TED Talk Thursday – 4 ways we can avoid a catastrophic drought by David Sedlak

by atmara | Oct 12, 2017 | Ecology, Sustainability, TED, TED Talks, Water

According to TED.com : “As the world’s climate patterns continue to shift unpredictably, places where drinking water was once abundant may soon find reservoirs dry and groundwater aquifers depleted. In this talk, civil and environmental engineer David Sedlak shares four practical solutions to the ongoing urban water crisis. His goal: to shift our water supply towards new, local sources of water and create a system that is capable of withstanding any of the challenges climate change may throw at us in the coming years.”

“Author, Professor and Director of the Institute for Environmental Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley, David Sedlak has developed cost-effective, safe and sustainable systems to manage water resources. He is particularly interested in the development of local sources of water, and his research has addressed water reuse–the practice of using municipal wastewater effluent to sustain aquatic ecosystems and augment drinking water supplies as well as the treatment and use of urban runoff to contaminated groundwater from contaminated industrial sites as water supplies.”

“In recent years, Sedlak’s research on the fate of wastewater-derived contaminants has received considerable attention. He began this research in 1996 when he developed simple methods for measuring steroid hormones in wastewater. Since that time, he and his students have studied the fate of hormones, pharmaceuticals, toxic disinfection byproducts and other chemicals. His research team has also studied approaches for remediating contaminated soil and groundwater by in situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) and advanced oxidation processes.”

“He also is the author of Water 4.0, a book that examines the ways in which we can gain insight into current water issues by understanding the history of urban water systems.”

4 ways we can avoid a catastrophic drought by David Sedlak

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!