ecopolis

Hangzhou Bay Bridge is an S-shaped stayed-cable bridge linking both sides of the Hangzhou Bay. It is the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world! The bridge is 36 kilometres long; it has six lanes in both directions and shortens the distance between Shanghai and Ningbo by 120 km.

First preparations for planning the bridge started a decade ago; close to 600 experts spent nine years on designing the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. Chief Commander of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge project is Mr Wang Yong.

Based on the data gathered by Hoeckstra et al. in their study »Water Footprint of Nations« German designer Timm Kekeritz created a double-sided poster based on the idea of virtual water. One side visualizes the water footprint of selected nations, emphasizing the im- and export of virtual water. The other side shows the virtual water content of selected foods and commodities.

Virtual water content – The virtual-water content of a product (a commodity, good or service) is the volume of freshwater used to produce the product, measured at the place where the product was actually produced (production-site definition). It refers to the sum of the water use in the various steps of the production chain. The virtual-water content of a product can also be defined as the volume of water that would have been required to produce the product at the place where the product is consumed (consumption-site definition). We recommend to use the production-site definition and to mention it explicitly when the consumption-site definition is used. The adjective ‘virtual’ refers to the fact that most of the water used to produce a product is not contained in the product. The real-water content of products is generally negligible if compared to the virtual-water content.
[excerpt from waterfootprint.org]

and here you can order it.

The Iraqi health officials announced on friday the first case of death of Cholera in the city of Baghdad. The infection is originated from the northern part of Iraq, where it started this summer affecting 7000 people.

The International Herlad Tribune reports that Dr. Ryadh Abdul Ameer, director of the Basra Health Ministry said that some city waterworks are entirely without chlorine and continued sayng that “The carrier for this disease is 99 percent water, and chlorine is essential to disinfect the water,”.

Cholera (or Asiatic cholera or epidemic cholera) is a severe diarrheal disease caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Transmission to humans is by ingesting contaminated water or food. The major reservoir for cholera was long assumed to be humans, but some evidence suggests that it is the aquatic environment.

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