ABOUT

Welcome to the Water for the Ages blog. I started this project around 2008 to engage with water and sanitation on a global scale. Now I have transitioned to a new digital space leaving this blog (see Blog Archive above) for current and future internet people.

In the beginning, I yearned to understand how humans could care about water or the environment if they were struggling to meet basic needs. So I scoured international news outlets to make sense of it all. Over the years, I received emails from people in Bangladesh, China, Holland, India, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Serbia, Tanzania, Uganda, and more (see the H20 Organizations page comments) that helped to broaden my understanding.

What started out as a project to comprehend water and sanitation in the “Global South” (see 13-Gallon Challenge Wrap-Up and Start posts and Water for the Ages in India posts) morphed into a project to understand water and sanitation in the “Global North” and “Global South” while thinking about transnational linkages between these places (see Water for the Ages Gets a Brand New (out)Look, Water and Toilets for Humans w/o Homes, and Empowerment and Gender Equality in Water and Sanitation: What does it mean? What does it matter? posts).

This blog still gets many visits on pages such as H20 Organizations, H20 Films, and H20 Books. So feel free to peruse those pages as well as the Blog Archive at your leisure. You may also message me at ablbrown [at] ucsc [dot] edu to stay in contact. May we all continue collaborating so that humans and non-humans alike have safe and plentiful water, toilets, and hygiene!

28 thoughts on “ABOUT”

  3. Wow, this site is so great, I thought this site was a huge organization! Nice work. Thank you for sharing information on this topic. You are my personal hero- As I am not as connected with water, I appreciate your passion…Thank you!

    By the way, this is the first blog I’ve ever commented on…

  6. Hey Abby…
    this is the only blog I have ever seen, and thus the best (though paradoxically NOT the worst) I must say that I am impressed… I am very lucky in that I live on an 8 mile long peninsula and the well water is excellent as well as plentiful. The rest of the world does not have that luxury.. I recently heard that the mighty Colorado River no longer reaches the Gulf of Mexico.. It is used up before reaching its natural destination. How sad. I will definitely explore this site when I get back home.. thanks Abby

  9. Hi Abigail – great blog.

    You might be interested in a blog where you can follow an experiment which is spending at least 10!!! times less water to grow vegetables in dry or very dry regions. Not only that, the solar dripping system (Kondenskompressor) purifies ‘bad’ water, which means that you can grow plants and vegetables sensitive to brackish water. The best : It doesn’t need electronics nor any other technical know-how, it’s recycling and doesn’t cost anything! Gratis for the entire world.

    The blog is written in Spanish, and an English translation will be coming.
    http://kondenskompressor.blogspot.com
    regards

  10. Hi Abigail,

    Feelin’ lucky to have stumbled across your chunk of the internet here.

    A very thoughtful compendium of resources and news. Water’s a topic very close to my heart as well–I also have a background in watershed management, with a bit of groundwater contamination and public drinking water management tossed in for good measure.

    Cheers!

  11. Bravo, Abby,

    This blog is great. Hope you will have the juice to keep it up while you move on.

    I know you won’t forget us up here in the Chehalis watershed.

    Pete

  12. Thanks Pete.

    I will most definitely never, ever, ever, forget about all the wonderful people affiliated with the Chehalis River Basin Land Trust (http://www.chehalislandtrust.org/) and the Chehalis River Council (http://www.crcwater.org/). You all are doing such amazing things in the tranquil (and, at times, tumultuous) Chehalis River watershed. From you all, I have learned that volunteer citizen groups master accomplishment.

    Future generations thank you.

  13. There’s lots of information in what you have written, but you skipped nimbly over exactly what you replaced your faucets with. I didn’t do well on e-searching for replacement bathroom faucets that are low-flow. Can you direct us to more resources for this?

    Also, eventually you will have to mention garden irrigation–I don’t mean LAWN, I mean the edible landscape. I grew up during a drought in Texas and endured the drought starting in ’75 in California before moving to…drought here in Knoxville, TN. It is raining steadily here and has been since mid-December, but this is the first really serious rains we’ve had in about 4 years (not quite normally wet for a few before that). The rainbarrels were empty and I was beginning to be seriously concerned about all the trees, not to mention the native plants adapted to 48″ a year. Otherwise, our water use is quite low, deeply sensitized by all that dry experience.

  16. I am very fascinated by this blog. Recently, I was searching about water journalism, but I didn’t get any authentic information about water journalism. Your blog is very helpful to anyone who interested in water and water-related issues. I don’t know why you have not mentioned the invasion of multi-national companies on natural resources.

  17. Hi, Abigail
    This is a really unique, exciting, blog. I am just beginning my studies of environmental engineering at Lane/OSU and will be utilizing your blog for a writing class I’m taking. Thanks for your hard work and dedictation. Dena

    1. Hi, Dena. Thanks for your comment, and I’m sorry about the delay in reply. I’m not sure that my blog is the best to use for a writing class – ha – but I’m so excited to hear about your studies in environmental engineering at OSU. Go Beavs. If you ever want to chat about h20, send me a message on my blog. Cheers.

  18. Hi Abby,
    I’m loving your ideas here! I’m currently the social media intern for a very small and very nimble non-profit organization called Bank-On-Rain (http://www.bank-on-rain.com/). We are working towards grassroots solutions for clean water access in developing countries with World Water Partners (WWP: http://worldwaterpartners.org/) and Peer Water Exchange (PWX: http://peerwater.org/). Right now we are working on a rainwater catchment system for a school in Rwanda.
    Sounds like these are the kinds of projects you are interested in? You should definitely check out our blog. Our latest post is on WWP’s project to get water filters in all the health clinics in Haiti (http://bank-on-rain.posterous.com/will-we-still-be-talking-about-access-to-clea).
    Let me know what you think 🙂

    Emily Berg for Bank-On-Rain

  19. Hi Abby,

    Great website, we will reccommend it on mine. Your story is very similar to mine, I am a recently graduated Masters student who is passionate about water. If you have time check out my website, http://www.tastethewater.co.uk , which is similar to your blog, except it focusses soley on water and sanitation in developing countries. I would be happy to work with you in some way.

    Kind regards,

    Tastethewater

    1. Hi Jack. Thanks for sharing your website. Sorry about my long delay in reply. I’m often not aware when comments are posted to my blog pages. Anyhow, cool efforts with the map. I’m linking your website to my blog. See you later!

  20. This is the best look yet for Water for the Ages. It’s clean and very professional and yet completely accessible. I’m eager to let other people know about it.

  21. Hi, I am Wang from China. Remember me? We see each other in OSU. Nice to talk to you by this way. Hope see you this year at Oregon.

    1. Good to hear from you Wang. Yes, I remember you from the international waters course and your blog. Hope you are doing well these days. Are you going back to Oregon State University this summer? I am now studying at University of California Santa Cruz looking at water and sanitation in Environmental Sociology.

  22. I wii be at OSU this From this Sep.to next Sep. I think I would go to Colifornia at the end of this year or next summer. Hope see you then.

    1. Maybe we can have you do a visiting lecture at University of California Santa Cruz? Please let me know your current research areas, and I’ll try to arrange something. Cheers.

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