You may have noticed a lack of posts on water, water, water over the past month. This is because I am finishing my master’s project at Oregon State University in Water Resources Policy and Management. For the next month, I will be devoting 100 percent, or at least 99 percent, of my time to that task. I have not forgotten about you or my love for writing about water and sanitation around the world. “I’ll be back.”

See you in September.
Abby

Today’s PSA is from WaterAid. It was created to encourage world leaders to make toilets a priority at the upcoming UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit in September 2010. Musicians playing at Glastonbury Festival were featured in the PSA.

Ten years ago, United Nations member states agreed to achieve eight MDGs by 2015 to end global poverty. MDG No. 7 includes a target to reduce – BY HALF – the number of people without safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

“There are just five years to go and targets in Sub-Saharan Africa for water continue to fall behind but, most shockingly, the aim of halving the proportion of the world’s population without adequate sanitation is almost 200 years behind target.” – WaterAid

See the recent MDG Report 2010 for more information on the status of all targets.

But, wait, as a special up-lifting bonus today:

Water Aid hosted a film competition on YouTube for the ‘Don’t Let it Drop’ campaign. Competitors had only 48-hours to create a film. Watch the two winning entries here. Congrats, you two.

More PSA-maddness can be found covering rainwater harvesting in India, the LA Tap Project, a water-conservation campaign in Denver, the Tap Project 2009, Charity Water, and The World Cup, Water, and Sanitation.

The Guarani Aquifer, one of the largest sources of underground water worldwide, is shared by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. A proposed plan to allocate this groundwater has seemed to fail. Why? And how are the people who rely on this water supply affected?

My professor from OSU – Dr. Michael Campana (a hydrogeologist with considerable global experience) – shares his insights in the film. He recently wrote a post about the film on his blog WaterWired.

The full documentary is forthcoming, and the film-makers are seeking YOUR support in making this happen. Visit their website, Facebook, and Twitter for information. In the meantime, here are two clips from the film.

The Guarani Aquifer: a complex history, an uncertain future

Interview with Hydrologist Michael Campana

During the time of each World Cup match, around 140 children in Africa will die from diarrheal illnesses related to dirty water and a lack of toilets.

One organization, Wash-United, hopes people will become more aware of these issues during the 2010 World Cup. They have enlisted football greats (like Didier Drogba, Nwankwo Kanu, and Stephen Appiah) and created Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to help the spread the world

Enjoy these PSAs as part of the PSA-a-thon Series, and keep watching and rooting for your favorite teams.

Football Greats for Safe Water and Sanitation

Desmond Tutu for Safe Water and Sanitation

Can’t get enough?

The other five PSAs in the series cover rainwater harvesting in India, the LA Tap Project, a water-conservation campaign in Denver, the Tap Project 2009, and Charity Water.

Will water and sanitation be on the agenda?

PM Harper (from Canada) said this year’s Summit will focus on “key challenges related to development, and international peace and security.” All priority issues for the Summit – development, the health of mothers,/newborns/children, food security, Africa, and peace/security – relate to water and sanitation.

The Canadian G8 Website states that health issues “will be accomplished by helping developing countries strengthen their health systems and improve access to: health care, trained health workers, family planning, attended childbirth, better nutrition, clean drinking water and sanitation, and the means to prevent and treat diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea.”

How?

One problem with past G8 Summits is the difficulty of deciphering what has been discussed during the private meetings and how this information will ‘trickle down’ to policies in both participating and non-participating nations.

One group, called the G8 Research Group, is working to provide more information on proceedings of G8 Summits. Maybe this year they will cover some of the discussions on water and sanitation? Their website states:

“Unlike other multilateral meetings, leaders at the G8 Summit meet privately behind closed-doors; there are no aides or intermediaries and there are few scripts or protocols. The decisions made by the G8 have global ramifications and the reach and scope of its influence in the world cannot be denied.”

Still, each year, G8 Summits provide an opportunity for civil-society organizations to coalesce and urge respective governments to talk about issues that matter to them. A number of groups are focusing on water and sanitation at the G8 in 2010.

Interaction, a coalition of 180 NGOs working to alleviate global poverty, has prepared a brief on water and sanitation that calls for the US Government to be vocal on water and sanitation at the Summit.

Canadian organizations including UNICEF Canada and Care Canada and Plan Canada and RESULTS Canada and Save the Children Canada and World Vision Canada state that the Canadian Government should “…address preventive measures such as adequate diet through breastfeeding, nutritional supplementation/fortification and access to clean water and sanitation.”

And a G8 World Religions Summit of global religious leaders began yesterday at the University of Winnipeg. Leaders represent Christianity, Judaism, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Islamic, Shinto and indigenous faiths. This alternative Summit will be aired live online here. They hosted a water-ceremony on the opening day of this alternative Summit.

For more information on last year’s G8 Summit and water (and sanitation), please see this blog post. Updates on water and sanitation discussions at the Summit will be added as they become available.

UPDATE (29 July 2010):

On the 26th of June, leaders from G8 countries wrapped up the summit and issued a Declaration.

How did water and sanitation fare this year?

They pledged support towards meeting Millennium Development Goals. They affirmed a common desire to achieve aid-effectiveness for development in Africa. They discussed the importance of meeting MDG 4 (reducing child mortality) and MDG 5 (maternal health), but did not indicate water and sanitation as integral to such efforts anywhere in the main Declaration.

They launched the Muskoka Initiative to further progress on meeting MDGs 4 and 5  and linked this Initiative to MDGs 1 (childhood nutrition) and 6 (HIV/AIDS, malaria). They mentioned the importance of drinking water and sanitation once stating “relevant actions in the field of safe drinking water and sanitation” among other things are important towards meeting the aforementioned MDGs. But they did not identify a link between MDGs 4 and 5 to MDG No. 7 (to halve the population without drinking water or sanitation).

Many NGOs (including World Vision) feel the Muskoka Initiative is under-funded with 5 billion pledged towards meeting these commitments (with half of that amount from Canada). Here is a good review of different NGOs and their take on the Summit and subsequent Initiative.

Whew. Now that was a quick overview.

The India Water Portal, a water-website of Arghyam (where I completed my internship last fall), recently hosted The Lost Lakes of Bangalore contest. The aim of this project was to document histories of lost lakes in the city. The winning entry was “Err- bane” Truth – Dharmambudi Tank. I really enjoyed watching this short-film. It showed, in an easy-to-understand format, the importance of lakes to urban areas.

To summarize, lakes are important to urban areas for several reasons including:

• Water Supply for Urban Areas (catching and holding rainwater supplies)
• Recharge of Groundwater Supplies (catching rainwater and recharging groundwater)
• Reducing Temperatures in Cities
• Providing Habitat for Vegetation and Wildlife

Rates of discharge from several leaks range anywhere from BP’s estimate of less than 5,000 barrels a day to Steve Wereley’s (a scientist from Purdue) estimate of less than 100,000 barrels a day. Steve analyzed underwater video provided by BP to arrive at his estimate (see below). Most people in the United States use oil for daily activities such as driving or heating. And oil is utilized for many industrial processes. Catastrophes like this one are one liability of relying on oil to meet energy needs.

Images from the Gulf Oil Spill of 2010

“The oil slick appears as a dull gray on the water’s surface and stretches south from the Mississippi Delta with what looks like a tail.”
Photo Courtesy: NASA

“A satellite image taken May 17th shows oil slick being entrained in the Loop Current with a broad conveyor-belt-like extension of the slick sweeping in a gentle arc to the southeast and reaching 222 miles from the location of the leaking well.”
Photo Courtesy: SkyTruth on flickr

“A map of the northern Gulf of Mexico showing the nearly 4,000 active oil and gas platforms in 2006.”
Photo Courtesy: NOAA Ocean Explorer

“Soldiers of the Louisiana National Guard continue constructing the interlocking water diversion system near Venice, LA at the southwest pass of the Mississippi River Delta on May 14th.”
Photo Courtesy: The U.S. Army on flickr

“Ships make their way through surface oil near a barge funneling off oil from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead in this aerial view over the Gulf of Mexico, May 18th.”
Photo Courtesy: Reuters/Daniel Beltra on flickr

“Fort Jackson, LA  International Bird Rescue Research Center“
Photo Courtesy: PBS on flickr

“Campaigner Lindsey Allen walks through a patch of oil from the Deepwater Horizon on the breakwater in the mouth of the Mississippi where it meets the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, May, 18th.”
Photo Courtesy: Greenpeace on flickr

Finally, an underwater view. Footage from GMA on May 24, 2010.

Detail Talk focuses on many topics including “matters of utmost concern to India and to the world and where we are confident of contributing in a greater capacity. These for us are Education, Environment and Healthcare. On Detail Talk we cover conferences, workshops, other events like film festivals and expositions related to these broad categories that we set ourselves on.”

For those of us interested in water conversations, this blog talks a LOT about water.

Above Photo: India during monsoon. Courtesy NASA Earth Observatory.

Here are a few of the water posts on their blog.

Water Stories from Around the World: Book Review
Bringing order in a chaotic water management scenario: Case study from Udupi district
I am large, I contain multitudes: On Water
Inter State Water Disputes and the Judiciary

To see the rest, check out Detail Talk. My simple overview does not do this blog justice.

Thanks Praveena, Sachin, and Prateek. Keep-on with conversations for positive change.

Above Photo: Saddington & Baynes for WaterAid and End Water Poverty.

“The White House was given a shocking makeover by international charity WaterAid and global campaign group End Water Poverty. The makeover took place to mark the first ever High Level Meeting on Sanitation and Water in Washington on 23 April. Gone are the immaculate White House lawns, in their place a squalid otherworldly scene where children collect water from a filthy rubbish-strewn water hole and long queues form at the standpoint. Except that this isn’t another world. Having to use a contaminated and potentially fatal water source is a daily reality for 884 million people. Then there are the 2.6 billion who have no access to a toilet. At this meeting Ministers and policy makers from 30 developed and developing countries had the opportunity to commit to financial and political action to tackle this forgotten crisis.”