I previously talked about the irrigated forestry projects in the deserts of the Western Region of the UAE. This picture shows what happens when someone turns the tap off. It seems unlikely that this was a deliberate decision, considering the thousands of square kilometres that continue to be irrigated.

I suspect it is more likely there was a problem with the water supply system for a short time, or possibly even the complete failure, or salinisation, of the ground water well after excessive extraction.

It’s interesting to see the indigenous Chenopod shrubs (which are halophytic – salt tolerant) beginning to repopulate the area, possibly even benefitting a little from the shade of the planted trees. It’s a stark reminder that some species of plant have evolved over millennia to succeed, without human intervention, in this challenging environment.

Related: Massive concrete amphitheater lies disused outside of Dubai

Why people favour ill-adapted species of plant over perfectly adapted ones for their landscaping is a mystery I will never decipher. Maybe the complete ‘mastery of nature’ is still an instinctive goal of our species? Hopefully it’s one we will evolve beyond soon, before we come too close to succeeding.

You can see some of the dead forests on Google Earth at the following co-ordinates  24° 2’23.68″N  53° 1’37.94″E

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You might not want to tell your Moroccan grandmother, but technology first developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) that recycles urine and waste water is being implemented to provide clean drinking water for 1,200 university students.Groundwater in Sidi Taïbi, a small town roughly an half hour’s drive outside of Rabat, has become contaminated over the years – particularly with nitrates and fertilizer that Phys.org reports renders the water unfit for human consumption.

To counter this problem and provide for a growing population, the University of Kenitra developed a partnership with UNESCO to apply ESA’s technology at the school.

Powered by both solar and wind energy, the closed-loop water cleansing process involves controlling “… organic and ceramic membranes with holes just one ten-thousandth of a millimetre across – 700 times thinner than a strand of human hair,” according to Phys.org.

“These tiny pores can filter out unwanted compounds in water, in particular nitrate.”

Related: New Moroccan handicraft complex replaces polluting tanneries in Fez

In space, astronauts can’t be encumbered by excess waste, so the ESA has developed innovative techniques to put it to good re-use. They are currently working to combine other elements, such as bacteria, algae, filters and high technology with the waste water to provide life-giving oxygen, water, and food.

This is all pretty heady stuff for the Middle East, where recycling waste water has long been viewed as risky business given the strong view that Muslims have about all things potentially unhygienic. There are complex rituals associated with anyone who defiles themselves in certain ways – by having sex, for example, or coming into contact with impurities.

But desperate measures are required during desperate times; we think this experiment could have enormous ramifications not just in Morocco, but throughout the region. It’s important for local people to notice science’s efficacy so that they can trust the source of their drinking water.

Until now, the technology has not been used for more than 16 people. A similar system was installed for researchers at the Concordia Research Base in Antarctica in 2005 and it continues to function well to this day – despite bitter weather conditions – with very little maintenance required.

Firmus from France is working with Belectric from Germany to expand ESA’s technology, and if their project is successful, they hope to scale it up by a factor of 10 so that the rest of the town can also enjoy access to clean drinking water.

This is huge.

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Fresh water is an unbelievably rare resource across the globe – one in six people lack access to clean water and more than 3.4 million people die each year because of its scarcity.

Even in places where water is plentiful, it may be contaminated, or the existing infrastructure may be ill-equipped to deliver sufficient resources to swelling populations.

Stationary desalination plants are restricted to towns and cities within reach of their pipelines, and they come with a smorgasbord of environmental complications.

Mobile, floating desalination plants can travel from place to place to deliver water to more people on an as-needed basis, but desalination is no panacea.

Related: Masdar tackles solar-powered desalination

If anything, it spreads the problem, disperses it, and allows us to destroy our resources more quickly.

It’s expensive to make salt water fit for drinking as it requires a great deal of energy, and at the moment, most desalination plants are not solar-powered. Eventually this will change, but for now we’re mostly stuck with fossil-fueled desalination.

IDE Technologies recently announced that it is likely to deliver a fleet of custom offshore floating desalination plants within the next three years; each ship would be able to produce up to 120,000 cubic meters of fresh water in a day.

Udi Tirosh, a business development director at IDE, told Bloomberg News “ship-based designs could supply water for a city of 850,000 people and Japan’s shipbuilders are among potential partners.”

“The idea is to develop with our partners a multi-year, multi-vessel plan that would eventually supply significant capacity in various places in the world.”

Good news – getting fresh water to more people, saving lives – but also disturbing. What will our oceans look like in 10, 20, 30 years? Enormous cesspools of briny, trashy water filled with jellyfish and oil sheen?

:: Bloomberg

Image via screenshot of IDE Technologies You Tube demonstration

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On a recent trip to Ethiopia, Italian designer Arturo Vittori discovered how collecting water is both dangerous and time-consuming – especially for women and children. He thinks these water-trapping WarkaWater Towers will help. 

Life in the dry northeastern corner of Ethiopia is hard. Women must often walk long distances to find water for the family, and small children forced to come along are thereby kept out of school. This of course perpetuates the poverty cycle.

And even after these treks to fetch heavy buckets of water or wash clothes, there’s no guarantee that the water will be safe. Contaminants often spread illness and other misery. After witnessing this himself, Vittori resolved to come up with a thoughtful and inexpensive solution.

’Warka’ comes from the Warka tree or Ficus Vasta, according to Vittori. Like a wild fig tree, it is native to Ethiopia, and often provides shade and a rendezvous spot for traditional gatherings among Pastoral Ethiopian communities.

The trees, which comprise an important part of cultural life, are also vulnerable to drought and ecosystem degeneration. So the towers designed in their likeness are expected to provide both a sense of pride for these important trees in addition to their very important function, which is to capture potable drinking water.

About 28 feet tall and framed like a basket, the tower is constructed with easy-to-source natural materials such as bamboo or reed framework in a basket-like shape. Inside, a mesh bag of sorts traps humidity from the air.

Related: Billboard captures water from thin air in Peru

Given that it is built in sections from the top down, the tower can be constructed without scaffolding, and no special machinery is needed either. The triangular frame gets its stability from bamboo poles connected with natural fiber and wires.

Vittori estimates that this system, which collects the harvest water in a basket, can produce up to 25 gallons a day. Which is hugely significant. To get a sense of just how significant this is, try picking up five gallons of water and then imagine yourself walking two or more miles with one in each arm.

The tower could also be equipped with a solar-powered LED, which would provide security and light at night, so maybe children can study, and a place for the community to gather for special events.

“’Warka’ can be the semination point for a leap-frog development to bring the rural Ethiopian village community into the space age,” writes Vittori.

“The tower can for as an enhanced and shared internet connection for rural communities to bring them such valuable real-time information as weather forecast, actual market prices of food, fruit and vegetables, but also create a higher awareness of the‚ ‘Genius-Loci of the Space-Age’ to continue to live in harmony with the local resources nature is providing.”

Vittori is currently seeking private or government funders for two towers that he hopes will launch in 2015.

:: Wired

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Winners of a Lexus Design Award 2014, Spanish students Rodrigo García González, Pierre Paslier and Guillaume Couche reworked a concept that has actually been around for a while in order to create a water receptacle that is cheap, easy to make, durable, and biodegradable.

Replicating both the design and function of a single water drop, Ooho is a “new way of packaging that propose [sic] an alternative to the plastic bottle,” the students write in their design brief.

Using the culinary technique of spherification, which involves combining sodium alginate from brown algae with sodium chloride, creates a double gelatinous membrane that might not sound very delicious, but it is edible, and it is also incredibly strong.

Water is frozen before it is sealed in the membrane, making it easier to work with.

Related: Severe water scarcity could hit the Arab region by 2015

The team, which notes that Spanish chef Ferràn Adria first brought spherification to modern cuisine at his restaurant el Bulli in the 1990s, likens the edible blob to an egg yolk that is secured in a membrane.

“The double membrane protects the inside hygienically, and makes it possible to put labels between the two layers without any adhesive,” García tells Fastco Design.

While the sphere isn’t very easy to use – it is unwieldy and tricky to pierce without water gushing over the front of your shirt, the students envision a future where the design could be perfected by every day people in their own kitchens.

Of course, this won’t really address the problem of water waste, since people who have kitchens in which to cook (and perfectly good water to drink) are very often the kind of people who buy bottled water from Costco and don’t bother to recycle.

But in the developing world, where water is scarce or plastic waste is especially problematic given the absence of decent recycling facilities, or in emergency situations, the Ooho could be very useful.

Not only is it incredibly affordable at just two cents a pop, but they shouldn’t be too difficult to pack. And we have no shortage of algae in the world.

In the grand scheme of things, with climate change and food insecurity and political instability threatening millions of people (and whole ecosystems) across the globe, plastic waste might seem like a non-issue.

But remember that it’s an oil-based product. So the sooner we rid ourselves of the stuff, the closer we get to the ultimate goal of reducing our dependance on fossil fuels.

Oh Ooho! What a great design.

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When all else fails, run to wealthy Saudi Arabia. That seems to be the prevailing thought among Egyptian officials at a loss to resolve the ongoing dispute with Ethiopia over Nile water rights. 

At one point it seemed that the two countries might be able to resolve their differences over the Renaissance Dam construction project in Ethiopia, which threatens Egypt’s already precarious water supply.

In a bizarre twist, Egypt at one point proposed to help with the project’s construction.

But talks between them and Sudan broke down and Ethiopia continues to adopt a fairly noncooperative stance over water rights that were established by colonial powers in 1929.

Politically crippled back home and in no position to exert any kind of power, Egypt has conveyed plans to play its only trump card to ensure its population of nearly 81 million has some semblance of water security: getting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries on board.

Related: Saudi Star Among Firms Behind Thousands of Forced Relocations in Ethiopia

“A detailed report is currently being prepared to examine and explain Egyptian concerns relating to the building of the dam, in the absence of a clear agreement with Ethiopia about it, an Egyptian official told Al Monitor. “The final draft of the report, which explains the concerns over the repercussions the construction of the dam will have on Egypt and Sudan, will be sent to the International Panel of Experts.”

The same official told the paper that Egypt has received reassurances from both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (but not Qatar, notably) that they are on board to help with any issues related to national security.

Mahmoud Abu Zeid, who heads up the Arab Water Council, told the paper that Gulf countries could definitely persuade Ethiopia to reconsider its position with Egypt as long as the two countries reached a consensus, while an Egyptian diplomat who asked to remain anonymous was more direct.

“Any change in the amount or terms of monies given to the Addis Ababa government will greatly contribute in compelling Ethiopia into reassessing its stance towards Egypt, as well as committing to a serious and constructive dialogue in order to resolve the continuing crisis that exists between the two countries concerning the Renaissance Dam, the official told Al Monitor.

Since Saudi Arabia invests more money in Ethiopia than any other country – up to $3 billion in 2011, it probably doesn’t make much sense to test their loyalty.

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Africa’s largest silver mine has been operating in the Atlas mountains since 1969, but the Berber people living in the surrounding villages remain among the most poverty-stricken people in Morocco. Now Movement on the Road ’96 are living in an “occupation” camp to protest a silver mine’s water use and pollution. They are also fighting for a fair share in the nation’s resource .
Since August, 2011, the group of activists from Imider, who call themselves Movement on the Road ’96, have been living in an occupation camp on Mount Alebban in order to protest the mine’s polluting practices.

While Africa’s resources are historically usurped by international companies, the Imiter Mettalurgic Company operating the silver mine is mostly owned by Morocco’s royal family, according to the New York Times. Which makes the lack of a sufficient “trickle down” effect perhaps more egregious.

“The king forgot about us. He tours the country helping people, and he never comes to this region,” one woman told the New York Times: “He is our father, and he has forgotten about his children.”

The group claims that the mine has used up more than their fair share of water, depleting aquifers that the agricultural communities in the area use for their terraced crops.

Read here about how the Berber’s had a perfect water use system in place.

Backed in part by the Free Academy in Rome (LAR), the Movement on the Road ’96 also claims that the toxic byproduct of the mining process, including cyanide and mercury used to treat the ore, has caused disease, killed livestock and exacerbated desertification.

“…even small plots at the foot of the mountain seem doomed to due to the shortage of water and poisons from the mine,” according to LAR.

Morocco’s Berbers are historically independent, organized and resilient, and once enjoyed a deeply entrenched system of water management that has been disrupted by international groups in recent years. The mine is said to have taken up to 66 percent of the water allocated in a special system to each village.

In 2011, some of the villagers from Imider climbed the mountain to cut off water supply to the mine. This resulted in a 40 percent capacity loss in 2012 and a 30 percent loss 2013.

Meanwhile, Farid Hamdaoui, a mine manager, denied allegations that they are improperly disposing waste, and says that the mine recycles 62 percent of the water they use.

The group, which takes its name from a 1996 uprising that the government violently suppressed, is demanding that local employees should make up 75 percent of the total workforce. Independent commentators say this is impossible, and the company accuses the group’s organizers of turning down offers for a feasible employment ratio.

Hamdaoui insists that the mine spends $1 million a year on the local communities, but LAR says that since operations began in 1969, very few infrastructural improvements have taken place.

“At Imider there are no schools (except a small garrison basic), there is no electricity in most homes, the internet [or] even kiosks with newspapers, while the nearest hospital is located 200 km away (Ouarzazate).”

:: New York Times

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Importing water into Cyprus is an idea that has been tried in the past. Doing so via a pipeline has been under consideration in the northern Turkish occupied half; which entered into an agreement to import water from Turkey via an undersea pipeline.

Now the southern portion of the Island, known as the Republic of Cyprus, is seriously considering importing water into their side of the island as well. Nikos Kougialis Minister for Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment, in a meeting with Mr. Gebran Bassil, Lebanese Minister of Energy and Water pursued the idea of importing Lebanese water into Cyprus by either ship or pipeline.

The resulting conclusion to their meeting was to form a committee to study the practical and economic feasibility of importing the water into Cyprus by either conveyance.

Although Lebanon has many more water resources than Cyprus, it has its own water issues that
need more governmental attention to resolve. These issues include a Greenpeace investigation made 2012 that found serious Lebanese coastal contamination caused by solid waste problems, waste water problems and industrial emissions.

This is not surprising as it was reported earlier that Lebanese garbage trucks are dumping straight into the sea. Also, raw sewage from the mainland is seeping into the sea as well. (See photo above)

This type of environmental damage has obviously caused considerable pollution to Lebanon’s ground water resources; which might make Cyprus want to think again before entering into an agreement to import fresh water from that country.

Read more articles on water issues in Cyprus, Lebanon and the region:

Lebanon: Greenpeace Investigation Reveals Toxic coast Pollution

Water Problems of Cyprus Worse than Those of Israel, Syria and Lebanon

Turkey to Pipe Fresh Water to Northern Cyprus Undersea – A World First

The Water Behind Middle Eastern Woes

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Native to North America, Europe, South Africa, and South Asia, Salicornia succulents grow in salt marshes, on beaches and among mangroves – all of which are available along Dubai’s coast.

Scientists with the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture are conducting a trial with 12 different genotypes from the US and elsewhere, saline crop expert Dr Shoaib Ismail told The National.

Their aim is to determine which of the genus’ selected can be produced as food to feed the local population; this will relieve the emirate’s reliance on exporters for 85 percent of its food.

“Salicornia has very high oil content but it was never bred,” the center’s directory general Dr Ismahane Elouafi told the paper.

“We’re starting a new collection of salicornia and we’re setting up a much larger trial in Umm Al Quwain with the Ministry of Environment and Water next year as we will be closer to the coast.”

This allows them to irrigate the plants without using precious resources, although the water they do use has to be flushed back towards the Gulf to avoid contaminating the soil. Dubai already has serious water issues; they can’t afford to compromise what groundwater they do have.

Dr Ismail said that in order for the project to be viable, the Salicornia crops need to have multiple functions.

Depending on what variety they use, the plant can be used to produce seed or as food, and ash from glasswort and saltwort plants can be used to make glass and soap.

Salicornia may also be raised as an alternative biofuel; to explore this possibility, experimental fields have already been planted Saudi Arabia and Eritrea.

:: The National

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So addicted to technology, we have forgotten that nature has an answer to just about everything – including water purification. Douglas Schauer, a PhD has shown that cilantro – a leafy herb used in Middle East cooking – can clear toxins from contaminated water.

Eschewing the current activated carbon method of water purification, Schauer from Ivy Tech Community College has been working with what he calls biosorbents to clean contaminated water.

Less costly than typical water purification methods, biosorbents are low-cost alternatives such as microbes and plants that are readily available in nature.

While presenting his findings at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society that closed yesterday, Schauer said that cilantro, which is also known as coriander, Chinese or Thai parsley, can remove toxic heavy metals with ease.

“Cilantro may seem too pricey for use in decontaminating large amounts of water for drinking and cooking,” Schauer said.

“However, cilantro grows wild in vast amounts in countries that have problems with heavy-metal water pollution. It is readily available, inexpensive and shows promise in removing certain metals, such as lead, copper and mercury, that can be harmful to human health.”

The structure of the other walls of Cilantro’s microscopic cells have the ideal architecture to absorb heavy metals, Physorg reports. Parsley and culantro have similar properties.

Schauer proposes to pack the cilantro into packets that are similar to tea-bags, or the herb can be packed into water filter cartridges.

With so many people without clean drinking water throughout the Middle East, a dedicated awareness campaign could go a long way to informing them of natural methods of purifying one of our planet’s most necessary and increasingly precious resources.

:: Physorg

Image of cilantro, Shutterstock

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