Water curtain to protect buildings from flames
The General Directorate of Forestry has introduced a new system called the “water curtain” to protect historical buildings and living spaces located in forested areas from wildfires, creating a barrier of water that can extend to a length of 25 meters using a fire hose. ... read more >>
Australian town first to ban bottled water
THE sleepy Southern Highlands hamlet of Bundanoon has voted to ban bottled water, just hours after the New South Wales Government announced its own H2O boycott.
At a community meeting last night, Bundanoon locals overwhelmingly supported the Australia-first ban on commercially bottled water, already agreed to by businesses in the town.
Local businessman and Bundy on Tap organiser Huw Kings
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Funds for Turkey's Ilisu Dam Dry Up
Turkey's controversial Ilisu dam project has been dealt a severe blow. An international consortium of German, Austrian and Swiss companies withdrew their financial support last week, accusing Turkey of failing to meet environmental concerns and commitments to relocate people affected by the dam. The dam if completed would be one of the largest in the region. But it is the center of a growing nati ... read more >>
Proposed Solutions to Improving Infrastructure
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates the cost of improving the nation's infrastructure to acceptable levels is $2.2 trillion over five years.
Clearly more is needed — and not only in terms of funding — to adequately address these problems.
A new report from Ernst & Young and the Urban Land Institute warns that short-term stimulus funding for various road, transit, rail a
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New Contraption to Hunt Mars Water a Real Blast
A cannon-launched contraption made of wire, wood and PVC pipe could ramp up the search for water on Mars.
The inauspicious prototype for the device, called the Mars Time Domain Electromagnetic Sounder, is a long wire loop that lays flat on the ground and creates a changing magnetic field. That field triggers electrical currents that flow deep underground and shift in response to features they
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Colorado River water at risk to warming
There's a one-in-two chance that the water reservoirs of the Colorado River will dry up by 2050 if water management practices remain unchanged in our warming world, a new study finds. ... read more >>
Bottled water ban has cost Seattle $100K
This city has spent $100,000 to implement Mayor Greg Nickels’ ban on city purchases of bottled water, one local investigative news team reported July 23. ... read more >>
Million boat protest planned over Delta canal - Sacramento Bee
Drilling soil samples in Delta river bottoms is expected in September as California begins planning a controversial water diversion canal – a canal that also has a fleet of Delta boaters planning to weigh anchor in protest.
Oakley City Councilman Bruce Connelley launched the "Million Boat Float" idea, to protest drilling and what he calls a consistent exclusion of local residents from the cana
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Calif. farmers say feds make drought worse - USATODAY
The road to Todd Allen's farm wends past irrigation canals filled with the water that California's hot Central Valley depends on to produce vegetables and fruit for the nation. Yet not a drop will make it to his barren fields.
Three years into a drought that evokes fears of a modern-day dust bowl, Allen and others here say the culprit now isn't Mother Nature so much as the federal government.
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Glacier thawing speeds up in Yangtze River
Glaciers covering almost 233 square kilometers have melted over the past 30 years in the source area of the Yangtze River, China's longest waterway, due to global warming and the melting is accelerating, experts said Tuesday.
By last year, the total area of glaciers had decreased to 1,051 square kilometers from 1,283 square kilometers in 1971. Nearly 1 billion cubic meters of glaciers were
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