Thursday 4 June 2009
Water Poverty Index
How to read the graph?
The WPI assesses water poverty from 5 different perspectives: available resources, use of them, access to water (water supply, sanitation and irrigated land), capacity of exploitation, as well as environmental sustainability factors. In each category up to 20 points can be reached (=best situation).
The WPI is a holistic water management tool that is mainly relevant at the community level, but can also be applied at any spatial scale up to the basin or national levels.
Water Monitoring Alliance : indices
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/sections/hrr/documents/WPI4pageleaflet_000.pdf
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/sections/ph/documents/WPIworldmap_2.pdf
Thirst of the cities drives the giant drills to water China's parched north | World news | guardian.co.uk
More than twice as expensive as the Three Gorges Dam and three times longer than the railway to Tibet, the 50-year, $62bn (£40.67bn) project aims to channel a greater volume than the Thames along three channels – each more than 600 miles long – from the moist Yangtze basin up to the dry lands above the Yellow river.
At Jiaozuo, giant drills have already gouged out more than half of the 2.5 mile-long tunnel that will take the water under the Yellow river. At the foot of the construction shaft, the nine-metre wide concrete pipe stretches into the dark far below the farm fields that stretch towards the river. "This is a first in the history of the Yellow," one of the engineers, Han Jiping, says proudly. "There is nothing to compare."
South-to-North Water Diversion Project - Water Technology
With China hosting the Olympic Games and water from the South-to-North Water Diversion Project – the largest of its kind ever undertaken – scheduled to begin supplying a thirsty Beijing, 2008 is shaping up to be a major showcase year for the country. This massive scheme has already taken 50 years from conception to commencement and is expected to take almost as long again to construct. Planned for completion in 2050, it will eventually divert 44.8 billion m³ of water annually to the population centres of the drier north.
When finished, the work will link China’s four main rivers – the Yangtze, Yellow River, Huaihe and Haihe – and requires the construction of three diversion routes, stretching south-to-north across the eastern, central and western parts of the country.
The complete project is expected to cost $62bn – more than twice as much as the country’s controversial Three Gorges Dam.