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-- a _kt75 | reprint NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here The sharing of water resources has been an influential feature affecting life, society and development in the Arabian Peninsula , the Mashrek and Mesopotamia for millennia. Historically, communities living in these arid and semi-arid regions always shared the water of rivers, springs and wadis, although this was more out of necessity than idealism. Water resources were traditionally managed at the local level, with tensions emerging between Bedouins, shepherds, pastoralists and growing urban centres. Water management and irrigation schemes – such as the underground aqueducts or falaj networks found in Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen – sustained different communal needs for dozens of centuries, while the marshes of Mesopotamia, the Tigris floodplain and the Jordan River Valley were cultivated and sustained successive civilizations since earliest of times. Hills...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . IRAQ depends on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for drinking water, supplying industry and irrigating massive swathes of farmland. The two rivers account for 98% of the country’s surface water. Until recently the government’s greatest concern has been the fact that the source of neither river is in the country. In the past few decades dams and diversions across Turkey and Syria have steadily reduced the quantity of water reaching Iraq. Now Iraq has a greater concern. Both waterways flow through areas of northern Iraq controlled by the Islamic State (IS), an extremist group that grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq and today claims an area the size of Jordan straddling Syria and Iraq. On August 8th America began air strikes against the group, after IS carried out a series of attacks that targeted minorities including Christians and Yazidis and threatened the semi-autonomous nort...

-- a _kt75 | reprint   More than 400 hydroelectric schemes are planned in the mountain region, which could be a disaster for the environment. The future of the world's most famous mountain range could be endangered by a vast dam-building project, as a risky regional race for water resources takes place in Asia . New academic research shows that India, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan are engaged in a huge "water grab" in the Himalayas, as they seek new sources of electricity to power their economies. Taken together, the countries have plans for more than 400 hydro dams which, if built, could together provide more than 160,000MW of electricity – three times more than the UK uses. In addition, China has plans for around 100 dams to generate a similar amount of power from major rivers rising in Tibet. A further 60 or more dams are being planned for the Mekong river which also rises in Tibet and flows south through south-east Asia. (Pre-Release)...

-- a _kt75 | reprint People are having to leave their homes, villages are being submerged, and worries are being expressed about damage to the biodiverse Amazon forest. When it is completed in 2015, the Jirau hydroelectric dam will span 8km across the Madeira river and feature more giant turbines than any other dam in the world. Then there are the power lines, draped along 2,250km of forests and fields to carry electricity to Brazil's urban nerve centre, São Paulo. Still, it won't be enough. The dam and the Santo Antonio complex that is being built a few kilometres downstream will provide just 5% of what government energy planners say the country will need in the next 10 years . So Brazil is building many more dams, courting controversy by locating the vast majority in the world's largest and most biodiverse forest. _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ "The investment to build...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Inside Sustainability: Facts, Figures, Bullshit - Part II: Alternative Energy A new report from researchers at Oxford University argues that large dams are a risky investment - soaring past projected budgets, drowning emerging economies in debt and failing to deliver promised benefits. Do they ever really make sense? A peek over the edge of the Hoover Dam's 60-storey wall is enough to send shivers down anyone's spine. Constructed from enough concrete to pave a motorway from New York to San Francisco - this colossal barrier is touted as a symbol of man's mastery over nature and a marvel of 20th Century engineering. The dam was credited with helping jump-start America's economy after the Great Depression, reining in the flood-prone Colorado River and generating cheap hydroelectric power for arid south-western states. Even more miraculously, the Hoover Dam was completed two years ahead of schedule and roughly $15m (£9m) under budg...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes For decades large-scale hydropower developments have been viewed as something of a pariah within the renewable energy sector. Indeed, despite an acknowledged contribution to sustainable energy development — hydropower’s global kWh contribution dwarfs all other renewable technologies — it has largely been excluded from considerations that benefit other forms of renewable power generation and has weathered widespread criticism over projects deemed unsustainable.  In 2012, according to Pakistan’s Board of Investment, the 147-MW run-of-river Patrnid Hydropower Project was set as an Independent Power Producer (IPP) development. Backed by Korea’s K-Water and Star Hydro Power Limited (SHPL), 25 percent of the US $400 million cost of the development on the river Kunhar will come from them, while 75 percent will be fi...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes There has been a huge increase in Chinese dam projects in South America, which has expanded China's geopolitical clout in the continent but also drawn allegations of poor corporate social responsibility. "China's involvement in hydropower development in Latin America has grown significantly since 2010. It's fair to say that Chinese dam-building companies are targeting the Latin American market," said Grace Mang, China programme director at International Rivers, a green non-governmental organisation in the United States. Before 2010, International Rivers was aware of only two Chinese hydropower projects in Latin America, both in Belize, Mang said. Now, there are 22, of which three are completed, seven are under construction and 12 are on the drawing board. The three completed Chinese dams are in B...

-- a _kt75 | reprint   Tweet Investment in low carbon technologies fell 11 per cent in 2012, according to a new report by market analysts Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which also shows China has overtaken the US as the world's largest contributor to renewable energy. The report [ 1 ] shows that investment in low carbon technologies is actually holding up pretty well after warnings from the report's authors last January that 2012 would be a "challenging year" for the sector. We took a look at some of the figures to find out how tough economic conditions and investor uncertainty over renewable energy policies in the UK have changed the investment landscape. Overall investment drops The report [ 1 ] shows that overall global investment in low carbon energy dropped by about $30 billion in the space of a year. Comparing investment last year to 2011 may be unfair, as 2011 saw the highest ever rate of investment in the sector. But it is only the second t...

-- a _kt75 | note   ► NEW : see all _kt75 | articles at a glance in the _news database   Tweet The next release of _ sust invent + includes: complete and corrected water inventories of Africa and Middle-East, in total more than 4'500 data sets comprising comprehensive documentation and including several thousand of online documents. Try it already today... or read more about the recent version - _ sust invent + v0 .51 RC 1 (single window version) . -- The Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management Vol 4 will be issued by mid of December 2013. It focuses on the following topics - Hydro power strategies in the Middle-East - Re-communalisation of water supply equipment in Europe - Implications of brown coal mining on ground water - Update of _sustinvent+ v0.605 RC1 Previous issues of the Notes are available via...

► NEW : see all _kt75 | articles at a glance in the _news database   -- a _kt75 | reprint   Tweet Owing to its strategic geographical location, Turkey is a very important player in the energy security of Europe. Using this opportunity, Turkey has a cherished desire of becoming an energy hub. Turkey is open to let any pipeline through its own territory to achieve this goal. With this aim Turkey not only seeks to ensure its own energy security and receive revenue from pipeline projects as a transit country but also one may assume that such kind of strategy could allow Turkey to open an energy chapter in the European Union (EU) negotiations and accelerate accession to the EU. However, because of some realities such as the competing pipelines supported by Turkey, political instability in the Caspian region, South Caucasus and Middle East, and the importance of the interests of the great powers such as Russia and Iran Turkey should not only believe i...

-- a _kt75 | reprint     Tweet Over the last two decades, Chinese governments have approved the construction of a cascade of large dams on the stretches of the Mekong River that lie within its borders, prompting disquiet amongst downstream riparian states . Those states — Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam — are now set to wage their own battle for control of precious water resources, with China looming large through its role as a willing creditor. Despite hydropower plans for the Lower Mekong dating back to the 1950s, the river still flows freely south of the Chinese border. That may not be the case for much longer. The governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam have proposed to build eleven dams on the Lower Mekong — nine in Laos and two in Cambodia. Much of the electricity generated would ultimately be consumed in Thailand and Vietnam through contract agreements between the four states. The first of these proposed dam...

-- a _kt75 | reprint   Tweet Since long before the Pyramids towered above the rich soil of this riverside town, Egyptians have given thanks to the muddy waters of the Nile. "Plants, animals, humans," said Ibrahim Abdel Aziz, a 45-year-old farmer, "we all come from this river." Trace the Nile about 2,250km upstream and there's a rising colossus that threatens to upset a millennia-old balance. There, in the Ethiopian highlands, one of the world's largest dams is taking shape. For Ethiopia , the dam promises abundant energy and an escape from a seemingly permanent spot in the lowest rungs of the world's human development index. But for Egypt , the consequences could be dire: a nationwide water shortage in as little as two years that causes crop failures, power cuts and instability resonating far beyond even the tumult of the recent past. For a country facing daily domestic crises in the aftermath of its 2011 revolution,...

-- a _kt75 | note   Tweet  _download: server 1 Big is beautiful? [1] – The solutions for sustainable water management/alternative energy generation by means of water dams are multifarious and range from very small hydro power projects to largest scale dam solutions. Currently, there seems to be a certain tendency towards the latter option in particular in developing and emerging countries. In this context, the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance dam and the Congolese Grand Inga Dam represent the most known examples of large scale water dams. A widely discussed key question however is: comply such gigantic structures with the idea of sustainable development? What are the implications associated with the construction of such facilities and how efficient (from an economic point of view) are they? Are there any geo-political consequences and in case of what type of are they? In order to address some of the above questions and to provide for a better underst...