বর্তমান একবিংশ শতাব্দীতে এসে সারা বিশ্ব ব্যাপকভাবে পানীয় জলের সংকটে ভুগছে। প্রাকৃতিক বিপর্যয়, মানবিক বিপর্যয় এবং অর্থনৈতিক দৈন্যতার এই সময় পানি সমস্যা দিন দিন বাড়ছেই।

এই সমস্যা কতটা ? একটা তথ্য দেই - সারা বিশ্বে ১।১ বিলিয়ন মানুষ পানি পায় না ।

অন্যভাবে আরেকটি তথ্যের উপর নির্ভর করতে পারি : সারা বিশ্বে ২।৬ বিলিয়ন মানুষের স্যানিটেশন সুবিধা নেই। আর এই সংখ্যা অধিকাংশ ক্ষেত্রে উন্নয়নশীল দেশগুলির আলোকে প্রদত্ত।

এরকম আরো কিছু তথ্য আছে -

১ । সারা বিশ্বের বর্তমানে রয়েছে শুধুমাত্র ১৭৭টি বড় নদী (যাদের দৈর্ঘ্য ১০০০ কিমি এর বেশী), যাদেরই রয়েছে স্বাভাবিক গতিপথ অর্থাৎ এই নদীগুলোর উপর এখনও কোন বাঁধ দেয়া হয়নি কিংবা এদের চলার পথে কোন প্রতিবন্ধকতা নেই এখনও।

২। গত ত্রিশ বছরে সারা পৃথিবীর মিঠা পানির প্রাণীর সংখ্যা বিলুপ্ত হয়েছে ৫০% । আর এধরনের মিঠা পানির প্রাণীর বিলুপ্তি জীববৈচিত্র্যের পাশাপাশি ঘটাচ্ছে প্রাকৃতিক বিপর্যয়।

এরকম আরো তথ্যে তথ্যে পরিপূর্ন করা যায় আমাদের পানীয় জলের ঘাটতির ব্যাপকতা । আর তৃতীয় বিশ্বের জনবহুল দেশ হিসেবে আমাদের দেশের পানীয় জলের সংকটের তীব্রতা নিয়ে বলাই বাহূল্য।

সূত্র : ইন্টারনেট

বি: দ্র: সামনেই আসছে গ্রীষ্মকাল আর আমাদের সীমাহীন কষ্টের দিনগুলি। এ বিষয়ে সামনে আরো লেখা দেয়ার ইচ্ছা রইল।

What are some of the major factors contributing to the water crisis?

Unchecked and Unplanned dam building and excessive irrigation are among the main reasons. On average, agriculture uses up to 70% of all water diverted from river basins.

Dams have already fragmented 60% of major rivers worldwide and displaced up to 80 million people.

Hundreds of dams are under construction worldwide and even more are being planned.

Where is the water crisis the most serious?

Most developing countries face serious water problems.

In Africa, almost half of the population suffers from one of the six major water-related diseases, such as diarrhoea, which kills millions of children worldwide millions every year.

But many developed nations such as Spain and Australia are also having water problems due to pollution, over-use or mismanagement.

How bad is the global water crisis?

• 1.1 billion people lack access to water and 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation; most of these populations are in developing countries
• Over 50% of the world’s wetlands have been lost in the last century alone
• Most of the world’s largest rivers are losing their connection to the sea and nearly a quarter of those left risk being disconnected in the next 15 years
• Only one-third of the world’s 177 large rivers (1,000km and longer) remain free-flowing, unimpeded by dams or other barriers
• There has bee more than a 50% decline in freshwater species populations over the last 30 years, making species loss in freshwater ecosystems faster than any other biome

The River Dolphins of South Asia

River dolphins are descended from marine dolphins and have adapted to life in fresh water, so they are no longer capable of surviving in the sea. This may be their undoing as the waterways in which they occur the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra run through some of the poorest and most densely populated regions on earth.

There are two closely related species of river dolphin in South Asia: the Indus dolphin, locally called the bhulan, and the Ganges dolphin or susu.

The Ganges dolphin has a wider distribution and is in less immediate danger of extinction, with current population estimates of about 5,000. However, both the Indus and the Ganges dolphin are at risk from pollution by pesticides and fertilizers and from agricultural practices on the floodplains. As South Asia develops, industrialization precedes environmental controls on emissions. Untreated effluents are released into rivers creating a highly toxic environment where little can survive.

For more on this review ... Please Go to Details

Green economy will help fight climate change

Green economy will help fight climate change
“The McKinsey study shows once and for all that taking action on climate change is both urgent and affordable”, said WWF Director James Leape.

Brussels - New figures released today show that moving to a “green” global economy could not only protect the planet from the worst effects of climate change but is surprisingly affordable.

Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy- a new study by McKinsey and Co – shows that global warming can be kept below the critical 2°C rise and that it is well within our means to do so.

For more details Please

Green economy will help fight climate change..

A Tsunami : A Monster Wave

A tsunami is a monster wave, started by a magnitude-9 earthquake. It overwhelmed long stretches of coastline along the Ocean shore.

Tsunamis are like. . .We're sitting in our seaside house and we notice that the surf sounds different. We look out and see that the water has receded, as if the tide had pulled out in a hurry. The sea stays low for several minutes.

The sea rises, as quickly and quietly as it left—then it keeps on rising, higher than we've ever seen it go. The sea grows louder and outruns you, catches your ankles, knocks you down, and smashes you against trees and rocks and buildings as you drown in its muddy, turbulent flow.

The Web has a lot of sites with tsunami information. I've got a tsunami list with the best of them. But I think the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo, Hawaii, is special because it has a human face and a human basis.

Besides, scientists have their own blinders. Many think of tsunamis as caused strictly by earthquakes, or underwater volcanic eruptions or seafloor landslides. They even call them "seismic sea waves." But in fact the most significant kind of tsunamis, for the geologist, are created not by quakes or any earthly process but by cosmic impacts.

Earthquake Region in South Asia

The Himalayan nations of Nepal and Bhutan contain densely populated cities as well as the world's highest mountains.

Low-lying Bangladesh is at greater risk of flooding, lying as it does in the great Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, but its northern and eastern districts are also highly quake-prone.

Green Roof : A Tehcnology to save our planet.

A green roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and soil, or a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. This does not refer to roofs which are merely colored green, as with green roof shingles. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage and irrigation systems.

Container gardens on roofs, where plants are maintained in pots, are not generally considered to be true green roofs, although this is an area of debate. Rooftop ponds are another form of green roofs which are used to treat greywater.

Green Roofs : More Green on Your Roof

In most of architecture design, almost buildings are designed to shed rain, and as such are built with hard, impenetrable roofing surfaces.

As a result, rainwater bounces off and collects as runoff, picking up impurities—including infectious bacteria from animal waste as well as harmful pesticides and fertilizers—on the way to municipal storm sewers, which in turn eventually empty into local bodies of water.

But we can make this runoff more effective for our environment.

Minimizing this runoff means that more impurities will remain in local soils where they can be broken down more easily into their constituent elements than if they are concentrated downstream.

To achieve this goal, landscape architects have developed so-called “green roofs,” which use living plant matter and soil on top of a building to absorb, collect and reuse rainwater while preventing runoff. Many buildings employing green roofs are able to find abundant uses for the water they collect, from watering exterior plants at ground level to flushing toilets inside.

Why Plastic Bag should be ban by us personally ?

Why We should ban personally plastic bags ? It's simple !

Just Simple to assign its feature and our reason to ban it in our daily life.

Plastic bags are not biodegradable. They clog waterways, spoil the landscape, and end up in landfills where they may take 1,000 years or more to break down into ever smaller particles that continue to pollute the soil and water.

Plastic bags also pose a serious danger to birds and marine mammals that often mistake them for food. Thousands die each year after swallowing or choking on discarded plastic bags.

Finally, producing plastic bags requires millions of gallons of petroleum that could be used for transportation or heating.

Top 10 Worst Polluted Places

The Top 10 Worst Polluted Places

The Top 10 worst polluted places were chosen by the Blacksmith Institute’s Technical Advisory Board from a list of 35 polluted places that had been narrowed from 300 polluted places identified by the Institute or nominated by people worldwide. The Technical Advisory Board includes experts from Johns Hopkins, Hunter College, Harvard University, IIT India, the University of Idaho, Mount Sinai Hospital, and leaders of major international environmental remediation companies.

The Top 10 worst polluted places in the world are:

1. Chernobyl, Ukraine
2. Dzerzhinsk, Russia
3. Haina, Dominican Republic
4. Kabwe, Zambia
5. La Oroya, Peru
6. Linfen, China
7. Maiuu Suu, Kyrgyzstan
8. Norilsk, Russia
9. Ranipet, India
10. Rudnaya Pristan/Dalnegorsk, Russia

Renewablae Energy : We need it badly

Renewable energy resources are kind of those energy which are not destructing itself for producing energy for us, such as wind, solar and hydropower. This kind of energy offer clean alternatives to fossil fuels. They produce little or no pollution or greenhouse gases, and they will never run out.

Solar Energy

The best energy resources we have in this planet is The sun. Sunlight, or solar energy, can be used for heating, lighting and cooling homes and other buildings, generating electricity, water heating, and a variety of industrial processes.

Moreover, Most forms of renewable energy come either directly or indirectly from the sun. For example, heat from the sun causes the wind to blow, contributes to the growth of trees and other plants that are used for biomass energy, and plays an essential role in the cycle of evaporation and precipitation that makes hydropower possible.

So We can call The Solar Energy Resource as "Premio resource of Recyclable Energy".

Wind Energy

After Solar power, we can assume Wind is secondary resources as recyclable energy generating factor. Wind is the movement of air that occurs when warm air rises and cooler air rushes in to replace it. The energy of the wind has been used for centuries to sail ships and drive windmills that grind grain.

At present, researchers are expressing their own view for wind energy which is captured by wind turbines and used to generate electricity.

Hydropower

This is also secondary resources of recyclable energy. Where Water flowing downstream powerfully there it is a powerful force.

As we know, Water is a renewable resource, constantly recharged by the global cycle of evaporation and precipitation. The heat of the sun causes water in lakes and oceans to evaporate and form clouds. The water then falls back to Earth as rain or snow, and drains into rivers and streams that flow back to the ocean. Flowing water can be used to power water wheels that drive mechanical processes. And captured by turbines and generators, like those housed at many dams around the world, the energy of flowing water can be used to generate electricity.

Biomass Energy

Now a days, Biomass has been an important source of energy.

With wood , people are promoting the most common source of biomass energy, but other sources of biomass energy include food crops, grasses and other plants, agricultural and forestry waste and residue, organic components from municipal and industrial wastes, even methane gas harvested from community landfills.

Biomass can be used to produce electricity and as fuel for transportation, or to manufacture products that would otherwise require the use of non-renewable fossil fuels.

Hydrogen

Primarily, we can say this is next-generation technology as recyclable energy resource. Hydrogen has tremendous potential as a fuel and energy source, but the technology needed to realize that potential is still in the early stages.

Hydrogen is the most common element on Earth—for example, water is two-thirds hydrogen—but in nature it is always found in combination with other elements. Once separated from other elements, hydrogen can be used to power vehicles, replace natural gas for heating and cooking, and to generate electricity.

Geothermal Energy

The heat inside the Earth produces steam and hot water that can be used to power generators and produce electricity, or for other applications such as home heating and power generation for industry.

Geothermal energy can be drawn from deep underground reservoirs by drilling, or from other geothermal reservoirs closer to the surface.

Ocean Energy

The ocean, the big ocean. As we know we are surroundings by these oceans and it has provides several forms of renewable energy, and each one is driven by different forces.

Energy from ocean waves and tides can be harnessed to generate electricity, and ocean thermal energy—from the heat stored in sea water—can also be converted to electricity. Using current technologies, most ocean energy is not cost-effective compared to other renewable energy sources, but the ocean remains and important potential energy source for the future.

All above, with some home and with some desire to make our planet alive.

To prevent Global Warming We need to maintain few steps

We know, Greenhouse effects just hampering our planets subsistence level. Global Warming Predictions are jumping like following picture :


To prevent Global Warming more, Researchers always trying to find some general methods to restrict this as;

1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle products instead of disposables.

2. Buying products with minimal packaging (including the economy size when that makes sense for you) will help to reduce waste.

3. Whenever you can, recycle paper, plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum cans.
[By recycling half of your household waste, you can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.]

4. Use Less Heat and Air Conditioning can lower your heating costs more than 25 percent, by reducing the amount of energy we can reduce increase of carbon-di-oxide in our air.

5. Turn down the heat while you’re sleeping at night or away during the day, and keep temperatures moderate at all times. Setting your thermostat just 2 degrees lower in winter and higher in summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.

6. Replace regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. Replacing just one 60-watt incandescent light bulb with a CFL will save you $30 over the life of the bulb. CFLs also last 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs, use two-thirds less energy, and give off 70 percent less heat.

7. Less driving means fewer emissions. Besides saving fuel, walking and biking are great forms of exercise. Explore your community’s mass transit system, and check out options for carpooling to work or school. Less Driving means more walking also, which is a part of fitness and regular exercise. It can make your health fit too.


8. Home appliances are now in a range of energy-efficient models, and compact florescent bulbs are designed to provide more natural-looking light while using far less energy than standard light bulbs.

9. Avoid products that come with excess packaging, especially molded plastic and other packaging that can't be recycled. If you reduce your household garbage by 10 percent, you can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

10. Use Less Water, save water for more usages.

It's also a good idea to turn off the water when you're not using it. While brushing your teeth, shampooing the dog or washing your car, turn off the water until you actually need it for rinsing. You'll reduce your water bill and help to conserve a vital resource.

11. Save electricity and reduce global warming by turning off lights when you leave a room, and using only as much light as you need. And remember to turn off your television, video player, stereo and computer when you're not using them.

12. Plant a tree, start digging. During photosynthesis, trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. A single tree will absorb approximately one ton of carbon dioxide during its lifetime.

13. Share information about recycling and energy conservation with your friends, neighbors and co-workers, and take opportunities to encourage public officials to establish programs and policies that are good for the environment.

These few steps will take you a long way toward reducing your energy use and your monthly budget. And less energy use means less dependence on the fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming.

Dam : Blockage of Water

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates, levees, and dikes are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions.

The word dam can be traced back to Middle English, and before that, from Middle Dutch, as seen in the names of many old cities.

Most of early dam building took place in Mesopotamia and the Middle East. Dams were used to control the water level, for Mesopotamia's weather affected the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and could be quite unpredictable.

The earliest known dam is situated in Jawa, Jordan, 100 km northeast of the capital Amman. The gravity dam featured a 9 m high and 1 m wide stone wall, supported by a 50 m wide earth rampart. The structure is dated to 3000 BC.The Ancient Egyptian Sadd Al-Kafara at Wadi Al-Garawi, located about 25 kilometers south of Cairo, was 102 m long at its base and 87 m wide. The structure was built around 2800 or 2600 B.C. as a diversion dam for flood control, but was destroyed by heavy rain during construction or shortly afterwards. The Romans were also great dam builders, with many examples such as the three dams at Subiaco on the river Anio in Italy. Many large dams also survive at Merida in Spain.

The oldest surviving and standing dam in the world is believed to be the Quatinah barrage in modern-day Syria. The dam is assumed to date back to the reign of the Egyptian pharao Sethi (1319–1304 BC), and was enlarged in the Roman period and between 1934-38. It still supplies the city of Homs with water.

The Kallanai is a massive dam of unhewn stone, over 300 meters long, 4.5 meters high and 20 meters (60 ft) wide, across the main stream of the Kaveri river in India. The basic structure dates to the 2nd Century AD.The purpose of the dam was to divert the waters of the Kaveri across the fertile Delta region for irrigation via canals.

Du Jiang Yan is the oldest surviving irrigation system in China that included a dam that directed waterflow. It was finished in 251 B.C. A large earthen dam, made by the Prime Minister of Chu (state), Sunshu Ao, flooded a valley in modern-day northern Anhui province that created an enormous irrigation reservoir (62 miles in circumference), a reservoir that is still present today.

In the Iran, bridge dams was used to power a water wheel working a water-raising mechanism. The first was built in Dezful, which could raise 50 cubits of water for the water supply to all houses in the town. Also diversion dams were known. Milling dams were introduced which the Muslim engineers called the Pul-i-Bulaiti. The first was built at Shustar on the River Karun, Iran, and many of these were later built in other parts of the Islamic world. Water was conducted from the back of the dam through a large pipe to drive a water wheel and watermill.

In the Netherlands, a low-lying country, dams were often applied to block rivers in order to regulate the water level and to prevent the sea from entering the marsh lands. Such dams often marked the beginning of a town or city because it was easy to cross the river at such a place, and often gave rise to the respective place's names in Dutch. For instance the Dutch capital Amsterdam (old name Amstelredam) started with a dam through the river Amstel in the late 12th Century , and Rotterdam started with a dam through the river Rotte, a minor tributary of the Nieuwe Maas. The central square of Amsterdam, believed to be the original place of the 800 year old dam, still carries the name Dam Square or simply the Dam.

Source : Wiki