Drought, agriculture, and pollution are rapidly destroying Kenya's Lake Naivasha
0 comments Posted by Jim at 9:02 AM
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
March 10, 2010Heavily polluted and shrinking, Lake Naivasha is in dire trouble. Environmentalists say the cause is clear: flower farms. Some 60 flower farms line the entire lakeside, growing cut flowers for export largely to the EU. While the flowers industry is Kenya's largest horticultural export (405.5 million last year) it may have also produced an environmental nightmare.
Heavily polluted and shrinking, Lake Naivasha is in dire trouble. Environmentalists say the cause is clear: flower farms. Some 60 flower farms line the entire lakeside, growing cut flowers for export largely to the EU. While the flowers industry is Kenya's largest horticultural export (405.5 million last year) it may have also produced an environmental nightmare.
Environmentalists say that flower farms have taken water from the lake for irrigation and then dumped pesticide-waste back into the lake. Long-ignored by policymakers, the situation has recently reached a head due to thousands of fish and other freshwater organisms perishing in the lake. Fishing, once common in the lake, has since been banned.
Samples of the water, fish, and sediments have been taken by government agencies for testing. If it turns out that the flower farms are responsible for the lake's pollution problems, the government could revoke farm licenses. A preliminary inquiry has already linked the flower farms to the lake's troubles stating that the fish mortality was likely caused by low levels of dissolved oxygen.
The lake is also shrinking due to a variety of factors: over-irrigation from the farms, water requirements for nearby Naivasha town, and climate change.
Lake Naivasha is also a major tourism spot in Kenya.
Flower farms may be killing Kenya's Lake Naivasha
By Charlie Devereux, Joshua Schneyer in Caracas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman
POTOSI, Venezuela
Wed Feb 24, 2010 3:49pm ESTPOTOSI, Venezuela (Reuters) - For most Venezuelans, the El Nino-linked drought that has struck the country this year means inconveniences like power and water rationing.
But for some, the extreme dry spell is stirring up bittersweet memories. The Uribante reservoir that feeds a hydroelectric dam here is at its lowest level in decades, and the receding waters have uncovered a village that has been mostly underwater since 1985, when it was flooded. …
Normally, only the church spire can be seen jutting out of the 4,900-acre (20-square-km) reservoir. But water levels recently fell 98 feet, revealing eerie remnants: the church, demolished houses, a cemetery, a square.
The spire usually serves as a depth gauge for the water reservoir, whose falling levels are a grim reminder of electricity shortages across the country.
President Hugo Chavez earlier this month declared an electricity emergency in Venezuela, where hydropower usually accounts for 68 percent of electricity generation. The crisis provoked one state electricity company to organize a meeting among its workers to pray for an end to the crisis. …
The reservoir is now within 10 feet of its "critical level" to feed power turbines. Its Leonardo Ruiz Pineda hydroelectric plant, the third largest in Venezuela, is operating at under 10 percent of its 300 MW/hour capacity, to keep water levels from falling further.
The plant may soon be forced to further slash generation, Barillas said, since there is little rain in the regional forecast. The reservoir now appears to be falling faster than a 0.4-inch (1-cm) per day average rate earlier this month.
A recent report by Edelca, one of the state water companies, warned of a national electricity grid collapse by May unless drastic measures are taken. Chavez has said the country's largest hydroelectric dam, Guri, could reach critical level in June if the drought continues. …
But engineers here were also alarmed by a 3 degree Celsius average temperature rise this year in the dam reservoir, which they linked to deforestation, global warming and a longer-term fall in water levels throughout the region.
Graph of the Day: Symptoms of Coastal Eutrophication, 1850s - 2000s
0 comments Posted by Jim at 5:13 PM
Period in which the symptoms of eutrophication and hypoxia / anoxia began in developed countries and how the symptoms are shifted to more recent years for developing countries (modified by N. N. Rabalais from Galloway and Cowling, 2002; Boesch, 2002).
The occurrence of hypoxia in coastal areas is increasing, and the trend is consistent with the increase in human activities that result in increased fluxes of nutrients to waters. More and more coastal systems, especially in areas of increased industrialization and mechanized farming, where the physical conditions are appropriate and where nutrient loads are predicted to increase, will likely become eutrophic with accompanying hypoxia (Fig. 15).
The continued and accelerated export of nitrogen and phosphorus to the world’s coastal ocean is the trajectory to be expected unless societal intervention in the form of controls or changes in culture are pursued. The largest increases are predicted for southern and eastern Asia, associated with predicted large increases in population, increased fertilizer use to grow food to meet the dietary demands of that population and increased industrialization (Seitzinger et al., 2002). Increased production of biofuels in many countries will further amplify nutrient delivery from the land to the sea (National Research Council, 2008; Simpson et al., 2008).
The implications for coastal eutrophication and subsequent ecosystem changes such as worsening conditions of oxygen depletion are significant. Depending on the coastal environment, the residence time of river-supplied freshwater and rates of nutrient uptake and regeneration, the changes observed in the Anthropocene (Meybeck, 2003) from increased nutrient loads are most likely to lead to human-caused eutrophication and associated hypoxia. This does not preclude the potential for climate-driven changes in oceanic nutrient sources from exacerbating an already precarious situation.
N. N. Rabalais, R. J. Díaz, et al., Dynamics and distribution of natural and human-caused hypoxia [pdf], Biogeosciences, 7, 585–619, 2010
Historic Syria drought drags on, rivers polluted, aid funding dries up
0 comments Posted by Jim at 4:47 PM
DAMASCUS, Syria, March 8, 2010 (ENS) - Up to 60 percent of Syria's land and over one million people are gripped by the worst drought in 40 years, but a deep funding shortfall for emergency assistance has left the United Nations aid agencies at a loss.
The humanitarian arm of the United Nations is being forced to review its response plan for the Syrian population suffering under the three-year dry spell, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, warned today.
The ongoing drought in northeastern Syria has destroyed the agricultural livelihoods of more than one million people, driving hundreds of thousands to urban areas where they face difficult living conditions, according to OCHA.
UN assistance has centered on providing a food aid and agricultural packages to farmers and herders in a bid to keep them on their land and re-start agricultural work, particularly with the promise of rainfall during the winter months. But little rain has fallen. …
Meanwhile, vegetable and fruit growers in dry northern Syria are using polluted river water to irrigate their crops, causing outbreaks of food poisoning among consumers, say environmental and medical experts.
The experts say the problem stems from sewage and chemicals being allowed to reach rivers in rural areas near Aleppo, Latakia and Rakka.
Studies carried out by the High Centre for Environmental Research, at the public Tishreen University in Latakia, have shown since 2007 that the Sanawbar river running through this coastal part of Syria was contaminated and therefore unsuitable for irrigation.
Soil samples taken from areas near the river where vegetables are grown proved to contain significant levels of contaminants and bacteria like salmonella, which are characteristic of polluted water, said Amina Nasser, an expert at the environmental research centre.
Other tests have shown that the Quweik river in Aleppo and tributaries of the Euphrates in the Rakka area also contained high levels of pollutants because garbage is regularly dumped nearby and industrial waste and sewage are poured into them. …
Syrian Drought Drags On, Rivers Polluted, Aid Funding Dries Up
Drought ravages famous rice terraces in the northern Philippines
0 comments Posted by Jim at 4:37 PM
MANILA (AFP) - A WORSENING drought is exacting a terrible toll on the world-famous mountain rice terraces of the northern Philippines, local officials said Tuesday.
A state of calamity was this week declared for the Banaue area that is home to many of the ancient stone-walled paddies and one of the Southeast Asian nation's most popular tourist destinations, the officials said.
'The tourists still come here, but all they see are parched fields and forest fires and leave disappointed,' Abriol Chuliba, chief aide to the Banaue mayor, told AFP in a telephone interview. The rice terraces, a United Nations World Heritage site and known locally as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World", were built between 2,000 and 6,000 years ago using huge rocks for each step and a complex trickle-down irrigation system.
Banaue tourist information bureau officer Juliet Mateo said the rice paddies most frequented by tourists at Batad and Bangaan had dried up completely as much of the country suffered from an El Niño-induced drought. Mateo said the rice harvest, which takes six months in the mountains compared with three months on the flats, was in danger of being ruined completely by the drought.
'The mountain rice was planted in December and January, but the way things are going there won't be anything left to harvest in June and July,' Mateo told AFP. She said Ifugao province governor Teodoro Baguilat had declared the state of calamity for Banaue on Monday. This allowed local authorities to tap into emergency funds to help farmers.
Chuliba said seasonal rains ceased completely last month, causing the mountain springs upstream of Batad and Bangaan that water the terraces to dry up. He said it was the worst dry spell he could remember in the area since another El Niño-induced drought in 1998.
Two tiger cubs have been found dead in mysterious circumstances at the Ranthambhore national park in the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan.
Wildlife officials say it appears the cubs had been poisoned. An inquiry has been ordered.
The bodies of the cubs have been sent for post mortems.
Poaching and loss of habitat in India have decimated tiger numbers which are estimated to have fallen from 40,000 to about 1,400 in the past 100 years. …
According to a 2009 census, there were about 40 tigers in and around the park, which is in Sawaimadhopur district of Rajasthan. …
Chief wildlife warden RN Mehrotra told the BBC the deaths of the tiger cubs could be a case of "revenge killing".
"It appears that the tigers poached a goat. The carcass of the goat was found nearby. It seems to be a case of revenge. Someone took revenge for killing their animal," he said. …
Contact: Tara Shyam
t.shyam@irri.org
656-773-0801
International Rice Research InstituteSingapore: Singaporeans consume around 275,000 tons of rice each year, which requires 688 billion liters of water to be produced – 2.5 times Singapore's annual domestic water use.
Competition for water is getting fiercer and water supplies are dwindling, yet Singapore can contribute to securing its rice supply by joining the global community in helping farmers become water-wise.
This is the key message from Dr. Bas Bouman of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), who will present "Preparing Rice for the Global Water Crisis" as part of the Environment and Climate Change Seminar Series of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore.
"To produce one bowl of rice it takes about 500 liters of water," said Dr. Bouman.
"For a city like Singapore, the question is whether the 688 billion liters of water needed to produce the country's rice will remain available."
Worldwide, water for agriculture is becoming increasingly scarce as groundwater reserves drop, water quality declines because of pollution, irrigation systems malfunction, and competition from urban and industrial users increases.
Climate change will also reduce water availability in large parts of the world. And, by 2025, 15-20 million hectares of irrigated rice will suffer some degree of water scarcity. …
Whetting Singapore's thirst for rice
Developed countries outsource hundreds of megatons of carbon emissions
0 comments Posted by Jim at 9:09 AM
Last Updated: Monday, March 8, 2010 | 3:03 PM ET
CBC NewsDeveloped countries are "outsourcing" more than a third of their carbon emissions associated with products and services to other countries, researchers say.
A study of trade data found that some countries in Western Europe have more than half of their total carbon dioxide emissions occurring elsewhere, especially in developing countries such as China.
Researchers at the Carnegie Institution used trade data from 2004 to create a model of the global flow of products in 113 countries and regions.
They then associated those products with carbon emissions to determine which countries are net "importers" of emissions and which are net "exporters."
"Just like the electricity that you use in your home probably causes CO2 emissions at a coal-burning power plant somewhere else, we found that the products imported by the developed countries of western Europe, Japan, and the United States cause substantial emissions in other countries, especially China," said the study's lead author Steven Davis of Carnegie, in a statement.
The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that, per person, products consumed in Europe caused almost four tonnes of carbon emissions in other parts of the world.
In the U.S., the figure was smaller, about 2.2 tonnes per person, although the U.S. is both a major importer and exporter of carbon emissions. The U.S. "outsources" about 11 per cent of its total emissions associated with consumption of products. …
Blizzards have hit the French Mediterranean coast amid warnings of up to 20 inches of snow in Northern Spain on Tuesday.
Nimes and Perpignan were among the cities hit by the bad weather near the coast in France.
See Also
- Heavy snow in southern France (00.19)
‘A slow, silent disaster’ – Worst drought in a century dries up Vietnam's waterways
0 comments Posted by Jim at 7:20 AM
By Staff Writers
Hanoi, Vietnam (UPI) Mar 8, 2009Vietnam is struggling with its worst drought in more than 100 years.
With practically no rainfall since September, the country is facing timber fires, plagues of rice-eating insects that are destroying millions of acres of rice paddies and dried-up rivers, Time magazine reports.
For a country that historically has had to cope with flash floods and landslides during the July-to-November monsoon season, the drought is taking a lingering toll on the Vietnamese.
"Drought is a slow, silent disaster, which in the long run will have a more profound impact on peoples' livelihoods," Ian Wilderspin, senior technical adviser for disaster risk management at the U.N. Development Program in Hanoi told Time.
Rain is not expected any time soon. The Vietnam Institute of Hydro Meteorology and Environment said Thursday that the country's ongoing drought, an aftermath of El Nino, a cyclical warming pattern, is forecast to last until May, China's state news agency Xinhua reports.
The Red River, North Vietnam's largest river, is normally a bustling waterway. Typically the volume of water in the river increases by more than 60 times at the peak of the rainy season. Now the Red River is 2.2 feet deep, its lowest point since 1902 when levels were first recorded.
And water levels in the Mekong Delta in south Vietnam -- called the nation's rice bowl -- have fallen to their lowest points in nearly 20 years, threatening the livelihoods of tens of millions of people who depend on the river basin for farming, fishing and transportation, Time reports.
The delta faces an even greater threat: salt. Normally, salt water from the South China Sea makes its way about 18 miles inland. But this year, salt contamination is hitting areas 40 miles up the river. …
Drought dries up Vietnam's waterways
‘We blamed God’ -- Women hit by climate change head to Capitol Hill
0 comments Posted by Jim at 7:00 AM
(Reuters) - Women hit hard by the effects of climate change -- drought, floods, sea level rise and crop failure -- gathered on Monday to plan a Capitol Hill push for U.S. legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate "witnesses" from the United States, Peru, Senegal, Uganda and other countries aim to tell their stories to members of Congress on Tuesday in a lobbying effort timed to follow Monday's International Women's Day.
Beyond trying to cap climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions, the women said they want to make the strong link between poverty and climate change, and to stress that poor women suffer disproportionately as a result, so adapting to climate change is key.
"Nature is disrupted," Marisa Marcavillaca of Peru said through a translator. "It rains when it shouldn't rain. We have freezing temperatures when we shouldn't have freezing temperatures. Because our yields are down, it is difficult to feed our children."
Warmer temperatures in her farming area have spurred plant diseases, and the quality of agricultural seeds has degenerated, cutting into local women's ability to earn a living, she said.
Because many women in poor countries are farmers, and because their traditional tasks tend to use lots of water, they are often the first to feel the consequences of climate change, said Rebecca Pearl of the Global Gender and Climate Alliance.
When agricultural productivity drops due to changing climate in Peru, Marcavillacca said, young people in the area are leaving for cities, "which means that our culture is being dismembered."
Constance Okollet of Uganda said she first noted a change in her farming village in 2007, when floods swept away most homes. Because her home still stood, she took in neighbors until there were 29 people staying in her house.
"We didn't know what was happening," Okollet said, wiping away tears at the memory. "We blamed God."
When the floods returned in 2009, with "drastic rain," hailstorms and wind, destroying schools, contaminating the water supply and disrupting planting seasons, Okollet learned that human activities are one cause of climate change. The floods were followed by a eight-month drought.
"We want reduced emissions," she said. "Let them have some plans for adaptation so that we get our seasons back." …
Women hit by climate change head to Capitol Hill
By BILL POOVEY Associated Press Writer
March 5, 2010, 8:34PMCHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — More than a year after a Tennessee coal ash spill created one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in U.S. history, the problem is seeping into several other states.
It began Dec. 22, 2008, when a retaining pond burst at a coal-burning power plant, spilling 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash across 300 acres into the Emory River and an upscale shoreline community near Knoxville. It was enough ash to cover a square mile five feet deep.
While the Tennessee Valley Authority's cleanup has removed much of the ash from the river, the arsenic- and mercury-laced muck or its watery discharge has been moving by rail and truck through three states to at least six different sites. Some of it may end up as far away as Louisiana.
At every stop along the route, new environmental concerns pop up. The coal-ash muck is laden with heavy metals linked to cancer, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering declaring coal ash hazardous.
"I'm really concerned about my health," said retiree James Gibbs, 53, who lives near a west-central Alabama landfill that is taking the ash. "I want to plant a garden. I'm concerned about it getting in the soil." Gibbs said that since last summer there has been a "bad odor, like a natural gas odor."
After the spill, the TVA started sending as many as 17,000 rail carloads of ash almost 350 miles south to the landfill in Uniontown, Ala. At least 160 rail shipments have gone out from the cleanup site, said TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martocci.
Since the EPA approved that plan, unusually heavy rain — including about 25 inches from November through February — has forced the landfill to deal with up to 100,000 gallons a day of tainted water.
The landfill operators first sent it to wastewater treatment plants — a common way that landfills deal with excess liquid — in two nearby Alabama cities, Marion and Demopolis.
After what the EPA calls unrelated problems with ammonia in Marion, the landfill in January started using a commercial wastewater treatment plant in Mobile, Ala., 500 miles from the original spill.
A month ago, however, after a public outcry about discharging it into Mobile Bay, that company refused to take more of the landfill water.
A private treatment facility in Cartersville, Ga., also briefly took some of the befouled liquid in February, although Georgia environmental officials said Friday the company did not have a required state permit. …
Disposal of spilled coal ash a long, winding trip
Neighbors who live across from the Arrowhead Landfill in Uniontown say they’re afraid for their health and their property.
80 year old Ruby Holmes says what should have been the best days of her life, have turned into the worst days.
The landfill spans nearly a thousand acres. It was first pitched as a landfill for household garbage; now coal ash from one of the worst environmental disasters is being hauled in here and dumped everyday. It is brought by train from Kingston, Tennessee through Birmingham to Uniontown in Perry County.
Residents say the coal ash should have stayed in Tennessee. The coal ash is a by product of coal fired power plants. It is a mix of arsenic, lead and other chemicals and heavy metals. Both the EPA and ADEM approved plans to dump the coal ash here, along with the Perry County Commission.
Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner says the agreement has meant new jobs for the depressed area and will eventually mean about $3.5 million dollars for the county budget to use for things like infrastructure and schools.
John Wathen of the environmental group Hurrican Creekkeeper in Tuscaloosa calls the dumping of coal ash in Alabama an environmental crime
A lawsuit on behalf of more than 150 residents is now in the works. Even Governor Bob Riley says it may be time for the state to take a more active role in regulating big landfills.
“The last thing Alabama wants is to be known as the dumping ground for the rest of the U.S.,” said Riley in an interview.
CBS 42 News has tried several times to contact the owners of the Arrowhead Landfill. They have not returned our calls.
The EPA is looking at regulating coal ash waste. The disaster in Kingston where a dike for a coal ash holding pond burst led to renewed focus on how coal ash is being stored and disposed of at power plants across the country. …
Studies show danger of even small amounts of lead in children’s blood
0 comments Posted by Jim at 8:08 PMLevels well below the CDC ‘threshold’ are linked to kidney damage and other harmful effects.
By Tammy Worth, March 8, 2010
High doses of lead have for some time been linked to chronic kidney damage. But a recent study out of Johns Hopkins Children's Center found that even small levels of lead exposure may be damaging to children's kidneys.
The report, published January in the Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at the records of 769 healthy youth ages 12 to 20 with average blood lead levels of 1.5 micrograms per deciliter (well below the 10 microgram "threshold" of concern per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Researchers found that children with levels of just 2.9 micrograms per deciliters had worse kidney function than those with lower levels. With each doubling of lead levels, the filtration capacity dropped.
It is just the latest study in a growing body of research finding that lead levels well below the CDC's threshold may have a detrimental impact on children's health.
"I don't think anyone thinks there is a safe level of lead," said Dr. Jeffrey J. Fadrowski, a pediatric nephrologist at Hopkins Children's Center and a coauthor of the kidney study. "But the question becomes where you can reasonably mount a public health response."
Though lead is no longer found in gasoline and paint, children and adults still incur exposure from items such as old paint, contaminated soil and drinking water.
Approximately 1.4% of children had blood lead levels equal to or greater than 10 micrograms per deciliter in 2006 (the latest date for which nationally representative figures are available), down from 9% in 1988, according to research released in 2009 by the CDC.
Lead exposure affects cognitive ability and behavior. Studies have shown that children with elevated blood lead levels have problems such as hyperactivity, attention dysfunction, aggression and lowered IQ. Lead can also harm the kidneys and reproduction and cause hypertension and gastrointestinal issues such as colic, nausea and constipation.
The CDC's threshold was reduced from 30 micrograms to 10 in 1991 in response to studies showing potential health effects at the lower levels. For children with levels higher than 10 micrograms, many states have intervention programs, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Medical evaluation and environmental remediation is performed when children test higher than 20 micrograms. And medical treatment may be necessary when blood lead concentration is higher than 45 micrograms.
But concern is growing among researchers and physicians about even lower levels. …
Studies show danger of even small amounts of lead in children’s blood
By Kelsey Munro, March 6, 2010
MORE than 20 years after the campaign to get dolphin-friendly tuna into shopping bags, supermarket shelves are still stacked with tuna that has been fished unsustainably.
That's according to Greenpeace's new report card on the canned tuna brands in supermarkets.
John West ''lacks credibility''. Sirena is ''one of the worst offenders''. Woolworths home brand is rebuked for selling overfished yellowfin. Greenseas gets the best ranking, but it could still try harder.
Except for skipjack tuna, all Pacific species are overfished or endangered. And fishing methods introduced to protect dolphins, kill endangered turtles and sharks. But consumers would not know this from the label on the can.
''That's the problem - the canned tuna labels don't identify the tuna species, so consumers aren't aware of the fact that they're eating an overfished species,'' said Genevieve Quirk, the oceans campaigner for Greenpeace Australia. Along with species labels, ''what we would like to see in Australian supermarkets is only selectively caught tuna using methods like pole and line fishing.'' …
By Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Newspapers – Sun Mar 7, 12:01 pm ET
WASHINGTON — Lower levels of oxygen in the Earth's oceans, particularly off the United States' Pacific Northwest coast, could be another sign of fundamental changes linked to global climate change, scientists say.
They warn that the oceans' complex undersea ecosystems and fragile food chains could be disrupted.
In some spots off Washington state and Oregon , the almost complete absence of oxygen has left piles of Dungeness crab carcasses littering the ocean floor, killed off 25-year-old sea stars, crippled colonies of sea anemones and produced mats of potentially noxious bacteria that thrive in such conditions.
Areas of hypoxia, or low oxygen, have long existed in the deep ocean. These areas — in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans — appear to be spreading, however, covering more square miles, creeping toward the surface and in some places, such as the Pacific Northwest , encroaching on the continental shelf within sight of the coastline.
"The depletion of oxygen levels in all three oceans is striking," said Gregory Johnson , an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle .
In some spots, such as off the Southern California coast, oxygen levels have dropped roughly 20 percent over the past 25 years. Elsewhere, scientists say, oxygen levels might have declined by one-third over 50 years.
"The real surprise is how this has become the new norm," said Jack Barth , an oceanography professor at Oregon State University . "We are seeing it year after year."
Barth and others say the changes are consistent with current climate-change models. Previous studies have found that the oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
"If the Earth continues to warm, the expectation is we will have lower and lower oxygen levels," said Francis Chan, a marine researcher at Oregon State. …
Growing low-oxygen zones in oceans worry scientists
Australia storm ‘catastrophe’ to cost hundreds of millions of dollars -- weekend deluge will bring weeks of flooding
0 comments Posted by Jim at 6:11 PM
By NICKY PHILLIPS
March 9, 2010A HUGE body of water that has caused widespread flooding in south-western Queensland is on its way south and is expected to cause extensive flooding in NSW over the next two months.
Meanwhile, the damage bill from wild weather in Melbourne at the weekend is expected to come to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Insurance Council of Australia was preparing for more than 40,000 claims as a result of thunderstorms in Victoria that caused significant hail damage.
The council has declared the event a catastrophe, and the damage bill is expected to exceed $200 million. Emergency services received more than 5500 calls for assistance in Melbourne alone.
Wagga Wagga was also recovering from a deluge of more than 110 millimetres, which broke the town's record for the most rainfall in 24 hours. The NSW government has declared the town and the Central Darling Shire a disaster area following flash flooding. …
A spokesman for the Queensland Bureau of Meteorology said the flooding in Roma and Charleville had produced a large body of water that was now moving towards the NSW border. ''This water will create peaks and flooding in rivers along the way,'' he said. …
Record-breaking rain and hailstorms wreak havoc across southern New South Wales
0 comments Posted by Jim at 6:04 PM
By PAUL BIBBY AND NICKY PHILLIPS
March 8, 2010EMERGENCY services were forced to evacuate 120 people from a town in southern NSW, and the army was called in to help protect properties at nearby Wagga Wagga, as record rains wreaked havoc across the region.
The rising torrent in Kyeamba Creek forced the inhabitants of Ladysmith from their homes last night and 185 personnel from the Kapookao army base used sandbags to protect homes in Wagga Wagga from flash flooding.
The town received 98 millimetres of rain in the 12 hours to 9pm last night. With the rain still falling, the record for the most rain in 24 hours - 104.1 millimetres - was set to be broken. …
''This is intense rainfall for that part of the world,'' said the senior forecaster at the NSW Bureau of Meteorology, Neale Fraser.
''The falls in Wagga in the past 12 hours are more than double the average rainfall for March.''
Victoria was also struck by a weekend of severe thunderstorms. On Saturday, Melbourne received more rain than it would usually see in a month.
Hailstones as big as tennis balls were reported in Ferntree Gully, in Melbourne's south.
In south-eastern Queensland, flood warnings were still in place for more than 16 rivers and several towns were still cut off by floodwaters.
By Staff Writers
New Delhi (AFP) March 8, 2010India faces a water crisis with availability in decline and demand rocketing, and the profligate agricultural sector is in the firing line.
Farmers' wasteful use of water is unsustainable in a country with a fast-growing population and rapidly industrialising economy, says Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.
Agriculture "is going to face tough competitive demands from other sectors", Bansal told a water management conference in New Delhi recently.
"To feed 17 percent of the world's population we have only four percent of the world's water resources," he warned.
India's overall annual water consumption is expected to almost double from 634 billion cubic metres (BCM) to 1,180 BCM by 2050, according to the Central Water Commission.
The ministry of water resources predicts per capita water availability by 2050 to be less than half 2001 levels.
The concerns coincide with new worries about India's ability to feed itself as another failed monsoon hits crop yields.
Food prices are up about 18 percent over 12 months and swathes of parched earth in the countryside serve as a stark reminder of how water is inextricably linked to Indian poverty.
Last year's monsoon was the weakest since 1972, which meant the more than 100 million Indian farmers who rely solely on the rains to water their fields were left high and dry. …
Farmers in the dock in water-deficient India
Trend in annual linear snow cover (% per decade) from 1990 to 2001 as obtained from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) EASE Grid weekly snow cover and sea ice extent dataset (Armstrong and Brodzik, 2005). Trend is based on a least-square linear fit.
February 03, 2010
Julie Chao 510-486-6491 JHChao@lbl.govThe fact that glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are thinning is not disputed. However, few researchers have attempted to rigorously examine and quantify the causes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Surabi Menon set out to isolate the impacts of the most commonly blamed culprit—greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide—from other particles in the air that may be causing the melting. Menon and her collaborators found that airborne black carbon aerosols, or soot, from India is a major contributor to the decline in snow and ice cover on the glaciers.
“Our simulations showed greenhouse gases alone are not nearly enough to be responsible for the snow melt,” says Menon, a physicist and staff scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division. “Most of the change in snow and ice cover—about 90 percent—is from aerosols. Black carbon alone contributes at least 30 percent of this sum.”
Menon and her collaborators used two sets of aerosol inventories by Indian researchers to run their simulations; their results were published online in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
The actual contribution of black carbon, emitted largely as a result of burning fossil fuels and biomass, may be even higher than 30 percent because the inventories report less black carbon than what has been measured by observations at several stations in India. (However, these observations are too incomplete to be used in climate models.) “We may be underestimating the amount of black carbon by as much as a factor of four,” she says. …
However, black carbon’s effect on snow is not linear. Menon’s simulations show that snow and ice cover over the Himalayas declined an average of about one percent from 1990 to 2000 due to aerosols that originated from India. Her study did not include particles that may have originated from China, also known to be a large source of black carbon. (See “Black soot and the survival of the Tibetan glaciers,” by James Hansen, et al., published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.) Also the figure is an average for the entire region, which saw increases and decreases in snow cover. As seen in the figure, while a large swath of the Himalayas saw snow cover decrease by at least 16 percent over this period, as reported by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, a few smaller patches saw increases.
Menon’s study also found that black carbon affects precipitation and is a major factor in triggering extreme weather in eastern India and Bangladesh, where cyclones, hurricanes and flooding are common. It also contributes to the decrease in rainfall over central India. Because black carbon heats the atmosphere, it changes the local heating profile, which increases convection, one of the primary causes of precipitation. While this results in more intense rainfall in some regions, it leads to less in other regions. The pattern is very similar to a study Menon led in 2002, which found that black carbon led to droughts in northern China and extreme floods in southern China. …
Black Carbon a Significant Factor in Melting of Himalayan Glaciers [pdf]
The world's animals and plants are being killed off by humans faster than new ones can evolve, for the first time since dinosaurs became extinct, experts have warned.
Speaking ahead of two next week on the state of British and European wildlife, Simon Stuart, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, admitted that the rate of extinction had not slowed.
Previously research has shown that world was currently in the midst of a "sixth great extinction" of species, which was being driven by natural habitat destruction, hunting, increasing number of alien predators, disease and climate change.
Some conservationists had hoped that rate of loss had been stemmed by the natural evolution of species.
But on Monday Mr Stuart, chairman of IUCN's species survival commission, admitted that point had now "almost certainly" been crossed.
"Measuring the rate at which new species evolve is difficult, but there's no question that the current extinction rates are faster than that; I think it's inevitable," he said.
"All the evidence is he's right.
"Some people claim it already is that ... things can only have deteriorated because of the drivers of the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, all getting worse.”
In its last biodiversity report in 2004, the body said warned that Earth was losing species at a rate comparable to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.
Extinctions, it said, were happening up to 1,000 times faster than the natural "background" rate.
Nearly 16,000 species were listed as under threat or disappearing, with more than 200 of already described as "possibly extinct" and almost 3,000 "critically endangered".
No formal calculations have been published since then but experts told the paper that rates had almost certainly increased. …
World's nature 'becoming extinct at fastest rate on record', conservationists warn
As the Bluff oyster industry watches for hopeful signs of recovery, oyster fishers in the US are witnessing cause for concern, Craig Welch, of The Seattle Times, reports.
The collapse began rather unspectacularly.
In 2005, when most of the millions of Pacific oysters in this tree-lined estuary failed to reproduce, the shellfish growers of Willapa Bay, Washington state largely shrugged it off.
In a region that provides one-sixth of the nation's oysters - the epicentre of the West Coast's $111 million oyster industry - everyone knows nature can be fickle.
But then the failure was repeated in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
It spread to an Oregon hatchery that supplies baby oysters to shellfish nurseries from Puget Sound to Los Angeles.
Eighty percent of that hatchery's oyster larvae died, too.
Now, as the US oyster industry heads into the fifth summer of its most unnerving crisis in decades, scientists are pondering a disturbing theory.
They suspect water that rises from deep in the Pacific Ocean - icy seawater that surges into Willapa Bay and is pumped into seaside hatcheries - may be corrosive enough to kill baby oysters.
If true, that could mean shifts in ocean chemistry associated with carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels may be impairing sea life faster and more dramatically than expected. …
Tide of acid-ocean fear rolls over oyster industry via Ocean Acidification
Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Eric Walsh
WASHINGTON
Fri Feb 5, 2010 6:08pm EST(Reuters) - Arctic ice melting could cost global agriculture, real estate and insurance anywhere from $2.4 trillion to $24 trillion by 2050 in damage from rising sea levels, floods and heat waves, according to a report released on Friday.
"Everybody around the world is going to bear these costs," said Eban Goodstein, a resource economist at Bard College in New York state who co-authored the report, called "Arctic Treasure, Global Assets Melting Away."
He said the report, reviewed by more than a dozen scientists and economists and funded by the Pew Environment Group, an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts, provides a first attempt to monetize the cost of the loss of one of the world's great weather makers.
"The Arctic is the planet's air conditioner and it's starting to break down," he said.
The loss of Arctic Sea ice and snow cover is already costing the world about $61 billion to $371 billion annually from costs associated with heat waves, flooding and other factors, the report said.
The losses could grow as a warmer Arctic unlocks vast stores of methane in the permafrost. The gas has about 21 times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide.
Melting of Arctic sea ice is already triggering a feedback of more warming as dark water revealed by the receding ice absorbs more of the sun's energy, he said. That could lead to more melting of glaciers on land and raise global sea levels. …
Arctic melt to cost up to $24 trillion by 2050: report
Fires rage in parched Vietnam forests – Red River at record low
0 comments Posted by Jim at 10:22 AM
By Van Phuc – Translated by Hai Mien
Vietnam’s northern mountainous region has seen an outbreak of severe forest fires over the last few days, with many blazes yet to be brought under control.
The central steering committee for forest protection, and fire prevention and fighting, said March 4 that persistent hot, dry weather has been the main cause of the fires.
A particularly large inferno broke out March 3 in Tan Duong District of Lai Chau Province.
The fire started around noon in Can Ho village, Khum Ha Commune. The area’s terrain together with strong winds sent the fire quickly up a nearby mountain, destroying over 6 hectares of regenerative forest. The fire was finally stamped out around midnight.
The same day, another fire raged day and night in Son Binh Commune. Over 200 army officials and soldiers in the province, in addition to commune residents, worked to contain the blaze. The amount of damage to the area has yet to be determined.
On the evening of the day, two more fires occurred in the province’s Tan Uyen District.
In Son La Province, meanwhile, a blaze broke out at Ta Xua Natural Reserve on the night of March 2. The inferno has been spreading to bordering forests in Yen Bai Province.
The Son La Province Forest Management Sub-department said flames began on a mountain bordering the two provinces. The scorching weather together with strong winds then blew the fire to the nature reserve.
It is estimated that so far, 40-50 hectares of forest have been destroyed in the area. As of 5pm March 4, the inferno was still burning out of control.
By late afternoon on the same day, 19 localities were reported in extremely high danger of forest fires due to the hot, dry weather, which has lasted for several months, the Forest Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said.
According to satellite data, Vietnam has recently experienced 176 forest fires. …
Forest fires spreading at alarming rate in north
By Tuoi Tre, 17:30' 24/02/2010 (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – Drought in Vietnam is becoming increasingly alarming: the Red River is at its lowest ever level as the northern region suffers a serious drought and fears rise of forest fires.
Eight provinces and cities were warned about the dangers of forest fires being at dangerous levels including six regarded as “extremely dangerous”. On February 23, the numbers reached 12 and 7.
Ha Cong Tuan, chief of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Forest Protection Department, said that the risk of forest fires is rising. …
Tuan said that following the impact of El Nino, the weather in Vietnam this year is very dry. The average temperature in all regions has increased by 2-3°C. In addition, the rainy season 2009 ended early while the average rainfall was very low.
During the Tet holiday, eight forest fires were reported, including one case that destroyed more than 1000ha of forests in the northern provinces of Lao Cai and Lai Chau.
According to the official, over 70 percent of forest fires in Vietnam are caused by farmers burning off trees to clear land for cultivation. Once forest fires happen, it is very difficult to stamp it out because Vietnam lacks modern firefighting equipment. The best measure is prevention. …
Ta Vu Linh, deputy director of the U Minh Ha national park, also said that more than 2000ha of forest in his park is at the fourth level of alarm and in one week, around 1000ha would be listed at the fifth level – extremely dangerous. The park has arranged 180 employees to live in the forest for two months and not allowed any further people into the park.
At the Phu Quoc national park, more than 31,000ha of forest are in serious drought. The whole park now faces the highest level of forest fire alarm, though the drought hasn’t reached its peak. The park’s director, Pham Quang Binh, said that all the park’s staffs are living in the forest to prevent fires. …
According to hydro meteorological experts, the Central Highlands will face the most serious drought in many years, especially in March and April. …
Parched Vietnam on forest fire red alert
More water in Melbourne dams but still 65 percent below average
0 comments Posted by Jim at 10:05 AM
March 1, 2010
Melbourne has got through summer with 83 billion litres more water in its dams than for the same time last year thanks to welcome rain, household water savings and flows from two major water projects.
Figures released on Monday - the first day of autumn - by Melbourne Water show that the catchments received 231mm of rain, the most summer rain in five years but still 34 per cent below average.
Water Minister Tim Holding said after 13 years of drought a wetter-than-average summer was a welcome relief.
But he said with inflows still well below historical averages it was clear Melbourne could not rely solely on dams and needed a diverse range of water supply options for the future.
"Melbourne's storages have risen 180 billion litres since June last year, when they fell to a record low of 25.6 per cent, but they are still just above one-third full," Mr Holding said. …
Melbourne's water storages are currently 34.9 per cent compared to 30.9 per cent at the same time last year.
More water in Melbourne's dams but still below average
By Peter Gardiner | 5th March 2010
A CHEMICAL linked to sex changes in frogs and chemical castration has been found in samples taken from the Noosa River system.
However, fish health expert Dr Matt Landos said the levels of atrazine, which is used as a weed killer, were not of sufficient concentration to be the cause of the two-headed fish and other hatchling mutations at Noosa.
Dr Landos is part of the State Government’s Noosa River Fish Health Task Force set up to investigate fish deformities from the Sunland Freshwater Fish Hatchery at Boreen Point.
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley found that male frogs grown in levels of atrazine consistent with common agricultural practices either had decreased male characteristics or signs of feminisation.
And about 10% turned into females capable of reproducing only male offspring.
“Atrazine and other herbicides are a problem in many other rivers of Queensland where they are used far more intensely for agriculture,” Dr Landos said.
“There, it has been found in concentrations a thousand times higher than in the Noosa River by researchers from James Cook University.
“At these levels, it acts as a herbicide and kills the seagrass beds which are the cornerstones of a river ecosystem.”
However, Dr Landos said that atrazine was one of a growing list of chemicals found from testing in the river and around the hatchery.
The effects of such mixtures are not considered when the products are registered by the regulator the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, thereby underestimating the risks of harm to aquatic ecosystems.
Dr Landos said that the effects of this chemical cocktail were being considered by the taskforce.
Other agri-chemicals that have been found, some at higher concentrations than atrazine, have been chemicals linked to hormone disturbances such as endosulfan sulphate, trichlorfon, carbendazim and the wetting agent nonylphenol.
“In this chemical mixture the levels of atrazine would be unlikely to be sufficient to be a main player in the problem in Noosa.”
However, Dr Landos said the use of chemicals linked to agricultural spray drift was now on the top of the probability list for causing some of the syndromes observed at the Noosa hatchery. …
By RACHEL BROWNE AND KYM AGIUS
March 7, 2010RESIDENTS in two states were battling against severe weather yesterday that brought record floodwaters, torrential rain, 100km/h winds and hailstones as big as golf balls.
Emergency services in the southwest Queensland town of St George were last night preparing for a flood peak expected to inundate 80 per cent of the town, as Melbourne mopped after a severe storm cell that wreaked havoc.
The Balonne River was already at a record 13.26 metres yesterday afternoon and the weather bureau has predicted it could peak at 13.5 metres - the highest level since recordings began in 1890.
About 40 of the town's 2800 residents were evacuated to a makeshift evacuation centre at the showgrounds. Residents from an aged care facility in the town, 500 kilometres west of Brisbane, were flown to the state capital.
Many St George residents, including Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce, whose family home fronts the Balonne River, spent the day filling 4000 sandbags.
About 25 homes went under but the community appeared to be spared the worst last night. …
Further south, residents of Cunnamulla braced themselves for a drenching more severe than the floods of 2008 when waters peaked at 9.91 metres. Cunnamulla is expected to be hit with a major flood peak of 10 metres early this week.
An area greater than that of the state of Victoria has been affected by the flooding in Queensland's south. In Melbourne, hail blanketed the city like snow as a thunderstorm ripped through the capital, forcing the cancellation of major events and damaging dozens of buildings. A total of 26 millimetres of rain fell in less than an hour, bringing emergency services to a grinding halt.
Hail up to 5 centimetres in diameter pummeled the streets.
''We don't often see storm cells like that,'' the bureau's senior forecaster, Richard Carlyon, said. …
By INGFEI CHEN
Published: March 4, 2010For 14 years, since they first reported that a disturbing proportion of deaths among rescued California sea lions were caused by metastatic cancer, researchers have been trying to pinpoint the source of the illness.
In 1996, Dr. Frances Gulland, the director of veterinary science at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, and colleagues at the University of California, Davis, found that a striking 18 percent of deaths in stranded adult sea lions were the result of tumors in the reproductive and urinary tracts.
“It’s such an aggressive cancer, and it’s so unusual to see such a high prevalence of cancer in a wild population,” Dr. Gulland said. “That suggests that there’s some carcinogen in the ocean that could be affecting these animals.”
The center has not observed the same syndrome in other seals.
Years of study have led researchers to think the answer lies not with any one culprit, but with several. Their research has added to a body of evidence concerning industrial contaminants in the ocean and their effects on the health of its inhabitants.
Sea lions have had to cope with a variety of challenges lately. There was the animals’ mass exit from Pier 39 in San Francisco late last year, which experts suspect was driven by a hunt for a better food supply. Also in 2009, the Sausalito mammal center had an unusually busy year. It took in a record 1,370 sick and injured California sea lions, and doctors found major problems in many, including malnutrition, parasitic diseases and bacterial kidney infections. Some had brain seizures from a toxic algae poisoning.
But the cancers are what Dr. Gulland found most worrisome.
One day last month, a volunteer rescue crew netted an ailing sea lion stranded on Stinson Beach and drove back to the hospital, which was newly rebuilt and reopened last summer. The thin, lethargic 200-pound young adult male had paralysis in its genital area and in its swollen hind flippers, clear signs of cancer.
“It’s pretty distressing to see,” Dr. Gulland said.
The veterinary team had to euthanize the animal. A post-mortem examination revealed not only cancer in the penis, but also tumors riddling the lymph nodes, lower spine, kidneys, liver and lungs. The disease typically starts around the penis in males and the cervix in females, then spreads. In an average year, the Marine Mammal Center sees 15 to 20 California sea lions with cancer. …
Ordinarily, veterinary experts do not see much cancer in wild animals, but there has been little monitoring for the disease. Recently, however, cancer has emerged as a key concern for some endangered species, including green sea turtles, Attwater’s prairie chickens and Tasmanian devils, said Denise McAloose, a veterinary pathologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City.
In addition, about 18 percent of dead, stranded beluga whales in the St. Lawrence River estuary in Canada were found to have intestinal tumors or other cancers, which have been linked to industrial pollutants. …
Cancer Kills Many Sea Lions, and Its Cause Remains a Mystery
Declining finances, rising health care costs threaten a generation
Not so long ago, Michael Blattman lived in the upscale Washington, D.C., suburb of Potomac, Md., earning $225,000 a year as senior vice president for a student loan company. As he reached his 50s, it never really occurred to him that his job wouldn’t last forever.
“To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really go there,” he said. “Yeah, there was always a risk. Everything in business is a risk.”
In January 2008, Blattman, along with 500 other employees, was laid off by his company. With an $188,000 severance, he wasn’t worried at first.
“The barometer was always something like five or six months until you landed something comparable,” he said. “So I figured, ‘Oh, OK, six months?’ OK, I could do this for six months. And find the next one. Well, there was no next one.”
As his generation confronted an economic storm of historic proportions, Blattman found himself humbled — and living in a one-room apartment. After applying for 600 openings and getting only three interviews, he was still looking after two years.
His old boss recently gave him a stark assessment of his prospects.
“He said, ‘How’s it going?’” Blattman recalled. “I said, ‘Nobody’s talking to me.’ And he says ‘That’s because you’re an old white guy.’ And that stopped me in my tracks.”
Blattman gets some solace from the knowledge that he’s far from alone. More than 4 million baby boomers are unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For many, retirement at 65 is no longer an option.
Facing shrinking nest eggs and mounting bills, they need to work, but they wonder if anyone will hire them again. …
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