World Water Day

Just a quick note that today is World Water Day.

It is still a reality that an estimated 1.1 billion people rely on unsafe drinking-water sources. Therefore the theme of World Water Day 2010 is focusing on raising awareness of water quality under the theme "Clean Water for a Healthy World". IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre offers a wide selection of documents looking at the different aspects of water quality such as water treatment, health and technology. This information is for instance, available via the IRC digital library, the Source Newsletter and on the IRC web site.

Source: www.worldwaterday.org

What are you doing to reduce the amount of water you use needlessly? What are you doing to positively impact the water quality in your neighbourhood? Or in another part of the world?

Dalhousie residence students are currently having a competition to reduce the amount of water they use by having shorter showers, turning off the taps while brushing their teeth, and taking advantage of low flow shower heads and dual flow toilets where they are available. Additionally, a public forum was held this afternoon on campus as well.

Celebrate World Water Day and start a habit that you can carry forward from today onward.

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Water Usage and Gold Medal Hockey

This is a really interesting graph, put out by EPCOR showing Edmonton's water usage during the gold medal hockey game at the end of the Olympics in Vancouver. For comparison, the previous day is shown in a lighter colour.

What should be obvious from the graph, and is relatively amusing, is that people were generally "holding it" while the game was on, and made furious dashes to the washroom (with the corresponding flush) at the end of each hockey period. The intense the action on the ice, the less intense the action in the washroom.

One might suppose that the major spikes in the usage at these times were also the result of the copious consumption of libations and this may in fact be true. But what interests me... and what may be a bit of a surprise, is that it also appears that the water savings during the hockey game out-strips the sudden rush during the breaks. The area under the comparison line appears to be much greater than the area above the comparison line. Thus, it might be suggested that hockey is in fact good for the environment...

Obviously, washroom usage is more or less constant and at best, would just be deferred until a later time, but could other water-intensive activities be lessened as a result of mass hockey watching?

Source: The National Post

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