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Xinhua (China): Climate change may increase risk of water shortage in U.S. by 2050: study
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- AP (US):25 million tons of tsunami debris floating toward US shores
Xinhua (China): Climate change may increase risk of water shortage in U.S. by 2050: study16 February 2012 More than one third of the counties in the United States could face a "high" or "extreme" risk of water shortage due to climate change by 2050, according to a study published Wednesday. The new study, carried in the Journal of Environmental Science & Technology, also concluded that 70 percent of the more than 3,100 U.S. counties could face "some" risk of shortage of fresh water for drinking, farming and other uses. Population growth is expected to increase the demand for water for municipal use and for electricity generation beyond existing levels, Sujoy Roy, a researcher from California-based Terra Tech Research and Development, and colleagues said in the analysis. Global climate change threatens to reduce water supplies due to decreased rainfall and other factors compared with levels in the 20th century, they said. Roy's group developed a "water supply sustainability risk index" that takes into account water withdrawal, projected growth, susceptibility to drought, projected climate change and other factors in individual U.S. counties for the year 2050. It takes into account renewable water supply through precipitation using the most recent downscaled climate change projections and estimates future withdrawals for various human uses. The team used the index to conclude that climate change could foster an "extreme" risk of water shortage that may develop in 412 counties in southern and southwestern parts of the United States. "This is not intended as a prediction that water shortage will occur, but rather where they are more likely to occur, and where there might be greater pressure on public officials and water users to better characterize, and creatively manage demand and supply," Roy said. Back to Menu _________________________________________________________________ AP (US):25 million tons of tsunami debris floating toward US shores15 February 2012 Wrecked cars, portions of homes, boats, furniture and more -- all swept up by the destructive, magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck off the coast of Japan 11 months ago -- are on a slow-motion collision course with California. But no one's tracking the debris, Jim Churnside, a physicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency's (NOAA) Marine Debris Program, told FoxNews.com. "It would be really nice, but it’s really difficult," Churnside expained. The wreckage from the March 11, 2011, disaster could include virtually anything that floats, according to oceanographer and beachcomber Curtis Ebbesmeyer -- and that includes portions of houses, boats, ships, furniture, cars and even human remains. I would not be surprised to see some fishing vessels by April. Independent models constructed by the NOAA and the University of Hawaii show a vast, loose debris field drifting inexorably toward Hawaii, California and Washington -- the first fishing buoys reached the West Coast in mid December, Ebbesmeyer wrote in his "Beachcombers Alert" newsletter. The flotsam is expected to increase, with the bulk of the debris hitting some time in 2014. "I would not be surprised to see some fishing vessels by April, and the main mass of debris start arriving a year from this March," Ebbesmeyer told FoxNews.com. Beyond that, it's hard to say exactly how big the debris is -- or even where the majority of it is. "After the tsunami, the debris was closely clumped together," Churnside told FoxNews.com. "After storms and over time, those [clumps] kind of get broken up. I don’t think there’s going to be much that’s visible from satellites right now." High resolution satellite cameras could pick up the scattered remains -- the houses and cars, the ruined fishing boats and oil drums. But setting such a camera to exhaustively scan the vastness of the Pacific Ocean would be tedious and expensive, he noted. "There’s no good efficient way to do it," Churnside said, "just because it’s spread out by now over such a huge area." Floating debris travels at about 7 mph, Ebbesmeyer said, but it can move as much as 20 mph if it has a large area exposed to the wind, according to a report in the Associated Press. That said, Churnside expects models of the debris path from last summer are probably accurate. The debris is not expected to be radioactive. Carey Morishige, the Pacific Islands Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program, told science blog Earthsky.org that radioactivity is probably not an issue, since the tsunami carried most of the debris seaward before the failure of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor. "All debris should be treated with a great reverence and respect," Ebbesmeyer told the AP. Churnside plans to revisit his models of the enormous debris field next month, one year after the devasting event. Back to Menu _________________________________________________________________ Dominican Today (Dominican Republic): The UN, Environment Ministry launch timber projects in poor areas 15 February 2012 The Environment Ministry (MIMARENA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched the project Bolstering Dominican Republic’s Local Wood Industry, to directly benefit 244 small and medium timber producers nationwide. MIMARENA Forest Resources vice minister Manuel Sierra, FAO representative Deep Ford, and Farming and Forestry Development Center (CEDAF) director Juan Jose Espinal unveiled the project, which will count on FAO’s technical and financial support. The projectds aims to motor the sustainable development of the Forest Industry subsector, promoting initiatives toward higher efficiency and competitiveness, to improve the living conditions in the rural communities surrounding the forests. Its objectives include training lumber workers on how to cut, mill, cure and preserve wood, access to markets, business management and norms and provide technical advice on the industrial processes, technological transference and contributing equipment for pilot projects. The owners of the beneficiary sawmills will work with raw materials from the forest plantations managed by the project, which will prioritize operations located in the most impoverished zones with important lumber production, such as Monte Plata, Cotuí, Villa Altagracia, Monción and Restauración. Back to Menu _________________________________________________________________ Slate (France): La centrale nucléaire de Fukushima reste sous la menace d'un fort séisme 15 February 2012 La centrale nucléaire de Fukushima Daiichi 1, largement détruite par les explosions qui ont suivi le tsunami du 11 mars 2011, reste sous la menace d’un nouveau tremblement de terre de forte magnitude. Tel est le résultat d’une étude publiée le 14 février 2012 dans Solid Earth, une revue de la European Geosciences Union (EGU). Les scientifiques ont analysé les répliques du séisme de magnitude 9 sur l’échelle de Richter qui a frappé le Japon le 11 mars 2011 et engendré le tsunami qui a dévasté plusieurs régions côtières, fait plusieurs dizaines de milliers de victimes et inondé la centrale de Fukushima Daiichi 1. L’épicentre de ce séisme se trouvait à 160 km de la centrale. Selon les chercheurs, un nouveau tremblement de terre pourrait se produire “dans un futur proche” à une distance beaucoup plus faible. La zone étudiées est située à l'intérieur du carré noir. L'étoile mauve indique l'épicentre du séisme du 11 mars 2011. L'étoile rouge, celui du séisme d'Iwaki le 11 avril 2011. Fukushima Daiichi est représenté par un carré rouge. Les triangles noirs marquent les volcans actifs. , “Il y a quelques failles actives dans la région de la centrale nucléaire et nos résultats montrent l’existence d’anomalies structurelles similaires sur les sites de Iwaki et de Fukushima Daiichi. Étant donné qu’un fort séisme s’est produit récemment à Iwaki, nous pensons qu’un tremblement de terre aussi puissant peut se produire près de Fukushima”, explique le responsable de l’équipe de chercheurs, Dapeng Zhao, professeur de géophysique à l’université de Tohoku. Le 11 avril 2011, un mois après le drame du 11 mars, le séisme de magnitude 7 survenu à Iwaki a été le plus fort des répliques dont l’épicentre se situait à l’intérieur des terres. Celui du séisme d’Iwaki se trouvait à 60 km au sud-ouest de Fukushima. Fluides ascentionnels D’après la publication des scientifiques, le séisme d’Iwaki a été déclenché par des fluides se déplaçant verticalement à partir de la plaque de subduction du Pacifique. Cette dernière s’enfonce sous la région nord-est du Japon ce qui augmente la pression et la température des matériaux qui la compose. C’est ce qui provoque l’expulsion de l’eau contenue dans les roches et engendre la formation de fluides moins denses qui remontent vers la partie supérieure de la croûte terrestre et peuvent altérer les failles qui se produisent après les séismes. Ces fluides agissent comme des lubrifiants “en abaissant le coefficient de friction de certaines parties des failles actives et peuvent déclencher un puissant tremblement de terre. Associé aux variations de tensions engendrées par le séisme du 11 mars, ce phénomène a déclenché le séisme d’Iwaki”, indique Ping Tong, autre coauteur de la publication. Plusieurs centrales concernées par l’alerte Les chercheurs étayent leurs conclusions sur les enregistrements et l’analyse tomographique de 6000 séismes réalisés à Iwaki après 11 mars. Au total, pas moins de 24 000 tremblements de terre ont été enregistrés entre le 11 mars et le 11 avril 2011, contre moins de 1300 au cours des 9 années précédentes. S’ils ne peuvent prédire précisément quand se produira un fort séisme près de Fukushima Daiichi, les scientifiques estiment que les mouvements ascensionnels de fluides indiquent qu’il pourrait se produire d’ici peu. Ils alertent ainsi les autorités sur les précautions à prendre pour préparer le site de la centrale nucléaire à un tel événement et réduire les risques d’une nouvelle catastrophe nucléaire. D’autres centrales japonaises sont concernées par cet avertissement: Fukushima Daini, Onagawa et Tokaï. Back to Menu ============================================================= Environmental News from the UNEP Regions ROA MEDIA UPDATE THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS Friday 16, 2012 Directory: cpi -> briefs briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news Download 302.1 Kb. Share with your friends:
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