• Title/Summary/Keyword: sustainable water resources technology

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Exploring sustainable resources utilization: Interlink between food waste generation and water resources conservation

  • Adelodun, Bashir;Choi, Kyung-Sook
    • Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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    • 2019.05a
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    • pp.232-232
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    • 2019
  • The persistence of drought periods and water scarcity is a growing public concern, as climate change projections indicate a more critical scenario in the future. The sustainability of water resources for the increasing population, and to ensuring crop production will unarguably be a daunting task for the water resources managers, with a projected 9.8 billion people by 2050 as well as the need to increase food production by 70 to 100%. Consequently, there is a need for significant irrigation water use for more crop production in the face of stiff competition among water users. However, the available natural resources are already over-constrained, and the allocation of more resources for food production is not feasible. Currently, about two-thirds of global water withdrawer is used by the agricultural sector while 48% of water resources in Korea is used for agricultural production. Despite the apparent ecological deficit and unfavorable conditions of resources utilization, a staggering amount of food waste occurs in the country. Moreover, wastage of food translates to waste of all the resources involved in the food production including water resources. Food waste can also be considered a serious potential for economic and environmental problems. Hence, exploring an alternative approach to efficient resources utilization in a more sustainable way can ensure considerable resources conservation. We hypothesized that reducing food waste will decline the demand for food production and consequently reduce the pressure on water resources. We investigated the food wastage across the food supply chain using the top-down datasets based on the FAO mass balance model. Furthermore, the water footprint of the estimated food wastage was assessed using the representative of selected food crops. The study revealed that the average annual food wastage across the food supply chain is 9.05 million tonnes, signifying 0.51 kg/capita/day and 48% of domestic food production. Similarly, an average of 6.29 Gm3 per annum of water resources was lost to food wastage, which translates to 40% of the total allotted water resources for agriculture in the country. These considerable resources could have been conserved or efficiently used for other purposes. This study demonstrated that zero food waste generation would significantly reduce the impact on freshwater resources and ensure its conservation. There is a need for further investigation on the food waste study using the bottom-up approach, specifically at the consumer food waste, since the top-down approach is based on estimations and many assumptions were made.

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Exploring sustainable resources utilization: Interlink between food waste generation and water resources conservation

  • Adelodun, Bashir;Choi, Kyung-Sook
    • Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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    • 2019.05a
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    • pp.408-408
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    • 2019
  • The persistence of drought periods and water scarcity is a growing public concern, as climate change projections indicate a more critical scenario in the future. The sustainability of water resources for the increasing population, and to ensuring crop production will unarguably be a daunting task for the water resources managers, with a projected 9.8 billion people by 2050 as well as the need to increase food production by 70 to 100%. Consequently, there is a need for significant irrigation water use for more crop production in the face of stiff competition among water users. However, the available natural resources are already over-constrained, and the allocation of more resources for food production is not feasible. Currently, about two-thirds of global water withdrawer is used by the agricultural sector while 48% of water resources in Korea is used for agricultural production. Despite the apparent ecological deficit and unfavorable conditions of resources utilization, a staggering amount of food waste occurs in the country. Moreover, wastage of food translates to waste of all the resources involved in the food production including water resources. Food waste can also be considered a serious potential for economic and environmental problems. Hence, exploring an alternative approach to efficient resources utilization in a more sustainable way can ensure considerable resources conservation. We hypothesized that reducing food waste will decline the demand for food production and consequently reduce the pressure on water resources. We investigated the food wastage across the food supply chain using the top-down datasets based on the FAO mass balance model. Furthermore, the water footprint of the estimated food wastage was assessed using the representative of selected food crops. The study revealed that the average annual food wastage across the food supply chain is 9.05 million tonnes, signifying 0.51 kg/capita/day and 48% of domestic food production. Similarly, an average of $6.29Gm^3$ per annum of water resources was lost to food wastage, which translates to 40% of the total allotted water resources for agriculture in the country. These considerable resources could have been conserved or efficiently used for other purposes. This study demonstrated that zero food waste generation would significantly reduce the impact on freshwater resources and ensure its conservation. There is a need for further investigation on the food waste study using the bottom-up approach, specifically at the consumer food waste, since the top-down approach is based on estimations and many assumptions were made.

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Sustainable Fresh Water Resources Management in Northern Kuwait-A Remote Sensing View From Raudatain Basin

  • Saif ud din;Dousari Ahmad AI;Ghadban Abdulnabi AI
    • Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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    • 2005.10a
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    • pp.153-164
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    • 2005
  • The paper presents time and cost effective remote sensing technology to estimate recharge potential of fresh water shallow aquifers for their sustainable management in arid ecosystem. Precipitation measurement of Raudatain Basin in Kuwait from TRMM data has been made and integrated with geological, geomorphological and hyrological data, to estimate the recharge potential of the basin. The total potential recharge to the area is estimated as 333.964 MCM annually. The initial losses are estimated at $60\%$ of the net precipitation .The net available quantity for recharge is 133.58 MCM. For sustainable management of the ground water resources, recharge wells have been proposed in the higher order streams to augment the Raudatain aquifer in Kuwait. If the available quantity of precipitation can be successfully utilized, it will reduce considerable pressure on desalination, which is leading to increased salinity off the coast in Arabian Gulf.

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The UNESCO Action Plan and 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals for Climate Change

  • Thriveni, Thenepalli;Ramakrishna, Chilakala;Habte, Lulit;Ahn, Ji Whan
    • Journal of Energy Engineering
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    • v.27 no.2
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    • pp.89-94
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    • 2018
  • UNESCO is an international specialized agency based on the United Nations (UN) located in the Paris. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization abbreviated as UNESCO. The mission and goal of UNESCO are to maintain the peace and security throughout the globe by encouraging international collaborations through educational, scientific, and cultural heritage in order to increase respect for principals of justice, international rules of law, and international human rights. Recently, the UNESCO published a new set of 17 goals for the nation's sustainable society. The Organization ensures to actively participate in UN activities to improve harmony and planning within the United Nations system. The 2030 agenda is primarily about shifting the world on to a sustainable and most in-depth. Currently, UNESCO launched broad goals and objectives for the international community including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Among these sustainable goals, climate change, water security is more significant. In this paper, we briefly reviewed the seventeen goals by UNESCO.

Application of K-WEAP (Korea-Integrated Water Resources Evaluation and Planning Model) (통합수자원평가계획모형 K-WEAP의 적용성 Application of K-WEAP)

  • Choi, Si-Jung;Lee, Dong-Ryul;Moon, Jang-Won;Kang, Seong-Kyu
    • Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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    • v.43 no.7
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    • pp.625-633
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    • 2010
  • An integrated water resources management is highly required to use efficient water and preserve water quality due to the limits of water resources development and water pollution. K-WEAP was developed, which supports the water resources planning and evaluation within a fully integrated interactive system. In this study, we present three applications of K-WEAP. First, we examined the usefulness of K-WEAP as a water resources planning tool through its application to the National Water Resources Plan. Second, the conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater in the Geum river basin with K-WEAP was evaluated, and its results show how to support to set up a sustainable groundwater management plan. Finally, we confirmed the function of the integrated water quantity and quality management in K-WEAP, which conducted by comparing the simulated results of water quality in both QUAL2E and K-WEAP.

Waterscape and Water Transportation in Nihombashi River

  • Ito, Kazumasa;Wada, Akira;Imanishi, Yumi
    • Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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    • 2008.05a
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    • pp.19-25
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    • 2008
  • Nihombashi district, which is located in a heart of Tokyo Metropolitan area, has been flourished as a Japanese economic and cultural center since Tokyo was developed as a capital. Nihombashi district has still remained the Edo idea of stylishness since the government of Edo was established in 1603. During Edo period, population of Edo (former name of Tokyo) reached one million. Edo became one of big city around the world. Nihombashi district has been transformed as economical, financial and cultural center, along with modern transformation of Tokyo. During high economic growth (1955-1975), Nihombashi Bridge and River, which used to a symbol of Tokyo, have been covered with elevated highways. The river was polluted whereas the river does not have any relationship with people's daily activities. Since Japan has focused on environment concern in 80's, people and companies in Nihombashi district and Nihombashi River also requested to restore Nihombashi district and Nihombashi River. There are a lot of projects going on related to regenerate the river and the community, such as to remove highways covered with the river, restore river environment and run water navigation. This article mentioned to introduce the project of Nihombashi River and Nihombashi district that regenerate the community to capitalize history and geographic characteristics in Nihombashi district, to run water navigation through the river, and to review outcomes through various projects.

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