Naomi Antony
Assistant news editor, SciDev.Net

It’s day one of Tech4Dev 2012, and the question on everyone’s lips is ­­- “What is an appropriate technology?”

I sat in on some fascinating presentations that aimed to answer this question by looking at water management technologies in India and Africa.

The one that provided the most food for thought was a talk by Ravinder Malik from the New Delhi branch of the International Water Management Institute.

Presenting research on the use of treadle pumps in the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, India, Malik broke the question down and asked “Who are technologies appropriate for, the promoters or the users?”

Treadle pumps use body weight and leg muscles to lift water from a depth of up to eight metres for use in irrigation. They were introduced in Bangladesh to great success in 1985, boosting crop productivity and helping to lift…

Whether or not you garden, it is interesting to think about which vegetables, fruits, and herbs require less water to irrigate. I had a hard time finding an official chart online, but with a little research, some advice from growers, and personal experience, I can offer the following. I discovered the organization Waterfootprint.org, and got the figures at the bottom from them. This whole issue is important in California where all of the produce below are grown in massive quantities, but it is just as relevant to those who rely on California farms for their food. If you are a gardener, I found this handy guide (takes a minute to load, but worth it) that goes over a bunch of irrigation basics for gardens, it is not focused on vegetable gardens specifically.

Think about this when you are
-at the market
-ordering from a menu
-planning your garden
-serving…

This year’s General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union included, for the first time, a session on the role and value of ‘prediction’ in hydrological sciences. The session took place on Monday, April 23rd and was attended by approx. 125 EGU2012-visitors. The room was filled well over capacity and unfortunately, some people were unable to attend as a result.

Six speakers elaborated on the theme of using hydrological predictions on different time-scales and for different types of decision. Ana Lopez reminded attendees that any prediction of future climate, either single-valued or probabilistic, is a product of a set of underlying assumptions and may be flawed as a result of those being incomplete or incorrect. Robust policy-making must therefore take these uncertainties into account. Jos Timmermans described the challenge of combining the presence of both scientific uncertainty and dynamic complexity in predictive modeling as well as an approach for doing this…

By Thomas Giambelluca

Anecdotal evidence suggests that, besides impacting biodiversity, the invasive tree Miconia calvescens is causing landslides and other soil erosion problems in Tahiti, where it has displaced native forest. As miconia takes hold in Hawai‘i, local scientists and environmental organizations have voiced concerns about its potential hydrological impacts: increased flooding, diminished groundwater supply, loss of topsoil, and siltation of coral reefs.

Miconia invasions lead to dense, monotypic stands with little or no ground-covering vegetation. Miconia’s large, dark leaves reduce light levels beneath the canopy, thereby inhibiting the germination and growth of other plant species. Large leaves also produce relatively large throughfall drops during and after rain events.

“Throughfall” refers to rainwater that reaches the forest floor. Some throughfall consists of raindrops that fall through the forest canopy without hitting any leaves or branches. The rest comes from drops that splash or drip from wetted vegetation. Water that drips…