HorizonWatching

A Primer On Water Management Issues

Today is Blog Action day at water.org.  It's a good time to get the word out to everyone on water management issues. Read more about water.org's blog action day at Blog Action Day - Working Together To Solve The Water Crisis.  This post is my contribution to the Blog Action Day.

Most of us reading this post take our access to water for granted.  However, I would imagine that we all realize that water is critical to sustaining life on our planet.  Water makes up 60 to 70% by weight of all living organisms and is essential for photosynthesis.  If the Earth’s water supply vanished, there would be no plants, no animals, and no people. 

While the Earth’s water is not vanishing, many scientists believe that our global water supply is in crisis.  We may or may not be at the crisis stage, but we definitely need to take action to solve our water management issues.

Some Quick Facts About Water

• Water covers 75% of the earth's surface.  Nearly 98% of the earth's water is in the oceans.  Fresh water makes up less than 3% of water on earth, over two thirds of this is tied up in polar ice caps and glaciers.  Fresh water lakes and rivers make up only 0.009% of water on Earth and ground water makes up 0.28%.
• It takes 700 gallons of water to make a cotton T-shirt, 2,000 gallons to make one gallon of milk, and 39,000 gallons to make a car.
• Global agriculture wastes an estimated 60% of the 2,500 trillion liters it uses each year. 
• Municipalities lose as much as 50% of their water supply through leaky infrastructure.  
• More than one trillion gallons of water are wasted in U.S. homes each year from easy-to-fix leaks.
• 1 in 5 of the word’s population still lacks access to clean, safe drinking water. 
• The United Nations predicts that nearly half the world’s population will experience critical water shortages by the year 2080.
• There are nearly 53,000 different water agencies in the United States alone, each managing a short stretch of river or a handful of reservoirs. 
• In the last 100 years global water usage has increased at twice the rate of population growth.

For those of us living in developed nations, our water infrastructure is many decades old.  In fact, in some places it is centuries old.  As our demand for water is increasing, we need to modernize the existing infrastructure.  One way to do that is to apply information technology.

Today’s water management systems are operating without enough data and insights.   The planet needs new water management systems, based on smart technology that can collect and analyze real-time data.  These new systems will provide water authorities with the insights they need to supply more water to more people with lower energy-use and cost. 

How Can Technology Help?

What is needed are water management systems that can provide real time collection and analysis of all sources of data.  This includes integrating disparate sensor technologies that produce disparate data formats along with other data from an array of partners.  Information technology solutions are needed that can take data that’s coming in fast and turn it into intelligence that augments the ability to improve decision making about water distribution.  These solutions need to connect the folks in the central control room with those working in the field building bridges, dams, dykes to the sensor experts and sophisticated modelers.

• Technology can monitor, measure and analyze entire water ecosystems, from rivers and reservoirs to the pumps and pipes in our homes.
• The latest water meters, combined with appropriate Water Management solutions can provide a single, reliable, up-to-the minute and actionable view of water use for a government, a business, or a home.   These ‘smart’ water meters can provide real-time insight into water use, raising awareness, locating inefficiencies and decreasing demand.
• Advanced sensors can help us collect all sorts of new data on water usage.  For example, sensors on levees can monitor changing flood conditions and respond accordingly.  Sensor based systems can provide the agriculture industry with detailed information on air quality, soil moisture content and temperature to calculate optimal irrigation schedules.
• Advanced computing, analytics, and simulations can help us all move beyond “real time” to prediction, supporting better-informed policy and management decisions.
• Technology can also be applied to our oceans to gather data on water temperature, currents, wave strength, salinity and marine life, and applying algorithms that can forecast everything from wave patterns over 24 hours to the right time to harvest mussels.

IBM Water Management Solution Areas

IBM is taking a leadership role among technology vendors in researching, piloting and developing a whole suite of water management solutions.  Taking a look at what IBM is doing can help us see the areas where technology can be applied to solve water management issues

• Natural Water Resources – Provides sensor data integration, analysis and visualization to enable the measurement, modeling and management of water levels, usage and quality in natural water resources.
• Water Utilities – Enables water providers to make rapid decisions regarding business processes and operational efficiency to maximize their return on investments as well as foresee and quickly respond to contamination issues and emergencies.
• Water Infrastructure – Provides sensing systems for managing water infrastructure, such as levee oversight management and flood control.
• Water Metering – Improves management of water supply and demand by integrating data between the dozens of stakeholders involved. Provides all stakeholders with consistent, real-time information to help them work together to make critical decisions about water supply in a geographic region.
• Green Sigma for Water™ – is a business consulting service that identifies where water is being used, measures and monitors usage, and creates process improvements to reduce water use. IBM pilots have achieved reductions in water usage of 30%.
• SmartBay Sensor System - Monitors wave conditions, marine life and pollution levels.  Provide real-time information to stakeholders in the Irish maritime economy, runs on a cloud computing platform, and is able to predict water conditions critical to those stakeholders.

Innovative Water Management Vendors

The Artemis Project held its second annual Artemis Project Top 50 Water Companies Competition during the spring of 2010.   These vendors are all coming up with some very innovative and creative solutions to Water Management issues.  Check out the winners:  A list of the 50 is here.   View a poster show of this year’s winners here.

What Is Needed

More work is needed as we transform the water infrastructure to digital technology:

• Continue to Build Awareness for Water Issues.  Many in leadership positions are not aware of the critical need for water management information technology solutions.
• Continue Market Testing & Solutions Platform Development.  Technology vendors need to continue to build assets and test solution platforms.  Stronger linkages are needed across the growing ecosystem.
• Continue to Build Thought Leadership Deliverables.  Tech vendors need to develop content highlighting case studies, references, demonstrations, and white papers.

For More Information

There is a bunch of more reading material available.  Here some links…

• IBM Links
  • One page brief “Smarter Water for a Smarter Planet”
  • Podcast:  IBM and the Future of Water Management
  • Smarter Water Management Thought Leadership and  Solutions Website  and Water Management Pains Summary Report
  • Global Innovation Outlook Links:  GIO Water website, watch the GIO water videos, or read the GIO Report on Oceans and Water.  For more discussion, check out the GIO Blog.
• Other Resources
  • Water.org is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization committed to providing safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries.  
  • Sustainable Asset Management Report - “Water: a market of the future”
  • United Nations:  “Water:  A Shared Responsibility” 
  • World Water Forum “Bridging Divides For Water”
  • Twitter search on water management  http://search.twitter.com/search?q=water+management

Scientific American: 20 World Changing Ideas in Science

Scientific American published an article back in December titled “World Changing Ideas” that caught my eye.   The article provides a laundry list of ideas that Scientific American says have the potential to improve our lives and our planet.  The magazine has been running similar articles on an annual basis for a number of years.

The December article covers ideas in five general categories (Energy,Transportation, Environment, Electronics, and Health) that highlight the power of science and technology to improve the world.

Here’s a summary of some of the 20 ideas from this article

Energy

• Pay for solar panels on your house like you pay for a house mortgage.
• Biofuels from genetically engineered plants.
• Innovations in Nuclear Power production that can stem nuclear proliferation
• Smart meters in the home
• Wind Power harvested from a fleet of high-flying giant kites or windmills

Transportation

• Plug-in hybrid trucks for short-haul cargo trips
• Subway-like bus lines

Environment

• Someday the oceans might be regulated by a worldwide marine planning and zoning committee
• Harvesting energy trapped in garbage via a technology called plasma gasification
• Cement that naturally absorbs carbon dioxide as it hardens
• Introducing new honeybee colonies to our farms
• Developing crops that can handle saltwater

Electronics

• HP’s Central Nervous System for the Earth (CeNSE) project
• Smartphones that can act as real-time language translators
• Advances in Personal Robotics

Health

• Biomarkers can help understand the causes of complex diseases
• Satellites can help track and predict the spread of diseases
• Better and cheaper ways to help blood clot quicker
• Performing blood tests in real time by putting a drop of blood on a computer chip
• Innovations in dental care.

The 20 ideas above are all interesting and innovative trends in science and technology.  Some I would say are more ‘world changing’ than other ideas.  And I am sure we could all come up with another 20 trends / ideas in science that are not listed above.

There’s much more detail in the article.  Scientific American articles are available to subscribers only, but at the time of the writing of this post, I found the article at Scribd here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/23475128/20-World-Changing-Ideas.  Also…you can listen to a podcast where Scientific American magazine Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina and editor Michael Moyer talk about the "World Changing Ideas" feature ( Download this podcast ). 

IDC Insights: 10 Predictions for the North American Utilities industry

 IDC Energy Insights held its webinar “Top Ten Predictions for the North American Utilities Industry” today.   Rick Nicholson, Vice President of Research at IDC led the call.

During the call the analysts reviewed the important driving forces impacting impacting technology investment within the Utilities Industry for 2010.   Driving forces include energy efficiency and demand response programs, smart metering and the smart grid, renewable and distributed energy and other relevant technologies.

IDC mentioned that energy usage is expected to rebound in 2010 after a down year in 2009 which had an impact on industry-wide revenues.  Also, investments in cleantech is expected to rebound as access to credit improves in 2010.  A big factor in that will be the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Here’s my summary of the top ten predictions reviewed on the conference call:

1. Energy Efficiency and Demand Response:  will continue to be the “first fuel” choice for electric utilities
2. Renewable Energy:  Renewable capacity additions will exceed natural gas plant additions
3. Energy Storage:  Utility-scale stationary energy storage will have its coming out party
4. Intelligent Grid:  North American intelligent grid ICT spending reaches $18 billion by 2013
5. Electric Vehicles:  First wave of electric vehicles and accompanying charging infrastructure will emerge
6. Energy Commodity Trading:  Trading of energy commodities requiring IT support will recover and grow
7. Sustainability:  Traditional generators will focus on managing their portfolio for sustainability
8. Water Management:  Scarcity of clean water and availability of new technology will awaken the sleeping water market
9. Smart Cities:   Smart cities will emerge as proving grounds for the intelligent economy
10. IT Spending:  U.S. utility industry IT spending growth will accelerate dramatically

I remember back in the 90’s this industry was one of the lackluster (perhaps boring?) industries to be involved with from a technology perspective.  Nothing was really happening back then.  Today it is 180 degrees opposite.  There is so much going on right now to bring technology to this industry.  This is one exciting industry today….and I expect it will be that way for another decade or two.

For more information, IDC Insights has a bunch of resources for you.

• Link to a replay of the predictions conference call where you can listen to the 1 hour call and download slides (registration required). IDC Insights Predictions 2010: Energy - Utilities
• Watch the IDC website for the forthcoming report:  Worldwide North American Utility 2010 Top 10 Predictions, # EI221538,
• IDC Energy Insights web site:  www.idc-ei.com
• IDC Energy Insights community:  http://idc-insights-community.com/energy
• IDC Energy Insights newsletter:  "IDC Energy Insights on Utilities" and/or "IDC Energy Insights on Oil & Gas"

IBM: 5 Innovations That Will Impact Us Within 5 Years

The world is experiencing unprecedented urbanization.  Last year marked the first time in history that the majority of the world’s population was residing in cities.  This trend is not stopping and will have huge implications for our large urban environments we call home.  So what can be done to make our cities economically, socially and technologically healthy--and keep them that way?

IBM recently unveiled a list of 5 innovations that will have the potential to change how people live, work and play in cities around the globe over the next five years.  The following text provides a summary and there is a 3 minute video embedded below…

IBM’s Next 5 in 5…

1) Cities will have healthier immune systems:  Because of population densities, cities will remain hotbeds of communicable diseases.  By standardizing methods for sharing health information and analyzing disease outbreaks, public health officials will know precisely when, where and how diseases are spreading.

2) City buildings will sense and respond like living organisms:   The technology that manages building facilities "will operate like a living organism that can sense and respond quickly." Thousands of sensors inside buildings will monitor everything from motion and temperature to humidity, occupancy and light.  These smart buildings will enable repairs to be made before something breaks, will help emergency units respond quickly, and will let people and companies monitor their energy consumption and carbon emission in real-time.

3) Cars and city buses will run on empty:   IBM predicts that improved battery technology will power the next generation of eco-friendly vehicles. It says the new batteries won’t need to be recharged for days or months at a time (depending on how often the vehicles are driven) and will allow trips of 300 to 500 miles on a single charge.  Also smart grids in cities will allow vehicles to be charged in public places using renewable energy, such as wind power, for charging so they no longer rely on coal-powered plants.

4) Smarter systems will quench cities' thirst for water and save energy:  To deal with the estimate that demand for water is expected to increase sixfold in the next 50 years cities will install smarter water systems to reduce water waste by up to 50 percent.  Smart sewer systems will also be installed that not only prevent run-off pollution in rivers and lakes, but purify water to make it drinkable.  Plus, interactive meters and sensors will provide people with real time, accurate information about their water consumption. 

5) Cities will respond to a crisis:  Even before receiving an emergency phone call. In support of the news:  IBM is helping law enforcement agencies analyze information so they can anticipate crime and be ready to respond when it happens.  Also the New York Fire Department has selected IBM to build a state-of-the-art system for collecting and sharing data in real-time and the company is also designing smart levee systems to prevent cities from devastating floods. 

A common denominator in all five of these innovations is a sophisticated data analytics capability that can take volumes of data, perform modeling and simulation on that data, and turn it into actionable insights for decision makers.  Five years could be an optimistic time frame for a few of these, but in this case, I think a little optimism helps to push the envelope on research and development of the innovations.

Watch the 3 minute video….

Read up more on IBM’s Next 5 in 5

• Via the press release http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/29049.wss
• Visit ibm.com/smartercities

New IBM Commercials Highlight Smarter Planet Issues

IBM has just launched five new TV commercials in conjunction with the US Open tennis tournament. 

The TV commercials support IBM’s strategic Smarter Planet campaign, so there is a little selling going on in the videos.  However, these are important emerging trends, so here you go.

• Cloud – Message:  Workstations used to be tied to a mainframe. Now they're conversing with a cloud.
• Secure Collaboration -  Message:  The choice between being open and being secure isn't a choice anymore. Collaboration is the key to business on a smarter planet, but you need to make sure your business is protected.
• Oil -  Message:   Energy is one of the world's most vital resources.  How we extract, use and preserve this resource is vital to our future.
• Water -  Message:  Water is something we all take for granted, but there is a limited amount in the world. Smarter water management is necessary to ensure our farms, factories and businesses continue to have access to safe, high quality water.
• Public Safety – Message:  Cities all over the world are getting smarter.  By collecting, analyzing and sharing data, your city can be safer, too.

I really like the creative look and feel of these commercials.  I understand there was a bunch of research that went into them.   While I believe the commercials will appeal to the public at large, they are obviously designed to target the IT audience, line of business leaders and CXOs. 

For more on IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative, check out http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ideasfromibm/us/smartplanet/index.shtml

Sensors: Where Do We Need Them The Most?

LinkedIn has an app that allows you to create a quick one question poll.

I am inviting you to participate in an unofficial poll I set up by going to http://polls.linkedin.com/p/54211/uxeza.  The poll takes less than a minute.  It asks you for your opinion on where you feel we need to focus the application of sensors to help make our physical infrastructure more intelligent. 

Sensors are becoming a key part of our physical infrastructure.  We can now embed sensors in physical things, like cars, appliances, medical equipment, cameras, roadways, pipelines, pharmaceuticals or livestock.  We can measure entire ecosystems - whole supply chains, business processes, cities, bridges, buildings, even natural systems like forests and rivers.  With sensors, we will be able to gather huge amounts of real-time information about the state of the world.

So, I have set up a LinkedIn poll to get your feedback.  I am asking you to answer the question:  Where do we need sensors and the related data analytics applied the most? 

Thanks for participating.  Those that answer the question can see the results.

Two Days Left To Enter The Intelligent Use Of Water Competition

Passionate about water conservation and water management issues?

This competition is seeking short films (narrative, documentary, animated, experimental and/or student-made films between 1 and 10 minutes in length) that creatively explore methods and ideas to responsibly manage and use e arth’s most precious resource.

Films submitted by August 15, 2009 will be reviewed by a judging panel of film and water management experts.  Finalists will win a trip to Los Angeles, where they will be guests at a formal screening and awards show hosted at The Getty Center on September 23, 2009.

Check out the website for more information!  www.IUOWFILM.com

Thoughts on Water Management

Though it's a worldwide entity, water is treated as a regional issue.  There is no global market and very little international  exchange.

Addressing environmental challenges will require public-private partnerships.  Consider water, a poorly understood and often wasted and mismanaged resource.  Our global agriculture system wastes an estimated 60% of the 2,500 trillion liters it uses each year. Municipalities lose as much as 50% of their water supply through leaky infrastructure.  And there are nearly 53,000 different water agencies in the U.S. alone, each managing a short stretch of river or a handful of reservoirs.  Despite the fact that water is a shared resource, there’s no coordination of data among these agencies and no holistic view of the entire water ecosystem, or its impact of human activity.  - Source:  Thoughts on Water Management from the Western Governor’s Association.

Water flows through everything - from the air, the land and our own bodies to the global economy.  In fact, every time a good or service is bought or sold, there is a virtual exchange of water.  It takes 700 gallons of water to make a cotton T-shirt; 2,000 gallons to make one gallon of milk; and 10,500 gallons to make a car.  Though the total amount of water on this planet has never changed, the nature of that water is changing.  Everything from where rain falls to the chemical makeup of the oceans is in flux.   And these changes are forcing us to ask some very difficult questions about how and where we live and do business.

As water management issues continue to mount and costs continue to increase, information technology and collaborative innovation will play an instrumental role helping communities, businesses, and governments deal with the tremendous complexity ahead. The combination of volumes of data, the need for mining across different and new data types and the demand for real-time responses requires a new kind of water management intelligence and models that encompasses scalable, statistical algorithms, and massively parallel approaches.

Some links for those of you interested in water management

• IBM Global Innovation Outlook report on water management
• Smarter Water Management website

8 Emerging CleanTech Investment Areas

A new report is claiming that, with an aggressive infrastructure investment, eight emerging technologies could meet 60 % of new energy demand by 2020.  It is also claiming that we could abate more CO2 than is necessary for climate stabilization in just 10 years.  

The report, titled  "The Gigaton Throwdown", was developed with the support of many, many people who are tied to the cleantech industry.  The effort was led, in part, by Sunil Paul, who is a founder of Silicon Valley’s Spring Ventures.

The report estimates that if annual global private investment in cleantech tripled between now and 2020, clean energy investments would be in line with fossil-fuel investments.   It is a lofty goal, but the authors say that if we are able to shift investment into ready cleantech solutions, the results would be world changing:  climate mitigation, energy security and 5 million new jobs planetwide.

The report highlights the eight emerging clean technology solution areas that are ready for investment and could yield the stated goals.

1. Biofuels
2. Building Efficiency
3. Concentrating Solar Power
4. Construction Materials
5. Geothermal
6. Nuclear
7. Solar Photovoltaics
8. Wind

According to the report each of the eight solutions listed above could feasibly deliver one giagaton of global energy, and each could avoid one gigaton of emissions from being discharged into the atmosphere by 2020, thus the idea for the name of the report.

Apparently the authors considered plug-in electric vehicles , but the projected adoption of this technology is predicted to be too slow to have an impact by 2020.

For more information:

• Access the 150 page report via the pdf file "The Gigaton Throwdown"
• Check out the Gigaton website
• Watch this Videos
• Read this Announcement Letter

Looking to 2050: Ten Challenges For The Human Race

Peter Schwartz is recognized internationally as a futurist and strategist.  He honed his skills at Royal Dutch/Shell Group in London, where he led a widely respected scenario planning effort.   He has written a number of interesting books about the future, including The Art of the Long View. 

This past May he gave the commencement address at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  During the address, he outlined ten longer term challenges for the human race as we look forward to the next 40-50 years.  He encouraged the graduates to come up with innovative solutions to these challenges. 

The top challenges Schwartz outlined are:

1. Creating long-term solutions to meet our energy demands sustainably.
2. Launching a bio-industrial revolution with sustainable manufacturing.
3. Understanding and enhancing the human brain to avert age-related impairments.
4. Improving agriculture to reduce costs and increase its energy and water efficiency.
5. Building sustainable cities through better urban planning and "smart architecture”.
6. Stimulating job growth and economic development.
7. Fusing the technological with the spiritual and aesthetic dimensions of human culture.
8. Advancing technological instruments to drive scientific discovery forward.
9. Harnessing biological tools to advance human evolution.
10. Discovering new ways to lower the costs and environmental impact of space flight and development.  

The list above is an interesting list.  I am not sure that these are the top ten most important challenges, but each of the above ten are certainly important. 

Some comments…

• Energy tops his list and it is hard to argue that it should not be there.  I can’t see the demand for energy going down anytime soon and we need to figure out how to transition to clean energy. 
• Improving agriculture processes in developing nations will have have a significant impact on the economy and quality of life.
• Building smarter and sustainable cities is a very large challenge as the number of megacities grow and grow.
• Number 9 on his list, “Harnessing biological tools to advance human evolution” sounds both scary and beneficial at the same time.
• Regarding number 10, with announced plans to go back to the moon and to Mars, we will need innovative ways to travel through space and live at the destinations we travel to.

It is worth pointing out that many on the list kind of fall under the push for a smarter planet.

If you want to read a transcript of Peter Schwartz’s commencement address, check out http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2585

Can you think of any other challenges Schwartz’s list?  The only one that comes to my mind right now is the never ending desire to live in a world free from war and conflict, but I don’t suppose for one minute that that will be solved in the next 40-50 years.