again.

[waltky]

Like Joseph's drought in Egypt...

Israel's Water Worries Return After 4 Years of Drought
October 23, 2017 — It was a source of national pride — technology and discipline besting a crippling lack of water.

But four years of drought have overtaxed Israel's unmatched array of desalination and wastewater treatment plants, choking its most fertile regions and catching the government off-guard. "No one imagined we would face a sequence of arid years like this, because it never happened before," said Uri Schor, spokesman for Israel's Water Authority. The Sea of Galilee, technically a lake near the border with Syria, is forecast to hit its lowest level ever before winter rains come, despite the fact that pumping there was massively reduced. Underground aquifers, the other main freshwater source, are nearing levels that will turn them salty. How to cope with the crisis is becoming an increasingly touchy subject in Israel. Proposed cuts to water use for the coming year, more than 50 percent in some areas, prompted vehement opposition from farmers, who already face tough restrictions and would have been the hardest hit. The government quickly backtracked.


In the Middle East, one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, water is also the subject of wider tensions. Intense pressure on already scarce water resources could lead to an increase in migration and the risk of conflict, the World Bank has warned. Syria and Jordan depend on some of the same water sources as Israel, which as added to tensions in the past. Palestinians have long complained of inadequate access to water, which is mostly under Israeli control in the occupied West Bank. Israel has said it has supplied more water than required under interim peace deals. Under discussion for a possible long-term solution to Israel's water problem is the construction of an additional desalination plant, an industry official said. A similar facility in Israel has cost more $400 million.

Cranes fly over a dry agricultural field in the Hula Valley, northern Israel

Several new reservoirs to catch rain and flood waters could also relieve some pressure as a quick, $60 million fix, the official said, asking to remain anonymous due to the political sensitivity of the subject. Just a few years ago Israel, a country two-thirds arid, declared an end to the water shortages that hounded it for decades. A longstanding nationwide awareness campaign ceased and Israelis could take long showers and water their gardens. There was even talk of exporting surplus water to its neighbors. This came as a result of a massive investment drive which saw Israel put 15 billion shekels ($4.3 billion) in its national water grid and sewage treatment centers. The commercial sector invested another 7 billion shekels into the construction of five desalination plants.


Supply issues are being hardest felt among farmers in the northern tip of Israel, the region where Dubi Amitay, a fourth-generation farmer and president of the Israel Farmers Federation, lives. Amitay said the shortage had made him decide to dry out 3,700 acres of land, which will take a toll on future harvests. His home region of eastern Galilee, a lush swath of land between the coast and the Golan Heights, could lose up to 500 million shekels this season, he said. The lack of reliable waters supply leaves farmers with deep uncertainty. "Will we have water or not?," he said.


https://www.voanews.com/a/israel-wat...t/4082386.html

[Perianne]

HA! The first three posters. Matty and oceanloverOH. I loved them. Then came Fyrenza. ugh.

RIP oceanlover. I miss you.

Does anyone know what happened to Matty?

[waltky]

So. Africa faces severe water rationing...

In less than 3 months, a major international city will likely run out of water
Wed January 24, 2018 - In Cape Town, South Africa, they're calling it "Day Zero" -- the day when the taps run dry.

A few days ago, city officials had said that day will come on April 22. This week, they moved up the date to April 12. Cape Town is South Africa's second-largest city and a top international tourist draw. Now, residents play a new and delicate game of water math each day. They're recycling bath water to help flush toilets. They're being told to limit showers to 90 seconds. And hand sanitizer, once somewhat of an afterthought, is now a big seller. "Unwashed hair is now a sign of social responsibility," resident Darryn Ten told CNN.

The genesis of the crisis

So how did this happen? How does a major city in the developed world just run dry?
It's been a slow-motion crisis, exacerbated by three factors conspiring together:

* The worst drought in over a century, which has pushed Cape Town's water scarcity into a potentially deadly horizon
* Its population, which is 4 million and growing quickly
* A rapidly changing climate

Even with the predicament they find themselves in, residents haven't dropped their water use significantly, said Patricia De Lille, Cape Town's mayor. The city has lowered the water pressure in their mains to help stretch the water supply. But usage is still 86 million liters above its target goal. "It is quite unbelievable that a majority of people do not seem to care and are sending all of us headlong towards Day Zero," a statement from the mayor's office said. "We can no longer ask people to stop wasting water. We must force them." Starting February 1, residents will only be allowed to use 50 liters, or a little over 13 gallons, of water per person, per day.

Coping with the shortage

The shortage is forcing some residents to get creative. Alistair Coy, who's vacationing in Cape Town from the United Kingdom, strains the water that's left over from boiling potatoes into a bucket for things like washing clothes. Anne Verbist recycles her tap water to tend to her plants. "We catch all water from the tap to wash hands and dishes and use it for the plants," she said. But creativity is also creating problems. "People [are] buying anything that can hold water," said resident Richard Stubbs. "No buckets, no [gas cans] or drums [are] in stock. So people [are] buying bins, vases and large storage boxes."
Then, some of them are filling them up with water from the city supplies -- further feeding the water crisis.

Worries about drinking water

Verbist, and several other residents, said that while they use tap water for household needs, they are reluctant to drink it. "They claim it is fine to drink, but the kids were having tummy issues," she said. So now, she and her family trek to the Newlands Spring to get their allotted liters of water twice a month. They tried to replenish their drinking water reserves Monday, but the line was just too long. They went back to the next day.
Resident Lincoln Mzwakali says his tap water "tastes funny" as well. So he relies on the spring. "Many neighboring communities have started depending on it," he said. CNN asked the city of Cape Town about the water quality concerns some residents reported, but has not yet received a response.

Long lines and bare essentials

[waltky]

Cape Town almost outta water...

Dangerously Low on Water, Cape Town Now Faces ‘Day Zero’
JAN. 30, 2018 — It sounds like a Hollywood blockbuster. “Day Zero” is coming to Cape Town this April. Everyone, be warned.

The government cautions that the Day Zero threat will surpass anything a major city has faced since World War II or the Sept. 11 attacks. Talks are underway with South Africa’s police because “normal policing will be entirely inadequate.” Residents, their nerves increasingly frayed, speak in whispers of impending chaos. The reason for the alarm is simple: The city’s water supply is dangerously close to running dry. If water levels keep falling, Cape Town will declare Day Zero in less than three months. Taps in homes and businesses will be turned off until the rains come. The city’s four million residents will have to line up for water rations at 200 collection points. The city is bracing for the impact on public health and social order. “When Day Zero comes, they’ll have to call in the army,” said Phaldie Ranqueste, who was filling his white S.U.V. with big containers of water at a natural spring where people waited in a long, anxious line.

It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way for Cape Town. This city is known for its strong environmental policies, including its careful management of water in an increasingly dry corner of the world. But after a three-year drought, considered the worst in over a century, South African officials say Cape Town is now at serious risk of becoming one of the few major cities in the world to lose piped water to homes and most businesses. Hospitals, schools and other vital institutions will still get water, officials say, but the scale of the shut-off will be severe. Cape Town’s problems embody one of the big dangers of climate change: the growing risk of powerful, recurrent droughts. In Africa, a continent particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, those problems serve as a potent warning to other governments, which typically don’t have this city’s resources and have done little to adapt.

For now, political leaders here talk of coming together to “defeat Day Zero.” As water levels in the dams supplying the city continue to drop, the city is scrambling to finish desalination plants and increase groundwater production. Starting in February, residents will face harsher fines if they exceed their new daily limit, which will go down to 50 liters (13.2 gallons) a day per person from 87 liters now. Just a couple of years ago, the situation could not have looked more different here. In 2014, the dams stood full after years of good rain. The following year, C40, a collection of cities focused on climate change worldwide, awarded Cape Town its “adaptation implementation” prize for its management of water. Cape Town was described as one of the world’s top “green” cities, and the Democratic Alliance — the opposition party that has controlled Cape Town since 2006 — took pride in its emphasis on sustainability and the environment. The accolades recognized the city’s success in conserving water. Though the city’s population had swelled by 30 percent since the early 2000s, overall water consumption had remained flat. Many of the new arrivals settled in the city’s poor areas, which consume less water, and actually helped bring down per capita use.

The city’s water conservation measures — fixing leaks and old pipes; installing meters and adjusting tariffs — had a powerful impact. Maybe too powerful. The city conserved so much water that it postponed looking for new sources. For years, Cape Town had been warned that it needed to increase and diversify its water supply. Almost all of its water still comes from six dams dependent on rainfall, a risky situation in an arid region with a changing climate. The dams, which were full only a few years ago, are now down to about 26 percent of capacity, officials say. Cape Town has grown warmer in recent years and a bit drier over the last century, according to Piotr Wolski, a hydrologist at the University of Cape Town who has measured average rainfall from the turn of the 20th century to the present.

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