Rainwater Harvesting

Big Dreams, Small (and Clever) Projects

DWC helped implement this solar pumping station in Ethiopia.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
From March 2012 World Rivers ReviewDWC helped implement this solar pumping station in Ethiopia. Oliver Kopsch is a clean-energy enabler. His company, DecRen Water Consult (DWC), based in Germany, designs decentralized water systems powered by renewable energies. We talked to Oliver about his approach, and lessons learned from some recent projects. The business model.We are a private commercial company, based in Germany. We started about 10 years ago, after a few of us came to the conclusion that we weren’t doing what we were meant to do. We started by selling solar desalination products,

Watering the Grassroots: Training African Women to Solve Water Problems

These women have just been trained in improved water and sanitation practices by the Global Women's Water Initiative
From March 2011 World Rivers Review"Water is life. When everyone has access to sources of water that are treated, protected and managed effectively, there will be improvement in the livelihood of the community members - especially women and children who have to move miles away in search of water for daily household activities." Nadiatu Ali and Victoria Yaro (2010 GWWI Grassroots Graduates) These women have just been trained in improved water and sanitation practices by the Global Women's Water Initiative More people die from unsafe water than all forms of violence, including war. Africa fac

A Year of Rivers, Water and Rights

How about Earth Day everyday?
How about Earth Day everyday? http://www.earthday.ca/pub/merchandise/calendar/index.html Normally, my experience with the hoopla surrounding national and international days of commemoration–Black History Month (US), World AIDS Day, International Women's Day, etc.–is tempered by a good dose of caution (except for our own International Day of Action for Rivers of course). Call it an early onset of cynicism perhaps, but I can't help feeling that a lot of these commemorative days and months get short-changed. Schools in the US do a day-long event on famous Black figures in US his

Spreading the Water Wealth

Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Op-ed from Patrick McCully in March 2006, ahead of the World Water Forum 4 in Mexico. Thousands of politicians, water bureaucrats, corporate lobbyists, and NGO activists are converging on Mexico City on March 16 for the fourth World Water Forum. This jamboree aims to tackle perhaps the world's most pressing problem: how to ensure every person has access to enough clean water to live a decent life while ensuring sufficient supplies to water crops and maintain freshwater ecosystems. The grim statistics of water – more than a billion people without access to decent drinking water, more than tw

Ethiopia's Water Dilemma

Thursday, June 1, 2006
Water in abundance. Over the Simian Hills in the highlands of Tigray it is raining heavily. In no time, there are large pools of water standing in the fields behind the low stone walls marking the plots. Dried-up erosion gullies turn into brownish torrents, and the Tekezze River down in the Valley swells from a small, harmless and lazy stream into a wild monster of rapids, whirlpools and cataracts. Water shortage. Every year in June, Tadesse Desta hopes for the timely start of the rainy season to start sowing tef. Only a few weeks later he has to worry that the grain will dry up and there will

Narmada River

The "Rally for the Valley" to stop dam construction on the Narmada in 1999.
A massive engineering scheme that would bring hundreds of dams to the Narmada River and have far-reaching impacts on millions of poor farmers is today one of the most controversial development issues in contemporary India, one that symbolizes the clash over who benefits from development and who pays for it. When construction started in 1988, it gave rise to one of the world's largest social movements, the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement).

Water for All

Poor water access particularly affects women and girls
Poor water access particularly affects women and girls Photo: JA! Inequitable access to water, especially for growing crops, is a major factor in global poverty, and a death sentence for millions each year. Ending this unacceptable situation will require a radically new approach to investing in water infrastructure. The major engineering works that dominated 20th century water management has been discounted for its technical and economic failures, for benefiting the well-off at the expense of the poor, and for its massively negative impacts on ecosystems. Water mismanagement contributes towar

Creating a True “Trickle-Down Economy”

Pumping water with a treadle pump.
Monday, December 1, 2003
Low-Cost Drip Systems Bring Income, Food Security to Rural PoorWorld Rivers Review, December 2003 Paul Polak thinks big and designs small. He aims to cut rural poverty worldwide, and he’s using humble $1 micro-irrigation kits to do it. “Water is essential to alleviating poverty,” Polak says. “If you want to do anything about it, you have to start with small farmers and irrigation.” Unlike the big development agencies, which put their faith in “trickle down” economics fueled by mega-projects, Paul Polak is establishing a new kind of “trickle down” economy, based on individual

Alternatives to Large Dams in India: Easy and Cheap Options

Rainwater harvesting has improved harvests for this Indian family.
Rainwater harvesting has improved harvests for this Indian family. Credit: Patrick McCully The bulk of the aid and investment money for water and energy development in India is spent on building large new generating plants and industrial-scale irrigation projects. This generally does nothing to improve poor people’s access to modern energy services, safe water and basic sanitation. It is also not the most sustainable or affordable way to address the growing demand for electricity and water services in the country. The construction of more large generating plants to feed the centralized gri

Spreading the Water Wealth: Op-Ed by Patrick McCully

Thousands of politicians, water bureaucrats, corporate lobbyists, and NGO activists are converging on Mexico City on March 16 for the fourth World Water Forum. This jamboree aims to tackle perhaps the world's most pressing problem: how to ensure every person has access to enough clean water to live a decent life while ensuring sufficient supplies to water crops and maintain freshwater ecosystems. The grim statistics of water – more than a billion people without access to decent drinking water, more than two million children dead each year due to dirty water and poor sanitation, hundreds of m
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