EXPO ZARAGOZA 2008 - Water
Tribune
Conference
“Water for the Recovery of
the Climate – A New Water Paradigm”
23rd August, 10.00 – 13.00 Water Tribune pavilion (Auditorio)
LECTURES
Michal
Kravčík & Juraj Kohutiar
[
Kovac_Zaragoza_August2008.pps
]
Alessandro
Mazzotta
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
Human draining of land and water
cycle distortion
Michal Kravcik, NGO People and
Overlooked relation: water cycle and
energy flows
Jan Pokorny – ENKI,
The role of evaporation in urban and
global climate change
Marco Schmidt, Technical
Possibility
of groundwater reserves re-charge
Jean-Marc Hauth, Les Biefs du Pilat, France
Charlie Paton,
Seawater Greenhouse, Ltd.,
The sustainable stormwater management
as instrument for urban landscape design
Alessandro Mazzotta, Polytechnic of
Application of the New Water
Paradigm on local and national level
Martin
Kovac, Association of Towns and Municipalities,
HUMAN DRAINING OF
by Michal
Kravcik,
NGO People and
Humanity,
through deforestation, agriculture and urbanization accelerates the runoff of rainwater
and drains the land. In
OVERLOOKED RELATION: WATER CYCLE
by Jan
Pokorny,
ENKI,
Vegetation
well saturated with water evaporates several litres of water on a sunny day per
m2, while each litre transfers 0.7kWh solar energy into latent heat
of evaporation. Water vapour then condensates in cool places and latent heat is
released, which moderates temperature differences. If there is insufficient
water on land, immense flows of solar energy are instead changed into sensible
heat. Growing temperature gradients distort water cycle, trigger extremes of
weather and contribute to climate change. Daily series of distribution of solar
energy in vegetation and drained surfaces are shown. Examples of thermo-vision
and satellite pictures showing role of plants and water in air-conditioning of
landscape are given.
THE ROLE OF EVAPORATION IN URBAN
by Marco Schmidt,
Technical
The
amount of evaporation is reduced significantly due to the loss of forests
worldwide, the increase in urbanization and reduction of agricultural land.
This causes the urban heat island effect and the global warming. High amount of
energy transfer consumed in water evaporation (680 kWh/m³) is used in the
project “Adlershof Physik” in combining elements of decentralized water
management with reduced energy consumption for cooling and ventilation.
Rainwater is stored and used for the irrigation of the facade greening system
and evaporative cooling systems for air conditioning. Some of the roof surfaces
are also extensively greened to assist in retaining and detaining stormwater
runoff.
POSSIBILITY OF
GROUNDWATER RESERVES RE-CHARGE
by Jean-Marc Hauth,
Les
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/biefs.dupilat/
The
decreasing of the recharge and the over-pumping of underground reserves of
water have direct effects on CO2 increasing and level of warming effect. The
Global Water Resources Management is a concept of repartition of water which
allows the runoff water to be catched and re-infiltrated in the underground
spaces by the way of a network of level canals complementary to the natural
streams and rivers network. This concept of global harvesting may be an
important tool to recover the climate but it is also renewable energy and
supplying system of water.
THE
SAHARA
by Charlie Patton,
Seawater Greenhouse, Ltd.,
http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/
The Sahara
Forest Project is a scheme to provide fresh water, food and renewable energy in
hot, arid regions as well as re-vegetating areas of desert. The scheme combines
two established technologies – the Seawater Greenhouse and Concentrated Solar
Power – to achieve highly efficient synergies. The Seawater Greenhouse has
demonstrated the potential to create surplus freshwater from seawater and
provide ideal growing conditions in arid regions. Concentrated Solar Power is
one of the most promising forms of renewable energy, producing electricity from
sunlight. By combining these technologies there is huge commercial potential to
create a sustainable source of energy, food and water.
THE SUSTAINABLE STORMWATER MANAGEMENT & URBAN
LANDSCAPE DESIGN
by Alessandro Mazzotta,
Polytechnic of
www.torinoyouthforum.org/ricerche/1/22.pdf
The
conventional treatment of stormwater in urban development in the past has been
driven by the aptitude “out of sight, out of mind.” Now the trend could be: “in
the sight, in the mind.” The principle of integrating sustainable water
management solutions in the open spaces of the site involves a
multidisciplinary approach based on the integration between architecture,
engineering, biology. It is evident that the best opportunities to reduce urban
runoff occurs during the planning. Sustainable water management could be an
instrument for urban open-space landscape design and could be also a strategy
to spread the idea of the environmental issue as an opportunity for quality of
human habitat rather than a “trouble”.
THE
by
Martin Kovac,
Assoc.
of Towns and Villages,
The
Association of Towns and Communities of Slovakia presented in May 2008 document
“Principles of integrated water resources management in municipalities and
their river basins”, which promotes qualitative and quantitative improvements
of water resources and prevention of deterioration and depletion of available
water resources. It is based on the expertise of new water paradigm. The
“principles” cover areas like: rainwater protection and utilization; planning
processes and reassessment of land changes; economical sustainability aspects
and local water policy applications. The association organises own significant
research of the stage of water resources and its management in the territories,
develops special information system and supports training in the field.
SPEAKERS
Dipl. Ing.
Michal Kravčík, CSc.,
founder of the NGO People and Water, a holder of the Goldman
Environmental Prize. His focus
is on a small water cycle recovery.
RNDr. Jan
Pokorný, CSc.,
director of the beneficial society ENKI, a scientific staffer at the
Dipl.
Ing. Marco Schmidt
works at the
Ing. Jean-Marc Hauth
experiments with the level canals concept. He founded NGO ”Biefs du
Pilat” awarded with Vivendi and
Charlie
Paton
elaborated the concept for the Seawater
Greenhouse. Starting with an experimental pilot in Tenerife, he has
designed and built two further Seawater Greenhouses in
Arch.
Alessandro Mazzotta,
a researcher at the Polytechnic of
Dipl.Ing.
Martin Kováč
works as specialist for anti-flood prevention at the Association of
Cities and Municipalities of
(Moderator) Prof.
Larbi Bouguerra
is in charge of “the Water Program” of the NGO Agter, as well as
the head of similar program of the
French-Swiss La fondation Charles Léopold Mayer pour le
progrès de l'homme.
Press
release: 23.8.08 World Water Expo
The conference “Water for the recovery of the climate” took place on 23rd of August
at the Water Tribune of the World Expo Zaragoza 2008.
The
international conference, attended by experts from the UK, Germany, France,
Italy, Czech Republic and Slovakia, was organized by the Slovak environmental
organisation “People and Water” and the “Association of Cities and
Municipalities of Slovakia”. The aim of the conference was to raise awareness
of the impact of human activities on the water cycle on the land, and the
consequent impact on climate change. Speakers from the academic, commercial,
local government and NGO sectors submitted a mosaic of solutions for the
utilization, renewal and protection of water resources. The Director General of
the Water Tribune, Mr. Eduardo Mestre congratulated the organizers for the
innovative solutions towards solving the world problems of water resources. The
conference, financed primarily by non-governmental organisations, was attended
by representatives from local and regional water management institutions and
visitors from several European countries.
SPONSORS
NGO People
and Water
ELEKTROFIN
Vančo
