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Published online 19 March 2008 | Nature 452, 269 (2008) | doi:10.1038/452269a
News Feature
Water under pressure
More than a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and two billion have inadequate sanitation. This is despite two international decades, a millennium declaration goal, two international years and a string of global celebratory days — all dedicated to drinking-water or sanitation.
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It may be possible to create artificial lakes that store rainwater where it rains, let it percolate into the ground, and retrieve it as clean water through wells. It may be possible to divert excess rainwater through canals to such artificial lakes. The river current energy of the rivers may be used to generate electricity to pump water up hill.
Sir, I heard the natures'ipodwebcast on purification of water, including 'AS' removal etc; The author says the Iron waste to remove-Arsenic - will be costly as source is limited to save the population from gradual poisoning etc; Direct application of IRONORE derived complex--Sulphasponge-- is capable of removing both fluoride& Arsenic from high levels. Recycling ofBoth wastewater generated in Home or MUNICIPAL SEWARAGE Water for use in INDUSTRY or FARMING is not touched upon to save the population teeming in INDIA & other places. In fact SEW.WATER can be brought to POTABLE STANDARDS with the above mentioned COMPLEX-SULPHASPONGE free from BACTERIA, FUNGI, or VIRUSES SALMONELLA etc;But aesthetically it is not acceptable. In addition to differant Methods of water purification known, the Flash separation of SEAWATER from salt is being attempted in CHENNAI, by govt;agencies. Cost factor is unavoidable, to get safe recycled water. Thank you for your patience in reading this bit. Regards, TNV Raghavan
Rain-water harvesting to recharge natural aquifer, natural & man-made lakes is a must now. The cities in the coastal areas must start using sea-water with large reverse-osmosis plants for their requirements. The areas with very low rain-fall must store all the rain-water for round the year use as practised in desert like areas.
Rain-water harvesting to recharge natural aquifer, natural & man-made lakes is a must now. The cities in the coastal areas must start using sea-water with large reverse-osmosis plants for their requirements. The areas with very low rain-fall must store all the rain-water for round the year use as practised in desert like areas.
There is at least one practical option to directly respond to the freshwater shortage issue: it consists in developing innovative methods to reduce the consumption of water employed in agricultural irrigation - the biggest consumer of freshwater worldwide. This implies thinking about how to reduce that part of water that evaporates during irrigation, in particular from spray irrigation systems. Andrei P. Sommer and Dan Zhu, Institute of Micro and Nanomaterials, University of Ulm, Germany.