Alternatives to praying for rain
Turkey is waiting for rain to fall. Not only because rainy weather is enjoyable, but our dams are near empty at 25 percent of the total capacity. If the situation doesn’t change, we will have water shortages in almost all of our cities very soon. There is no real danger of draught on the horizon, so food safety is not a big concern yet. However, I suspect it will also be a major problem soon if things don’t change, because we don’t have a clear strategy for water and food safety. We were told everything was under control many times by the authorities, but the latest comment from the Minister of Food, Agriculture and Livestock revealed the truth. Minister Mehdi Eker said there is a big risk of water shortages and even draught. He added “he is worried and we must all pray for things to get better.”
As a citizen, I am very displeased with the solution that a minister is providing: Praying. I believe we don’t need a minister to tell us to pray for rain. I don’t understand how he doesn’t resign after revealing praying is the only thing to do in times of not having enough rain in the year 2013, thousands of years after mankind first discovered irrigation. The first irrigation system goes back to 3000 BCE if not earlier.
Therefore, I would like to suggest some alternatives and things to do for our esteemed minister, because just praying for rain is so 4000 BCE.
According to IBM, up to 50 percent of the world’s water disappears from aging, leaky pipes, costing about US$14 billion every year.
There is a current project in Spain. Cáceres will use a single software platform that integrates several technologies, including remote meter readers, Geographic Information Systems, remote control information, a large number of water quality monitoring sensors and the mathematical model for predicting the behavior of the supply system. These, in turn, will enable the firm ACCIONA Agua to develop an advanced business management strategy for the Cáceres drinking water network. The applied technologies will allow ACCIONA Agua to detect faults, jams or leaks as they happen, reducing the time required to locate and repair them. Until now, leaks could only be detected using conventional listening scans. This will enable the city to save immense amounts of water.
Smarter water management solutions exist for cities, businesses and utilities. Sensors placed throughout the infrastructure and natural waterways feed data to analytics-driven technologies, enabling real-time tracking and reporting conditions.
Smart solutions include the Intelligent Operations for Water component, which provides extensive visibility and situational awareness spanning water and wastewater operations. This helps improve decision-making, enhance efficiency and reduce risk. This includes the Water Efficiency Analytic component, which helps mitigate non-revenue water through pressure optimization and pipe failure prediction. It turns data from smart meters into opportunities for recapturing revenue and detecting fraud. It delivers insights from big data and smart devices to help operators improve irrigation, flood management and sewer overflows. It takes advantage of flexible deployment options by offering multiple deployment models.
These solutions exist in world technology leaders like Siemens and IBM’s portfolios.
Our minister just needs to log in to their websites to find solutions better than praying.
