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The Growing Importance of Desalination
August 26th, 2024
Via Contrary, a deep dive into the booming desalination industry: Why is Desalination Important? About 71% of the Earth is covered in water. While most of that water is found in the ocean, about 2.5% of it is freshwater, which can be used to drink or irrigate crops. However, as climate change begins introducing erratic weather patterns, […]
Read more »Water Pressure: TSMC, Other Corporations Tackle Groundwater Worries in Japan
August 20th, 2024
Via Nikkei Asia, a report on how TSMC, others tackle groundwater worries in Kumamoto, Japan: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is participating in a program in Japan to preserve groundwater resources by flooding unused paddy fields, amid concerns that its chip factories in Kumamoto prefecture could cause water shortages in the area. Twenty years ago, Teruyuki Otaguro, […]
Read more »Making AI Less “Thirsty”: Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models
August 16th, 2024
Via Arxiv.org, a new study examining the water footprint of AI: The growing carbon footprint of artificial intelligence (AI) models, especially large ones such as GPT-3, has been undergoing public scrutiny. Unfortunately, however, the equally important and enormous water (withdrawal and consumption) footprint of AI models has remained under the radar. For example, training GPT-3 […]
Read more »Four Billion People Lack Safe Water
August 16th, 2024
Via Science, a study on how water safety – in addition to scarcity – is a key challenge compounded by climate risks and data gaps: In 2020, more than 2 billion people were estimated to lack access to safely managed drinking water services (1). However, the existing data on safely managed drinking water services are […]
Read more »She’s the New Face of Climate Activism—and She’s Carrying a Pickax
August 7th, 2024
Via Wired, a report on Léna Lazare and her cohort, who are taking on reservoirs as one of their main activist issues: The atmosphere is more festival than crime scene. There’s an accordionist, and two men in beanie hats are playing the drums. It’s a clear spring day in the farmlands of western France. But […]
Read more »Peak Water In An Era of Climate Change
July 22nd, 2024
Via The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, commentary on the definition of peak water in an era of climate change: We live on a water planet, with vast amounts of water in the oceans, an extremely dynamic hydrologic cycle that brings renewable freshwater resources in the form of rain, snow, and river flows, and large stocks […]
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