The week that was, 11/22-28/2009
Hourly images were taken by the UK Met Office (originally the Meteorological Office) of record rainfall over Cumbria between November 18-20. On November 23, the Met Office issued a report with radar images, an analysis chart and rainfall totals. To read it, click on the image.
“We cannot have our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, looking back and saying, ‘Why on earth did they build here? What possessed them to do so?'” — British Labour Member of Parliament Nia Griffith, “We have to stop building on our flood plains, warns MP,” South Wales Evening Post, November 26, 2009
“The reality is that floods are going to keep happening.” –– “Experts say the torrents cannot be prevented,” Times of London, November 22, 2009
… one emergency worker said it was like “an Irish Hurricane Katrina,” — “Electricity Supply Board was warned dams could not cope with …
Concrete for coral
Stocking an underwater museum in a Mexican national park off Cancun amuses people but benefits fish. BBC News reports that sculptures such as the one pictured left will be followed by hundreds more in a conservation effort to save imperiled coral reefs. From the article: “The sculptures will be made of PH-neutral concrete, which, it is hoped, will attract algae and marine life and give the local ecosystem a boost. According to the park’s director Jaime Gonzalez, one of the aims is to reduce the pressure on the natural habitat in other areas of the park by luring tourists away from existing coral reef, which has suffered damage from hurricanes and human activity.”
To keep reading, click here.
Thanks to Thirsty in Suburbia for spotting the article. Its editor Gayle Leonard says that she follows water in art precisely because she agrees with British conservationist Paul Jepson, who is …
Southwest Hydrology: the conservation issue
FITTINGLY, Thanksgiving brings a feast for those on a water diet. The new issue of Southwest Hydrology looks at all manner of conservation issues, including how to approach industrial and residential use, seemingly unstoppable population growth in a dry region, the ever-tricky business of standardization of measures, how to design savings programs and affordability. To download a free copy, click here. Via WaterWired.…
Permanent water conservation
California did it. This month, the Legislature passed a package of bills that includes a statewide urban water conservation goal of 20% by 2020. We have confronted the kind of conservation that will be needed to secure the water supply of Los Angeles, and the state, in the face of population growth and climate change. Or have we? It all depends on where you put the goal posts.
To keep reading today’s op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on permanent water conservation, click here.
Correction: In citing projected population growth by 2020 for Southern California in this article, I quoted predictions as high as 43%. That was incorrect. The correct figure for Southern California as forecast in 1998 by the California Department of Housing and Community Development is 13.8% and for state-wide growth 48.3%. I greatly regret the error. Please see the comment string for more discussion of the …
The week that was, 11/15-21/2009
“It is the court’s opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness.” — Federal District Court Judge Stanwood R Duval, Jr on the US Army Corps of Engineers’ management of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, aka “Mister Go,” in advance of Hurricane Katrina, New York Times, November 19, 2009
In the 24 hours up to 12.45am yesterday, the Environment Agency recorded rainfall of 314.4mm (12.3in) in the area, thought to be an all-time record for England. — “Cumbria floods: ‘Once in a thousand years’ deluge swamps defenses,” Daily Telegraph, November 21, 2009
Sacramento supports the Delta as long as we don’t have to do anything to make it better. — Phil Isenberg, former Sacramento mayor and chairman of the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, opinion piece “Delta …
« go back — keep looking »North American Native Plant Societies
After the lawn
Garden blogs
