Water Security Issues Research Articles

Biotreatment of Effluent from Cassava Processing Using Powdered Seeds of Moringa oleifera

The world is facing increasingly more severe water security issues. It has, therefore, become imperative to develop sustainable, eco-friendly water management and recycling techniques. This study assessed the capacity of powdered seeds of Moringa oleifera to improve water quality of effluent from two (2) cassava processing plants in Umudike, Nigeria by measuring the variations in specific physicochemical and microbiological parameters of the samples. The biodegradability indices of the wastewater samples were determined as 0.513 and 0.507 for Plants 1 and 2 respectively indicating samples that were fairly biodegradable and treatable biologically. At the end of the 7-day study, turbidity reduced by 59.6% – 63.2% while chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total organic carbon values dropped by 66.6% – 74.1%, 86.7% – 88.2% and 67.0% – 72.6% respectively. Correlation analysis showed a strong positive correlation between BO₅ and COD for both Plants 1 and 2. The total heterotrophic and coliform bacteria were completely removed by around day 5 of the study. The observed bacterial isolates in the effluent at onset were Escherichia coli, Bacillus sp., Klebsiella sp., Salmonella sp., Streptococcus faecalis, Shigella sp. and Aerobacter aerogenes. This study confirms the efficiency of powdered seeds of M. oleifera in biotreatment of wastewater from cassava processing plants.

Ecological perspectives on water, food, and health security linkages: the Minamata case in Japan.

Extant studies address water, food, and health security issues considerably separately and within narrow disciplinary confines. This study investigates the links among these three issues from an ecological viewpoint with a multidisciplinary approach in a modified Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework developed by the United Nations. The modified framework includes water, food, and health security considerations as the three constituents of human well-being from an ecological (more specifically, ecosystem services) viewpoint. This study examines the links through published data associated with the Minamata incident, which was a historic and horrific methylmercury-induced water, food, and health poisoning crisis in Japan. The results show that when heavy metal pollution changes one component (marine water) of the provisioning ecosystem services, this change subsequently affects another component (seafood) of the services. This then defines the linkages among water, food, and health security as the three constituents of human well-being within the modified framework. The links can have immediate and far-reaching economic, social, legal, ethical, and justice implications within and across generations. This study provides important evidence for emerging economies that ignore the water-food-health security nexus.

Hydrological Analysis of Municipal Source Water Availability in the Canadian Arctic Territory of Nunavut

In the Canadian Arctic, the availability of sustainable drinking water supplies is threatened by pressures such as increasing populations, climate change, and the remote geographic nature of the communities. The objective of this study was to conduct a screening level vulnerability assessment of municipal drinking water supplies in the Canadian territory of Nunavut with consideration for climate change, population growth, and infrastructure changes. A hydrological analysis of primary drinking water supply watersheds was performed to evaluate the relative vulnerability level in 24 Nunavut communities. We used a water balance model to predict annual water yield from each watershed using historical and projected future climate data. Approximately 25% of the study communities were projected to experience high vulnerability to water shortages by 2070, defined as using greater than 40% of available water from their source watershed on an annual basis. A medium level of vulnerability (using 20% – 40% of annual available water) was determined for 8% of the study communities and a moderate level for 12% (using 10% – 20% of annual available water). A low vulnerability level to 2070 (using less than 10% of annual available water) was determined for 55% of the communities. The vulnerability level was primarily influenced by source watershed size. The results of this study could be used as a component of a proactive strategy to help address water security issues in Nunavut.

Comparison GIS-Based interpolation methods for mapping groundwater quality in the state of Qatar

Groundwater (GW) quality deterioration is one of the main water security issues in Qatar. GW in Qatar is over-exploited for agriculture activities that caused saltwater intrusion in the coastal areas and some inland GW. The selection of an appropriate interpolation method is crucial for producing a reliable map of spatial variability in environmental research and the decision-making process. In this study, 41 GW samples were used to produce interpolated maps and reveal the spatial variability of GW parameters namely: pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), major cations, and anions, and some trace elements, using spatial interpolated methods in geostatistical tool (ArcGIS Software). Multiple mapping methods were used to compare the current results with the national and international guidelines to give a relevant decision. Three different interpolated methods, namely inverse distance weighted interpolation (IDW), radial basis functions (RBFs), and simple Kriging (SK) were used to produce interpolated maps. Cross-validation was applied to assess the best-fit interpolation method. The result shows that the SK model was the optimum interpolated method for the most of the variable data. While the RBFs model was the best interpolation method for selenium and boron data. The IDW model was the best-interpolated method for sodium, TDS, SAR, and potassium data. The IDW and RBFs methods produced interpolation maps that help visualizing the location of GW within and above the guidelines. The analysis of spatial variability in the study area revealed high levels of TDS, EC, SAR, and some cations and anions in the coastal and south Qatar. While the spatial variability for nitrate and boron suggested the influence of human activities. A thorough understanding of the status of GW quality in Qatar is a significant tool for the GW management and decision-makers.

WAMPUM Adaptation framework: eastern coastal Tribal Nations and sea level rise impacts on water security

ABSTRACT Sea level rise (SLR) poses significant threats to northeast and mid-Atlantic Tribal Nations' climate and water justice. Existing SLR adaptation frameworks do not include Indigenous knowledge. Furthermore, SLR adaptation policy prioritizes economic and property rights and is misaligned with Indigenous coastal protection priorities. If Tribal Nations are to respond effectively to SLR then adaptation frameworks must be designed and developed by Indigenous Peoples for Indigenous Peoples. Eastern coastal Tribal Nations have a unique history of survival and resilience despite settler-colonial expansion in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions of what is currently referred to as the United States. Experiences of eastern Atlantic coastal Tribal Nations highlight innovative response strategies for SLR adaptation and coastal stewardship practices not reflected in existing adaptation frameworks for the region. Indigenist SLR adaptation frameworks that utilize Indigenous knowledge are needed to combat water security issues resulting from SLR risks such as flooding, saltwater intrusion, storm surge, and erosion. This article proposes the WAMPUM adaptation framework informed by northeastern and mid-Atlantic coastal Tribal Nation science and knowledge systems for climate change adaptation to SLR.

Global Climate Change: Assessing the Importance of the Roles of Ice Cover and Glacial Changes

Issues of water security are rapidly becoming more widely recognized as impacted. Increased levels of carbon dioxide are clearly evident and long-term temperature increases are clearly evident. These indicators are being used to compile evidence that sea level rise in the future will be between 0.3 and 1.0 m by 2100 and, combined with more severe storms along coastlines, will translate into increasing challenges for coastal cities. The enormous glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica will continue to contribute to sea level rise but fortunately, at modest levels, for thousands of years. On the other hand, land-based glaciers will continue to become depleted and the ramifications to agricultural practices are expected to be profound, with situations of significant percentages of the world’s land-based glaciers being lost by 2100. Further, the disappearance rate of the Arctic Ocean ice cover is already profoundly evident, with losses of ice cover of about 13.1 percent per decade now occurring. Rates of warming in the Arctic are increasing at two to three times the global annual average and warrant further forecasting of the implications. With the reduced ice cover, the water in the Arctic Ocean is now absorbing the energy from the sun, not reflecting the sun’s energy, thereby accelerating further ice cover melting. The result is that the jet stream is weakening and evidence is mounting that there will be increased excursions of the polar vortex causing very cold weather extremes in northern hemisphere areas.

An Economic Perspective on Water Security

AbstractWater security involves multiple interrelated policy challenges that economists often analyze separately. This article examines the issue of water security from an economic perspective, ide...

Governing Water, Engaging Community: Indonesian Water Security Roadmap

Water policy assessment could be multifaceted in nature considering its systemic implications for governance. The context of governing water is constantly changing. Water demand may rise of population growth and economic activities, whilst water service provision may be challenging due to interconnected aspects of water justice, water conflict and water resources management. Policymaking adaptability to change should think about the consequences of the policy design to all stakeholders, including their situation and options and determine the most possible alternative resolutions. Most attention is given to key lessons for development considering the impact of and the need to discuss the issue of water security in a way that could contribute to protecting lives and the environment. To some extent the issue of water security in Indonesia is interconnected with general enabling measures of assessing the existing regulation at the national level. Unambiguous actions may be required at regional and local levels, together with sound socio-economic and socio-cultural institutions and instruments, namely building capacity and advocating partnerships. This primary qualitative research is about providing water security roadmap in West Java as a case in point, contributing to policy discourse on how to govern the complexity of water security issue concerning making model grounded on collaborating local community participation and regional government support.

Policy and legislative barriers to close water-related loops in innovative small water and wastewater systems in Europe: A critical analysis

Abstract Water supply and reuse through non-conventional water resources can significantly decrease the stress on natural water resources. Decentralized systems can help not only to alleviate issues of water security in arid areas, but also to create a sustainable framework within a circular economy. Although these small-scale innovative technologies are able to achieve ready-to-use, high quality of recovered/treated water on-site, the loop cannot be closed in most cases due to legislative barriers. Similarly, the end-use of sewage sludge after treatment in decentralized systems still lacks specific regulations that limit its valorization. This work analyzes the current policy and legislations related to water supply, wastewater treatment, water reuse and resource valorization within the context of decentralized state-of-the-art technologies applied in rural areas. The drawbacks in the current EU legislation that set barriers to close water-related loops in European countries are highlighted. A regulatory fitness check was applied to each type of loop to identify the key factors to accomplish the legislative compliance, and financing pathways were further evaluated at the EU level. As a possible solution, further development of an innovation deal approach is recommended to address the environmental, regulatory and financial gaps in water management through an integrated framework, providing ad-hoc policies and prescriptions for sustainable reuse of all water resources.

Healthy waterways and ecologically sustainable cities in Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei urban agglomeration (northern China): Challenges and future directions

AbstractThe cities across the northern dry region of China are exposed to multiple sustainability challenges. Beijing‐Hebei‐Tianjin (BTH) urban agglomeration, for example, experiences severe water shortages due to rapidly expanding urban populations, industrial use, and irrigation‐intensive agriculture. Climate change has further threatened water resources security. Overuse of water resources to meet the demand of various water sectors has far‐reaching health and environmental implications including ecosystem sustainability. Surface water and groundwater pollution present public health risks. Despite the extraordinary policies and efforts being made and implemented by the Government of China, the BTH region currently lacks coordination among stakeholders leading to poor water governance. Consultation among scientists, engineers and stakeholders on regional water security issues is crucial and must be frequent and inclusive. An international symposium was held in Shijiazhuang in early November 2019 to identify some of the key water security challenges and scope of an idealized future eco‐city in the region by developing a sustainability framework. This work drew on experiences from across China and beyond. Scientists agree that integration of science, technology, and governance within an appropriate policy framework was particularly significant for combating the issue of water insecurity, including in the region's newly developed city, Xiong'an New Area. An emerging concept, “Healthy Waterways and Ecologically Sustainable Cities” which integrates social, ecological and hydrological systems and acts as an important pathway for sustainability in the 21st century was proposed in the symposium to tackle the problems in the region. This high level biophysical and cultural concept empowers development goals and promotes human health and wellbeing. The framework on healthy waterways and ecologically sustainable cities can overcome sustainability challenges by resolving water resource management issues in BTH in a holistic way. To implement the concept, we strongly recommend the utilization of evidence‐based scientific research and institutional cooperation including national and international collaborations to achieve the Healthy Waterways and Ecologically Sustainable Cities goal in the BTH in future.This article is categorized under: Water and Life > Conservation, Management, and Awareness

WATER SECURITY IN ECOLOGICAL POLITICS DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC ERA

The major challenges related to water security today are efforts to reduce flood risk; and efforts to increase water supply for communities, industry and agriculture. The ecohydrological approach is present as a solution to these two challenges. On the other hand, the ecological problem with the issue of water security in it has developed over time and awaits real action by the government. In a political framework, ecological issues have been considered marginal and lacking in priority instead of being dominated by other fields, such as economy, law, and infrastructure. In fact, the government is to be committed to promoting eco-friendly development. In the current COVID-19 pandemic, leadership that cares about the environment as a manifestation of ecological politics is a necessity, and is expected to be present both substantially and factually. With the spirit of ecological leadership, strengthening the environmental sector will be on par with other sectors. 
 Keywords: water security, eco-friendly development, ecological politics, ecological leadership. 
 

EU28 region's water security and the effect of bioenergy industry sustainability.

Water is an essential component of agriculture-food production. As the biomass and biofuel are known excellent sources of renewable and sustainable energy, cultivating process consumes significant quantities of water. Without sufficient, good-quality and easily accessible water, the European agriculture-food production could thus be under threat. This research analyses the impact of the water supply on the bioenergy production in the 28 European Union countries, for the 1990-2018 period within the pathway of the European Union 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The findings using the generalised least squares (GLS) technique show that bioenergy production and population density appear to decrease water supply. Precisely, the magnitude of the effects is - 0.224 and - 0.136 for developing countries and developed countries in the EU, respectively. This indicates that a serious reduction of water security is more likely to happen in developed countries than in developing countries as a result of the increase in bioenergy consumption. In the meantime, fossil fuel, income generation activities and institutional quality have already positively affected water supply. Thus, these findings implied that water scarcity is becoming one of the main obstacles for bioenergy expansion and growth. The results were also further verified by the random effect and pooled oriented least squares method. This study recommends that the Member of the European Union States should continue to increase bioenergy production in the energy mix efforts without any strenuous water security issues. Notwithstanding, there are several situations where a developing bioenergy industry is unlikely to be constrained by water shortage, and with the drive of bioenergy demand, the efforts might unlock new opportunities to adapt to water-related challenges and to improve water usage efficiencies. The authorities should illustrate organised water security and sustainable bioenergy policy by way of developing alternative strategies in reducing fossil fuel power and related CO2 emissions, accordingly to the unique characteristics of both developed and developing countries in the EU.

Materiality, Territory and Sovereignty: Responding to Contradictory Water Security Issues in the Mekong Region

Aspirations for sub-regional, regional and global cooperation at a bi-lateral and multilateral level over water security are strong and yet often a real or perceived gap exists between intentions and the workings of institutions. In the area of water security difficulties are often premised on tensions between national territory and national sovereignty. As a result, emphasis has been placed by decision makers on how to most effectively classify the ‘most at risk’ areas from water security issues. However, this objective itself is often separated from wider issues of economic land ownership. Yet stakeholders paradoxically have both similar and yet different understandings of what counts as territory and sovereignty. A majority of stakeholders continue to pursue a ‘realist’ or liberal approach to the spaces of national sovereignty and territory as water course or water basin. This binary assumption of territory as a specifically bounded political space is given here as a reason for limited concrete results on water security governance. Recalibrating this understanding of sovereignty, territory and security through a sociology of materialism might therefore open alternative spaces for ensuring issue-specific governance in spaces now impacted by the dynamics of infrastructure and sub-regional connectivity. By framing these tensions through the issue of territory and materialism the paper identifies gaps and strategic opportunities emerging that might potentially recalibrate the conceptual and policy debate on water security and its territorial assumptions.

Materiality, Territory and Sovereignty: Responding to Contradictory Water Security Issues in the Mekong Region

Materiality, Territory and Sovereignty: Responding to Contradictory Water Security Issues in the Mekong Region

Development of technique for assessing urban water security in Depok City

Rapid urbanization, population growth and economic drivers forced megacities, metropolises, and many cities around the world face increasing challenges to manage water security in urban areas. The urban water security (UWS) issues becomes more attracting attention of various parties, especially those involved in planning of supply and allocation of urban water, implementation and operation of urban water management all together with systems and techniques for assessing UWS along with the indicators used. This study aimed to: 1) review the assessment system of accomplishment to meet the needs of clean water in the Depok City by PDAM Tirta Asasta Depok (PDAM TAD) and then comparing with the standard of UWS assessment used by the world’s leading cities, 2) develop and propose technique, criteria and indicators for assessing UWS of Depok City. Performance assessment of PDAM TAD in 2018 for serving drinking water in Depok City by using BPPSPAM Guidelines showed that PDAM TAD is classified as “well company”. However, a new technique together with indicators to assess UWS of Depok City is still needed to develop and propose since BPPSPAM Guideline has not fully covered and resembled the criteria and indicators used to measure UWS used widely by the world’s leading cities.

Identification of regional water security issues in China, using a novel water security comprehensive evaluation model

Abstract In order to solve regional water security issues, such as shortage of water resources, the aggravation of water pollution, the destruction of the ecological environment, etc., this study proposed the flood control security index, resource security index and ecological security index, respectively, according to the construction principle of human development index. Based on the above security indexes, a novel water security comprehensive evaluation model is established by combining the coupling coordination degree model and the state space model. The proposed model has the advantage of simple operation and fast data speed, which is convenient for water security evaluation in different periods and regions. Taking China as an example, the water security conditions were evaluated from 2007 to 2016 for 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China, including flood control security index, resource security index, ecological security index and water security level of each region, and the specific problems of water security in each region were obtained. The evaluation results are consistent with the actual situation in each region, which provides the scientific basis for the local government authorities to formulate the corresponding regional water security policy.

Editorial for the Special Issue “Remote Sensing of the Terrestrial Hydrologic Cycle”

To address global water security issues, it is important to understand the evolving global water system and its natural and anthropogenic influencing factors [...]

The Idea and Key Technical Prospect on Integration between Underground Reservoir and Surface Water System

The problem of global water security is extremely serious due to the increasingly poor and uneven distribution of water resources and severe water pollution in some regions. Water security is a major long-term strategic demand of China, involving water resource supply, the prevention and control of flood, drought and water pollution, etc. In order to solve the prominent problems of global surface water shortage and the groundwater level drops caused by the over exploited of the traditional groundwater reservoir, the underground reservoir is proposed under the guidance of national strategy “Deep Into the Earth”. The protection and early warning of water security would be better through the interaction between underground reservoir and surface water system. This paper provides solutions for water security issues. In which, the preliminary concept of underground reservoir is defined, and the theoretical system of water security for underground reservoirs and surface water is put forward. Moreover, several key technologies are also proposed, including the distributed rainfall-runoff and water environment simulation with high precision, site selection and design of underground reservoir, the early warning and protection of water environment in underground reservoir, the joint operation of water quantity and quality between underground reservoir and surface water system, etc.

CO2 utilization: Turning greenhouse gas into fuels and valuable products

This study critically reviews the recent developments and future opportunities pertinent to the conversion of CO2 as a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) to fuels and valuable products. CO2 emissions have reached an alarming level of around 410 ppm and have become the primary driver of global warming and climate change leading to devastating events such as droughts, hurricanes, torrential rains, floods, tornados and wildfires across the world. These events are responsible for thousands of deaths and have adversely affected the economic development of many countries, loss of billions of dollars, across the globe. One of the promising choices to tackle this issue is carbon sequestration by pre- and post-combustion processes and oxyfuel combustion. The captured CO2 can be converted into fuels and valuable products, including methanol, dimethyl ether (DME), and methane (CH4). The efficient use of the sequestered CO2 for the desalinization might be critical in overcoming water scarcity and energy issues in developing countries. Using the sequestered CO2 to produce algae in combination with wastewater, and producing biofuels is among the promising strategies. Many methods, like direct combustion, fermentation, transesterification, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion (AD), and gasification, can be used for the conversion of algae into biofuel. Direct air capturing (DAC) is another productive technique for absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and converting it into various useful energy resources like CH4. These methods can effectively tackle the issues of climate change, water security, and energy crises. However, future research is required to make these conversion methods cost-effective and commercially applicable.

Evaluation of regional water security in China and recommendations for counter measures

Given its rapid social and economic development, China has been facing increasingly severe water security issues, including resource scarcity, uneven temporal/spatial resource distribution, and serious issues related to pollution. With reference to the Human Development Index (HDI), a series of macro-indexed systems are proposed to address regional water security by establishing a comprehensive water security evaluation model involving flood management security, resource security, and ecological security. The model evaluates regional water security through the efficacy of flood management measures, the security of regional water resources, and the sustainability of ecological environments. Water security conditions were evaluated annually from 2000 to 2015 for 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China. The evaluation includes the identification of water security levels in the various regions and the analysis of difficult issues regarding water security, which would help local government authorities establish corresponding policy. Compared with other existing evaluation methods, this model has advantages of easily obtainable data and quick calculation methods, which is convenient for evaluating water security across different times and regions.