To my dear visitors and commenters

Hi, everybody! I've noticed with lots of joy and happiness, that thousands of comments have been written in my posts. It's wonderful that so may people around the world appreciate my work. Therefore, I want to thank you for that and ,at the same time I want to ask you to be this blog's followers. It's fast and easy! Make it be even more visited and spread all over the world! I'm a woman, a teacher of English in Portugal, and I've been away for quite a long time because of my father's health. Unfortunately he died from Covid19 a few months ago. Now I felt it was time to restart my activity in this and other blogs I owe. I've recently created a new one in a partnership with a street photographer, Mr. Daniel Antunes. He's fabulous! https://pandpbydandd.blogspot.com I'd like you to visit it and, who knows, become our followers. The poems, chronicles and thoughts are all mine. Thank you so much! Kisses :-)

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Saturday, June 21, 2014

How Australia's Perth is battling a water crisis

On the south-western coast of the world's driest inhabited continent sits a green, vibrant city that is defying a chronic lack of rain and warming temperatures.

File photo of Perth skyline
The Australian city of Perth has managed to overcome environmental challenges

Perth is Australia's driest major city, yet in its central areas at least, does not feel like a place that has confronted a water crisis. From its perch on Mount Eliza, Kings Park peers majestically over skyscrapers and office blocks, offering lush oases for weary workers and visitors, along with some of the most perfect grass your correspondent has ever seen.
The park with its grand avenues, memorials and statues has become a symbol of Perth's resourcefulness in the face of monumental environmental challenges.
Between 1990 to 1999, the average annual rainfall in the Western Australian state capital was 766mm. Since 2009, that figure has fallen to 656mm.
"Western Australia has seen climate change happen faster and earlier than almost anywhere else on the planet. In the last 15 years the water from rain into our dams has dropped to one-sixth of what it used to be before that," said Sue Murphy, chief executive of the Western Australia Water Corporation.
"We've pretty much lost the capital of Western Australia Perth's water supply and so in the last 15 years we've had to rebuild that supply."
'Climate independence'
For a city touched by the Indian Ocean, it has not had to look far for part of the solution. Two large water factories or desalination plants that turn the sea into potable supplies, have been built. Perth can now get half of its drinking water from the ocean, although conservationists worry that the process is expensive and energy hungry. There has been a hefty price for the community, with household bills doubling in recent years.
While stripping salt from seawater has helped to insulate a growing population against the effects of a drying climate, authorities have been experimenting with the Gnangara system, Perth's largest source of groundwater.
A decade-long trial of injecting treated wastewater into deep aquifers up to 1,000m underground has recently ended. The recycled supplies have been flushed into sandy soil, which acts as a natural filtration process, before clean water is extracted for drinking and irrigation.
"The groundwater replenishment trial was highly successful and is now in production," said Greg Claydon, the executive director of Science and Planning at the Department of Water.
"The project… is a highly innovative, sensible approach to the sustainable management of the use of the Gnangara groundwater resource. The green light to progress to seven billion litres a year last year is part of the state's climate independence plan."
Most Western Australians see water for what it is - scarce, valuable and not to be wasted. The old British habit of brushing teeth with the taps in full flow would not be tolerated in these parched parts.
Over the past decade, Perth's population has grown by more than a third, yet last year demand for water was down by 8% compared with 2003.


Thursday, June 19, 2014

Chimpanzees stealing crops in parts of Africa

Gangs of thieving chimps are stealing crops from hundreds of thousands of people in Africa, says a new study.

Chimpanzee in a tree

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin say chimps aren't eating their natural food, instead stealing crops from fields near forests where they live.
It's thought the problem is having an impact on the diet of people there.
Some farmers have given up trying to stop them, but these crops are crucial food sources for many African people, so others are trying to fight back.

The challenge

The problem is that staying up after dark to defend their crops puts farmers at risk of mosquitoes that come out at night.
These insects live in their fields and spread malaria, which can be a deadly disease if not treated.
Chimpanzees are also a protected species, so any action by the farmers has to bear in mind their conservation.

The solution

Finding a solution is difficult because they have to consider the interests of humans alongside the protection of these animals.
Scientists say solving the conflict would need to combine the farmers' local knowledge along with scientific know-how.
Combining the two could help make sure the animals' natural habitat is protected, but also that farmers and their families don't lose out on an important source of food.
From CBBC newsround

Reintroducing the beaver in a bid to combat future flooding

Beavers -  the engineers of Nature


There are calls for beavers to be reintroduced to the wild as part of the future management of water to prevent flooding. A native species hundreds of years ago, British beavers were hunted to extinction. The dams they build in tributaries and ditches hold back water upstream, allowing it to dissipate more slowly into the rivers system. reducing the potential flood risk.
Campaigners believe a project to bring them back to the wild really could help and is achievable.
Beavers build dams which hold water upstream, allowing it to dissipate more slowly into the rivers system, reducing potential flood risks.

Wikipedia

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