Reverse osmosis systems from ITT Industries Aquious – Water Equipment Technologies are assisting industrial plants meet increasingly stringent requirements for zero wastewater discharge.

The Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, north of Dharan, in Saudi Arabia, will be able to recycle 10 mmgd of high quality tertiary water for irrigation purposes, saving approximately 3 billion gallons of precious groundwater every year. Twenty-four DynaSand filters, from Nordic Water Products, were used in this project.

The 21st century brought along a number of changes, changes in perception, changes in attitude and changes in positioning. Earlier this year we saw a change in attitude from OPEC. This time it openly confirmed what most knew, that the price rises in oil had no relation to the actual supply and demand situation. The current oil price level is hinged to speculation and the ‘mis-managed’ US economy.

Another interesting change has been the emergence of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as principal players in global M&A.1 SWFs are attracting attention not only from those in need of financial assistance but from the governments of those countries in which they invest. But SWFs are not unique to the Middle East, a large number of SWFs are being established in Asian export countries as well as in Russia and other countries with a strong reserve of natural resources. However with United Arab Emirates (UAE) sovereign wealth funds, and Bahrain’s quest for being the financial capital of the Middle East, the Middle East is flying high.

At two European hospitals, the long tradition of health care is meeting modern fluid handling technology. ITT Lowara unit recently updated the water supply systems at a Portuguese and Italian hospital with energy efficient and reliable variable speed pumps and booster systems.

Reverse osmosis systems from ITT Industries Aquious – Water Equipment Technologies are assisting industrial plants meet increasingly stringent requirements for zero wastewater discharge.

To many in the business world these are exciting times as there is a greater assertiveness of certain emerging economies in stating their rights, needs, wishes and taking a greater hand in their own development. Some economies seeking to establish themselves as emerging international financial centres (EIFCs) have close links and ties to the energy sector. Therefore it should come as no surprise that some of the EIFCs and markets coming up on the radar are located in Central Asia and the Middle East and have huge oil and mineral reserves.

It is estimated that Chile would increase its copper production in the next years. However, the cut off grade of its copper ores are lowering, which will result in managing more massive wastes. The reuse or recycling of these wastes residues can be a possible way of solution to this environmental problem. This article shows alternative propositions for re-utilization of valuable materials contained in massive mining and metallurgical wastes, with an especial attention to final copper slag produced during pyrometallurgical copper processing.

This article describes some solutions to the environmental impacts generated by clusters of small producers of ornamental and natural stones in Brazil. This kind of mining clusters, as most small scale mining, carry on their activities without proper technical and economic resources for an efficient and well organized production. The accumulation of individual impacts is expressive, mainly, enormous amounts of stone waste in different sizes and also effluents with big amounts of solids in suspension that end affecting rivers next to the explotaition and manufacturers. The solutions described are not only solutions proposed by the researchers but also creative solutions of the small producers themselves, solutions made possible by their insertion in the APLs supporting policies of the Brazilian government.

TOPIC: environment, job generation, income

Practical Action – ITDG began its activities in Latin America in 1985. Over the years it has developed a number of appropriate renewable energy technologies for our region, the most outstanding being the Pelton type hydraulic turbines, axial turbines with fixed blades, river turbines, as well as permanent magnet generators and the use of engines as generators. Employing these technologies, about 50 micro hydroelectric power plants have been set up, with an accumulated plant capacity of more than 1.5 MW for the benefit of over 3 thousand families. Combined financing schemes and innovating management models for these schemes have also been tested.

Wine and grape wastewaters are more difficult to treat than other wastewaters from food processing plants. Wineries generate industrial effluents that due to their composition and high organic strength, seasonal variability, acidity and unpleasant odors represent both environmental and esthetic problems in wine producing countries. Thus, there is a strong need for efficient, cost-effective, compact, wastewater treatment systems with minimum operation and maintenance requirements. In response to these demands Water Purification Technologies Inc., a Canadian company, has developed a series of advanced wastewater treatment units with the generic name of Active Biological Contactor (ABC). In this paper, is described the performance of one of those units tested in a well-known winery located in St. Catharines (Niagara Peninsula, Ontario).

Presently, the number of waste water treatment plants (WWTP) in the region is going to increase due to the new European environmental policies. Primacy is being given to valuing and reusing all the resulting biosolids for agronomic purposes over eliminating or destructing them. The use of biosolids reduce fertilization costs for farmers, such important sector for the Galician economy. Agroamb is a young Spanish company, located in the Northwest of Spain (Galicia), specialized in the soil application of biosolids, an emergent sector in this region. Agroamb has three projects of investigation in collaboration with the universities of Santiago de Compostela and Vigo, evaluating the use of different biosólidos (sewage sludge, ashes, flours, manures, etc) for elaborating organic fertilizer and its economic and environmental viability.

The effluent generated by livestock at agricultural operations all over both North and South America has a significant environmental footprint that flows far downstream from its source. One Hog farm in particular has been using a breakthrough technology referred to as UltraZyme to enhance the biological activity within its waste lagoons in order to discharge a much less toxic waste stream into the environment. UltraZyme has been in use for over a year now at a hog farm owned by Blue Ribbon, near Panama City, Panama, and its results have been closely monitored through lab tests, visual verification and testimonials, proving its great success.

The use of environmental isotopes is widespread in studies of water resources in Latin America. An optimum use of groundwater resources requires a comprehensive evaluation of the water balance of the aquifer in order to extract water at a rate that will not diminish the groundwater resources. The Environmental Isotope Laboratory (EIL) of the University of Waterloo, Canada, has provided the analytical support for several of these studies.

One of the environmental problem of interest in Nicaragua is the natural concentration of arsenic in groundwater as is found in the North and South West regions of Nicaragua. These areas are close to mineralized areas and along the most important active tectonic structure, the Nicaragua graben. High concentration of arsenic has been detected in water for human consumption in the South West basin groundwater of the Valle de Sebaco-Matagalpa. This article presents the results of a study on the distribution of arsenic pollution in this area.

The application of the new European Water Framework Directive (2000/60/CE) implies that criteria of sustainability and water resources protection have to be included in projects of management, characterisation and remediation of groundwater. In order to show ways for adapting projects to European Water Framework Directive requirements, 4 real cases carried out by Enviros-Spain are shown. Specifically, these experiences prove the success of alternative in situ remediation methods to increase the availability of water resources; the applicability of numerical flow models as a tools of management and planning; the use of reactive transport and geochemical models to design the aquifer remediation strategy; and the utilization of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for integrating large punctual data volumes and different spatial environmental information with the purpose of final water management.

Se presenta un modelo de 16 ejes de trabajo que implementados de manera conjunta conducen a una gestión sustentable de los recursos hídricos. Los resultados del análisis de contenido muestran que México cuenta con la capacidad teórica para implementar una estrategia para la gestión sustentable de los recursos hídricos. Sin embargo, los resultados de los análisis cualitativos y cuantitativos muestran que las estrategias utilizadas en la implementación del desarrollo de capacidades y la participación social en la cuenca Lerma-Chapala no son eficientes.

The joint management of surface water and groundwater resources is a fundamental concept underlying the Spanish Water Act and the European Union’s new policy concerning water use. However, the practical application of this concept is not the same in all EU countries, as the coordinated utilization of various water sources to meet a single demand is not common practice in the north of Europe, where water is relatively abundant, while in some southern countries, including Spain, the gradual introduction of this management technique is being considered. Specifically, in Spain a nationwide study programme has been designed and put in place to examine the coordinated utilization of surface water, groundwater and non-conventional sources of water, found in 27 water exploitation systems. This paper presents an analysis and description of studies carried out in five of these systems.

The program GAR developed by the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) for SMEs aims to reduce costs, to minimize environmental impact and optimize organizational structures, it achieves a triple gain for the business.

This article intents to contribute to the recent public discussion going on in the Chilean society about adequate waste management . Waste management improvement is a big challenge for all actors within society, but also (and very importantly) is an opportunity to develop the society, the democratic and participative process as well as the economy. Also it is a medium to fight poverty, marginalization and discrimination. The first part of the article deals with the development of waste management in Germany. The second part of the article offers an overview of the Chilean waste management problems. The article shows that waste management is not only a technological problem, but is above all a social and economic problem.

Dentro del marco del proyecto CADEPA JICA-INIA, se investigó la calidad del agua de pozos norias, utilizada para consumo humano en el secano mediterráneo de Chile y la espacialización de la contaminación detectada mediante SIG. El universo muestreal fue n=92 para Nitratos y coliformes y n=40 para Metales Pesados, se colectó y analizó las muestras según metodología del centro EULA de la Universidad de Concepción. Las variables analizadas en laboratorio fueron, Coliformes Totales y Fecales, Nitratos y cuatro metales pesados; Cu, Zn, Cd y Ni e insitu se midió, C. Eléctrica, pH y Tº. Los resultados muestran una alta contaminación por coliformes, un 88 % por C.Totales, 78.3 % C. Fecales y un 20.6 % de nitratos sobre la norma Chilena NCh 409/1. Los metales pesados Cu, Zn, y Ni no registran valores sobre norma y Cd no fue detectado por la sensibilidad del equipo. Se analizó dependencia espacial de las variables mediante Índice de Moran, encontrándose dependencia para las variables CE, pH y Tº y sin autocorrelación las demás variables.