Rotoscope

This is a quick rotoscope i did showing the flush used in a normal uk home, in developing countries like africa such basic examples of drainage and sanitation aren't very common. they have to rely on rivers and bodies of water to supply all of thier water.

Africa - Images

Because we get it straight from the tap, it’s sometimes easy to overlook how precious a commodity water can be. But, as recent national flooding, and international drought has taught us, it’s not something we should take for granted.

Africa - The facts.

Water
Clean water is essential for life, but one in eight of the world's population does not have access to it. This, and lack of safe sanitation, result in over two million people dying from water-related diseases every year. The lack of clean water close to people's homes also affects people's time, livelihoods and quality of life.

Sanitation
Sanitation can be defined as access to safe, clean and effective human urine and faeces disposal facilities. Worldwide, 2.5 billion people live without this essential service and the resulting diarrhoeal diseases kill almost 5,000 children a day.

Hygiene education
To gain the full benefits of safe water and sanitation communities also need to know about the links between diseases and unsafe hygiene practices. Hygiene education focuses on issues such as personal hygiene - the simple act of washing hands with soap and water can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by a third.

Disease
Poor sanitation and bad hygiene can result in the contamination of water sources with millions of disease causing micro-organisms. These micro-organisms work in different ways to incapacitate infected individuals.

Poverty
The most obvious benefit of access to safe water and sanitation is a reduction in disease. But the economic position of poor families is often dramatically improved when they gain access to these basic services.

Problems for women
In developing countries poor water and sanitation affects the lives of women and children the most. It impacts on women's time, health, education and family relations.

Problems for children
Without safe water and sanitation, life for children in developing countries can be very hard. They are often at risk from disease and are unable to attend school.

Problems for the elderly
In many of the African countries where WaterAid works life expectancy is frighteningly low. Those who do live into old age face increasing problems as collecting heavy loads of water puts further strains on their health.

Problems for the disabled
The struggle to gain access to clean, safe water and basic sanitation facilities is even greater for those contending with physical disability. Collecting water is so much harder, and often impossible, for those in wheelchairs, the blind or simply frail and infirm as a result of illness or old age.

Ste's Weather Updates

"Today is bitterly cold, moisture has no chance to settle as it is frosted over, leaving slippery paths and lethal mountain walks. Beware, wear hiking boots!" Steven Swanbaruga 13:04 11/12/09

Bill Viola

This is one of the 'Small Saints', I recorded this using my camera.

Whilst the man is on the other side of the water to the camera he is seen as colourless, desaturated. As he passes through the water he reaches the light path and in turn becomes coloured. Now i thought when watching this piece that Viola had edited his footage so that an exaggerated effect could be achieved by adding this colour after the man passes through the water, but to my surprise i was told that this wasn't done at all and the change happened because of the certain way viola had set up his lighting.

Bill Viola Exhibition NY

These are a few stills from the Bill Viola exhibition we were lucky enough to visit whilst we travelled to New York. The images I have taken show a piece in the exhibit called 'Small Saints', 2008. This consisted of six small LCD screens playing on loop the passing of individual people through water with Viola's play of light.

Ste's Weather Updates

"Today is drafty, dreary and depressing. But on a bright side a fine shower has just begun" Steven Swanbaruga 14:25 7/12/09

Initial 3D test

Early Style Test

West-East pipeline route

Manchester Water Network

Drainage pipe animation

I have found this animation of which is similar to certain aspects we would like to feature in our project

Crashing Water by Arif Akca

This shows how water crashes against a solid surface and how water travels around bends. This is obviously on a large scale but it could still be scaled down to use in a household pipe or something similar.

Water in Pipe

Schematic animation Trump tower

This is a schematic animation i found online showing the development of build used to create the Trump tower.

It has been made using some kind of 3D software and interested me into creating some kind of family house water system, incorporating the 3D aspect.

Water by Mat Sesti

This is a short practice piece using particles to produce a water like substance. This technique looks like flowing water and a similar technique could be used for when water is flowing off an edge or when its coming out of a pipe or tap.

Plumbing

Through looking around water and its relation to a standard family I have started to look at plumbing schematics/blueprints, here are a few different examples:

Water Aid, World toilet day

This shows what is being done to raise awareness of Water sanitation in world’s poorest countries. Their aims are to provide safe drinking water, effective sanitation and hygiene education. This is an short animation to highlight key points in their scheme and how they aim to change peoples way of life.

Ste's Weather Updates

"Erm .... Fairly overcast. Murky and depressing, so cold that your nipples would be erect" Steven Swanbaruga 11:26 1/12/09

Canada input to CO2 emissions

George Monbiot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 November 2009 19.30 GMT

Syncrude Oil Sands, Mine and Refinery, the world's largest oil sand operation producing crude oil at Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, October 20, 2001. Photograph: Greg Smith/Corbis

Canada's image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling.
The tar barons have held the nation to ransom. This thuggish petro-state is today the greatest obstacle to a deal in Copenhagen.

When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world's peacekeeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country's government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee's tea party. So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I've broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.

So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.

Rest of the article is located at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/30/canada-tar-sands-copenhagen-climate-deal

Water Aid, What do we do?

This is the action plan for the Water Aid charity. It shows how they are trying to help communities and their futures. The piece also explains how water has a knock on effect on education, plant life and health. This piece provides a lot of useful information that people would not necessarily know and as well trying to raise awareness of the problems these societies face.

Drinking Water Safety Plan

The images below are a document that I found on the United Utilities website. The document looks at a plan which considers the way that water can be drunk safely.

Mapping future water stress

HOW WATER AVAILABILITY MAY CHANGE, AS TEMPERATURES, POPULATION AND INDUSTRIALISATION INCREASE

These projections of per-capita water availability were made by Martina Floerke and colleagues at the University of Kassel in Germany.

Waterdrop recorded at 2000 fps

Looking into the Oceans, BBC's Britain from Above

The technology of satellite radar has revealed the climate of the oceans. This enables vast weather systems to be detected, mapped, monitored and forecasted. This also shows how seas are expanding because of the melting of the ice caps as well as lakes drying up and causing water shortages.

Ships crossing the channel, BBC's Britain from Above

This visualization shows 24 hours worth of shipping, using ships GPS, as they pass through the Channel being dodged by ferries connecting England and France.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/world-water-supply/540.html

i-show you this vid

• Title: World water supply
• Duration: 01:26
• Description: This clip describes how despite 97.5% of the world being covered in water, under 1% of it is availble to drink. It concludes by explaining how some Gulf states are using desalination as a solution to their water supply problems. With thanks to: NASA.
• Subject: Geography   Topic: Rivers and Water Management
• Keywords: gulf, UK, India, water, supply, sea,desalination, resource management

Pipes from Below, BBC's Britain from Above

This is a short piece just describing and informing us about the sewage systems we have in place in the UK and how we deal with the waste we produce.

Water War, BBC's Britain from Above

This is a short piece showing how the same satellite technology that has revealed water reserves beneath the Sahara desert has now been applied to wartorn Darfur. This reveals that there is a lake half the size of Wales under wartorn Darfur.

Ste's Weather updates

"it looks like rain, but currently it is chilly, yet crisp" Steven Swanbaruga 13:25 30/11/09

The impact of coastal floods on Canvey Island, BBC's Britain from Above

This piece is about the residents of Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary that were badly affected by coastal flooding in 19. A range of archive materials illustrate the scale of coastal floods and their impact on the surrounding area. There is an interview with a former resident who was directly affected by the events, describing how people responded. To finish there is a section on flood defenses and how they are having to be changed over time.

UK weather patterns, BBC's Britain from Above

This is a short video extract taken from Britain From Above which explains how we get our weather reports and how the weather in the UK is effected by weather systems all over the globe. The last section of the piece explores the way in which humans are contributing to the risk of floods.

India

These are a couple more photos that I took on the trip. I picked these photos out because they both show the water in terms of society in different ways.

In this photos you can see the way that the women are carrying water on their heads. Here the ladies will be carrying water from where they found it back to their communities:

And in this photo you can see a man wading out to the large shipping vessels in order to get to work:

The gateway to India

When I went to India a few years ago we stayed across the road from the 'Gateway to India'.

The gateway is: "Mumbai's most famous monument, this is the starting point for most tourists who want to explore the city. It was built as a triumphal arch to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary, complete with four turrets and intricate latticework carved into the yellow basalt stone. Ironically, when the Raj ended in 1947, this colonial symbol also became a sort of epitaph: the last of the British ships that set sail for England left from the Gateway. Today this symbol of colonialism has got Indianised, drawing droves of local tourists and citizens. Behind the arch, there are steps leading down to the water. Here, you can get onto one of the bobbing little motor launches, for a short cruise through Mumbai's splendid natural harbour". (http://www.mumbainet.com/travel/gateway.htm)

Here are some photos that I took whilst on a boat trip from the Gateway:

One thing that was clearly apparent was the fact that the harbor around the gateway was a very busy, working harbor. People were bringing goods in and taking goods out. This to me, highlights the importance of having the use of boats in a place like Mumbai as it is a great means of transporting goods and people using the water.

Quirky Ideas

The two images below are some images that I found on the net that someone has designed and made. I found these whilst looking at ideas related to water and society and decided that they deserved a post!

(p.s. Search word in google was moist!) I want these glasses!

Ste's Weather updates

"The exterior of Stockport College is well and truly being gushed on" Steven Swanbaruga 14:34 27/11/09

Ste's Weather updates

" Matthew, it's looking rather moist outside! Stick that on the blog" Steven Swanbaruga 27/11/09