Erkin | April 5, 2012
No comments

Is Water a Mineral? — Is Ice a Mineral?

The best way to determine if a substance is a “mineral” is to compare its properties to the definition of the word “mineral”. 

What is a Mineral?

The word “mineral” is used by geologists for a group of naturally occurring crystalline substances. Gold, pyrite, quartz, calcite and fluorite are all examples of “minerals”.

To be a mineral a substance must meet five requirements:

  1. naturally occurring (not made by humans)
  2. inorganic (not produced by an organism)
  3. solid
  4. a limited range of chemical compositions
  5. ordered atomic structure  Read more
Category: Article |
Erkin | March 30, 2012
No comments

Facts about water in Africa

• The WHO/UNICEF 2000 Assessment statistics for sanitation for 43 of Africa’s large cities showed that 19% of the population remains unserved. Among these populations, only 18% have toilets connected to sewers, a very low proportion as confirmed by an analysis of the Demographic and Health Surveys suggesting that a mere 25% of Africa’s urban population has access to toilets connected to sewers.

This conclusion is also supported by statistics on the proportion of households with sewer connections in the largest city in each African nation. In most of these cities, less than 10% of the population has sewer connections while in many, including Abidjan (Cte dIvoire), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Asmara (Eritrea), Brazzaville (Congo), Cotonou (Benin), Kinshasa (Congo), Libreville (Gabon), Moroni (Comoros), NDjamena (Republic Of Chad), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), and less than 2% have connections. Read more

Category: Facts and figures |
Erkin | March 29, 2012
No comments

Water Resources and Natural Gas Production from the Marcellus Shale

Introduction

The Marcellus Shale is a sedimentary rock formation deposited over 350 million years ago in a shallow inland sea located in the eastern United States where the present-day Appalachian Mountains now stand (de Witt and others, 1993). This shale contains significant quantities of natural gas. New developments in drilling technology, along with higher wellhead prices, have made the Marcellus Shale an important natural gas resource.

The Marcellus Shale extends from southern New York across Pennsylvania, and into western Maryland, West Virginia, and eastern Ohio (fig. 1). The production of commercial quantities of gas from this shale requires large volumes of water to drill and hydraulically fracture the rock. This water must be recovered from the well and disposed of before the gas can flow. Concerns about the availability of water supplies needed for gas production, and questions about wastewater disposal have been raised by water-resource agencies and citizens throughout the Marcellus Shale gas development region. This Fact Sheet explains the basics of Marcellus Shale gas production, with the intent of helping the reader better understand the framework of the water-resource questions and concerns. Read more

Category: Article |
Erkin | March 21, 2012
No comments

Selenga (Selenge) River Delta

Where is the Selenga River?

The Selenga River (often called Selenge River) is a major river in Asia that forms at the confluence of the Ider and Delger Rivers in northern Mongolia. It flows northeastwards through Mongolia and Russia and forms a large delta on the southeast shoreline of Lake Baikal, the world’s largest and deepest freshwater lake. Tributaries include: Eg River, Dzhida River, Orkhon River, Khanui River, Chikoy River, Khilok River, and Uda River. The Selenga is the primary contributor of water to Lake Baikal and its tributaries drain approximately 80 percent of the lake’s watershed.

The average discharge of the Selenga River into Lake Baikal varies from 100 m3/s in winter to 1,700 m3/s during spring snow melt. Read more

Category: Nursery |
Erkin | March 20, 2012
No comments

Managing Hydropower Systems in a Changing Climate

Climate Change and Reservoir Management

Civil engineers at the University of Washington and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Seattle office have taken a first look at how dams in the Columbia River basin, the nation’s largest hydropower system, could be managed for a different climate.

They developed a new technique to determine when to empty reservoirs in the winter for flood control and when to refill them in the spring to provide storage for the coming year. Computer simulations showed that switching to the new management system under a warmer future climate would lessen summer losses in hydropower due to climate change by about a quarter. It would also bolster flows for fish by filling reservoirs more reliably. At the same time the approach reduced the risk of flooding. The findings are published in the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. Read more

Category: Article |