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Water Demand Management
Until relatively recently problems with water supply-demand balance were typically addressed through "supply augmentation", that is to say, building more dams, water treatment stations, etc. As long as water resources were considered abundant and the needs of the natural environment were ignored this reliance on the "engineering paradigm" made sense. Moreover, water utilities and governments have long preferred large capital projects to the less profitable and more difficult challenges of improving system efficiency (e.g. leakage reduction) and demand management. Water demand management came into vogue in the 1990s and 2000s at the same moment dams and similar supply augmentation schemes went out of fashion because they were increasingly seen as overly expensive, damaging to the environment (see Environmental impact of reservoirs), and socially unjust. Now, in the 2020s, it is accurate to say that demand management is the dominant approach in the richer countries of North Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water Treatment
Water treatment is any process that improves the Water quality, quality of water to make it appropriate for a specific end-use. The end use may be drinking water, drinking, industrial water supply, irrigation, river flow maintenance, water recreation or many other uses, including being safely returned to the environment. Water treatment removes contaminants and undesirable components, or reduces their concentration so that the water becomes fit for its desired end-use. This treatment is crucial to human health and allows humans to benefit from both drinking and irrigation use. Water is the most crucial compound for life on Earth, and having drinkable water is a key worldwide concern for the twenty-first century. All living things require clean, uncontaminated water as a basic requirement. Water covers more than 71 percent of the earth’s surface, but only around 1% of it is drinkable according to international standards due to various Contamination, contaminations . Waste water ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Practice Theory
Practice theory (or praxeology, theory of social practices) is a body of social theory within anthropology and sociology that explains society and culture as the result of structure and individual agency. Practice theory emerged in the late 20th century and was first outlined in the work of the French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. Practice theory developed in reaction to the Structuralist school of thought, developed by social scientists such Claude Lévi-Strauss who saw human behavior and organization systems as products of innate universal structures that reflect the mental structures of humans. Structuralist theory asserted that these structures governed all human societies. Practice theory is also built on the concept of agency. For practice theorists, the individual agent is an active participant in the formation and reproduction of their social world. History In 1972, French theorist and sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, published Outline of a Theory of Practice. Bourdieu's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Town Water Crisis
The Cape Town water crisis in South Africa was a period of severe water shortage in the Western Cape region, most notably affecting the City of Cape Town. While dam water levels had been decreasing since 2015, the Cape Town water crisis peaked during mid-2017 to mid-2018 when water levels hovered between 14 and 29 percent of total dam capacity. In late 2017, there were first mentions of plans for "Day Zero", a shorthand reference for the day when the water level of the major dams supplying the City could fall below 13.5 percent. "Day Zero" would mark the start of Level 7 water restrictions, when municipal water supplies would be largely switched off and it was envisioned that residents could have to queue for their daily ration of water. If this had occurred, it would have made the City of Cape Town the first major city in the world to run out of water.Booysen, M. J., & Visser, M., & Burger R. (2019). "Temporal case study of household behavioural response to Cape Town’s Day Ze ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water Supply And Sanitation In Malaysia
Water supply and sanitation in Malaysia is characterised by numerous achievements, as well as some challenges. Universal access to water supply at affordable tariffs is a substantial achievement. The government has also shown a commitment to make the sector more efficient, to create a sustainable funding mechanism and to improve the customer orientation of service providers through sector reforms enacted in 2006. The reform creates a modern institutional structure for the water sector, including an autonomous regulatory agency, an asset management company and commercialised state water companies that have to reach certain key performance indicators that will be monitored by the regulatory agency. The government has also stated its intention not to embark on new private sector contracts for water provision, after a bout of such contracts during the 1990s showed mixed results. A number of challenges remain, only some of which have been addressed by the reforms. First, tariffs are l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water Security
Water security is the focused goal of water policy and water management. A society with a high level of water security makes the most of water's benefits for humans and ecosystems and limits the risk of destructive impacts associated with water. These include too much water (flood), too little water (drought and water scarcity) or poor quality (polluted) water. A widely accepted definition of water security is: "Water security is the reliable availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks". Water security is framed as a situation where water-related risks are managed and water-related opportunities are captured but it is difficult to provide a set of indicators to quantify this. Policy-makers and water managers seek to achieve a variety of water security outcomes related to economic, environmental and social equity concerns. These outcomes can include increasing economic we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water Conservation
Water conservation includes all the policies, strategies and activities to sustainably manage the natural resource of fresh water, to protect the hydrosphere, and to meet the current and future human demand (thus avoiding water scarcity). Population, household size and growth and affluence all affect how much water is used. Factors such as climate change have increased pressures on natural water resources especially in manufacturing and agricultural irrigation. Many countries have already implemented policies aimed at water conservation, with much success. The key activities to conserve water are as follows: any beneficial reduction in Drying, water loss, use and waste of resources, avoiding any damage to water quality; and improving water management practices that reduce the use or enhance the beneficial use of water. Technology solutions exist for households, commercial and agricultural applications. Water conservation programs involved in social solutions are typically initiated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supply And Demand
In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a Market (economics), market. It postulates that, Ceteris paribus, holding all else equal, in a perfect competition, competitive market, the unit price for a particular Good (economics), good, or other traded item such as Labour supply, labor or Market liquidity, liquid financial assets, will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded (at the current price) will equal the quantity supplied (at the current price), resulting in an economic equilibrium for price and quantity transacted. The concept of supply and demand forms the theoretical basis of modern economics. In macroeconomics, as well, the AD–AS model, aggregate demand-aggregate supply model has been used to depict how the quantity of real GDP, total output and the aggregate price level may be determined in equilibrium. Graphical representations Supply schedule A supply schedule, depicted graphically as a supply cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forecasting
Forecasting is the process of making predictions based on past and present data. Later these can be compared (resolved) against what happens. For example, a company might estimate their revenue in the next year, then compare it against the actual results. Prediction is a similar but more general term. Forecasting might refer to specific formal statistical methods employing time series, cross-sectional or longitudinal data, or alternatively to less formal judgmental methods or the process of prediction and resolution itself. Usage can vary between areas of application: for example, in hydrology the terms "forecast" and "forecasting" are sometimes reserved for estimates of values at certain specific future times, while the term "prediction" is used for more general estimates, such as the number of times floods will occur over a long period. Risk and uncertainty are central to forecasting and prediction; it is generally considered a good practice to indicate the degree of uncertainty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Customer Demand Planning
Customer demand planning (CDP) is a business-planning process that enables sales teams to develop demand forecasts as input to service-planning processes, production, inventory planning and revenue planning. Definition CDP is an aspect of managing value chains. Generally, the first step of CDP is to forecast product demand. A manager can plan resource deployment in accordance with the resulting forecasts. It's a bottom-up approach vs. top down planning. Associated risks with this method are: Low forecast accuracy and numbers of planners required. There are various software systems that are designed to forecast demand and plan operations. To test the added value of implementing bottom-up approach, applications are providing simulations functionalities to estimate the resulting demand forecast accuracy (e.g. POS sales ; sales invoices ; shipments, etc.) In the manufacturer to retailer model, customer collaborative partnerships have become more common since the 1990s. Although t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water-energy Nexus
The water-energy nexus is the relationship between the water used for energy production,Spang, E. S., Moomaw, W. R., Gallagher, K. S., Kirshen, P. H., and Marks, D. H. (2014). "The water consumption of energy production: an international comparison." ''Environmental Research Letters'', 9(10), 105002. including both electricity and sources of fuel such as oil and natural gas, and the energy consumed to extract, purify, deliver, heat/cool, treat and dispose of water (and wastewater) sometimes referred to as the energy intensity (EI). The relationship is not truly a closed loop as the water used for energy production need not be the same water that is processed using that energy, but all forms of energy production require some input of water making the relationship inextricable. Among the first studies to evaluate the water and energy relationship was a life-cycle analysis conducted by Peter Gleick in 1994 that highlighted the interdependence and initiated the joint study of water and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water Resources
Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful for humans, for example as a source of drinking water supply or irrigation water. 97% of the water on the Earth is salt water and only three percent is fresh water; slightly over two thirds of this is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. The remaining unfrozen freshwater is found mainly as groundwater, with only a small fraction present above ground or in the air. Natural sources of fresh water include surface water, under river flow, groundwater and frozen water. Artificial sources of fresh water can include treated wastewater (wastewater reuse) and desalinated seawater. Human uses of water resources include agricultural, industrial, household, recreational and environmental activities. Water resources are under threat from water scarcity, water pollution, water conflict and climate change. Fresh water is a renewable resource, yet the world's supply of groundwater is steadily decreasing, with deplet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Water Supply And Sanitation
The history of water supply and sanitation is one of a logistical challenge to provide clean water and sanitation systems since the dawn of civilization. Where water resources, infrastructure or sanitation systems were insufficient, diseases spread and people fell sick or died prematurely. Major human settlements could initially develop only where fresh surface water was plentiful, such as near rivers or natural springs. Throughout history, people have devised systems to make getting water into their communities and households and disposing of (and later also treating) wastewater more convenient. The historical focus of sewage treatment was on the conveyance of raw sewage to a natural body of water, e.g. a river or ocean, where it would be diluted and dissipated. Early human habitations were often built next to water sources. Rivers would often serve as a crude form of natural sewage disposal. Over the millennia, technology has dramatically increased the distances across which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
