Turkish Farmers Learn to Cut Water Use Up to 50% - Blue Living Ideas

Turkish Farmers Learn to Cut Water Use Up to 50%

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Zachary Shahan.

About 72% of total water use in Turkey is for agriculture. This 72% is important when the country’s largest city, Istanbul, can be out of running water for days at a time in the summer.

“We have to change our perception of water and water use practices considerably,” WWF-Turkey CEO Dr. Filiz Demirayak told the World Water Forum in Istanbul in March.
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New Initiative Addresses Middle Eastern Water Poverty

Posted on Feb 15, 2010 by Scott James.

Early this month in Jordan, seven Middle Eastern countries launched the Water and Livelihoods Initiative (WLI), an international conference on food security and climate change focused on the most elemental of resources: water. The 10 year project is looking at how farmers can best use their limited water resources for irrigated and rain-fed agriculture, and both native shrubs and grasses for rangeland grazing. The WLI will bring together communities from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Notably absent in from the list are Saudi Arabia Israel.
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Lake Chad Recognized as a Wetland of International Importance

Posted on Feb 09, 2010 by Scott James.

In a world where governments, borders and legislation have everything to do with how our natural resources are treated, it’s cause for celebration when an important body of water in a dry area shared by four countries is recognized as worth protecting. On World Wetlands Day (February 2) 2010, the Cameroon Republic declared its portion of Lake Chad, Africa’s fourth largest lake, a wetland of international importance under the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Similar declarations were made by the other 3 countries that share Lake Chad as a boundary and water source: Niger and Chad in 2001 and Nigeria in 2008.
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Mimicking Nature: Man Builds Imitation Glacier

Posted on Jan 26, 2010 by Susan Kraemer.

The Himalayas have vertically receding glaciers, threatening water supplies that have been used for drinking water and for growing crops since the dawn of history. Exactly how much will be gone, in the next twenty years in this particular region, at this rate, is the subject of some ongoing (much ballyhooed by corporate media) scientific uncertainty, but the fact remains that local farmers in this region find that water for crops is already being lost too soon in the year.

To restore glacier-melt locally to where it is needed, an Indian civil engineer; now known locally as Mr Glacier, has built 10 imitation glaciers.

Like the invention of horizontally diverted water for farming in arid areas was 10,000 years ago, his idea is both brilliant and obvious…

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Better Water Management Means Increased Crop Production

Posted on Dec 09, 2009 by Scott James.

Read the news on any given day and you’re likely to find two themes: we are running out of water and we need more food for a growing population. A new study that is the first to quantify the possibilities of water management as it is related to increasing crop production examined current crop production levels and the potential effects of various water management strategies offers hope for increased production, but the numbers show that it’s not nearly what we will need.
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