water use

Texas State University’s Keisuke Ikehata, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Ingram School of Engineering, joins the Big Ideas TXST podcast to discuss an innovative pilot program to convert wastewater into purified drinking water.
 
Texas’ rapid population growth combined with ongoing drought conditions has led to water shortages across the state. In the face of this challenge, Ikehata sees an opportunity for the public to embrace the idea of using treated wastewater for daily needs, a process referred to as potable water reuse. Ikehata and his students have partnered with the San Marcos Wastewater Treatment Plant on an advanced water purification system that turns more than 5 million gallons of wastewater into clean, environmentally safe water on a daily basis. 

An expert in advanced water and wastewater treatment and sustainable water resources management, including water reuse, desalination and stormwater management, Ikehata earned his doctorate in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. In July 2019, he joined TXST as one of four founding members of the civil engineering program. Prior to joining TXST, Ikehata worked for more than eight years as a technical specialist/R&D manager at a water resources engineering firm in Orange County, Calif. and eight years in academia in California, Alberta and Kansas. 

FURTHER READING:

TXST researchers implement innovative wastewater treatment strategies

USBR grant funds research into contaminant detection for water reclamation systems

Diatom research could prove an innovative key to improving efficiency of desalination
 

Your very quick roundup of the latest news in France.

On this week's episode of Fields, Melissa (Wythe was away on jury duty) speaks with the multi-talented Annie Novak.

Annie is the co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, the director of Growing Chefs, a nonprofit that provides food education in schools and the community, the manager of the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden, and the author of The Rooftop Growing Guide: How to Transform Your Roof into a Vegetable Garden or Farm. Annie began her journey into growing with commodity chain analysis (where does food come from, and where does it go?), by working at greenmarkets, and by learning from farmers in Upstate New York. She still stresses a regional perspective, emphasizing the importance of rural farms. Of course, she still loves botanical gardens and urban farms for their social impacts and educational offerings. Today, much of Annie’s work focuses on education. At the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, she offers children and adults first-hand experiences with plants and fungi in a vegetable garden and a greenhouse.

Melissa and Annie dive into how trees communicate, the metaphors we use to talk about plants and fungi, how they relate to each other and to us, and the need for “tenderness toward nonhuman things.” The two discuss creating biodiverse farm ecosystems and revisit the idea of seeds as time travelers. Annie offers a profound appreciation for the nonhuman living world. It’s a deep conversation, and one you won’t want to miss!

Photo courtesy of Naima Green.

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Dr. Sarah Klopatek currently serves as the Director of Sustainability Research and Development at JBS USA. Specifically, Sarah works on livestock sustainability research, Net Zero initiatives, and animal welfare. Prior to working at JBS, Sarah was a postdoctoral research fellow at University of California-Davis working in beef cattle system dynamics and livestock sustainability. During her graduate career Sarah completed numerous beef cattle research projects including a sustainability assessment of four grass-fed and grain-fed beef systems, multiple beef cattle life cycle assessments, a national beef sustainability and BQA survey, and multiple meat science projects. In addition, Sarah was heavily involved in teaching and extension. Over the course of Sarah’s graduate and postdoctoral career Sarah earned numerous awards and fellowships including the National Cattlemen's Foundation WD Farr Scholarship, the Council of Agriculture and Science Technology Fellowship, the James Beard Fellowship, and the American Society of Animal Scientists Young Scholar Award.

Find Dr. Sarah Klopatek at-

LK- @Sarah C. Klopatek, PhD

TW- @DrBeefBabe

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myboundlessbody.com

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This week's discussion focuses on water use and sustainability in cannabis cultivation. Our guests give a deep dive into everything from how much water is actually used in cannabis cultivation, to how the cannabis industry can advance sustainability across the supply chain. Derek and John share insights on why measuring water use is an important priority, different water use practices, how water use in the regulated cannabis cultivation market compares to the illicit market, how water use in cannabis cultivation compares to other traditional agricultural sectors, and more. 

I'm a big fan of the concept of Indoor Vertical Farming, so when I came across the company &ever I reached out to their CSO, Mark Korzilius and asked him to come on the podcast to tell me more about their operations.

&ever is a startup in the vertical farming space with a large operation in Kuwait, some interesting hyperlocal operations in Germany, and a larger plant (sorry, bad pun!) opening in Singapore.

I loved that in this interview with Mark, he was very realistic about the advantages of vertical farming - not promising that it will save the world, but rather giving a sober, studied view of its advantages, and the huge advantages they bring.

As you can probably tell, I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I hope you enjoy listening to it too.

If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).

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And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!

Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played and produced by my daughter Luna Juniper

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If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Credits
Music credits - Intro by Joseph McDade, and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna Juniper