Water Blogged

Welcome to Water Blogged, the blog that keeps you up-to-date with everything that's happening in the water world. Whether its to do with hard-water, limescale problems, water-softeners or just plain old water, we'll be blogging about it here.

Water Dragon

(posted 03 January 2012)

Enter the Dragon!  January 23rd starts the Chinese New Year and this year, 2012, is the year of the Yang Water Dragon.

The position of both the sun and moon determine the date of the Chinese New Year. It normally coincides with the second new moon after the winter solstice, which in the Gregorian calendar can be any time between 21 January and 20 February. For 2012, the year starts on 23 January and ends on 9 February 2013.

Unlike continuously numbered western calendars, the Chinese calendar is cyclic and repeats every 60 years. There is a 12-year cycle based on the animals of the zodiac, which, in order are, the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. The 12-year zodiac cycle is combined with one of the five elements; wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Whilst the zodiac animals change every year, the elements change only every second year. Additionally, there are Yin years and Yang years that alternate annually. Thus, next year will be the Yin Water Snake, the year after will be the Yang Wood Horse and the year after that will be the Yin Wood Goat.

The last time there was a Yang Water Dragon was in 1952, and the next one will begin on 19 February 2072. A full list of Chinese New Year dates for the next complete 60-year cycle is shown below.

ROSAT Re-entry

(posted 20 October 2011)

Heads up! A German satellite is due to crash to earth on Sunday 23 October 2011. The 2.4 tonne Roentgen satellite, or ROSAT, is the second large satellite to crash back to Earth in the past month. At the end of September, the bus sized UARS satellite re-entered the Earth's atmosphere amidst a flurry of news reports and speculation that the debris could actually hit someone. Scientists calculated the chance of debris from UARS hitting someone as 1 in 3,200. This time, the odds are reduced to 1 in 2,000.

Launched in 1990 to map x-ray sources in the universe, ROSAT was decommissioned in 1999 and has been spiralling towards the Earth ever since. Most satellites burn-up as they enter the Earth's atmosphere, but the mirrors of the ROSAT x-ray telescope are made of zerodur; a glass ceramic capable of withstanding temperatures of 600°C. This means the 1.6 tonne mirror assembly will likely remain intact and smash into the Earth at 280 miles per hour.

What has any of this to do with water? Well, in all likelihood ROSAT will land in the water. Predicting where it will land is extremely difficult due to a number of factors and scientists will only be able to say with any certainty where it will come down a few hours before impact. However, given that the Earth's surface is seventy percent water, ROSAT will probably have a watery end.

Current predictions indicate that ROSAT will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere sometime on Sunday 23 October 2011, but the impact location could be anywhere between latitudes 53° north and 53° south. For an up-to-date forecast of where and when ROSAT will land, follow Dyna Pipe on twitter.

Water Riots

(posted 13 August 2011)

One week after the start of riots in London, we look at water related topics linked to rioting.

Scarcity of food or water often leads to rioting and some experts claim that climate change will lead to frequent bouts of civil unrest as water resources shrink. But it's not just a shortage of water that can lead to civil unrest. The "1903 water riots" which occurred in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago were triggered by government intentions to introduce a water tax to make the residents lest wasteful of the water they had. The resulting protests led to thirteen deaths and the destruction of the Red House building that housed the legislative council.

More recently, in Bolivia, an increase in the cost of water also led rioting. Six people were left dead in the city of Cochabamba after protests over privatisation of the water industry. Large debts and economic problems forced the government to sell off all its publicly owned industries, including the water industry. Once privatized, water bills tripled, leading to protestors in Cochabamba going on strike, barricading the roads and shutting down the city for four days.

Perhaps the most obvious link between riots and water is the use of water cannon as a means of crowd control. Originally developed for use on fireboats, water cannon were first used for riot control in Germany in the early 1930s. Modern water cannon can deliver water with sufficient force to break bones, and rupture internal organs which is why their use in the UK is seen as a weapon of last resort.

Wimbledon

(posted 20 June 2011)

With Wimbledon getting underway this week, we thought we'd take a look at the water the players will be drinking. This year, as every year since 2008, Evian are the official suppliers of bottled water for Wimbledon 2011.

Evian, if you didn't know, is a French mineral water, sourced in the Alps. The Evian website tells the story of how it takes 15 years for the water that falls as rain and snow high up in the Alps to percolate down through the different types of rock until it emerges in a spring at the bottom. On its journey through the rocks, sandstones and gravel filter and purify the water.

Evian is a soft water, but in hard-water areas, water also percolates down through rocks. However, where the rainwater seeps through layers of limestone, it picks up calcium minerals, which cause hard-water. Heating hard-water above 61°C or allowing it to evaporate on the surface of taps and showerheads, results in the calcium carbonate that was picked up by the water as it trickled through the limestone, forming limescale. This limescale blocks pipes, leaves unsightly white deposits on bathroom fittings and is generally inferior for washing.

Of course, if you do live in a hard water area, all you need is a water-descaler from Dyna Pipe to solve all your limescale problems.

Drought Stricken England

(posted 15 June 2011)

With all the talk about water shortages in England and threats of a hosepipe ban, London mayor Boris Johnson has suggested using water from Scotland and Wales to "irrigate and refresh the breadbasket of the country in the south and east".

Water companies have long been opposed to such ideas claiming it is not viable, economical or environmentally friendly. However, in southern Spain, where Dyna Pipe are based and on average the sun shines for 293 days of the year, there is ample water. Why? Because it is piped from the wetter north (green Spain) to the drier south.

A national water grid, similar to the electricity and gas grids, to distribute water around the UK makes perfect sense in a country where some regions have rain every other day. Wouldn't it make more sense to spend revenue from so-called green taxes on mitigating the effects of climate change rather than feebly trying to delay the inevitable?

The UK should never be short of water. Water companies only collect a fraction of one percent of the water that falls from the sky. Of this small fraction, a whopping fifty percent is lost through leakages, wastage and evaporation.

So let's collect more water, spread it around more evenly and vote Boris for Mayor.