Environment & Resources

Groups

Group Members

Water Action Group

The Transition Asheville Water Action Group promotes resilient sustainable water usage in the Asheville - Katuah bioregion.  We recognize that water is an essential resource for agriculture, industry, and maintaining human health.  We will educate the public to develop skills to be resilient through droughts and floods, and to make sustainable choices that reduce erosion, contamination, and increase ground water retention.  We will network with local organizations and government agencies.  KEEP TRACK OF OUR Blog AND Calendar

 42

WENOCA

This group was created to inform members of the Sierrra Club as well as non - members of local events pertaining to the club and environmental issues.

 2

Blogs
geomater's picture

WATER FORUM TO WATER GROUP

Posted by geomater | 2 years 5 weeks ago

At the Water Forum held on March 17, enough people expressed an interest to start our Water Action Group!  Our first meeting is set for 4/28, but the location is not certain yet.  We will be listening to what people want to do and thinking about our mission, goals, and other planning.  Let's create some discussion here on our new Beta Web.  Watch for more details.
Karl's picture

Water Politics

Posted by Karl | 1 year 20 weeks ago

"A legislative study committee, made up of five House Legislators, has been authorized by the General Assembly in Raleigh to 'study' whether or not to seize Asheville's water system.
geomater's picture

Asheville's Water System: A Public Forum

Posted by geomater | 1 year 13 weeks ago

Sorry to say we just missed (on 2/13/12) a forum put on by the Asheville-Buncombe County League of Women Voters to "provide the public with reliable, factual information about the water system, its history, options for its future, and the overall legislative process that is guiding its status. The North Carolina legislature has appointed a study committee that is considering future options for the system, chaired by Rep. Tim Moffitt, who represents part of southern Buncombe County."

geomater's picture

WATER SUSTAINABILITY

Posted by geomater | 1 year 11 weeks ago

Despite the flurry of water news around the issue of Asheville's water system, my efforts to revive the Water Action Group have not met with much success - one person responded.  I want to initiate an effort to make Asheville the first water-sustainable city, and would like to present it as a TA initiative.  I will load a PowerPoint presentation, comments by slide number, and a copy of a sign-on sheet I would like to circulate into the Documents section for the Common Table Group.  I would like to receive comments for how I can improve my materials, and will ask for the t
geomater's picture

A NEW APPROACH TO WATER

Posted by geomater | 1 year 11 weeks ago

Despite the flurry of water news around the issue of Asheville's water system, the response to reviving the Water Action Group has been minimal - one person responded to the Doodle poll for a meeting.  I want to initiate an effort to make Asheville the first water-sustainable city, and would like to present it as a TA Water Action Group initiative.  I will load a PowerPoint presentation, comments by slide number, and a copy of a sign-on sheet I would like to circulate into the Documents section for the Water Action Group.  Please let me know what you think about adopting

geomater's picture

WATER ACTION GROUP MEETING

Posted by geomater | 1 year 10 weeks ago

The Water Action Group will give a presentation on A NEW APPROACH TO WATER: For a Water-Sustainable Asheville.  Asheville still receives enough rain to demonstrate a possible path to water sustainability.  Low-cost methods used for centuries in dry parts of the world but which are not well-known in WNC and other temperate areas offer to protect crops, gardens, and landscaping during drought conditions to maintain property values, and to provide new job opportunities, lower water costs, reduced waste, less strain on infrastructure, decreased energy costs, minim

Documents
geomater's picture

A NEW APPROACH TO WATER

Posted by geomater | 1 year 11 weeks ago

Attached are files for the PowerPoint presentation, Comments, and a Letter of Support.
geomater's picture

A NEW APPROACH TO WATER

Posted by geomater | 1 year 11 weeks ago

Attached are a copy of the presentation, comments, and a sign-on letter of support.
geomater's picture

WORLD WATER DAY FLYER

Posted by geomater | 11 weeks 3 days ago

Maps

No maps meet this criteria

Wikis

Water Externalities

Externalities are unintended consequences which affect other people or properties.  Long term negative externalities were termed the Tragedy of the Commons by the ancient Greeks.  Since water is fluid and freely crosses property lines, water provides us some of the most notorious examples of externalities.  To make our choices resilient and sustainable we must address each of these externalities.  Here we will list the major examples. 

Bee Tree Creek Flow

Implications for water resource planning

River flow has been monitored on Bee Tree Creek since 1929.  We can use this information to support planning water usage in our area.  To start our study we can look at typical and extreme water flow for each day of the year. On our graph we look at median daily flow (green), the five percentile (red), the worst drought (dark blue), the 95 percentile (purple), and the worst floods (light blue.)

Unsustainable Choices

Unsustainable Choices

Resource Resilience Template

Resilience

Various members of Transition Asheville discussed developing Resilience Indices to help guide our region towards a more resilient future.  We recognized three meaningful approaches to indices that could be developed: personal resilience, community resilience, and resource resilience.  A few members believed that resource resilience is the easiest of the three for which to create a metric. 

Discussions

'Bag It" a video that inspires one to minimize contact with plastics! and to work to get rid of plastic bags now and forever!

I just saw the video, "Bag It", a funny and appalling look at how plastic has infiltrated our lives and the planet. Did you know that it was only as recently as the 1970s that plastic bags became available in supermarkets? Seems like they have been around forever, but, nope, my parents must somehow have gotten the groceries home without 'em. There were lots of facts and figures in the film, about our rates of plastic usage, but to me the most appalling and compelling information was about where much of the plastic of our lives ends up, and it is largely in the oceans.

 0 replies

Drought

We've forgotten about our recurring droughts already.  But part of Britain is in another severe one.  Here's an article to remind us of what we will face again soon.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/11/deluge-drought-gardening-dan-pearson

 0 replies

SE US Drought Maps

The current SE US Drought Map is here: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DM_southeast.htm, the predicted US Drought forecasts Mar-May is here: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/seasonal_drought.html, and the Soil Moisture Outlook for April 2012 and June 2012 is here: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/soilmst/img/cas_w_mon.lead1.gif.  Doesn't loo

 0 replies