User:Eamortenson

Welcome!

I'm new to Wikipedia (as a contributor), and am interested to see what I am able to offer the community. I currently am a graduate student enrolled in a development class that asks students to participate in Wikipedia. As such, I'm planning to add information about how public participatory GIS is used as a development tool, and also I would like to add an entry about sustainable water resource development. Within the next week I'll be able to begin outlining my proposed new entry, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback other Wiki-community members are able to offer. In the meantime, I'll add information where I can about other topics, and try to learn what I can about how this online space works.

Thank you for your interest and of course thank you very much for any feedback.

Eamortenson (talk) 02:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Please feel free to provide feedback on the outline below. Thank you.

Sustainable Water Resource Development BALANCING MULTIPLE USES FOR V 576 – APPROACHES TO DEVELOPMENT

INTRODUCTION •	Development of water resources requires consideration of many uses o	Agriculture (subsistence and cash/ export) 	Large-scale changes in land use have occurred as a result of expansion of croplands and pasturelands at the expense of forests and grasslands. In the past 300 years, cultivated cropland and pastureland have increased globally by 460% and 560%, respectively o	Washing/ sanitation o	Industrial processes 	energy production, mechanical cooling, cleaning o	Natural environment 	biodiversity, green infrastructure, intrinsic value of other species o	Recreation 	tourism dollars 

•	“Kuznets curve represents the hypothesis that economic inequality increases over time while a country is developing, then after a critical average income is attained, begins to decrease. This is due to gaps in compensation, education and opportunities. •	You develop and reach the tipping point, in the process you ignore SD, then you will attempt to fix SD but you will continue to grow and consume more o	People with poor quality of life may spend lots of time gathering water, may be in poor health due in part to lack of nutrition/ adequate sanitation. More likely to feel effects of development and face inequalities in access to land, capital, resources, markets. also more damage o

o	Development impacts both the quantity and quality of water resources in an area. 	Wells & interbasin transfers 	Groundwater recharge 	Salinization/ intrusion 	Nutrients/ eutrophication 	Contaminant concentration 	Land subsidence 	Crop and fisheries yields 	External exploitation and export of resources •	Foreign and rural -> urban 	Water rights litigation and power/ influence

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CASE STUDIES Aral Sea •	Once the world's fourth largest lake, 1930’s on Soviet Union began diverting Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers to irrigate cotton for export. o	Most canals never lined-35 to 70% of the water is lost to evaporation and seepage. •	By 1990, as a result of the continuing water diversion and evaporation, the shrinking Aral divided in two and it's salinity increased from 10 grams per liter to 45g/L. o	some parts of the south Aral, salinity tops out at 98 g/liter (2001). Average seawater salinity is 33 g/liter. •	Attempts in 1992 and 1997 to build a sand dyke between the north and the south Aral (the south being abandoned, the north re-flooded) was successful for 9 and 12 months until they were both breached by the weight of the water. 2003-concrete. •	Vozrozdeniya Island -growing since 1960, joined the mainland in 2001. o	was a Soviet Army research and biological weapons facility until 1992, dealing reportedly in anthrax and the like. •	Runoff from the irrigated land have formed artificial lakes contaminated with pesticides, fertilizers and heavy metals, some so large they have been named. These lakes -and the salt pans are steadily growing. o	Now some problems are toxic dust storms and desertification, the people of the area have 9 times the world average rate for throat cancer, and infant/maternity mortality is the highest in all of the former Soviet Union's republics. Respiratory complications, tuberculosis and eye diseases are common. •	The fishing industry was gone by 1982, and the canning plant processing frozen fish brought in from other areas to keep fishermen employed folded in 1991. •	Of the region's 73 species of birds, 70 of mammals and 24 of fish, the vast majority are gone from the area. •	Lack of international cooperation, large amount of capital needed, and ethnic tensions all come into play. o

California o	Importing water from other areas, exporting it through vegetables and meat to other areas 	attributed to flushing of salts that had accumulated in soils during the Holocene, 10,000 to 15,000 years ago o	Increased recharge related to cultivation in the Southern High Plains, have caused increases in groundwater salinity (43%; 150 to 214 mg/L) 	Nutrient loading of streams in the NE United States is also highly correlated with land use change and contributes to eutrophication in Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico as well o	 500% increase in agricultural nitrogen fertilizer application ( 6 metric tons) from 1950–1970 to 1980–1996 is the primary contributor to a 200% increase in nitrate export from the MRB to the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in seasonal bottom water hypoxia. 	N contamination in about 25% of domestic wells in the eastern San Joaquin Valley in California. o	Historical development of water quality problems on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley (south part of Central Valley) is related to variations in irrigation water source from predominantly groundwater in the 1920s to mostly surface water supplied by interbasin transfers from the north. o	Reduction in groundwater pumpage and application of water from the north raised water tables to near the land surface, causing salinization. Additional salt inputs are provided by dissolution of gypsum. •	Wildlife, especially birds, being negatively impacted by farming practices in Central Valley o	Subsurface drainage of irrigated areas into San Luis Drain and ultimately into evaporation ponds in Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in the San Joaquin Valley resulted in contamination with selenium and other trace elements including boron, chromium, molybdenum, and vanadium.

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Yellow River •	Doubling of irrigated agriculture in the Yellow River Basin accounts for 91% of surface water abstractions and resulted in drying up of the lower reach of the Yellow River since 1972. •	Irrigation based on surface water has resulted in groundwater level rises related to seepage from rivers, water losses along conveyance structures, and deep percolation on irrigation fields. o	Examples of groundwater level rises include the Jinghuiqu canal irrigation district where diversion of water from the Jinhe River raised groundwater levels from 15 to 30 m in the 1930s to <1 to 2 m in the 1980s •	The large expansion of groundwater wells from the mid 1960s has lowered water tables in other areas, resulting in salinization. Nitrate contamination was found in 50% of 69 wells sampled. o	Parts of the basin have shallow saline groundwater overlying fresh groundwater; however, overdevelopment of the freshwater zone has lowered the saline/freshwater interface by an average of 10 m to a maximum of 30 m •	Sodium in the Yellow River increased by 100% (40–79 mg/L) and TDS by 29% (431–557 mg/L) after flowing through two large irrigation districts in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia Provinces •	There are also frequent reports of pollution discharges and water unsuitable for consumption. o SOLUTIONS •	Adaptive management o	learning from and adapting to unique watershed, culture, and be willing to change as tech, environment, peoples expectations for quality of life change •	Decision making that utilizes input from all stake holders to balance uses/ water rights in policy and action •	Social learning o	to change behaviors to things like drip irrigation, composting toilets, grey water/ green/ efficient infrastructure w/o leaks, water pricing •	Long time lags between land use change and water resource impacts need to be considered in determining when full-scale impacts of a land use change will be realized and in setting up remediation programs o	climate change may bring unpredictable changes in water cycle including periods of drought and flooding. Costs for infrastructure, energy, and technological advances are also highly unpredictable when planning for development.

REFERENCES Bates, B.C., Z.W. Kundzewicz, S. Wu and J.P. Palutikof, Eds., 2008: Climate Change and Water. Technical Paper of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Secretariat, Geneva, 210 pp.

Liu, Y., Gupta, H., Springer, E., Wagener, T. 2008:: Linking science with environmental decision making: Experiences from an integrated modeling approach to supporting sustainable water resources management. Environmental Modelling & Software 23. 846e858

Pohal-Wostl, C.2007. Transitions towards adaptive management of water facing climate and global change. Water Resource Management. 21:49–62

Scanlon, B.R., Jolly, I., Sophocleous, M., Zhang, L. 2007. Global impacts of conversions from natural to agricultural ecosystems on water resources: Quantity versus quality. WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, VOL. 43.

Qadir, M. Sharma, B.R., Bruggeman, A., Choukr-Allah, R., Karajeh, F. 2007. Non-conventional water resources and opportunities for water augmentation to achieve food security in water scarce countries. Agricultural water management 8 7, 2 – 2 2. Stap, D. 2011. Grains of Change. http://audubonmagazine.org/features1103/birds.html. Accessed March 23, 2011.

Wade, S., 2011. Serious Erosion in Yellow River Basin. http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/01/serious-erosion-in-yellow-river-basin/. Accessed March 23, 2011.

Unimaps.com/aral-sea/Aral, the dying sea

Photograph of stranded fishing boats, William C Turnley 1990, © National Geographic.

Various NASA satellite images.

Eamortenson (talk) 03:01, 28 March 2011 (UTC)