Every once in a while, it's good to hear that what we are doing/working towards isn't just some crazy isolated idea. While skimming the book Greenways for America by Charles E. Little, I came across a chapter entitled 'Rivers Through the City' and thought everyone could benefit from this small excerpt:
From Casper to Yakima to Asheville, greenways or greenway-like projects have been extraordinarily successful in restoring rivers to their former economic and cultural significance. New jobs, new tax ratables, new recreational opportnities, the conservation of wildlife, and the maintenance and improvement of water quality are the tangible benefits of urban greenway-making.
But there is another benefit that should not be forgotten. For a hundred years or more, urban rivers have been relegated to the ugliest of urban functions - sewage disposal, sites for heavy industry, a place to dump the refuse of the city. Inevitably, the river corridors became a kind of no-man's-land, dividing cities, economically and socially, rather than uniting them - the poor on ones side, the rich on the other.
Today, many or the ugly functions have been replaced or have simply disappeared. Much of the heavy industry has relocated, and the dumps and sewer outfalls have (or can be) eliminated. When cities discover this, the impluse is strong to establish a greenway project along the riverfront. And then a kind of miracle happens. The river begins to join the people of the city together rather than separating them; what was once an open wound begins to heal itself and the city along with it. I cannot imagine a more persuasive justification than this for greenway action.
So there it is. I hope all of you are having good summers so far and don't forget if you're in Dayton we have to get out on our river soon!
Love,
Katie
Friday, May 15, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Some big rivers show a big shrinkage
 MSNBC.com |
Some big rivers show a big shrinkage
A third of 925 measured have changed; most of those show drop in flows
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 2:31 p.m. ET, Tues., April 21, 2009
The flow of water in some of the world's largest rivers has declined over a half century, according to a new, comprehensive study whose authors tied the discovery to global warming.
An analysis of 925 major rivers from 1948 to 2004, found significant changes in about a third, according to the study appearing in the May 15 edition of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate. Of those, rivers with decreased flow outnumbered those with increased flow by a ratio of about 2.5 to 1.
The reduction in river flow to the Pacific Ocean alone was about equal to shutting off the Mississippi River, according to the researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
The only area showing a significant increase in flow was the Arctic, where warming conditions are increasing the snow and ice melt, said lead researchers Aiguo Dai.
While Dai cited climate change as a major factor in the changes, the paper noted that other factors are also involved, including dams and the diversion of water for agriculture and industry.
Nonetheless, he said, "long-term changes in streamflow should be a major concern under global warming," which in many areas is altering precipitation patterns and increasing the rate of evaporation.
Indeed, the researchers wrote that "for many of the world's large rivers" the effects of dams, farming and development "are likely small compared with that of climate variations during 1948-2004."
"Freshwater resources will likely decline in the coming decades over many densely populated areas at mid- to low latitudes, largely due to climate changes," Dai said. "Rapid disappearing mountain glaciers in the Tibetan plateau and other places will make matters worse."
Added co-author Kevin Trenberth: "As climate change inevitably continues in coming decades, we are likely to see greater impacts on many rivers and water resources that society has come to rely on."
Research praised for showing 'water needs'
Margaret Palmer, director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, called it "an important paper with new findings that are relevant to the health of river ecosystems and the people who live near or rely upon rivers to meet water needs."
"What is important from this study is these authors show that these decreases are due to a changing climate, not human activities like extractions or dam building, yet these changes will have impacts on humans and ecosystems because many of these regions have large populations and drought-stressed ecosystems," said Palmer, who was not part of the research team.
Dai, for his part, noted that "reduced runoff is increasing the pressure on freshwater resources in much of the world, especially with more demand for water as population increases. Freshwater being a vital resource, the downward trends are a great concern."
Among the rivers showing declines in flow, several serve large populations. These include the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa and the Colorado in the southwestern United States.
On the other hand, areas with rising streamflow near the Arctic Ocean tend to have small populations.
There was considerable year-to-year variation in the flow of many rivers, but the overall trend over the period showed annual freshwater discharge into the Pacific Ocean fell by about 6 percent, or 526 cubic kilometers of water. That's close to the 552-cubic kilometer average annual flow of the Mississippi, the researchers reported.
The annual flow into the Indian Ocean dropped by about 3 percent, or 140 cubic kilometers. In contrast, annual river discharge into the Arctic Ocean rose about 10 percent, or 460 cubic kilometers. There was little change in inflow to the Atlantic Ocean, where increases in the Mississippi and Parana rivers were balanced out by decreases in the Amazon River.
A cubic kilometer is a cube one kilometer on each side. A kilometer is about six-tenths of a mile.
Discharge of river water into the oceans deposits sediment near the river mouth and also affects worldwide ocean circulation patterns, which are driven by variations in water temperature and salinity.
The changes in the freshwater discharge so far are relatively small, but Dai urged monitoring that for any long-term changes.
Mississippi rose, Columbia fell
In the United States, the flow of the Mississippi River increased by 22 percent over the period because of increased precipitation across the Midwest. On the other hand, the Columbia River's flow declined by about 14 percent, mainly because of reduced precipitation and higher water usage.
Major rivers showing declines in flow included the Amazon, Congo, Yangtze, Mekong, Ganges, Irrawaddy, Amur, Mackenzie, Xijiang, Columbia and Niger.
Declines in the Niger River in the 1970s and 1980s in particular reflected the Sahel Drought, the paper said. In addition, the periodic El Nino cooling of sea surface waters in the tropical Pacific led to lower flows in the Amazon and higher ones in the Mississippi when the phenomenon was in effect.
The rivers studied drain water from every major landmass except Antarctica and Greenland, NCAR said in a statement, and account for 73 percent of the world's total stream flow.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30326211/
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Rivers shrinking: Flow of many rivers in decline
WASHINGTON – The flow of water in the world's largest rivers has declined over the past half-century, with significant changes found in about a third of the big rivers. An analysis of 925 major rivers from 1948 to 2004 showed an overall decline in total discharge.
The reduction in inflow to the Pacific Ocean alone was about equal to shutting off the Mississippi River, according to the new study appearing in the May 15 edition of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.
The only area showing a significant increase in flow was the Arctic, where warming conditions are increasing the snow and ice melt, said researchers led by Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
"Freshwater resources will likely decline in the coming decades over many densely populated areas at mid- to low latitudes, largely due to climate changes, Dai said. "Rapid disappearing mountain glaciers in the Tibetan plateau and other places will make matters worse."
Added co-author Kevin Trenberth, "As climate change inevitably continues in coming decades, we are likely to see greater impacts on many rivers and water resources that society has come to rely on."
While Dai cited climate change as a major factor in the changes, the paper noted that other factors are also involved, including dams and the diversion of water for agriculture and industry.
Nonetheless, he said, "long-term changes in streamflow should be a major concern under global warming."
Indeed, the researchers wrote that "for many of the world's large rivers the effects of human activities on yearly streamflow are likely small compared with that of climate variations during 1948-2004."
"This is an important paper with new findings that are relevant to the health of river ecosystems and the people who live near or rely upon rivers to meet water needs," said Margaret A. Palmer, director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
"What is important from this study is these authors show that these decreases are due to a changing climate, not human activities like extractions or dam building, yet these changes will have impacts on humans and ecosystems because many of these regions have large populations and drought-stressed ecosystems," said Palmer, who was not part of the research team.
Among the rivers showing declines in flow, several serve large populations. These include the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa and the Colorado in the southwestern United States.
On the other hand, areas with rising streamflow near the Arctic Ocean tend to have small populations.
There was considerable year-to-year variation in the flow of many rivers, but the overall trend over the period showed annual freshwater discharge into the Pacific Ocean fell by about 6 percent, or 526 cubic kilometers of water. That's close to the 552-cubic kilometer average annual flow of the Mississippi, the researchers reported.
The annual flow into the Indian Ocean dropped by about 3 percent, or 140 cubic kilometers. In contrast, annual river discharge into the Arctic Ocean rose about 10 percent, or 460 cubic kilometers. There was little change in inflow to the Atlantic Ocean, where increases in the Mississippi and Parana rivers were balanced out by decreases in the Amazon River.
A cubic kilometer is a cube one kilometer on each side. A kilometer is about six-tenths of a mile.
Discharge of river water into the oceans deposits sediment near the river mouth and also affects worldwide ocean circulation patterns, which are driven by variations in water temperature and salinity.
In the United States, the flow of the Mississippi River increased by 22 percent over the period because of increased precipitation across the Midwest. On the other hand, the Columbia River's flow declined by about 14 percent, mainly because of reduced precipitation and higher water usage.
Major rivers showing declines in flow included the Amazon, Congo, Changjiang (Yangtze), Mekong, Ganges, Irrawaddy, Amur, Mackenzie, Xijiang, Columbia and Niger.
Declines in the Niger River in the 1970s and 1980s in particular reflected the Sahel Drought, the paper said. In addition, the periodic El Nino cooling of sea surface waters in the tropical Pacific led to lower flows in the Amazon and higher ones in the Mississippi when the phenomenon was in effect.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Hypoxia
I originally wrote this for water words, but it works with the article Emily provided. So in 200ish words heres what I have to say about the hypoxia issue...
Dayton to Louisiana!
Flowing from your drain, storm sewers, and farm fields, to the Great Miami River, south to the Ohio River, meandering southwest towards a rendezvous with the Mississippi, flowing down the estuaries through the depleted Louisiana wetlands, water with excessive nutrient levels meets the poorly mixed water of the Gulf to form the second largest human-caused hypoxic zone in the world. Such hypoxic zones result in massive fish kills and the devastation of shellfish beds. The death toll results from low dissolved oxygen content of hypoxic zones, where dissolved oxygen levels below 2 mg/L are insufficient for the survival of many species. The input of unnaturally high levels nitrogen from sources, such as fertilizers, leads to algal blooms. These photosynthetic algae and phytoplankton form the base of the aquatic food chain and fuel greater respiration in the ecosystem resulting in greater rates of oxygen depletion, espcially as the algal blooms decompose.
Ninety percent of the nutrient input to the Gulf comes from the Mississippi River which drains a huge portion of the North American continent, including water from Dayton. The huge area of the watershed is matched by the huge diversity of the constituent land, which ranges from rural and agricultural to highly urbanized. Thus a wide array of opportunities for improving the situation is presented to us, primarily reducing the use of artificial fertilizers.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Climate Change: One Light Bulb at a Time?
Climate Change, One Light Bulb at a Time?
NY Times
By Bryan Walsh Thursday, Nov. 08, 2007
If today's youth are supposed to be politically apathetic, more engaged in Facebook than the fate of the world, no one told Jessy Tolkan. The 26-year-old activist spent Nov. 2 to 5 in Washington at the Power Shift summit, where over 6,000 college students from every state in the country gathered to agitate for federal action on climate change. For Tolkan, the executive director for the Energy Action Coalition, an umbrella group of youth-oriented environmental groups that helped organize the conference, Power Shift was "by far the most incredible thing that I have ever experienced in my life. I'm going to be running off that energy for a long time."
Energy — and results — is something that the campaign to create political action on climate change in the U.S. has often lacked. Over the past few years there has been a grassroots groundswell on global warming, but the focus has been on personal action, small behavioral changes individuals can make — or more often, buy — to reduce their impact on the Earth. It's the light bulb theory — switch your wasteful incandescent lights for more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, and you're doing your bit to save the planet.
But while individual action is important — and the increasing ubiquity of green consumerism is a sign that the business world is getting the environmental message — the sheer scale of the climate challenge is so overwhelming that only a worldwide revolution in the way we use energy will be enough to stave off the worst consequences. That requires far-sighted political action from the top, starting in the capital of the world's biggest carbon emitter: Washington. Unfortunately, while scattered cities and states across America have begun to move on climate change — Gov. Schwarzenegger, take a bow — the federal government has been more roadblock than revolutionary.
That will change only if politicians hear loud and clear that global warming matters to Americans, not just in the brand of light bulbs they buy, but where they cast their vote. The focus on individual solutions "rings hollow to a lot of people," says Jesse Jenkins, a member of the Cascade Climate Network and an environmental blogger. "The solution is to organize and organize and organize." And the agents of that change will be young people like Jenkins and Tolkan, the college-age members of the Millennial generation, born after 1980. These post Cold War kids have grown up with the threat of global warming — just as their parents grew up with the fear of nuclear war — and they know that they'll be left to cope with a warmer world tomorrow if nothing is done to slow carbon emissions today.
So can Millennials shake off their reputation for apathy and create environmental change on a national level? Last weekend suggests they might be on their way. At the Power Shift conference, student activists gave testimony to members of Congress and demanded a slew of aggressive measures on climate change, including a 30% cut in carbon emissions by 2020 and 80% cuts by 2050. While students marched on Washington, activists from around the country launched Step It Up 2 on Nov. 3, a nationwide, single-day campaign to kickstart political movement on climate change. (The first Step It Up day of action happened in April.) The brainchild of environmentalist and author Bill McKibben and a group of students from Middlebury College, Step It Up aims to shove global warming to the center of the national political agenda, and it's exactly the sort of sustained campaign needed to make climate change matter at the ballot box. (Listen to McKibben talk about Step It Up on this Greencast.)
For the Millennials, climate change is emerging as the defining issue of their time, just as civil rights or Vietnam might have been for the generation before. "This is a new generation that sees itself at the forefront of a great movement, just like the greatest movements of the past," says Tolkan. With health care, Iraq and the economy all jostling for voters' attention, it remains to be seen whether climate change — still an amorphous threat to most Americans — can seize center stage, but Washington should know that there is a growing core of young activists out there who care about nothing more. "This past weekend, we gave politicians a bit of a heads up that we're watching and we're demanding change," says Katelyn McCormick, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. "We've said what we want and now it's time for them to do something about it." With the Millennials set to be the largest demographic bloc in America history, it might be time for Washington to listen.
_________________________________________________________________
So, I found this article and thought it was relevant because Powershift 2009 is coming up, and it seemed related to the conversations we had last time. There are several aspects of this article that I find thought-provoking.
It is interesting to me that this writer claims climate change is the "civil rights" or "Vietnam" of our time because, at first glance, climate change seems less profound in its relation to Americans. I don't think any of us would charge climate change with the death or oppression of many, and maybe that is part of the problem. We see climate change as something far off, something that doesn't directly affect us, but that could someday affect us, so we should start worrying about it sometime in the near future. We don't see climate or energy issues as issues of social justice, but they often are. Often the poorest communities are the ones who bear the brunt of pollution and would benefit the most from a cost-effective and earth-friendly energy solution. I think this is part of the problem. We might ask, then, what other aspects that we don't think about are perpetuating a cultural numbness to climate change?
Another thing to consider is the fact that this article is a little out-of-date. It was written pre-election, so the focus is on pushing votes as a catalyst for action. Now the way we might look at this issue is a little different. If we can't use votes to make change happen, what can we do? What does it say about our nation that it takes leverage to force stewardship of our resources? Do the small changes we put into action actually make a difference?
I'm excited to hear your thoughts! :)
-Tracey
NY Times
By Bryan Walsh Thursday, Nov. 08, 2007
If today's youth are supposed to be politically apathetic, more engaged in Facebook than the fate of the world, no one told Jessy Tolkan. The 26-year-old activist spent Nov. 2 to 5 in Washington at the Power Shift summit, where over 6,000 college students from every state in the country gathered to agitate for federal action on climate change. For Tolkan, the executive director for the Energy Action Coalition, an umbrella group of youth-oriented environmental groups that helped organize the conference, Power Shift was "by far the most incredible thing that I have ever experienced in my life. I'm going to be running off that energy for a long time."
Energy — and results — is something that the campaign to create political action on climate change in the U.S. has often lacked. Over the past few years there has been a grassroots groundswell on global warming, but the focus has been on personal action, small behavioral changes individuals can make — or more often, buy — to reduce their impact on the Earth. It's the light bulb theory — switch your wasteful incandescent lights for more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, and you're doing your bit to save the planet.
But while individual action is important — and the increasing ubiquity of green consumerism is a sign that the business world is getting the environmental message — the sheer scale of the climate challenge is so overwhelming that only a worldwide revolution in the way we use energy will be enough to stave off the worst consequences. That requires far-sighted political action from the top, starting in the capital of the world's biggest carbon emitter: Washington. Unfortunately, while scattered cities and states across America have begun to move on climate change — Gov. Schwarzenegger, take a bow — the federal government has been more roadblock than revolutionary.
That will change only if politicians hear loud and clear that global warming matters to Americans, not just in the brand of light bulbs they buy, but where they cast their vote. The focus on individual solutions "rings hollow to a lot of people," says Jesse Jenkins, a member of the Cascade Climate Network and an environmental blogger. "The solution is to organize and organize and organize." And the agents of that change will be young people like Jenkins and Tolkan, the college-age members of the Millennial generation, born after 1980. These post Cold War kids have grown up with the threat of global warming — just as their parents grew up with the fear of nuclear war — and they know that they'll be left to cope with a warmer world tomorrow if nothing is done to slow carbon emissions today.
So can Millennials shake off their reputation for apathy and create environmental change on a national level? Last weekend suggests they might be on their way. At the Power Shift conference, student activists gave testimony to members of Congress and demanded a slew of aggressive measures on climate change, including a 30% cut in carbon emissions by 2020 and 80% cuts by 2050. While students marched on Washington, activists from around the country launched Step It Up 2 on Nov. 3, a nationwide, single-day campaign to kickstart political movement on climate change. (The first Step It Up day of action happened in April.) The brainchild of environmentalist and author Bill McKibben and a group of students from Middlebury College, Step It Up aims to shove global warming to the center of the national political agenda, and it's exactly the sort of sustained campaign needed to make climate change matter at the ballot box. (Listen to McKibben talk about Step It Up on this Greencast.)
For the Millennials, climate change is emerging as the defining issue of their time, just as civil rights or Vietnam might have been for the generation before. "This is a new generation that sees itself at the forefront of a great movement, just like the greatest movements of the past," says Tolkan. With health care, Iraq and the economy all jostling for voters' attention, it remains to be seen whether climate change — still an amorphous threat to most Americans — can seize center stage, but Washington should know that there is a growing core of young activists out there who care about nothing more. "This past weekend, we gave politicians a bit of a heads up that we're watching and we're demanding change," says Katelyn McCormick, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. "We've said what we want and now it's time for them to do something about it." With the Millennials set to be the largest demographic bloc in America history, it might be time for Washington to listen.
_________________________________________________________________
So, I found this article and thought it was relevant because Powershift 2009 is coming up, and it seemed related to the conversations we had last time. There are several aspects of this article that I find thought-provoking.
It is interesting to me that this writer claims climate change is the "civil rights" or "Vietnam" of our time because, at first glance, climate change seems less profound in its relation to Americans. I don't think any of us would charge climate change with the death or oppression of many, and maybe that is part of the problem. We see climate change as something far off, something that doesn't directly affect us, but that could someday affect us, so we should start worrying about it sometime in the near future. We don't see climate or energy issues as issues of social justice, but they often are. Often the poorest communities are the ones who bear the brunt of pollution and would benefit the most from a cost-effective and earth-friendly energy solution. I think this is part of the problem. We might ask, then, what other aspects that we don't think about are perpetuating a cultural numbness to climate change?
Another thing to consider is the fact that this article is a little out-of-date. It was written pre-election, so the focus is on pushing votes as a catalyst for action. Now the way we might look at this issue is a little different. If we can't use votes to make change happen, what can we do? What does it say about our nation that it takes leverage to force stewardship of our resources? Do the small changes we put into action actually make a difference?
I'm excited to hear your thoughts! :)
-Tracey
Monday, February 2, 2009
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