Opinion

Weekly posts

Tapped Out

Mar 5, 2013 by Tanvi Nagpal
Listed In: Water & Health   Water Infrastructure   Water Policy   

On July 30, seven states in Northern India went completely dark. A catastrophic power failure brought commerce and daily life to a complete halt. But that was not all. On a scorching hot summer day, the main water stations in New Delhi also shut down, leaving nearly 17 million people with dry taps.

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Opinion

Weekly posts

Of horses and water: is anyone learning from evaluations of WASH programs?

Feb 25, 2013 by Susan M. Davis
Listed In: Water Infrastructure   Water Policy   

The WASH sector has struggled with the same failure issues for decades.  Do we need a different way to learn and adapt? 

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Notes from the field

Weekly posts

Relationship between diarrhea risk and community-scale water treatment and refill kiosks

Feb 8, 2013 by Laura Sima
Listed In: Water & Health   

In a  study that was conducted by GWP researcher, Dr. Laura Sima, and coauthors at Yale University, Prof Menachem Elimelech, Prof Mayur Desai and Dr. Katie McCarty, this study investigates the association between diarrhea risk and community-scale water treatment and refill kiosks. We present data from a longitudinal study of 1,000 randomly selected low-income households in urban and peri-urban Jakarta. We monitored daily diarrhea status and water source for 1,000 children aged one to four years in Jakarta, Indonesia, for up to five months.

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Notes from the field

Weekly posts

Dietary iron may flow from tubewells in rural Bangladesh

Dec 18, 2012 by Rebecca Day Merrill
Listed In: Water & Health   

In rural Bangladesh, tubewells, the most common source for domestic water, often provide water naturally containing minerals, including substantial amounts of iron in some areas.  Recent research conducted at the JiVitA Project in rural north-west Bangladesh by researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that drinking iron-rich tubewell water can reduce the risk of iron deficiency by improving the body’s iron stores.

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Report

Weekly posts

Using the water footprint as a tool for sustainable appropriation of freshwater resources

Nov 20, 2012 by Markus Pahlow and Mesfin M. Mekonnen
Listed In: Water & Food   Water in the Environment   Water Policy   

Local production and consumption has global impact on freshwater resources. The water footprint is a powerful tool to evaluate the sustainability of production and consumption and to identify response strategies.

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Notes from the field

Weekly posts

Smart clouds and dumb phones: water treatment monitoring in a resource-limited setting

Sep 25, 2012 by Christopher D. Kelley
Listed In: Water & Health   Water Infrastructure   Water Policy   

Geography and environmental engineering student Chris Kelley discusses the difficulties of monitoring water treatment in impoverished rural areas, as observed during a research trip to Honduras. A simple system for communication of water treatment data via SMS was designed to address these difficulties.

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Notes from the field

Weekly posts

Understanding the Water Landscape in Rural Zimbabwe

Aug 28, 2012 by Timothy R. Julian and Sara J. Marks
Listed In: Water in the Environment   Water Infrastructure   Water Policy   

Zvitambo and the Global Water Program are working together to investigate associations between water point type, water quality, number of households served, and water infrastructure reliability using results from an extensive water source survey conducted in rural areas of two districts in Zimbabwe. 

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Opinion

Weekly posts

GDP Fetish, Irrigation Decline and Precarious Food Security in Contemporary China

Jun 12, 2012 by Lingli Huang
Listed In: Water & Food   Water in the Environment   Water Infrastructure   Water Policy   

China's irrigation system has deteriorated gradually in the past three decades, plagued by a growing number of malfunctioning facilities and worsening water problems in rural areas. This article argues that the decline of irrigation in China is mainly derived from its marginal position in the Chinese economy, which has been oriented towards pursuing rapid GDP growth over the last three decades at the expense of irrigation and agriculture. 

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Report

Weekly posts

Are nanoparticles a threat to our drinking water?

Mar 7, 2012 by Talia E. Abbott Chalew and Kellogg J. Schwab
Listed In: Water & Health   Water in the Environment   

Taeghwan Hyeon photo

Engineered nanoparticles are an emerging contaminant class with potentially wide spread distribution in the aquatic environment. Our latest results indicate that these particles can persist in natural water bodies, and are not fully removed by drinking water treatment systems, thereby posing a potential public health concern.  

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Short Communication

Weekly posts

Climate and Water Resilience in the Upper Blue Nile / Abay Highlands

Oct 21, 2011 by Benjamin Zaitchik
Listed In: Water & Food   Water in the Environment   Water Policy   

When it comes to research in Africa, people often think of studies performed by Western scientists, primarily for a Western audience. But this situation has changed in important ways.

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