Water Aflamed v1.5 available

This version is bringing:

- tips for water preservation
- water eco-label level A to H
- enhanced country database to more than 150 countries

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Water Aflamed v1.4 introduces water efficiency eco-label

Water labelling

A new function called "Shopping" is helping you doing a more sustainable market in terms of fresh water resources preservation.

Choose a food product, a country of origin and see a label going from A to G.
The label is measuring the impact on local water resources during production.

The calculation is taken into account 3 factors:

- the water footprint of the product
Meat requiring more water than vegetables.

- the quality of the water used
Green (rain) water being more renewable than blue (irrigation) and grey water (pollution from fertilizers).

- the water available per capita in the country of origin
Growing food in Canada has clearly less impact than in semi-arid countries like South Africa for instance.

Other features added:

- performances improvement on the water footprint calculator
- the menu has been reworked somehow
- a mini guide is present on each major function
- products have been reorganized
- some minor data fixes

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Water Aflamed v1.3 is available

The free water calculator for iphone brings now all scientific data updated (2010).

5 new countries have been added: France, Germany, Canada, South Africa and Turkey.
Now you may browse virtual water content of hundred of product within 16 nations.

Additional fixes:
- zoom in functionality in embedded user guide
- data fix for soda

A new screen will come with next version: it will help your you to make your shopping more water efficient.

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Towing icebergs: a new technique to solve water scarcity ?

Freshwater Mountains

As we know, potable water is a rare resource in many countries.
A French team - led by Frederic Mougin - has been working on a crazy project to use gigantic freshwater pools which never have been exploited: icebergs !

Unlike floe ice, which consists of frozen sea-water and is populated by wild animals, icebergs are drifting mountains of fresh water. Calved from polar glaciers and continental icecaps, icebergs drift naturally in the ocean until they melt. Each year, tens of thousands of icebergs are produced this way from glaciers, all destined to melt and be lost in the oceans’ salt waters. And each year, the equivalent of a year’s consumption of potable water melts and disappears.

From Greenland to Canary islands

Foreseen 2012, a huge tabular iceberg of 30 millions of town will be towed from Newfoundland (after a natural drift from the Western cost of Greenland) to the Canary islands which are lacking of water.
Every technical expect has been carefully studied: shape of the giant, risk of fracture, melt estimate, negligible impact on the crossed ecosystems, and much more.

Capitalistic view?

We should admire this technical challenge and wish go luck to the project team !

However, before pretending that iceberg carrying would a solution to water scarcity, there are several things to consider.

This experience seems a typical capitalist and old-fashionned way of thinking. Water is missing ? Well, let's plunder another water source !
This is true for every mineral resource on earth: priority is given on mining before sparing.

A more sensible and modern aproach could be: let's try to understand and to lessen/adapt our water consumption.

Using modern agriculture techniques, reducing exports of crop products and importing food products whose culture is water intensive, may certainly cut down the water footprint of Canarias.

Old Arabic dream

Such idea of retrieving fresh water from ice is not completely new. It emerged in the 70's in Saudi Arabia.
Since, the clever Saudis have found a better virtual source of clean water: crop and live-stock products, imported from country having a better climate ;-)


Credits: Mehdi Belatara

Indeed, food products are virtually containing water up to thousands of time their weight. Transporting them is far more simpler, cheaper and less polluting than this big iceberg hunting.


Conclusion : use the right water at the right place !

Read more on the original site. Enjoy nice videos.

Water Aflamed v1.2 available

Enjoy new products:
- soda
- sugar
- extra fruits
- extra vegetables

Water footprint of biofuel has been fixed.

The application embedds now a user guide.

New data have been issued by the water footprint network, so Water Aflamed roadmap is quite full for 2011 !

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Morocco in 2020, 13 millions of person may suffer from water scarcity

Today Morocco, a semi-arid country, is facing a water crisis with multiple origins: weak precipitations and a huge water waste.
In 2007 on the 13 billions m3 of usable surface water, 8.8 are lost by evaporation, leaks or goes to the sea.

Experts are declaring that below 1000 m3 per habitant per year is the beginning of a stress on water resources; the world average is 1200 and above 2000 in most of developed country (Compute your own water footprint with our calculator for iPhone). Today the average in the country is around 750 m3 with a trend to 500 by 2025.
Moreover, water is not equally available, the Northern having more abundant resources than the South (2000 m3 against 150 m3). In the 60's, the average was above 2500 m" per habitant per year, so what happened ?

Well, the population has almost tripled, the water supply network has extended, but the boom essentially comes from agriculture which catches 88% of the needs. Multiplication of culture areas (150000h to 1.4 millions) and use of direct watering techniques - rather than drop-by-drop - contribute to a loss of 5.5 billions m3 (60% !). The water supply infrastructure is somehow obsolete and 35% of the domestic water is lost.

Precipitations have decreased by 26% over the last 45 years and with the climate warming, one can expect less and less rain in the coming decades. The clean water access is definitively a real threat to Morocco.

What to do ?
- mobilize more water resources
- use more advanced irrigation techniques
- rethink the choice of culture and farming. Is the export of tomatoes and sugar cane really sustainable, knowing the vast amount of virtual water there are carrying out of the nation ?

Read more on the original article (in French).

Water Aflamed 1.1 available

Images are compliant with the Retina Display of iPhone 4.
Some mistypes fixes (sorry for them).

Next version will bring more food products and embed a nice user guide.

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