and the associated antibiotic-resistant genes that find their way into the ground water and ultimately the food supply.
We tested water and river sediment and couldn't find a sample that didn't have said them he Our philosophy in environmental engineering is that an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of remediation Alvarez said.
Root systems are essential to gathering water and nutrients but understanding what's happening in these unseen parts of the plants has depended until now mostly on lab studies and subjective field measurements.
or field variations in water soil or nutrient levels. The technique developed by Georgia Tech
and water temperature lighting provided by LEDS (light emitting diodes) as well as levels of humidity nutrient levels
and a fluid delivery system that can provide fresh water or water with nutrients. Larsen explains that the system could be operated remotely
The ROGR robots can visit a specific plant to deliver water or to locate and grasp a fruit or vegetable.
and crops that can deal with droughts and high temperatures like those now affecting the Southwestern United states. â#oefor each carbon dioxide molecule that is incorporated into plants through photosynthesis plants lose about 200 hundred molecules of water
through their stomataâ#explains Julian Schroeder a professor of biology who headed the research effort. â#oebecause elevated CO2 reduces the density of stomatal pores in leaves this is at first sight beneficial for plants as they would lose less water.
However the reduction in the numbers of stomatal pores decreases the ability of plants to cool their leaves during a heat wave via water evaporation.
and EPF2 could be used to engineer crop varieties which are better able to perform in the current and future high CO2 global climate where fresh water availability for agriculture is dwindling. â#The discoveries of these proteins
and genes have the potential to address a wide range of critical agricultural problems in the future including the limited availability of water for crops the need to increase water use efficiency in lawns as well as crops
#Reorganization of crop production, trade could save Chinas water supplychina's rapid socioeconomic growth continues to tax national water resources--especially in the agricultural sector--due to increasing demands for food.
and importing food commodities from other provinces or nations instead could help China conserve more water.
These provinces all use large volumes of water to produce crops that are exported later to wetter regions.
If balanced with more water-efficient irrigation systems locally restructuring these regions could reduce national water use
Our analysis provides a framework for understanding how such policies would benefit China's water use in the future said study co-author Denise Mauzerall professor of environmental engineering and international affairs.
In particular corn production and trade at the domestic level might be an area to target as changes could significantly reduce national water use for irrigation.
Of China's industries agriculture is the most water-intensive in terms of production and covers most of the country's northern provinces.
and stores of underground water are diminishing. To fulfill high production demands water is drawn from underground reservoirs (aquifers) in the northern provinces
and used for irrigation more rapidly than it is replenished. Water used during crop production is referred to as virtual water.
Through food trade these water resources are transferred across borders in what's called a virtual water trade.
The researchers found that in China these transfers mostly occur from dry agricultural areas to wetter provinces.
This situation places strain upon China's water reserves and will only intensify as China's economy
and consumption of water-intensive food continues to boom. While growing crops in the wetter regions would be more water efficient land in those places is either urban or industrial or difficult geographically (mountainous terrain etc.
the researchers report. The need for China to include'virtual water'in its national policy has been pointed out.
Our provincial-scale domestic analysis of the country's virtual water trade is key to guiding such policy planning said Dalin who is a former Princeton Environmental Institute Science Technology and Environmental Policy fellow.
To this end the research team --which also includes Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe the James S. Mcdonnell Distinguished University Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
and co-authors from China and Japan--combined a hydrological model with domestic and international trade simulations to determine the efficiency of China's food trade in terms of water use as well as the role of foreign trade in this virtual water-trade system.
In particular the researchers sought to answer one question: Is there a way to reduce China's water use without decreasing national food security?
The researchers looked at domestic and international trade of corn rice soy and wheat along with such livestock products as ruminant (animals like cattle goats and sheep that subsist on plant matter) pork and poultry.
The researchers combined this information with water use across provinces--from both rainfall and irrigation sources--and determined how much water was transferred between provinces through food trade.
To obtain estimates of these water transfers the researchers analyzed how much food was traded between provinces
and the water amount needed to produce each type of food. They determined the amount of water transferred in kilograms by multiplying the traded volume of a specific food item by the water used to produce a unit of this item (the item's virtual water content) in the exporting province.
The researchers found that irrigation accounts for about 25 percent of water used to produce crops
and for 16 percent of water used in meat production in China. However those numbers skyrocket in Xinjiang Ningxia and Inner Mongolia where irrigation water is used predominantly for crop production (85 percent 69 percent and 49 percent respectively.
These numbers indicate that such provinces see little rainfall during the growing season and rely heavily on sometimes nonrenewable water resources such as groundwater.
This shows us that water is being used faster than it is being replenished which cannot go on indefinitely Mauzerall said.
Finally the researchers investigated whether Chinese food trade leads to global water savings. They found that domestic corn trade leads to significant losses of irrigation water resources (such as rivers reservoirs and groundwater.
However the provinces of Hubei Henan Jiangsu and Anhui produce wheat quite efficiently and their exports lead to large national water savings for both rainfall and irrigation water.
Our work highlights opportunities for addressing water scarcity in China by adjusting where water intensive crops are grown
and how they are traded said Mauzerall. Policies which encourage such adjustments can help conserve water
while maintaining China's food security. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Princeton university Woodrow wilson School of Public and International affairs.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#New technologies will bring health benefits of oats and barley to a greater number of foodsnew technologies may help food manufacturers more broadly utilize the many healthful benefits of oats
and barley in a greater range of food products according to a June 24 panel discussion at the 2014 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expoâ in New orleans. Oats and barley are ancient food
crops known for their durability versatility and healthful attributes. Both grains have high levels of protein fiber and beta-glucan.
At stake the study emphasizes are the futures of food production our climate and water security.
and water making it beneficial for additional reasons. Improved soil management is not very controversial Cusack said.
And like working slash into the soil adding biochar to soil can improve its fertility and water retention.
in order to reduce their environmental impact on the air water and soil. In this project a detailed study has been made of the technologies present on livestock farms belonging to various regions in the Atlantic Area.
and methane) into the atmosphere and the polluting of soil and water by nitrates. In this respect the members of the BATFARM project have developed software (BATFARM) to select the best farm waste technologies
Directive on the adopting of Best Available Techniquesin connection with the environmental problems involved in livestock production the EU 2010/75/EC Directive also known as the IED (Industrial Emissions Directive) seeks to regulate all forms of emission into the atmosphere water
Automatic control of microclimates has the potential to mitigate the total cost of water for agriculture which in Mexico amounts to almost 70 percent of the vital liquid.
and death--food and water tainted with pathogens from fecal matter results in the deaths of roughly 700000 children each year.
It has good water holding capacity and it can be used in agricultural areas to hold in nutrients
A soil mixture containing 10 percent biochar can hold up to 50 percent more water and increase the availability of plant nutrients he said.
In late December tests at CU-Boulder showed the solar energy directed into the reaction chamber could easily boil water
CU-Boulder team member Elizabeth Travis from Parker Colo. who is working toward a master's degree in the engineering college's Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities said her interest in water
and water transport that enables some trees to grow 100 meters tall. However lignin must be removed for biofuel pulp
Then it was centrifuged six times with distilled water and finally the product was purified with acetone. The product was dried then at 110 degrees Celsius for 24 hours
#Electrical generator uses bacterial spores to harness power of evaporating watera new type of electrical generator uses bacterial spores to harness the untapped power of evaporating water according to research conducted at the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired
Water evaporation is the largest power source in nature Sahin said. Sunlight hits the ocean heats it up
and flowers as well as human-made materials such as a sheet of tissue paper lying in a dish of water.
Unlike raisins which cannot reform into grapes spores can take on water and almost immediately restore themselves to their original shape.
Seeing the energy or water we use per task, then will help drive a transformation in energy efficiency.
potholes or water problems by uploading photos or using an app to identify the problem.
A capitalist's view on water conservation (or, why a price on water is impractical) Laura Shenkar,
Calif.-based firm that advises companies on corporate water strategy and the use of water technologies in commercial and industrial markets.
We spoke to her about the venture capital buzz around water tech, the practical problem with a price on water and the leverage points that are needed to make the sector attractive to investors and the general population.
Smartplanet: You're based in Silicon valley. Tell us a bit about the VC scene as it pertains to water.
LS: I see water from the perspective of an IT-intensive investment that would become a real engine of commerce.
 We all know that there's a limited amount of water On earth. As there are more people
and business, there's less to go around. I focus on the crack in the beginning of the industry. Those  early streams of success. The Internet 20 years ago was not one concept,
 The difference with water is that the Internet is a nice thing to have,
but we all know we'll continue to need water. Are people's minds changing?
They don't need really to worry in developed countries about getting water to drink. But  there are certain areas where you have the opportunity to use water more mindfully.
Venture capitalists earn very large returns when they accurately predict something that no other investors are seeing.
 One, this is a very obvious proposition--you're never going to stop needing water.  Two, there is very little investment today.
We've asked water experts about why it matters. What does not? What's just noise?
Water is 30 years behind the energy utility. The last thing you want to be innovative about is water.
You want the same technology to give you clean Water right? A large percentage of investment is in industrial applications.
On average, agriculture uses about 70 percent of the water in the world. I'm talking to you from California.
Eighty-five to ninety percent of the water in this state is used in agriculture. Why would you conserve water in the urban environment
when the farmers are flooding the fields? I moved from Israel seven years ago. Everything in Israel has irrigation--80 percent of the country.
Not because it saves water; it's because you're lazy. It just works. California is indicative of the world as a whole.
Water here is an asset to farmers. They're so pressed in their economic model that environmental concern is not impactful to them.
If there's something more incendiary than raising water prices, it's raising food prices. They're desperately trying to lower the cost of their input to make that food.
A price on water seems harder than it sounds. So how do you get there?
The trigger that has worked best in California is the relationship of water and energy. Water is a mass--it must be stored.
There is a true energy cost anytime you try to move water. And an infrastructure cost.
I can make as much desalinated water as you want, but there's a cost. That discussion actually makes policy move faster than talking about water for
what it's worth. The other question is, where in the world do you hit scarcity issues?
When you hit those, water rights go out the door. You need enough water for each person to drink
and bathe for each person in an area. That's mission critical. Â After that, you need water to cool a nuclear reactor.
You don't really want to turn them down. Â Then you start to see a baseline water need that is significant--and that's no fun, no agriculture, business, nothing.
 Then you start to look at business needs. Ecosystem needs--lakes and rivers need a certain amount of water for them to survive.
You need to limit pollution. Getting water policy to move anywhere in the world requires a true water shock.
In terms of policy it's such political football. What comes from a good intentioned effort is distorted small
Water becomes an interesting event. If you look at places that might consider sponsoring technology, it's usually
because they have a dire water need to they have the academic and business base for it.
The water industry is the benchmark for the most conservative industry On earth. It's truly not a worldwide problem yet.
California is hard up for water, but other states such as Pennsylvania are not. How do you capture a population's interest
Pennsylvania has plenty of water. And it's occasionally addicted to energy. New york and Pennsylvania are sitting on an enormous reserve of natural gas, the Marcellus Shale.
One who sees water technology as a critical issue. The water management on-site in hydrofracking areas has issues with accountability and oversight.
They're under regulatory scrutiny. This is the first perfect storm I've seen for water technology.
SP: Because fracking uses a lot of water and is under the political microscope, regulatory scrutiny will force companies to use less of it.
LS: Right. Â You need to assume that the most essential thing for life is plentiful
if you're going to move the needle on water. It's not an easy thing for investors or policymakers to swallow.
If you take a capitalist view of water --I want to do good in the world, but my job is to be a VC--you're creating a mechanism that can be profound in solving problems where policy has succeeded not.
Water is Job No. 1 for municipalities but it's so essential that the problem is distorted.
You look at water, and you know you have to do more
Are we ready for a robotic barista? Humans have proven to be highly adaptable when it comes to replacing personal service with that of a computer.
I heard the sound of water--like any good robot, it cleaned itself after every order.
an artificially-controlled indoor environment that provides lighting, mineral nutrients and water--but not much else.
and now having the ability utilize technology that effectively reuses resources like water instead of letting it go to waste by flushing it down a storm drain.
it's time for the health sector to get involved Earthquake could threaten California water supply Invention may lead to greener power plants Accidental environmentalist designs furniture from invasive species
New irrigation system helps farmers conserve water Infographic: What is the water footprint in the U s
These days, Old Macdonald has a farm and a smartphoneby using its proprietary icrop management technology in the United kingdom to help more closely manage crop cultivation and harvesting needs,
while decreasing the amount of water needed for irrigation. That's just one of the high-level takeaways shared by Ian Hope-Johnstone, director of agricultural sustainability for Pepsico global operations, with whom
and water consumption associated with its agricultural operations by 50 percent over the next five years.
So-called precision agriculture of the type being embraced by Pepsico could help reduce water usage by up to 50 percent
Water Wednesday: Smarter home irrigation technologiescontributor s Note: This is an ongoing column in water sustainability, consumption and management issues.
The rationale is simple: water is a more urgent priority for corporate social responsibility programs
and becoming more so every day. My husband and I are perfectly sympatico when it comes to the perennials
We actually only water new shrubs or plants that haven't established and stop short of sprinkling the lawn except on very rare occasions.
These companies, Cyber-Rain and ET Water, have released both recently cloud services that provide guidance about
when you should water--and how much. Cyber-Rain's application, called XCI Cloud, works in conjunction with the company's controller technologies to help residential users better control watering.
Cyber-Rain claims that the system investment might be covered in certain places by water utility rebate programs.
it figures its customers have saved 120 million gallons of water. Said Cyber-Rain CEO Diana Schulz:
ET Water's GNOME Smart Irrigation Calculator, which is billed as ET Water's first consumer application doesn't rely on any particular sensor technology.
Rather, it uses information that you provide about your landscaping along with weather conditions and landscape profiles to figure out
or shouldn't water your yard. The weather information comes the Weatherbug service which is interesting
I wouldn't be surprised to see more water utilities consider layering such applications into their web sites
After all, Pike Research predicts that there will be 32 million smart water meters in use by the 2016 time frame.
a cup you could go drink some water with. Who uses 3-D printers now and do you expect they'll become more mainstream?
which is 50 percent water. You take that and densify it into a liquid with lower moisture content and higher density,
IBM analytics technology helps Sun World use drip irrigation to decrease its water usage by 8. 5%.That difference is readily apparent in a new agribusiness case study that was brought to my attention by the IBM mid-market group.
The company has been acting on its water consumption to change irrigation techniques, a practice that has helped now it reduce water usage by 8. 5 percent per unit since 2006.
But the operation only seriously began realizing the full value of its historical data until earlier this year,
which helps provide information on crop yields, farm labor costs, water usage trends and growing patterns.
It goes without saying that Mulligan's idea also ignores the actual services that various ecosystems render to us humans refreshing the air, cleaning water, reducing pests, and so on.
GE Water sustainability chief Jeff Fulgham: We need a price on waterwhy doesn't water get more attention?
According to Jeff Fulgham, it's because it's available on demand virtually everywhere--from taps to toilets to showers and sinks.
But as the newly-appointed chief sustainability officer of GE Power and Water--as well as the division's Ecomagination leader--Fulgham knows better.
The reality is that the world is quickly running out of water --and if we don't do anything about it,
I spoke to Fulgham from his office in Trevose, Penn. about why water needs more marketing
How did you end up in the water business? JF: I've been in the space my whole career, about 25 years.
and spent a lot of time with power as it relates to water. I arrived to GE
You say that water is a major challenge going forward. What's going on? JF: The path that we're on is a little scary right now.
The challenges the world faces with water falls into three buckets: quantity, quality and the energy consumption related to it.
From a quantity standpoint, we've reached a point globally where the demand for fresh water is exceeding the global supply.
The world can't provide enough water to meet our insatiable demand. At GE, we're focused on reducing the demand and increasing supply.
First we work with our industrial partners to optimize water use. The industry uses 20 percent of the world's water supply;
in the U s.,it's 46 percent; in China, it's 25 percent; India is only about 5 percent.
Second, we look at other sources of water: municipal wastewater reuse, lower-grade sources of water that we can clean up.
Third, at the discharge side, it's all about how we can reduce the amount of effluent going downstream.
It's the Old boy Scout thing: leave it better than you found it. We have a lot of technologies around desalination that reduce the cost,
take the energy cost out--about 50 percent of the cost of running a desal plant is energy
nastiest wastewaters in the world and clean those up for reuse, instead of eliminating it from the hydrological cycle completely.
industrial demand--all of those things are going to put more pressure on the water supply. Smartplanet: You said that wastewater is eliminated often from the hydrological cycle.
What do you mean? JF: Wastewater is, unfortunately, on the rise. Some of the less conventional fuels used right now...
take natural gas. In New york and Pennsylvania, we're sitting on one of the greatest shale gas reserves in the world.
They drive a lot of water into the ground, which breaks the shale and frees the gas bubbles up.
What comes up is really nasty wastewater combined with gas. They separate the gas, and the wastewater is really nasty stuff.
The way to get rid of it is put it in a really giant evaporation pond, or put it in a disposal well--states like Texas
Here we are in a water-stressed environment and getting rid of our most precious resource.
Now, we're able to extract contaminants from the wastewater--for example salt, which can then be used for road salt here in the Northeast.
but it taints our water supply. Ideally, you take the wastewater stream, reuse it and fracture the next well.
That's one way we can continue to conserve water. The low-hanging fruit is,
let's reduce the amount of consumption. The higher fruit is changing the ways you run your plant.
When does water begin to make business sense? JF: I think about these enablers to get the tailwinds to make things happen.
how are we able to take these really challenging waters and treat them for reuse instead of just dumping them?
How do I reduce the cost of making clean water? It costs less every month, every year.
The other challenge is that water is thought of as free. It's incredibly cheap. Water has to be priced relative to its value,
and we are not there. In many places in the world where water is most scarce,
there are strong subsidies to make it inexpensive. In the city of New york, water commissioner Kathryn Garcia has reduced consumption by 16 percent.
Unfortunately, her revenues then dropped 16 percent. Many cities have tiered a pricing structure where it actually gets cheaper as it gets used.
One of the things that works against us is that with water being essentially free or cheap,
Some municipalities are actually paying industrial partners to take that water so they don't have to pump
The biggest headwind we see is just this wacky pricing of water. There's a change underway,
Who are the worst culprits of water usage? JF: Of the big volume users, the power industry is by far the biggest volume user.
In the U s.,49 percent of the water used in the industrial market goes to generate power for thermal power plants:
A big power plant uses a boatload of water. The primary use is to cool those processes--the big hyperbolic cooling towers.
It takes about 5 million gallons a day of water for a 1, 000 megawatt power plant.
You can use river water, certainly well water, but when you start getting into lower grade water,
it becomes a bit of a challenge. The power industry has become the most aggressive in innovative applications of water,
because they use so much. Smartplanet: Why is there such water demand from power plants? Can't they reuse it?
JF: Often what happens is the water that leaves the plant is less than what's brought in--a lot evaporates into the air--so there isn't as much at the end of the plant as there is at the beginning of the plant,
so they're taking new freshwater instead. So we're saying, let's take discharge from another plant and use it here.
If there are 100 gallons of water in the world, 20 goes to industry, 70 goes to agriculture,
and how they can be more efficient in using water. With agriculture if you think about a farmer today,
typically they're getting their water free or highly subsidized. With 70 percent of the world's water supply going to irrigation,
the cheapest source of water is going to our farmers. They have the lion's share of water rights.
With low-flow irrigation and other off-the-shelf devices, we're reducing it by 50 to 70 percent.
You could reduce the world's water consumption by 50 percent by addressing these markets.
they can irrigate them with brackish or partial saltwater. Smartplanet: Why can't we use brackish water for cooling purposes?
JF: Well it's really tough on metal. If you bring diluted saltwater in, you start corroding everything.
There are systems designed for seawater, but...Smartplanet: Shouldn't we mandate using such systems? JF:
Where it's possible, sure. For island nations, absolutely. And there are a lot of plants in the U s. on the sea taking advantage of that.
But there's also the environmental concern in putting warmer water back into the ocean--the long-term fate of the ecology of the ocean.
and one of the things we're getting to in the House of representatives is a potential tax-credit for water reuse.
we see water reuse incentives. Smartplanet: does need water higher visibility and awareness? JF: It's a lot of ground-level effort.
We see interest where it's a problem: Brazil isn't very interested; California is interested very.
If you go to where water is scarce and a problem, there's interest. One thing needed is incentives;
There exists a state-level policy that prohibits the reuse of wastewater for agriculture --but we didn't have the technology then to do so safely.
so that even a state like New mexico can reuse water. The policies were put in place for good reason,
because we didn't want untreated municipal wastewater in our lettuce. Now we have technologies to ensure those things don't happen.
How bad is the U s. water infrastructure? JF: Today, on average, roughly 44 percent of municipality's water is considered non-revenue generating.
They produce it but don't get paid for it. Twenty-five percent is from leaks, breaks--it just doesn't get to the end.
purification and wastewater treatment. Today, we don't play a lot there in the middle, in the pipe business.
like the grid, we will see a rise into smaller distributed wastewater systems, serving 1,
500 homes instead of pumping the water out into big plants to be treated. People underestimate the amount of energy that it takes to make
and pump water. California's the highest--19 percent of their energy bill goes to that.
There's a smart grid out there for water, somewhere. A perfect example is the Solaire building in the Battery park area of New york city.
That building has a wastewater treatment plant in the basement, and they reuse 98 percent of their water.
There are two sets of pipes--a small one brings water to the building's occupants,
and a big one brings wastewater from laundry and all that. It's very difficult to retrofit an existing building.
One of the challenges we face is the retrofit component. Smartplanet: Let's talk about your job as chief sustainability officer for GE Water.
What's on your desk right now? JF: My responsibility is for the water and process technologies business.
And I expand into our broader power business. I'm kind of a test case--the one chief sustainability guy within GE to see
Water is less visible as a sustainable resource. We wanted one person to be out there.
treat our wastewater. At a couple of our sites, we're paying to dispose our wastewater off-site.
Now we're looking at a project to treat our own waste--we're working on using our own membrane technology.
and work with the top 100 water consumers and we're deploying our GE Water technology into other GE sites.
At our nuclear plant in Wilmington, North carolina we're doing water treatment there. Our aircraft engines plant in Cincinnati.
A healthcare facility in Europe. Now we have a cool in-house system where we track
and monitor water consumption across the portfolio. It's been used for energy for a number of years
but now it's been expanded for water. Smartplanet: That's huge. One location to see water consumption for all your facilities?
JF: Laughs Yeah, I kind of take it for granted when I'm traveling around the world.
A final component is our Water for Humanity project, which isn't quite philanthropy. From a CSR standpoint, our GE Foundation donates hundreds of million of dollars.
Such as water kiosks, a clean water system for a local village rather than the contaminated water supply they use today.
There are 25,000 NGOS dabbling in the water business. We've got an opportunity because of our scale to make an impact
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