Aridia ~ Towards Oasis Cities in the Drylands?

The WEF writes about Desertification: what is it and why is it one of the greatest threats of our time?

"The combined impact of climate change, land mismanagement and unsustainable freshwater use has seen the world’s water-scarce regions increasingly degraded. This leaves their soils less able to support crops, livestock and wildlife. This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish its special report on climate change and land. The report, written by hundreds of scientists and researchers from across the world, dedicates one of its seven chapters solely to the issue of desertification."

The 30 year climate map illustrates the geographies involved (plus see also Koppen climate maps)... In this light, it's worth inverting the issues and seeking opportunities in such drylands.  The big technological achievements of the past half-century are solar power and desalination.  But there's more, including much greater sophistication around water use, shades of greywater, cycling, and design and landscaping for water retention.  Furthermore, reforestation, for instance in the Sahel, has been done with hardier plant varieties and is increasingly including soil modification or assistive techniques to both preserve water and make maximum use of every little bit.  On arid but foggy coasts (e.g. Atacama, Namibia, etc) inexpensive materials are boosting the effectiveness of fog harvesting.  And we can learn from classic desert cities and ancient techniques (e.g. Petra, the medinas, etc) about greening the desert.  In any case, when you stitch all the existing and emergent ideas together, I believe there's a blossoming new category of "oasis cities" in arid regions.

Greening the Desert ~ Alt Perspectives...

Three documentary examples of rehabilitating large-scale damaged ecosystems...

Earth's Surface Water ~ Deltares Change Analysis

The BBC's Rebecca Morelle spotlights Surface water shifting around the Earth as discovered by the Deltares Research Institute in the Netherlands...

"They found that 115,000 sq km (44,000 sq miles) of land is now covered in water and 173,000 sq km (67,000 sq miles) of water has now become land. The largest increase in water has been on the Tibetan Plateau, while the Aral Sea has been the biggest conversion of water to land. The team said many coastal areas have also changed significantly. [...] The researchers said Dubai's coast had been significantly extended, with the creation of new islands to house luxury resorts."

Rainworks ~ Water-Activated Urban Art!

Peregrine Church makes Rainworks urban art only seen when wet! Interesting variant on Reverse Graffiti!

Crystal Lagoons ~ San Alfonso del Mar & more

The DM spotlights Crystal Lagoons whose...

"Unique concept can provide an unlimited size lagoon, surrounded by picturesque sandy white beaches, anywhere in the world. Their first project, the San Alfonso del Mar tourist complex in Chile, obtained the Guinness World Record for the largest swimming pool in the world, at a size of eight hectares. Crystal Lagoons expects a second Guinness World Record with the 12.5 hectares mega lagoon of the Citystars Sharm El Sheikh tourist complex in the middle of the Egyptian desert. Following that should be a third Guinness Record with the Mohammed Bin Rashid City project in Dubai, expected to be completed by 2020, that includes the world's largest crystalline lagoon with 40 hectares."

Flood Simulations ~ Modeling Disaster Dynamics!

Steven Ward hosts the ingomar200 YouTube page where he posts great simulations of various historical flood and related disasters. These really help visualize historical and physical dynamics of major incidents. He's got many, but here's a few I particularly like: First, Pennsylvania's Johnstown Flood (1889)... France's Malpasset Dam Disaster (1959)... Alaska's Lituya Bay Tsunami (1959)... Historic breaching at Gibraltar and Med flood... Asteroid Eltanin hitting South Pacific... Finally, simulating Las Palmas again triggering megatsunami...

Harvesting Fog ~ Capturing Aerosolized Water!

MIT colleague Karthik spots fog harvesting technologies...

"A system for collecting fresh drinking water from fog that regularly rolls through Chile’s otherwise arid coastal region. [...] A series of suspended mesh structures [...] strategically placed on top of hills and angle toward locations where fog typically blows in from the ocean. As the fog comes through, the webbing in the structures captures small droplets of water and filters them down into a collection silo. [...] There is around 10 billion cubic meters of potential fog water produced every year along the Chilean coast."

Beneath Cities ~ Decaying Infrastructure & Death

In NYTimes, Patrick McGeehan, Russ Buettner, and David Chen share scandal: Beneath Cities, a Decaying Tangle of Gas Pipes...

"It is a danger hidden beneath the streets of New York City, unseen and rarely noticed: 6,302 miles of pipes transporting natural gas. [...] The perilous state of New York City’s underground network, one of the oldest in the country [is] a glaring example of America’s crumbling infrastructure. [...] Communities across the country have been struggling to replace thousands of miles of these old, metal pipes with pipes made of plastic or specially coated steel that are less prone to leakage. Few, however, face as daunting a challenge as New York City. To replace all of the old mains in its network right now would cost as much as $10 billion, Con Edison estimates. Much of that expense would fall on the residents and businesses that use the gas for heating and cooking. [...] “Some of this aging infrastructure has reached the end of its useful life” [...] “It’s a major ordeal in a city like New York to just start digging things up.”

Yikes, surely there's a better way to design, build, and maintain cities?! Here's the mess below as visualized by Larry Buchanan's infographic and Robert Stolarik's photos...

India Beats Polio ~ CNN on Public Health Victory!

CNN's Moni Basu reports India beats the odds, beats polio...

"When a global effort to end polio was launched in 1988, the disease crippled more than 200,000 children every year in India. Almost two decades later, in 2009, India still reported half of the world's new cases -- 741 out of 1,604. India has millions of poor and uneducated people. The population is booming. Large areas lack hygiene and good sanitation, and polio spreads through contaminated water. Many health experts predicted India would be the last country in the world to get rid of polio. They were wrong."

Escherian Leidenfrost ~ Stairclimbing Waterdrops!

io9's Robert Gonzalez writes There's something strangely satisfying about watching water roll uphill...

"Researchers at the University of Bath recently demonstrated that water dropped on a very hot ridged surface would cause the droplet to not only float, but climb along an inclined surface, as though ascending a flight of stairs. [The video below] produced by the folks at Science Friday, features some really beautiful closeup shots of the [Leidenfrost] effect."

Lost Rivers ~ Rediscovering Urban Waterways!

Thanks to Jason King at LandscapeUrbanism for spotting the trailer for Lost Rivers documentary by Caroline Bâcle and Katarina Soukup...

"Once upon a time, in almost every city, many rivers flowed. Why did they disappear? How? And could we see them again? This documentary tries to find answers by meeting visionary urban thinkers, activists and artists from around the world."

Leidenfrost FX ~ Water Goes Wiggly thru Maze!

MissC spots the Leidenfrost Maze!

AquaTop Display ~ Milky Water+Kinect+Projector

UD spots AquaTop Display...

H2Blow ~ King of Random Gets Electrolytic;-)

UD spots "Exploding Water" -- oh yeah;-)

Duct Tape Surfing ~ Epic Paraplegic Prosthetic!

Kottke spots epic Duct Tape Surfing...

PlaNYC ~ A Stronger, More Resilient New York...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced PlaNYC: A Stronger, More Resilient New York recommending how to rebuild communities post-Sandy and boost infrastructural resiliency...

"If this plan is implemented, New York City will not be “climate-change proof” -- an impossible goal -- but it will be far safer and more resilient than it is today. While no one can say with certainty exactly how much safer, the climate analysis in Chapter 2 shows that the investments recommended in this plan certainly will be worthwhile.

Lives will be saved and many catastrophic losses avoided. [...] Over time, implementation of this plan would address many of the risks that a coastal city like New York faces. By hardening our coastline, by making our building stock stronger, by creating a more durable power network and better stormwater infrastructure, and so much more, we can be better prepared for anything the future holds. We are a coastal city -- and we cannot, and will not, abandon our waterfront. Instead, we must build a stronger, more resilient city -- and this plan puts us on a path to do just that. It will not be easy, and it will take time; but as New Yorkers we are more than up to the task."

Room For The River ~ NL Protective Waterworks

Room For The River is Dutch initiative to avoid high-water flood calamities with layered defense and protective measures.

Superomniphobicity ~ Liquid-Repeling Nanocoats

Paul @ GeekPress spots Gizmag summary piece by Darren Quick on Superomniphobic Nanoscale Coatings at UMich...

"Similar to the way water droplets are suspended by air pockets created between tiny hairs on the surface of lotus leaves, the coating creates a structure that is 95 to 99 percent air pockets. This means that liquids coming into contact with the coating barely touch a solid surface, thereby reducing the intermolecular Van der Waals forces that normally draw two states of matter together. [...] Already proven effective on coffee, soy sauce, vegetable oil, gasoline, and various alcohols, the coating can also repel acids that could burn skin, such as hydrochloric and sulfuric acids. Tuteja says the coating is also the first demonstrated to repel low surface tension non-Newtonian liquids. These are liquids, such as shampoos, custards, blood, paints, clays and printer inks, that change their viscosity depending on the amount of force applied to them."

Reclaiming Rivers ~ Exploring SP's Dirty Waters

Simon Romero writes in the NYTimes of A Willing Explorer of São Paulo’s Polluted Rivers...

"The Tietê and Pinheiros Rivers, which cut through this metropolis of 20 million, flow well enough in some parts. But in certain stretches, they ooze. Their waters are best described, perhaps, as ashen gray. Their aroma, reminiscent of rotten eggs, can induce nausea in passers-by. José Leonídio Rosendo dos Santos has been diving into both rivers for more than 20 years. Hired largely to unclog drainage gates, he scours the murky depths of the Tietê and Pinheiros, which have symbolized São Paulo’s environmental degradation for decades, bringing to the surface a list of items that is eerie and bizarre. [...] Part of the fascination with Mr. dos Santos has to do with how Paulistanos view their rivers. [...] it was adored by city residents as recently as the middle of the last century, when they fished, swam and held rowing competitions in its waters. Then São Paulo rapidly expanded to become one of the world’s largest cities, its residents moving into high-rise buildings, gated enclaves and sprawling slums. Factories deposited their waste in the rivers. Flourishing districts in São Paulo’s metropolitan area expanded without basic sanitation systems, discharging sewage directly into the Tietê and Pinheiros. The rivers now persist in Brazil’s popular culture as dystopian objects of derision. [... Still there is] hope that the stubborn presence of life along São Paulo’s rivers might reflect the latest phase in their existence: the attempts to resurrect them. Since 1992, the authorities have been advancing with a painstakingly slow project to clean up the Tietê and Pinheiros."

See also a piece from the Economist on Cleaning up an urban sewer.

Troubled Waters ~ Future H2O Stress Worldmap

CSMonitor cover story Troubled Waters by William Wheeler asks Global water crisis: too little, too much, or lack of a plan?

"The global water crisis -- caused by drought, flood, and climate change -- is less about supply than it is about recognizing water's true value, using it efficiently, and planning for a different future, say experts. [...] Water is a part of everything we do: It feeds crops, powers cities, cools computer servers, and is key to the manufacturing of everything from clothes to cars. The billion more people expected on the planet by 2025 will increase water demand for all of those functions. And just to feed those people, water withdrawals for agriculture are expected to increase by about half. But it's not only about the additional mouths to feed; it's also the growth of new appetites. Much of the growth in demand will emerge from the swelling sprawl of bustling, slum-pocked metropolises across the developing world. For the first time in history, the share of the global population living in cities recently surpassed 50 percent -- on its way to 75 percent expected by 2050."

See here worldmap of today's and projected water stresses...