As Climate Warms, Cities Look To Adjust

As climate warms, cities look to adjust
By John K. Wiley

The Associated Press

SPOKANE — Unlike her neighbors', Rachael Paschal Osborn's yard isn't an expanse of green grass meticulously fertilized and watered on schedule by timed sprinklers.

Paschal Osborn, a public-interest lawyer who teaches water law at Gonzaga University's Law School, doesn't like to waste a drop. So the grass in her west Spokane yard is brown during the summer, while drought-resistant native plants and her vegetable garden thrive on drip irrigation.

Climate experts say the rest of Washington may have to follow Paschal Osborn's example in the future as global warming changes the way residents use water on their yards and in their homes.

The gradual warming of the earth's surface will have both benefits and drawbacks for municipal water systems, they say.

Kurt Ungur, a hydrogeologist with the state Department of Ecology, said a warmer climate likely will produce about the same amounts of precipitation — possibly a bit more — but its timing will change from historic patterns.

In winter, more precipitation will fall as rain, rather than snow, which serves as the mountain "bank" for much of the state's water supplies. In spring, warmer temperatures will bring earlier runoff, leading to potential conflicts over scarce water in late summer, he said.

Paschal Osborn, co-founder with husband John Osborn of the nonprofit Columbia Institute for Water Policy, said most of the state's cities are unprepared for the consequences of global warming.

"The potential for change is dramatic. It could change the natural ecology of forests. It is also going to change the human landscape," Paschal Osborn said. "It will change what we can grow for crops and what we can grow in our yards."

Paschal Osborn, Ungur and others point to Seattle, which has taken the lead in promoting water conservation and planning for the effects of climate change.

Heather Cooley of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, Calif., said communities could reduce their annual water consumption by 30 percent through use of low-flow devices, efficient landscaping and more efficient use of water by commercial and industrial customers.

Paul Fleming, manager of climate-change initiatives for Seattle's water utility, said the key will be mitigating effects of greenhouse-gas emissions, then adapting to the changes that warming will bring.

"The impacts don't manifest themselves for quite a while. I think we have some time to make investments to strengthen the resiliency of our system," Fleming said.

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
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My previous entry this year on effect of climate change on Washington state and melting glaciers:

North Cascade Glaciers

You must look at these pictures.
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Wednesday, January 10, 2007 · Last updated 6:01 p.m. PT

New study says climate change already affecting Washington

By GENE JOHNSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SEATTLE -- From more devastating wildfires to decreased snow in the mountains, climate change is already affecting Washington's economy, a new report says.

And as temperatures continue to increase, the changes will only become more dramatic: Low-lying areas such as the Skagit River delta will flood as sea levels rise, more people will get asthma as pollution worsens and the state's dairy cows will produce less milk in hotter weather, to cite a few of the report's warnings.

The report was commissioned by the state departments of Ecology and Community Trade and Economic Development, and was researched and written by Climate Leadership Initiative at the University of Oregon, with guidance from Washington economists and scientists.

There are too many variables involved to put a price tag on the impact climate change is already having or will have in the future, the report said.

"Absent focused efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to prepare, to the extent possible, for the environmental and economic changes that cannot be avoided, damage to our Northwest economy will only increase," Ecology Director Jay Manning said in a news release.

The 119-page report weighs the effects of warmer temperatures on various sectors of the economy, based on predictions that the region's climate will warm half-a-degree per decade over the next several decades, and poses questions for policymakers to consider.

Among the gravest concerns are effects that retreating snowpack in the mountains will have on hydropower generation, drinking water supplies, irrigation for crops and stream flows for salmon. As many as 75 percent of glaciers in the North Cascades could vanish in this century if those warming predictions prove true, the report said.

Climate Change Affecting Washington State
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glaciers are melting all over the world from the Himalayas, to the Alps, to South America, to Africa, New Zealand, Greenland, the Arctic, and also right here in the United States. And they are melting at a faster rate than scientists had previously predicted because the real affects of human induced climate change combined with other weather phenomenon are much more extreme than anticipated as well.

The signs are there regarding what human behavior regarding burning fossil fuels to wasteful management of resources is doing to our planet and our resources, chief among them water. It is time for people to see these signs, understand them truthfully, and prepare for what we have put into motion as well by doing everything possible to preserve what we have left. We threaten our future existence the longer we continue to drag our feet.

Many people do not realize how important an indicator melting glaciers are regarding climate change. With every inch that melts, it is less snow pack to fill rivers and streams that provide water for living. With every inch that melts, a bit of climate history goes with it.

Glaciers Melting Worldwide, Study Finds

I do not believe we can now stop these glaciers from melting, but we can hopefully slow it down and begin to help mitigating even more catastrophic affects of the climate crisis that will threaten the world water supply even more severely in years to come. Conservation is key. Facing the crisis of overpopulation is key in regards to providing people in underdeveloped and developing countries with information on family planning and birth control. Looking into alternate energies (not corn ethanol) for underdeveloped countries and developing countries that do not waste water (as in solar power.) And most importantly, educating people about irrigation methods (such as subsurface drip irrigation) that do not waste water!

This for sure is a crisis that has already begun. However, the most devastating effects of it can be mitigated if we only see the URGENCY of acting NOW. How long will we wait? Until the Snows of Kilamanjaro are gone? Until there are no more Alps? No more Himalayas? The repercussions of such a thing are simply too catastrophic to contemplate.

Also see my other entries on this topic with more to come:

The Glaciers of South America: Cities In Peril Of Losing Water

Tibet's Lofty Glaciers Melting Away

Water At Risk For Millions Due To Melting Glaciers

China: Ravaged Rivers

China:Ravaged Rivers

CHINA: Ravaged Rivers

by Jane Spencer, Wall Street Journal
August 22nd, 2007

Last summer, Chinese government investigators crawled through a hole in the concrete wall that surrounds the Fuan Textiles mill in southern China and launched a surprise inspection of the plant. What they found caused alarm at dozens of American retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Lands' End Inc. and Nike Inc., that use the company's fabric in their clothes.

Villagers had complained that the factory, majority owned by Hong Kong-based Fountain Set Holdings Ltd., had turned their river water dark red. Authorities discovered a pipe buried underneath the factory floor that was dumping roughly 22,000 tons of water contaminated from its dyeing operations each day into a nearby river, according to local environmental-protection officials.

In the more than two decades since international companies began turning to Chinese factories to churn out the cheap T-shirts, jeans and sneakers that people around the world wear daily, China's air, land and water have paid a heavy price. China has faced harsh criticism in recent months over the safety of exports ranging from tainted toothpaste to toxic toys. But environmental activists and the Chinese government are increasingly pointing to the flip side: the role multinational companies play in China's growing pollution by demanding ever-lower prices for Chinese products.

Prices on fabric and clothing imported to the U.S. have fallen 25% since 1995, partly due to the downward pricing pressure brought by discount retail chains. One way China's factories have historically kept costs down is by dumping waste water directly into rivers. Treating contaminated water costs upwards of about 13 cents a metric ton, so large factories can save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by sending waste water directly to rivers in violation of China's water-pollution laws.

"Prices in the U.S. are artificially low," says Andy Xie, former chief economist for Morgan Stanley Asia, who now works independently. "You're not paying the costs of pollution, and that is why China is an environmental catastrophe."

end of excerpt

Polluted China Rivers Threaten Sixth of Population
Updated Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:32pm AEST




A Chinese workers clears away rubbish from a polluted river in Beijing. (File photo) (AFP: Teh Eng Koon)


Polluters along two of China's main rivers have defied over a decade of clean-up efforts, leaving much of the water unfit to touch, let alone drink, and a risk to a sixth of the population, state media says.

Half the check points along the Huai River and its tributaries in central and eastern China showed pollution of "Grade 5" or worse; the top of the dial in key toxins, meaning that the water was unfit for human contact and may not be fit even for irrigation.

Fourteen years of measures had reined in some of the worst pollution along the Huai and Liao Rivers but factory waste remains far too high, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) environment and resources protection committee Mao Rubai said in a report.

The rivers posed a "threat to the water safety of one sixth of the country's 1.3 billion population", the China Daily said.

The pollution on the Huai threatened the massive South-North Water Transfer Project to draw water from the Yangtze River through the Huai basin to the country's parched north, Mr Mao said.

"Large volumes of untreated domestic effluent and industrial waste-water are dumped directly into the river," Mr Mao said of one of the Huai's worst polluted tributaries.

"To judge from the inspection, the quality of water used for the South-North Water Transfer Project is threatened by pollution, and this must attract our vigilance."

end of excerpt.
~~~~
Water pollution, air pollution, acid rain, water scarcity, SO2 pollution, desertification, deforestation, drought... All products of China's enormous and hastened economic boom. At the beginning China's attitude was progress at any cost, but now they are paying dearly for the masssive amounts of Co2 So2, Nitrates, and other pollutants their "progress" is spewing into our world's air and their waterways which is killing more than 90% of their rivers and lakes and treating our atmosphere like an open sewer.

I have written a few times about China because to me it is a country that represents the epitome of a moral challenge as does the United States. In its fervor to be number one it abandoned its moral soul just as the United States has done in its quest to be the ultimate war machine. Now, China can sit and blame the United States for that (and some of the blame in regards to "cheap outsourcing" may well fall on the U.S.,) but the truth is that moral fortitude is something you either have or you don't.

The picture in China regarding its environment looks bleak if government does not step up now to quickly mitigate the damage they are causing to the ecosystems of this world and the economic losses of crops and land that make their progress over pollution agenda a losing proposition.

And above all, the greatest loss will be the water. With glaciers in this region melting at a faster pace than first predicted by scientists and at a faster pace than their worst scenarios, they will need sources of water to fall back on. Polluted rivers and lakes in concert with dams that are bringing on pollution and environmental degradation along with an encroaching desert and other conditions brought on by their insatiable addiction to coal, are not conditions conducive to either responsible government or moral fortitude.

At this stage it is going to take more than some efficiency lightbulbs to solve this massive problem. It is going to take China seeing that progress does not mean you have to give up sustainability and it is going to take this country allowing their people to speak freely about the environment because in China it is now a matter of life and death that they do.

SIWI-World Water Week Report

World Water Week/Stockholm
A comprehensive and thorough report of the events from each day of the conference.

Strong Messages As 2007 World Water Week Ends
8/19/2007

It is Time to Do Better on Global Poverty, Sanitation, Water Scarcity and Climate Change

Stockholm, Sweden — A 2007 World Water Week in Stockholm that began with a call for governments around the world to better manage their existing water resources concluded Friday morning with the 2,500 participants from 140 countries saying, collectively that progress is being made, but in the face of global poverty, critical lack of sanitation, water scarcity and climate change, we all need to do much better. The date, theme and location for the 2008 event was also announced: “Progress and Prospects on Water: For a Clean and Healthy World,” to be held August 17-23, 2008, at the Stockholm International Fairs centre.

Anders Berntell, Executive Director of the host Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), while assessing at the end of the event the efforts to improve the world water situation, said: “There is progress, but there is still far too little action and now when climate change is upon us and we need to adapt even faster. None of us can say we are prepared but it’s clear that poor people will again suffer the most. Changes in water availability are what will hit us first with an altered climate; rising sea levels and floods in certain regions but drought in others. The pressure on infrastructure and physical planning will be considerable. Ecosystem management will be fundamental. The question remains relevant: Why is water still not high enough on the political agenda?”

Climate, sanitation and hygiene, water management, ecosystems and biodiversity, technology and business issues were prominent programme focal points throughout the week. SIWI itself called for governments around the world to better manage how they use their existing water resources, taking necessary and sometimes painful measures to decrease losses in water delivery infrastructure and irrigation, to cut subsidies to agriculture, and to put in place realistic water-pricing measures – all before attempting to boost water supplies. The World Water Week, which included 140 co-convening organisations, witnessed the launch of a number of new and groundbreaking studies, reports and initiatives designed to improve a global situation where billions of people are without sustainable access to safe drinking water or suffering ill health due to poor sanitation, where bioenergy demands are diverting water from food production, and where global climate change is affecting the overall water balance.

Studies, reports and initiatives and announcements to be made during the week include:

UN-HABITAT, the United Nations agency working with human settlements, launched the 1) Global Water Operators’ Partnership and the 2) Water and Sanitation Trust Fund.

SIWI and the Swedish Water House launched four new reports: Making Anti-Corruption Approaches Work for the Poor; On the Verge of a New Water Scarcity; Agriculture, Water, and Ecosystems; and Planning for Drinking Water and Sanitation in Peri-Urban Areas.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) launched the Global Water Tool.

The Water Supply and Sanitation Council (WSSCC) and SIWI announced the opening of the nomination period for the WASH Media Award.

British charity WaterAid launched Global Cause and Effect: How the Aid System is Undermining the Millennium Development Goals.

The Global Water Partnership announced 1) Letitia A. Obeng as the new Chair of GWP and 2) released the policy brief Climate Change Adaptation and Water Management, and 3) the book Sustainable Sanitation in Eastern and Central Europe.

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, released a position paper named Natural Resource Tenure.

The Asian Development Bank released Dignity, Disease and Dollars: Asia’s Urgent Sanitation Challenge.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) South Africa presented new technology for removing heavy metals and subsequent radioactivity from mines.

The Co-operative Programme on Water and Climate (CPWC) released Water, Climate, Risk and Adaptation, and presented its new resource centre on water, climate, risk, adaptation and mitigation.

The World Water Council (WWC), the General Directorate State Hydraulic Works for Turkey (DSI) and the Secretariat of the 5th World Water Forum released the First Announcement of the 5th Forum, to be held in 2009.

Borealis and Bororouge became a Founder of the Stockholm Water Prize.

The International Institute for Environment and Development issued two briefing papers that summarise new research on payments for watershed services in developing nations.

The International Foundation for Science released Strengthening Capacity for Water Resources Research in Countries with Vulnerable Scientific Infrastructure.
The Government of Singapore and the World Health Organisation (WHO) signed a new partnership agreement to jointly promote the safe management of drinking water globally.

The Water Environment Federation and the International Water Association introduced the revamped World Water Monitoring Day initiative and provide kits to Stockholm Junior Water Prize participants.

The International Water & Film Events Istanbul 2009 issued the official call for entries.

The Water Integrity Network launched new website to fight corruption in the water sector.

The closing session on August 17 looked eastward to China, where the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics and China’s increasing emergence as the world largest developing economy were in focus. Chinese Vice Minister of Water Resources, Zhou Ying, presenting China’s contributions to the conference’s theme, Striving for Sustainability in a Changing World, stating: “China remains the face of industrialisation. Shortage of resources is a bottleneck for development, so we will work to harmonize resource saving, clean production, and integrate water management into our sustainable social and economic development.”

In the week that preceded the closing session, a number of interesting topics were taken up in seminars, workshops and side events. These and all other events will be summarised in the Synthesis Report to be made available in the late Fall of 2007.

SOURCE: The World Water Week
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Per this conference and this report our choice as human beings is clear: if we do not move now to conserve this precious resource and stop polluting our waterways and freshwater supplies, we will embark upon an era of water scarcity not yet seen in our world. Poverty, population increases, waste, political indifference, corruption, mismanagement, privatization, climate change, and using water and other resources for biofuels such as ethanol over sustaining our people and other species will cause us to move backward instead of forward.

And while this conference brought out many reports that bring these stark facts to our consciousness, the implementation of sound and economical steps to ensure that water is available to all who need it is our constant challenge. Another challenge for us is to make this crisis a part of the global political and moral dialogue as it does not get nearly the amount of attention it deserves as the foremost environmental challenge we will face in the 21st Century.

There is no more important charge that we have as human beings than to preserve our planet and to work to see a day when all children in our world regardless of location or circumstance never have to go a day thirsty, hungry, or in need of this life giving resource that replenishes their bodies and souls. This is my mission in life, for water to me is a miracle that we can no longer take for granted.

WATER IS LIFE.

Egyptian Villages Fight Water War

Egyptian Villages Fight Water War

Egyptian villages fight water war
by Staff Writers

Cairo (AFP) Aug 16, 2007

The land of the Nile is seeing a rising tide of protests at a shortage of drinking water amid accusations the government would rather irrigate golf courses than slake the thirst of villages.

A wave of demonstrations and ensuing clashes with police in recent weeks has left dozens injured in a country where the Nile River provides 95 percent of fresh water and irrigation uses up 80 percent of that.

The Arab world's most populous nation, with 76 million people, has a water deficit of 20 billion cubic metres (706 billion cubic feet) a year, according to government statistics.

Many inhabitants of the desert nation's villages are forced to resort to buying jerry cans of water from occasional tanker trucks or improvising wells to bring up often unclean water.

"Last week the tap water was yellow and smelled bad," said Nefertiti, 23, who lives in the Nile delta village of Borg el-Borollos, to the north of Cairo, declining to give her last name.

Water-borne illness, diarrhoea and dehydration are common in Egypt and "the thirsty," as the road-blocking protesters have been dubbed by the Egyptian press, say the government is doing nothing to end their plight.

Some accuse the government of prioritising water for the wealthy and for tourist destinations while villagers often have to pay water bills even when their taps are dry.

New, middle-class residential developments outside Cairo and the requisite golf courses and swimming pools further strain resources.

Faced with the mounting popular anger, Habitat Minister Ahmed al-Maghrabi announced the release of one billion Egyptian pounds (130 million euros/117 million dollars) in emergency measures to relieve those most affected.

New water pipes will be laid, around one hundred purification plants built and 500 wells dug in a country where many villages have not had running water for months or even years.

"Medium-term measures seem to be adequate, but they're not going to solve the immediate problems," said Hamdi al-Sayyad, president of the doctors' syndicate.

Egypt's water war, he said, is going to take years to resolve and, by then, new problems will have arisen.

End of excerpt.
~~~~~
This is absolutely insane. 80% wasted in irrigation when there are currently methods available to save water in this process? It is the same story we hear about in countless places around the world. Overpopulation and waste is leading the world to a moral reckoning. And as per this article, political indifference in order to make profits and exclude the poor is also a common tale. This then does not just entail laying new infrastructure, it entails the government of Egypt working with its citizens to provide family planning to stem the tide of new births that is putting pressure on existing resources if there is not a way to use them more conservatively, wisely, and equitably.

Our Earth as she stands now is finding it more and more difficult to sustain us with the finite reources she has in balance to the infinite number of ways we continue to find to despoil her. And what we are seeing now in all areas of the world is a lack of planning and moral will by people to do what is right by her over what is convenient for themselves, and that is a formula for disaster.

I also see this as a class war of sorts. It always is the poor who must suffer from the policies of the rich and where it concerns water it is a human rights abuse in my view. It is then good to see that the Habitat Minister has designated funds to dig wells, lay pipes, and do what is necessary to bring water to the people in need of it. However, this will not be the end as population increases, waste continues, and climate change makes itself evermore prevalent in this area of the world. And in an arid land such as Egypt, such waste is most definitely deadly.

More information on the history of Egypt's water woes:

Taming The Nile's Serpents

The Nile is looked upon as sacred and fearsome to the people in Ethiopia and that is something that has in turn hurt their existence as they only use 2% of the water available to them. This is a fascinating account of a trip down the Blue Nile posted by National Geographic, and to me brings out a point regarding water scarcity in areas where the water is sacred. Would people choose to use the water for their sustinence when faced with a true crisis, or would they choose to die to protect the sacred waters? And if this river is so sacred, why is it being so polluted? Like the Ganges River In India which is also considered sacred by its people, it is however one of the most polluted waterways in the world. This is where ancient traditions clash with modern reality.

The Blue Nile

My other entry on states working to share the Nile from last year:

African States Work To Share Nile

World Water Week In Stockholm/12-18th August

World Water Week

From the site:

What’s World Water Week?

World Water Week (held in Stockholm between 12 and 18 August) brings together experts in water and sanitation from across the globe with 40 seminars and nine workshops under the overall theme of ‘Progress and Prospects on water - striving for sustainability in a changing world’. The event will explore the complex relationships between the economy, government, infrastructure and livelihoods. It will also review progress on water and sanitation and look to build partnerships for sustainable development.
~~~~~~~~
Once this event is over I will post comments on the decisions made in Stockholm. Suffice it to say that at this particular conference climate change is going to be paramount among the topics discussed, as it is causing many areas of our world to become more water scarce in tandem with the problems already plaguing them.

This is also why the effects on water resources in light of the more prevalent use of biofuels must also be a great consideration. In areas where the poor are already experiencing water scarcity and famine, cutting down trees and using the land specifically for growing first generation sources for biofuel alone is not feasible. In areas of the world such as Africa and South America, biofuels should not be the first source of fuel unless they can be made from swichgrasses, algae, and other forms of biofuel currently under experimentation. Solar energy is also very viable as well as wind and must be considered in the overall solution planning in regards to maintaining water sustainability.

I am hoping some good initiatives come from this week and that more people are motivated in finding out about this global crisis that affects us all and what they can do to help.

If you look to the side of the blog you will see an icon for Water Partners International. I am a sustaining donor of this organization because they provide potable water to those who would not have it otherwise and they give hope to millions. This World Water Week, please consider a donation to them or another organization you may know of that is working to provide this life saving resource to those in dire need of it. The Earth has water enough to share with all the world if we but learn to use it wisely. Let us now work to see that made a reality.

Water is life.

Montessori Students Work With Amman Imman To Bring Life

Amman Imman

What hope reading this site brings me. To see children in our country caring about those who are less fortunate in other countries and working to give them water brings tears to my eyes. That is why I had to post about it on this blog to introduce anyone who reads this blog to this absolutely wonderful organization.

Please visit the link and read about their tremendous work to bring clean water to the Azawak and their work in Niger and in other parts of the world. This truly is a story to uplift you and give you hope for the future.

My thanks to Debbie for posting here and for informing me of this site. I am most definitely going to be writing more about its work in the future and thank all those involved in bringing water and life to Niger. Now the people must be taught conservation methods (such as slow drip irrigation) that will allow them to keep their water longer, as Niger is one country experiencing deforrestation on a great scale.

Water Is Life/Amman Imman!

African Glaciers Disappearing

Rwenzori-Mt. Stanley

The Rwenzori Mountains which are described as, 'Mountains of the Moon' form a portion of the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the ice cap melt that is rapidly occurring due to global warming is simply part of the rapidly receding ice that is occurring on every continent on our planet now, and at a pace three times faster than the worst scenarios by scientists.

It is said that the Greek geographer Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD, described them as 'Mountains of the Moon' whose snows feed the lakes, sources of the Nile," which supposedly refers to the Rwenzori mountains that feed Lake Albert as it joins the Nile.

And now these 'Mountains of the Moon' are in danger of disappearing in two to three decades or sooner depending on the pace of melting ice. For me there is no more urgent an indication of global warming/climate change than ice cap melt, and it is alarming to me regarding the lack of water resources that will result from these glaciers melting.

But I now feel as though we are still stuck at an impasse as the world continues to melt around us and it is frustrating to say the least. While people in this country still argue over whether humans are even the cause of climate change, water resources for millions of people globally are being threatened, and I am coming to the conclusion that we have passed the tipping point regarding glacial melt in the interim.

It will now have to become incumbant upon us on a global basis to meet to institute measures that seek to conserve water through more effective CO2 mitigation techniques, irrigation methods, conservation, waste management, infrastructure upgrades, and looking to stem the tide of corporate control of resources that keep it from being equitably distributed to indigenous peoples, as well as stemming the penchant for dam building that destroys traditional homelands and wastes water causing floods that ruin agricultural land.

And it is not only the lack of water resources that is a concern in this. Many of these places hold spiritual significance to those who live in these areas and those who do not, and losing them is losing a piece of ourselves. We are sacrificing so much all for the sake of what we call progress. However, progress is not only measured monetarily, and now is the time we must find a balance in assessing value as well to the spiritual, moral, and ethical progress that goes hand in hand with monetary progress.

It saddens me to read articles like this because the world we once knew is becoming something that we could have prevented, and in many ways still can. But how close are we really coming to taking those steps? This isn't just about one political campaign. This is about all of us forming our own campaigns to save ourselves and taking it public. I think the people who are living this up close and personal globally are coming to that conclusion as well.
~~~~
Uganda: Reduced Ice Cap On Mountain Rwenzori Irks Scientists
New Vision (Kampala)

8 August 2007
Posted to the web 9 August 2007

Gerald Tenywa
Kampala

THE ice cap on Mountain Rwenzori has reduced from six square kilometres to less than one square kilometre in the last 100 years, according to researchers.

"Glaciers that covered six square kilometres in 1906 have reduced to 0.86 square kilometres," said professor Giorgio Vassena.

Scientists attribute the problem to global warming, adding that research was ongoing to analyse the cause of the drastic recession of the glaciers.

Speaking at a conference at the Italian embassy, Vassena added that the Italian government was working with partners like Makerere University, the Uganda Wildlife Authority and AVSI, an Italian non-governmental organisation, to improve the environment around the mountains.

The decision to conserve the mountain comes after the celebrations to mark 100 years of the first ascent to the Margherita peak on the mountain by the Italian Duke of the Abruzzi.

The festivities were held last year in the Rwenzoris and in Kampala.

The Italians have also installed high altitude meteorological stations. The first was installed at the Bujuku peak, over 4,000 metres on the mountain and the second close to Elena Hut, at the Stanley peak, over 4,600 metres on the mountain.

Vassena pointed out that two more stations would soon be installed to monitor the changes caused by climate change.

"This data is of great importance to understand the impact of global warming on Uganda and the Central Africa range," said Vassena.

Citing the current rains as part of the changes in weather, he called for more research to be conducted to encourage new crops that can benefit from the rains.

Professor Cecilia Pennacini from the University of Turin was concerned that measures to mitigate climate change, such as the protection of Mountain Rwenzori, had denied the locals access to some of the resources.

She, however, said the locals were compensated by the revenue sharing agreement with the wildlife authority and the Rwenzori Mountaineering Services.

The professors said the annual visitors, estimated at 500, should be increased to earn more revenue for better management of the mountain.

Also see:

Snowy Mountaintops in Africa to Disappear

By Bjorn Carey, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 15 May 2006 03:35 pm ET

The picturesque snowy tops of equatorial mountains in Africa might disappear within two decades as air temperatures rise, scientists announced today.

The Rwenzori Mountains-also known as the "Mountains of the Moon"-straddle the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Uganda. They are renowned for their spectacular, and rare, plant and animal life. The mountains are home to one of the four remaining tropical ice fields outside of the Andes and are a popular tourist attraction.

The glaciers feed lakes that eventually flow into the Nile.

The glaciers were first surveyed a century ago when glacial cover over the entire range was estimated to be 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers). But recent field surveys and satellite mapping, conducted by the University College London, Uganda's Makerere University, and the Ugandan Water Resources Management Department, show that some glaciers are receding tens of yards each year.

Cut in half

The glacier area was cut in half from 1987 to 2003, and with just half a square mile (about one square kilometer) of glacier ice remaining. The researchers expect these glaciers to disappear within the next 20 years.

End of excerpt.