I thought it would be easy to blog periodically as the semester started, way back in January, but my return to full-time teaching turned out to be more time-consuming than I planned…and then, Coronavirus was upon us. I am feeling compelled to carve out the time to say a few things about water in the […]

One of the “hidden” issues around water is the vast quantities which are often required for producing the goods we buy every day. Manufacturing of almost any sort of product generates heat. Water has an unusually high “heat capacity” — it can absorb a lot of heat without boiling, as anyone who has ever waited […]

A great deal of reporting around climate change has focused on rising sea levels and their impact on coastal communities around the world. These are urgent concerns, particularly for those of us who do live near the coast, as I do. However, changing weather patterns are also creating major changes for inland waters. The Army […]

My husband and I are vacationing in Florida, and as you can see from the photo taken at our Daytona Beach hotel, there appears to be plenty of water around us. The ocean, the pool, the clouds in the sky. Florida, in fact, is a place most often known for too much water. Hurricanes can […]

My friends at Knowable Magazine have published a fascinating review of the challenges of providing clean water in places that have no municipal water system. Technology can take the process only so far. The success or failure of a particular system relies heavily on human behavior, including education, training, reinforcement, and empowerment. There are lessons […]

Recently the San Francisco Airport (SFO) announced that it would soon prohibit the sale of bottled water in plastic bottles.  Plastics are a major problem in landfills and in our oceans, and the market for recycling plastics has collapsed in recent months.  Some bottled water companies are considering switching to packaging their product in aluminum […]

The recently-released report from the World Resources Institute (WRI) made headlines in all the major news outlets yesterday, with headlines such as “A Quarter of Humanity Faces Looming Water Crises, Study Says (New York Times)” and “India’s Chennai rapid growth threatened by water shortages (Washington Post).” Why is this happening? Some of the crisis is […]