Thames Water begins pipe replacement project near Olympic Park

Carys Matthews in edie.net: Thames Water is replacing century-old pipes near the Olympic Park in a bid to reduce leaks and bursts. The £630,000 project in Waltham Forest, London started last weekend (13 August) and will see the water company lay 1.8km of robust plastic piping in place of 100-year-old cast iron pipes.



As part of the project, which is expected to take around four months, pipes in Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, will initially be replaced before work can be done in other areas. According to Thames Water, the plastic pipes will significantly reduce the volume of water that is lost through leaks and help to avoid future disruption to services.



Thames Water's head of capital delivery, Lawrence Gosden, said: "The pipe we are replacing is old and leaky. Not only does this waste water, it also inconveniences people when we have to dig up the road and do repairs.



"While we apologise for the inevitable disruption work of this nature causes, replacing old and leaking mains is essential as our water resources come under increasing pressure from climate change and population growth."...



Construction in 2009 at what will be London's Olunder the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licenseympic Park, shot by Damien Everett, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,

Adapting to climate change can be simple

Athar Parvaiz in IPS: Saraswoti Bhetwal’s terraced fields stand out in the sub-Himalayan Lamdihi village as a mosaic of shapes and colours formed by beans, bitter gourd, chilly, tomato, lady’s fingers and other crops. The reason for this abundance is simple. She took the training offered at a watershed management project run by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu seriously.



"After attending ICIMOD’s interaction programmes, where several experts offered help to famers like me, I realised the importance of integrated land management in boosting production," she told IPS. Saraswoti’s success at adaptation became apparent last year when a prolonged dry spell during the monsoon left her unscathed, but damaged her neighbours’ crops in Lamidihi, which falls in the Jikhu Khola watershed of Nepal’s Kavrepalanchok district, 45 km east of the national capital.



"I have been telling the others to adopt the same simple water management techniques that I learned at ICIMOD in order to avoid losses from erratic rains that is said to be caused by climate change," she said. Nepal’s farmers felt the impact of climate change worst during the 2008-2009 winter drought when most of the country received less than 50 percent of normal rainfall while average temperatures were one to two degrees Celsius above normal.



With wheat and barley production dropping by 15 percent and 17 percent respectively and maize severely affected, the World Food Programme (WFP) has had to step up aid. . WFP is expected to provide food to 1.2 million Nepalese this year at a cost of 98.5 million dollars, particularly in the mid-and far-western hills of Nepal, a country considered among the poorest in the world....



Planting a rice paddy in Ramechhap district in Nepal, shot by Krish Dulal, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Recent rain helps but West Texas still in a drought

Beau Berman at CBS7 News (Texas): The ground is damp and temperatures are lower but even after the weekend’s rainfall, west Texas is still in a severe drought. The recent rain was a nice respite from months of total dryness and while it did boost one of our reservoirs, city officials are urging residents to stick to the restrictions.



The recent downpours are providing some much needed relief to west Texas, adding moisture to the soil and helping to replenish local ponds. The greatest impact is at the Ivie Reservoir, where rain and runoff added 2500 acre-feet of water, enough to supply about three weeks worth of water to CRMWD customers.



Still, city officials say we're not out of the drought just yet. "The water restrictions are still enforced, code enforcement will still be looking for violators and nuisance water", says Midland Utilities Superintendent Johnny Womack. Midland's “Hill Park” looks like a pond once again, after months of dryness. But Womack says the less than two inches of rainfall was not enough to deliver us from the drought.



The weekend rains helped add some water back to the duck pond in Midland that desperately needed the moisture, as did many yards around the area, but Midland and Odessa are now both warning residents that this doesn't mean it's time to start wasting water....



Double Mountain Fork Brazos River, 9 km north of Rotan, in Fisher County, Texas or 15 km south of Double Mountain, Stonewall County, Texas. Shot by Leaflet, who has released the image into the public domain