Friday, August 31, 2012

● Geopolitics: H2O

Climate Crisis

Water Tensions
Aquifers, Wells 

Surplus



Tuesday, August 28, 2012

African Aquapolitics

Nile 

Agua Robada


Spain's Sierra Nevada mineral water sources are a national treasure. They've drawn in several multinationals eager to make a profit. Resistance is mounting as climate change progresses and water supplies threatened.

Aquapolitics

20-5-8 Economic Empires - Controlling the World's Water Supply - Chapple > .

Monday, August 20, 2012

Ice Stupas

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Can ice stupas solve the water crisis in the Himalayan Desert? - BBC > .
23-8-21 India’s HUGE water problem will cause a HUGE migration problem - GG > .
Artificial Glacier | Ice Stupa | Sonam Wangchuk | Ladakh > .

Ice stupas can release millions of litres of water each year. They are built next to where water is needed most - on the outskirts of villages near fields. Ice stupas were invented in 2013 by Sonam Wangchuk, a prominent Indian engineer who also co-founded the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives - the organisation is primarily responsible for the development of the technology, alongside the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh.

They are used for storing the wasted water as ice during the winter months, which then melts for use during the arid months. Pipes are initially buried under the ground, below the frost line, before the final section of the pipe then rises vertically. Due to the difference in height, temperature, and the gravitational force, pressure builds up in the pipe. The stream water eventually flows up and out from the pipe's raised tip like a fountain. The sub-zero air freezes the water to gradually form a pyramid-like structure.



Iran's Water Crisis

23-10-5 Iran's Alarming Water Crisis - Asianometry > .
24-2-4 Iran would lose a war with the United States | Michael Clarke - Times > .
24-1-26 Saudi Arabia's Catastrophic "Iran" Problem - Hindsight > .
23-11-5 [XIR] Corrupt, Sanctioned Iran's Military, Proxies, Power Projection - Perun > .
23-10-14 [Nefarious Hybrid XIR "want to destroy America" Plot] - Versed > .

Iran ..
Iran's Water Crisis ..

Friday, August 10, 2012

South-to-North Water Transfer Project

22-1-25 South-North Water Transfer: deficits; threats to life; 2.5X 3GD - Insight > .

"The Three Gorges Dam and the South-to-North Water Transfer Project are two of the Chinese Communist Party's major operational water resource projects. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam sparked heated debates among Chinese scholars in the 1980s and 1990s, but in 2000, the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, which is 2.5 times larger than the Three Gorges Project, was launched amidst a wave of silence. In fact, it’s an illusion created by the Chinese government. Even before the project is completed, it has shown that its potential damages are even worse than those of the Three Gorges Project."

The South–North Water Transfer Project, also translated as the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (pinyin: Nánshuǐ Běidiào Gōngchéng; lit. 'Project of diverting water in the South to the North') is a multi-decade infrastructure mega-project in China. Ultimately it aims to channel 44.8 billion cubic meters of fresh water annually from the Yangtze River in southern China to the more arid and industrialized north through three canal systems:
Mao Zedong discussed the idea for a mass engineering project as an answer to China's water problems as early as 1952. He reportedly said, "there's plenty of water in the south, not much water in the north. If at all possible; borrowing some water would be good." The complete project was expected to cost $62 billion – more than twice as much as the Three Gorges Dam. By 2014, more than $79 billion had been spent, making it one of the most ambitious and expensive engineering projects in human history.

Stan Water Conflict - Fergana Valley

21-7-14 Central Asia on the verge of a water war - CaspianReport > .
24-1-2 Stans: Why Central Asia Is So Big Yet So Weak - Versed > .
23-11-5 [XIR] Corrupt, Sanctioned Iran's Military, Proxies, Power Projection - Perun > .
23-9-14 Iran and Afghanistan headed to war over water? - Caspian > .
21-11-31 Fergana Valley Conflict: Shattering Core of Central Asia - Perspective > .
22-11-8 USSR/Ruscia Destroyed World's 4th Biggest Lake - Real > .
22-7-19 Central Asia ⇌ Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, USA - gtbt > . 

Ruscism ..

The Fergana Valley is a valley in Central Asia spread across eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan.

Divided into three republics of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse and in the early 21st century was the scene of ethnic conflict. A large triangular valley in what is an often dry part of Central Asia, the Fergana owes its fertility to two rivers, the Naryn and the Kara Darya, which run from the east, joining near Namangan, forming the Syr Darya river. The valley's history stretches back over 2,300 years, when Alexander the Great founded Alexandria Eschate at its southwestern end.

Mass cotton cultivation, introduced by the Soviets, remains central to the economy, along with a wide range of grains, fruits and vegetables. There is a long history of stock breeding, leatherwork and a growing mining sector, including deposits of coalironsulfurgypsumrock-saltnaphtha and some small known oil reserves.

The Fergana Valley is an intermountain depression in Central Asia, between the mountain systems of the Tien-Shan in the north and the Gissar-Alai in the south. The valley is approximately 300 kilometres (190 mi) long and up to 70 kilometres (43 mi) wide, forming an area covering 22,000 square kilometres (8,500 sq mi). Its position makes it a separate geographic zone. The valley owes its fertility to two rivers, the Naryn and the Kara Darya, which unite in the valley, near Namangan, to form the Syr Darya. Numerous other tributaries of these rivers exist in the valley including the Sokh River. The streams, and their numerous mountain effluents, not only supply water for irrigation, but also bring down vast quantities of sand, which is deposited alongside their courses, more especially alongside the Syr Darya where it cuts its way through the Khujand-Ajar ridge and forms the valley. This expanse of quicksand, covering an area of 1,900 km2 (750 sq mi), under the influence of south-west winds, encroaches upon the agricultural districts.

The central part of the geological depression that forms the valley is characterized by block subsidence, originally to depths estimated at 6 to 7 kilometres (3.7 to 4.3 mi), largely filled with sediments that range in age as far back as the Permian-Triassic boundary. Some of the sediments are marine carbonates and clays. The faults are upthrusts and overthrusts. Anticlines associated with these faults form traps for petroleum and natural gas, which has been discovered in 52 small fields.

Chinese chroniclers date its towns to more than 2,100 years ago, as a path between Greek, Chinese, Bactrian and Parthian civilisations. It was home to Babur, founder of the Mughal Dynasty, tying the region to modern Afghanistan and South Asia. The Russian Empire conquered the valley at the end of the 19th century, and it became part of the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Its three Soviet republics gained independence in 1991. The area largely remains Muslim, populated by ethnic Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz people, often intermixed and not matching modern borders. Historically there have also been substantial numbers of Russian, Kashgarians, Kipchaks, Bukharan Jews and Romani minorities.

The most complicated border negotiations in the Central Asia region involve the Fergana Valley where multiple enclaves struggle to exist. Three countries share in the tangled border region; Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan all have historic and economic claims to the region's transport routes and natural resources. Negotiations between the three countries are often tense and are prone to conflict.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, border negotiations left substantial Uzbek populations stranded outside of Uzbekistan. In south-western Kyrgyzstan, a conflict over land between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks exploded in 1990 into large-scale ethnic violence; the violence reoccurring in 2010. By establishing political units on a mono-ethnic basis in a region where various peoples have historically lived side by side, the Soviet process of national delimitation sowed the seeds of today's inter-ethnic tensions.

Conflicts over water have contributed to border disputes. For instance, the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in Jalal-Abad Region is kept open in a limited way to help irrigation, however inter-ethnic disputes in border regions often turn into national border disputes. Even during the summer there are border conflicts over water, as there is not enough to share.

The Aral Sea was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan (Aktobe and Kyzylorda Regions) in the north and Uzbekistan (Karakalpakstan autonomous region) in the south which began shrinking in the 1960s and had largely dried up by the 2010s. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands", referring to over 1,100 islands that had dotted its waters. In the Mongolic and Turkic languages aral means "island, archipelago". The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and Iran.

Formerly the fourth largest lake in the world with an area of 68,000 km2 (26,300 sq mi), the Aral Sea began shrinking in the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. By 1997, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes: the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger South Aral Sea, and the smaller intermediate Barsakelmes Lake.

By 2009, the southeastern lake had disappeared and the southwestern lake had retreated to a thin strip at the western edge of the former southern sea. In subsequent years occasional water flows have led to the southeastern lake sometimes being replenished to a small degree. Satellite images by NASA in August 2014 revealed that for the first time in modern history the eastern basin of the Aral Sea had completely dried up. The eastern basin is now called the Aralkum Desert.

In an ongoing effort in Kazakhstan to save and replenish the North Aral Sea, the Dike Kokaral dam was completed in 2005. By 2008, the water level had risen 12 m (39 ft) above that of 2003. Salinity has dropped, and fish are again present in sufficient numbers for some fishing to be viable. The maximum depth of the North Aral Sea was 42 m (138 ft) (as of 2008).

The shrinking of the Aral Sea has been called "one of the planet's worst environmental disasters". The region's once-prosperous fishing industry has been devastated, bringing unemployment and economic hardship. The water from the diverted Syr Darya river is used to irrigate about two million hectares (5,000,000 acres) of farmland in the Ferghana Valley. The Aral Sea region is heavily polluted, with consequent serious public health problems. UNESCO has added historical documents concerning the Aral Sea to its Memory of the World Register as a resource to study the environmental tragedy.

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...