March on Technology
The month of March features blogs about technologies that impact water. I call it “March on Technology”
The image is of a marching Jayhawk from the university of Kansas where I had the pleasure to spend some time during my PhD with Prof. Susan Lunte. Sue and her husband Craig instilled in me a love for research, travel, family, barbeques, friends, college basketball and so much more. I wasn’t crazy about the tornadoes. It is a great memory to kick off my month of blogs about water technologies: good and bad.
Water infrastructure is ageing in Ireland and needs huge investment now to achieve the improvements that we need to meet water quality and distribution demands. However, in many other areas of our lives, water plays a really important role. There are new technologies developed to make salt water drinkable in water scarce areas of the world, and water cools the very systems that manage the data we use on a daily basis.
The water footprint is something that is considered in some areas of our lives, like agriculture for example. However, there is a water footprint to so many more areas of our lives. If we were to consider everything we use, eat and have in our homes, it probably has used or will need water in the process to get it to us.
Innovations in technologies to improve how we manage water quality and quantity are coming to the fore and hopefully will bring hope for those struggling with water shortage or poor quality.
Because water is an everyday need and perhaps in some cases ever present – we don’t see the most exciting innovations, but mainly necessary developments. More thought and energy is needed to be disruptive in the water space. Hopefully this month we will find something interesting.