by James G. Workman

IBM recently made the case for harnessing human ingenuity to help conserve the Great Lakes. And Bayer HealthCare just boasted about new proprietary system that saves 20,000 gallons per day. But both companies miss something big: without the right political foundation, such new technology may drive us to use more water and energy.

This paradox emerged in 1865, a time when industrial England ruled the world. But as ‘peak coal’ grew scarce, the country feared it would deplete its own lifeblood. Boosters dismissed the need for conservation and pointed to ‘high-tech’ steam engines, which improved efficiency, requiring less coal to generate more energy.

Enter 29-year-old economist William Stanley Jevons. His studies measured the effects of supply and demand, and found that widespread access to efficiency technology would actually speed up depletion as more people used more machines to burn more coal: “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”

Over 146 years coal’s alternatives – wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar, hydro, geothermal – all stepped in to fuel growth. But his logic remained incontrovertible. What’s more, the steam engine burned up another element, which in 1865 England seemed negligible but is today both precious and scarce.

And unlike coal, water has no substitute.

To counter global water scarcity, governments and industry once again tout and subsidize efficiency technology. As IBM noted, the company awarded his own city (Milwaukee) with a Smarter Cities grant to harness water technologies. Likewise the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set up a WaterSense partnership that designates and labels certain qualifying technologies that claim to “protect the future of our nation's water supply by promoting water efficiency and enhancing the market for water-efficient products, programmes, and practices.”

So, by itself does water-efficient technology work? Can new widgets alone make up the projected 40 percent shortfall between global demand and supply in the next 19 years?

The ghost of Jevons moans: Don’t bet on it.

The US EPA claims WaterSense technology helped consumers save a cumulative 46 billion gallons of water; Mr. Smith claims Ford Motor Co. used 26.8 percent less water. I don’t doubt those numbers. But I do ask: what happened to all that saved water? Did it stay in rivers, lakes or aquifers? Alas, there is scant evidence local conservation translates into an overall reduction of water use, consumption and demand.

In fact, empirical studies suggest that – as with Jevons’ energy – water efficient technologies may in fact reduce supply via lower costs and increased demand from added opportunities and incentives to divert, pump and use even more water.

My dual flush toilet means my daughter takes longer showers. My uprooted lawn encourages my neighbor to install a back yard pool. Our water-efficient neighborhood lets the larger city approve a sprawling new development. Firms reduce the amounts of water per unit throughout the supply chain, and that helps them to sell more water-embedded products. It’s likely EPA offset demand for 46 billion gallons by making it cheaper or free to others, while ‘free riders’ guzzled up the savings by Ford.

Likewise, from Texas cotton fields to Israeli orchards, technology gains do not return flows to the Rio Grande or Jordan River or West Bank Aquifer or water-restricted Palestinians. Rather, efficiencies spread more new irrigation of water-intense crops into marginal lands at the exclusion of competing natural and human communities.

Understandably, social advocates and environmentalists resist water efficient technology that undermines their goals.

Such a perverse and undesired outcome defines a key paradox of water: as long as we ‘rent’ our resource from a natural monopoly, water-saving devices will increase systemic consumption. Water that you and I frugally conserve is lost through new and collective augmented demand.

The fastest way to resolve this paradox is through a new (and yet timeless) system of clear dominion over water, in what might best be called “H2Ownership.”

If all end users sharing the same basin or water system had a proportional stake in the outcome – based on, say, our historical use – then we would graduate from “ratepayers” who see water as a liability into to “shareholders” who see water as an asset. Then, whatever we save from our share we can take out of the equation, to be later sold at a premium to higher users, or donated to charity, or restored directly to nature.

From the Kalahari to Oman to Indonesia, variations of this system appear where people compete to conserve, and nature keeps its integrity. Under a scaled up digital version of this virtuous cycle, urban efficiency gains could be locked in and improved on, helping us to transform water scarcity into natural abundance.

Photo by Darwin Bell/flickr/Creative Commons

Pitchers and catchers don’t report for spring training until February 18 but the Minnesota Twins are already getting a jump on the 2010 baseball season by installing a huge new rainwater harvesting and recycling system at the team’s new home, Target Field.

The new Rain Water Recycle System was designed by by Minneapolis-based Pentair, a global water innovator. Using a gigantic underground water storage tank the size of a freight car, the team aims to save more than two million gallons of water yearly - and that’s all part of a bigger sustainable plan for Target Field.

The Minnesota Twins and Sustainable Baseball

Sure, the Twins are aiming for a pennant this year, but they’re also racing to get LEED (Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design) certification for their spanking new baseball stadium. The new park, which broke ground in 2007, went through a $2.5 million redesign to earn LEED points for water and energy use, and for other building elements. The park started out with points in its pocket because of its location by mass transit, and it also got points for rehabbing an existing site and using local building materials.

Rainwater Harvesting and Recycling

Rainwater harvesting is catching on for individual home use, mainly as a way to keep the yard green without having to use tap water. The Twins are stepping up the game by using Pentair’s technology to purify rainwater, so it can be used for human consumption as well as maintenance and field irrigation. Filtration systems are also being installed in suites, team areas and offices to encourage the use of tap water instead of disposable plastic bottles. The team also plans to promote the new system with Minneapolis-based green sports licensing company GreenMark to raise fan awareness, dubbing Pentair the “Official Sustainable Water Provider” for the Twins.

Rainwater Harvesting and the Big Picture

Getting large facilities like Target Field off the conventional water supply grid is one strategy for a sustainable future. The off-grid trend also applies to energy; for example, municipal like sewage treatment plants are starting to install solar panels to run giant pumps and other equipment. On the other hand, the water harvesting solution may be problematic in arid regions, especially parts of the western U.S. where longtime water rights issues currently impose legal restrictions on rainwater harvesting.

Image: Rainwater by taiyofj on flickr.com.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

Wastewater treatment plants are vast expanses of bubbling tanks that sprawl around the outskirts (and sometimes the inskirts) of cities and towns. All that acreage can be put to another use and one solar energy company, SunPower Corp. is pointing the way. The company recently completed work on a one-megawatt solar power system at the West Riverside Wastewater Treatment Plant in Corona, California.

The new solar power system will generate about 25 percent of the plant’s energy needs, and that’s significant in terms of a more energy efficient and sustainable future. Wastewater treatment plants are packed with industrial-sized aerators, pumps, and other energy-gobbling machines, so getting them off the conventional energy grid would be a major step forward.

Bigger and Better Sewage Treatment Plants: the Solar Connection

SunPower’s high efficiency panels are mounted on the company’s SunPower T20 Tracker system, which needs less land to install but follows the sun to capture up to 30% more light. That puts a good chunk of solar energy within reach of modestly sized treatment plants as well as the big ones.

SunPower has a growing number of large scale installations in California, Florida, and worldwide, totaling hundreds of megawatts. The Western Riverside project pales by comparison at only 1 MW, but that could change. The treatment plant can handle up to 8 million gallons per day currently, but it is capable of expanding to 32 mgd - and consequently it will require more energy to run. Aside from the impact of population growth on the energy requirements of sewage treatment, it is likely that federal sewage treatment standards will continue to become more exacting, which may also require more energy to run new equipment. Solar, wind and other on-site sustainable energy will become more important as these two trends develop.

Sewage as a Sustainable Resource

The sewage treatment plant of the future is going to be an all-around, self sustaining resource recovery facility. Solar-powered equipment is already available for some plant operations, and companies are developing more energy efficient processes including a “sewage mole” that helps aerate and dry biosolids - which can then be used as a soil enhancer. Methane gas is another resource that more sewage treatment plants are beginning to recover, and water expert Bluewater Bio is one company that is working on recovering more usable water instead of shunting it into the nearest river. There is even a move afoot to use sewage biosolids for manufacturing bioplastic.

Image: Sewage treatment plant by user Xofc on wikimedia commons.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica.com

The Texas General Land Office has granted the first-ever state off-shore wave energy lease to Texas-based Renew Blue Inc. (RBI). The company will use ocean water and waves to produce desalinated water; the first 100% fossil-fuel-free bottled water, the company said.

RBI, a subsidiary of Minneapolis-based Independent Natural Resources Inc. (INRITM), is the first licensing entity of SEADOG® Pump, a technology that harnesses the power of ocean waves to generate electricity. RBI will bottle and distribute the freshly desalinated water under the brand Renew Blue(TM).

The project is meant to demonstrate what the Seadog Pump technology can do in providing electricity and clean water to regions all over the world that lack fresh water and energy but have an abundance of ocean waves along their coastline.

RBI will place an off-shore modular platform about one mile off the coast of Freeport, Texas, in roughly 25 feet of water. The Seadog Pump has a simple design with relatively few moving parts and no electronics. RBI expects the platform to be installed in 4Q09 or the first quarter of 2010. The platform is currently being manufactured outside of Houston.

RBI will desalinate 3,000 gallons of water per day and will store up to 30,000 gallons in a sealed, stainless steel tank before being transported to the bottling plant. While traditional desalination typically requires significant amounts of electricity, the Seadog Pump platform system is powered solely by the wave energy it harnesses. Considering that 40% to 50% of operating costs in the desalination process is attributed to electric usage, the Seadog Pump system provides significant cost savings and minimal environmental impact compared to the large-scale use of power generated by fossil fuels.

"For the past seven years the Seadog has been fine-tuned to produce this major accomplishment as the first commercial wave power generation in the U.S.," said Mark A. Thomas, CEO, INRI. "We are thrilled to showcase the Seadog to the world as an innovative yet simple technology illustrating the ability to extract wave energy at low cost, with high levels of efficiency resulting in immeasurable benefit to humankind."

Renew Blue intends for the Seadog pump to be used in other applications apart from desalination. Inappropriate geographic locations, the pump can move large volumes of water to shore where it can be stored until needed for energy production. This ability to store energy removes the intermittency issues associated with other renewable energy technologies, the company said.

Preliminary estimates based on results from the sea trial suggest that a one-square-mile field of Seadog Pumps could generate anywhere from 30 megawatts to more than 1,500 megawatts of electricity on average. The amount of electricity generated is dependent on how small or large the waves are in any given area of the world.

Website: www.renewblue.com

Reprinted with permission from SustainableBusiness.com

The Korean peninsula was once called geum-su-gang-san, “a land of embroidered rivers and mountains.” Before South Korea industrialized in the postwar years, the rivers were wild-running freestone streams barreling down the mountains and turning into sandy shallow rivers edged by wetlands as they reached the sea. In her 1898 book Korea and Her Neighbors, 19th-century travel writer Isabella Bird described the upper Namhan River as “where pure emerald water laps gently upon crags festooned with roses and honeysuckle, or in fairy bays on pebbly beaches and white sand.”

That world is long gone now, as the Namhan and nearly every other South Korean river has been dammed, forced into concrete channels, or otherwise re-engineered by successive governments that have funneled billions of dollars to the powerful construction industry to fund countless public works projects designed to tame the country’s rivers. Today, besides a handful of creeks deep in the mountains or protected in national parks, only one major river, the Dong, exists in a natural meandering and un-dammed state.

Now, in part to boost the fortunes of the construction cartel in a global recession, there is a new pubic works offensive: the Four Rivers Restoration Project. The $18 billion plan will further develop Korea’s four major river systems — the Han, Nakdong, Geum, and Youngsan — with the stated goals of preventing water shortages, improving water quality, bolstering flood control, and creating “eco-friendly culture spaces” for tourism. The work would require building 16 new dams on those rivers, rebuilding 87 old dams, reinforcing 209 miles of riverbanks, and dredging 570 million cubic meters of sediment from 428 river miles. On 14 tributaries there will be five new dams and nine more will be rebuilt, and 151 miles of riverbank will be buttressed with concrete.

The four rivers targeted in the project no longer exist in a natural state as many stretches have been straightened and channelized. But for the large numbers of migratory birds that still pass through South Korea, the ceaseless work will further erode dwindling habitat. The Geum River, for example, still has a massive flock of Baikal teal, but many of those birds will have to find new roosting territories as the river’s remaining shallow, reed-filled areas are excavated and deepened. One researcher at the state-funded Korea Institute of Construction Technology called the Four Rivers Project a “grand disaster that any expert can clearly foresee with common sense.”

South Korea has over 18,000 dams that create man-made reservoirs. By comparison, China has a world-record 87,000 dammed water reservoirs, but China has roughly 100 times the land area and nearly 30 times as many people. South Korea is roughly the size of Indiana, which means that almost every creek, stream and river in the country is dammed or has water barriers — such as weirs or drop structures — that impede fish migration. Floodplains are now rice paddies safely behind the levees and excavators plow into the streambeds and flatten them out for flood control.

One of the most recent riverine “restoration” schemes was the Saemangeum reclamation project on the west coast. South Korea’s largest public works project, the Saemangeum wiped out the estuaries of two rivers and an expansive tidal flat of critical importance to the migratory birds of the Australasian flyway. Bureaucrats are still wrangling about what to do with the newly created landfill area that is six times the size of Manhattan.

Korean environmentalists opposed the Saemangeum, to no avail. They are aware that other countries are restoring streams and rivers by removing dams and taking down concrete walls and that South Korea’s river restoration projects are diametrically opposed to internationally accepted principles for the ecological restoration of aquatic resources.

Despite the fractured riparian habitat, wildlife do their best to survive and abound in some places. Korean water deer, leopard cats, and raccoon dogs skulk along the shoreline, their tracks easily seen in the mud. Korean anglers cast lures for river tarpon and largemouth bass that must continually adapt to disturbances in river systems.

Environmentalists have had a few victories, primarily their successful fight in 2000 to preserve the Dong River — Korea’s last, large, undammed waterway — from a giant dam that would have drowned the entire Dong River valley ecosystem.

The environmental movement also played a part in torpedoing one of the most grandiose public works schemes in recent decade, the Pan Korea Grand Waterway. Proposed in December 2007 by President Lee-Myung bak — the former Hyundai Construction CEO nicknamed the “Bulldozer” — the waterway was to have been a super canal system with the 336-mile-long main canal connecting Seoul to Busan. Cargo freighters would have gone up Korea’s longest river, the Nakdong, floating through flooded mountain tunnels to connect to the Han River, which eventually winds through Seoul. South Korea’s four main rivers, the Han, Nakdong, Guem and the Youngsan, were to be heavily dredged, channelized and fitted with locks and dams. Seventeen other smaller canals were added to the plan for a total of 1,926 miles of rivers to be transformed into slow-water canals.

The canal scheme was too much, even for Korea. The president’s proposal was met with a groundswell of opposition from critics who said it would be an environmental catastrophe and a massive boondoggle.

President Lee’s popularity plummeted in the summer of 2008 because of his decision to allow the importation of American beef, resulting in violent demonstrations on the streets of Seoul. To regain the public’s favor, he promised to drop the canal project. At a mid-June press conference he said, “I made a pledge to construct the Pan-Korea Grand Waterway. However, if the people object to it, I will not push it.” Stocks of construction companies across the nation immediately fell.

But President Lee’s plan is now back, in more modest form, in the guise of the Four Rivers project. Under a so-called “Green New Deal” to create an estimated 960,000 new jobs, Lee proposed development of solar, wind, and tidal power; stepped-up production of hybrid vehicles; introduced a tree-planting program; and expanded railways. But the item receiving the largest allocation of money was the previously unheard-of Four Rivers Restoration Project. They are the same four rivers that were the lynchpin of the Pan Korean Waterway.

“President Lee said nothing about greening Korea during his election that I remember,” said Mark D. Whitaker, a professor of environmental sociology at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “He is attempting to rebrand himself, and [the] same policies, as ecological modernization.”

The Four Rivers project, which is moving forward, will rival the Saemangeum reclamation project in budget, and already mission creep has set in. In March, an additional 50 smaller rivers were targeted to be dredged and embanked. In June, the government announced that one of South Korea’s cleanest major rivers, the Seomjim, would be included. The budget for the Four Rivers project was increased by 60 percent and in July, the Land Ministry announced it had started drafting a master plan to develop 43 more rivers. “It is a plan to renovate virtually every river in the country,” Kim Dong-yeon, an official at the Land Ministry told the JoongAng Daily.

As with the Saemangeum project, the government has provided little information on how the scheme will affect the environment. Scientists and environmentalists accuse the government of hastily preparing an Environmental Impact Statement so construction can begin next month.

“It is not a proper process for such a large development project which will cause a big impact on the riverine environment of the country,” Ma Yong-un, the top wetland expert of the Korean Federation for the Environmental Movement, said in an e-mail.

Nial Moores, co-founder of Birds Korea and one of the top field ornithologists in East Asia, noted that South Korea still has large numbers of birds, many of them migratory. But surviving has become a game of musical habitat for the country’s bird population, and when the sound of the construction stops and starts for the Four Rivers project, the birds must fly to new roosting areas. He predicted that Baikal teal from the new Geum River project “will shift to the Saemangeum reclamation area until that, too, becomes unusable.”

The government has repeatedly stated that the Four Rivers project is completely unrelated to the canal project, but critics think otherwise and the public doesn’t seem to buy that argument either.

Kim I-tae decided to speak out. The 48-year-old researcher at the state-funded Korea Institute of Construction Technology was part of a team assigned to come up with a blueprint for the Four Rivers project for the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs. Kim posted his opinion on Agora, the country’s most popular discussion board. Entitled “A Researcher Participating in the Grand Korean Waterway,” Kim claimed the Four Rivers project was nothing more than the Grand Canal project in disguise and termed it a “grand disaster.”

Ye was suspended from his job for three months.

See more photos from the original article on Yale Environment 360

Alexandra Cousteau, who at seven learned to dive with her grandfather, the French explorer Jacques Cousteau, is putting her famous name to work with a 100-day, five-continent expedition around the world to draw attention to the worldwide water crisis.

Cousteau is documenting Expedition: Blue Planet with images, blog entries and videos that she hopes will inspire people around the world. Some videos are surprisingly uplifting, like one about the Okavango Delta in Botswana, which is beautifully clear and sustains hordes of wildlife like elephants, hippos and colorful birds. On the other end of the spectrum, a sadder story is told in the video of Delhi, India, where one-third of the city's 17.3 million inhabitants don't have access to clean water.

Cousteau emailed us a month into her journey to explain how her father and grandfather inspired her, and how she plans to continue delivering her message when the 100-day tour has ended.

1. How will this 100-day expedition get your message across about the worldwide water crisis?

What we’re trying to do is generate enthusiasm about critical water issues over the course of the 100-day Expedition by offering interactive content online, through partnerships, and through social media networks. By engaging people in our process of adventure and discovery, we hope to invite them to be part of the Expedition with us. Most of all, we hope to motivate them to take action in their own lives and their local communities, to conserve water, participate in programs with NGOs, and speak out to their representatives about water management.

2. What do you think is the public's biggest misunderstanding about the world's water supply?

That it’s infinite. While from outer space it looks like we live on a blue planet and indeed we do -- 70 percent of the Earth is covered by oceans -- only a tiny percentage of that water is fit for human consumption. If you could fit all the water in the world into a gallon jug, less than a teaspoon of that would be available as fresh water. There is no more water available now than when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It’s a finite resource and we need to stop taking it for granted.

3. Do you think water should be the first and foremost topic discussed when it comes to preserving the environment?

I think water should be on the top of the agenda, at least in the top 2-3 issues not only in terms of the environment, but also in terms of development and humanitarian efforts. It’s our number one life support system and it influences every aspect of our society. No one can argue that it’s critical to our survival.

4. After the expedition is finished, what will be the next step in your effort to preserve water and get the message out? What kind of lasting effect do you hope the expedition will have?

We’ll be launching our Blue Campaign, which will leverage the adventure, the content, and the exposure of Expedition: Blue Planet to engage people more actively in being part of the solution to critical water issues. We will do this through individual outreach as well as educational partnerships, and providing ongoing opportunities for community engagement. Part of that effort includes gathering an interdisciplinary group of the world’s finest minds on water issues to discuss a new vision of where we need to go as a global community to protect, manage, and distribute this critical resource.

5. What do you think your dad would think about your expedition?

I think my father would be very excited that we are broadening our focus to look at the interconnectivity of water across fresh water and the salt water of our oceans. He’d be very excited about how we’re trying to use social media to get people to engage in water issues because he devoted his life first and foremost to telling stories in order to get people to take action.

6. How did your dad and grandfather inspire your work?

(My dad) and my grandfather inspire me in everything that I do.

As you can imagine, coming from the Cousteau family, water has always been an important part of my life. I learned to swim before I learned to walk, and I started diving with my grandfather when I was 7. But today, we’re facing new challenges and finding new solutions -- the legacy has evolved.

During winters with reduced precipitation, depleted snow pack produces less fresh water melt to fill the state’s rivers. The state has enacted state legislation that requires maintenance of water levels in some rivers for endangered and threatened aquatic species like the Delta smelt and salmon.

Regulators and water agencies in the state now face a reduced water supply for the state’s competing needs: agriculture, a large of part of the state’s already failing economy, drinking water for more than 36.5 million citizens, and other industrial and environmental resources. 

The World Water Forum held last week in Istanbul may provide some answers for California. More than 190 countries met in Istanbul including three princes, three presidents, five prime ministers, and more than 60 mayors, for a grand total of more than 23,000 participants. Clearly, water is a critical matter. 

The world faces water scarcity challenges and at times, those challenges cross international borders contributing to battles and even wars. Citizens cannot gain access to clean water for survival, and some industries pollute water by dumping waste into streams, rivers and lakes. 

As with so many of the world’s challenges, cooperation and collaboration is essential. Water travels from mountaintops toward lakes and ocean basins. Concerns about water levels do not stop -- regardless of the number of dams established -- within the borders of one country or state when others downstream depend on it. Water therefore must be addressed at regional watershed levels.

Mark Smith of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a leader in water conservation explains, “The problem with shared rivers is that if nations don’t cooperate; they can all end up trying to use the same water more than once…When they do, the environment loses out on the water it needs, and development fails when tensions rise. Cooperation on rivers means the reverse; the benefits of a healthy environment and development can be shared, while promoting peace."

So the lesson is to address water regionally and put the environment first. Some in California are realizing this and trying to do something about. For example, the state’s Department of Water Resources is now operating off of the California Water Plan that seeks to solve scarcity by creating a portfolio of water sources for the state and a plan on where and how to send that available water, which includes replacing some fresh water with recycled water. Moving the portfolio of water supplies around regions allows the state to provide fresh drinking water, recycled water for irrigation, and a variation of the two (in addition to pilot projects to generate desalinated water and emergency storage supplies for drought and other emergencies) while first meeting the environmental water needs of our friends that make their home in the state’s rivers. 

For example, in California, the IUCN’s recommendations might look like this: fresh water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is divided up into various needs: environmental, drinking, and everything else. The amount of determined environmental water is either left in the Delta’s rivers, or shifted around via dams and stored water (reservoirs) to other parts of the Delta that need environmental water. The amount of drinking water available after those needs are met is then pumped by various water agencies and state projects.

Some of the water is pumped to nearby agricultural users and the San Francisco Bay Area for drinking water, and then some of that water is laboriously pumped hundreds of miles to southern California. If the state could find additional waters supplies for southern California through regional, interstate, and possibly, international (Mexico) cooperation efforts, the supply of more drinking water for citizens, recycled water for industry use, environmental water for habitat and species health, and even emergency supplies is expanded to better suit the region’s large population.

Doing so also would mean reducing the amount of time it takes for water to travel from the Delta to the region, and major energy and infrastructure reductions if water does not have to travel that far. 

Water is such a vital issue because as global climate change occurs, fresh water is intruded by ocean water, making that water undrinkable and unusable for agriculture (without expensive mass desalination). Reduced precipitation, as California is already experiencing, means less available water from the outset of the year’s water planning. But, most importantly, water matters because it sustains life. 

World water leaders that met in Istanbul face many more challenges than California, like getting fresh water to the “one billion people [that] lack access to water and 2.4 billion [that] lack access to sanitation,” according to a press release.

Again, water is life. That is why we celebrate World Water Day.

In America, we are doing so this year in cities like Boston, St. Paul, and Seattle, by focusing on what business can do to reduce their water impact, saving fresh water for drinking supplies. In addition to the regional and environmental answers from Istanbul, IBM has a few answers and is helping to achieve a smart, corporate solution to water consumption. 

IBM created an energy efficient filtration system that more efficiently sifts out salt and heavy metals. For polluted America waterways and participants of the Istanbul conference, removing pollutants from water through filtration can provide a new supply that can be used for business, instead of using fresh and limited drinking water. IBM has also launched other related water systems that can measure water quality, and provide data on how water is used to better inform water efficiency planning. 

Image courtesy David Seelig photography.