As founder of the Global Water Policy Project and lead expert for National Geographic’s Freshwater Initiative, Sandra’s goal is to promote the conservation and sustainable use of the Earth’s freshwater resources.
Sandra says she grew up in New York as a Long Island beach kid. She was always a ware of the “comfort, peace, and balance” offered by the natural world, especially the environments of wetlands and rivers. Before starting work on a project, Sandra considers an area’s “geography of water”: the amount of water in the area’s basin, the population, and the agricultural use of water. The geography of water helps Sandra determine an area’s water stress. Water stress is the situation where a community is using more water than nature made available.
Sandra first became aware of the concept of water stress after reading Swedish hydrologist Malin Falkenmark’s book Water for a Starving World. This groundbreaking work linked water use, food and population. As Sandra began to understand water stress, she realized it affects everything, from a community’s development to its political security. “So many great civilizations developed alongside rivers and lakes,” she says, pointing to the ancient civilizations of Ur (between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), Egypt (which developed on the Nile), and the Indus River Valley.
Today, Sandra points out, more than 200 rivers are shared between two or more nations. Dams and other river management techniques implemented (实施) by nations upstream have a huge impact on nations downstream. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers have their sources in Turkey, for example, but their basins are in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. River management from Turkey would impact the freshwater available to these countries for drinking, hygiene (卫生), industry, and transportation.
Water management has become part of many nations’ foreign policy. Sandra points to the Mekong River Commission. The headwaters of the Mekong River are in China, although the basin is nearly 800,000 square kilometers and includes the nations of Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Many governments are members of the Mekong River Commission, which promotes sustainable development of the water supply.
1. What did water mean to Sandra as a child?A.It represented a kind of spirit. |
B.It caused stress to her life. |
C.It brought many obstacles to her. |
D.It offered a way for transportation. |
A.Water stress was perfectly settled. |
B.Water contributed much to the world culture. |
C.Water had no impact on the steadiness of a nation. |
D.Water crisis was recognized before Malin’s book. |
A.Upstream countries have priorities. |
B.Every country has its policy for rivers. |
C.Rivers across countries are decreasing. |
D.Source governance of rivers is critical. |
A.To show its importance to the locals. |
B.To emphasize its great volume of flow. |
C.To show the power of cooperation. |
D.To tell its challenges to related nations. |
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【推荐1】A new coffee culture is forming in and around San Francisco, California. A growing number of coffeehouses there are barring paper cups. Instead, they are using glass containers or creating “bring your own cup” policies. The movement started among neighborhood cafes in an effort to reduce waste. Now it is gaining support from large businesses in the city—and around the country.
Famous cook Dominique Crenn is opening a cafe in San Francisco next year that will not use to-gabags, throw-away coffee cups or any plastic. Diners who plan to buy a to-go drink from boutique Crenn will be asked to bring their own coffee cups, a spokeswoman said.
The Blue Bottle coffeehouse company uses about 15,000 to-go cups each month at its 70 shops across the U.S. The company recently said it wants to “show our guests and the world that we can get rid of disposable (一次性的) cups”.
Blue Bottle plans to stop using paper cups at two of its stores next year. The move is part of a promise to produce “zero waste” by the end of next year.
Larger coffee and fast-food businesses around the U. S. are feeling a sense of urgency (紧急) to be more environmentally friendly, said Bridget Croke. She is with the New York-based investment company Closed Loop Partners. It is working with Starbucks and McDonald’s to develop a substitute (替代品) for the disposable coffee cup.
Today’s to-go cups for hot drinks are not only made from paper, they also have plastic to prevent leaking. This makes them hard to recycle, Croke said. She admitted that it is not likely that large national food and drink companies will stop using disposable cups totally or ask all customers to bring their own.
So, her company is looking for other solutions. In partnership with Closed Loop, Starbucks and McDonald’s paid $10 million to develop the “single-use cup of the future”. The result is expected to be recyclable and to break down naturally.
1. What does the underlined word“barring”in the first paragraph mean?A.Using. | B.Inventing. | C.Improving. | D.Banning. |
A.They will desert throw-away cups. |
B.They’ve decided to improve service. |
C.They want to attract more customers. |
D.They will open some new coffee shops. |
A.They are made from wood. |
B.They are needed in great quantity. |
C.The hard to recycle. |
D.They encourage people to drink more coffee. |
A.Refuse to offer cups to consumers. |
B.Invent environmentally friendly cups. |
C.Run together with another company. |
D.Spend a lot on the development of new coffee. |
【推荐2】In 2019, the world generated 54.6 million tons of e-waste. However, just 17.4 percent of it was formally collected and recycled. Since 2014, the amount of e-waste recycled has grown by 1.8million tons a relatively small amount, considering that the amount of e-waste generated increased by 9.2 million tons in the same period.
Global reserves of some elements, such as platinum (铂), are supposed to be fully used up within 15 years if the proportion of recycled stocks entering production doesn’t increase.E-waste and EV batteries are currently recycled through processes called pyrometallurgy(火法冶金术) and hydrometallurgy (湿法冶金术) . However, they involve burning temperatures with a high energy demand and deep carbon footprint, and poisonous chemicals which are harmful to the environment. Alternatives are therefore being sought.
A team of scientists from the University of Coventry are extending one such alternative.They have been using non-poisonous bacteria to oxidize(使氧化) and recover the precious metals—a process known as “bioleaching”. They have shown that copper is widely recoverable from e-waste, and that all metals present in EV batteries can be recovered by using microbes(微生物).If extended, bioleaching facilities would mean that manufacturers of EV batteries and other electronic goods would be able to reco ver metals locally, relying less on costly exports to recycling centers abroad.
“At present, a key limitation for e-waste recycling is the lack of certification detailing the types and amounts of metals contained in electronic goods. But with an efficient recycling process appearing, manufacturers have the motivation to use more recycled material in their products, which will change the very design of electronics goods. It’s about closing the loop of a product’s life cycle,” said the leader of the Bioleaching Research Group, Sebastien Farnaud.
Ultimately, bioleaching technology is born out of the idea of creating a truly circular process for the things that we consume. We need to shift from a mindset and economy where we see waste as an end product, to one where there isn’t even a start or an end at all.
1. What do the statistics in paragraph 1 indicate?A.The recycling rate of e-waste is comparatively low |
B.People pay little attention to e-waste recycling. |
C.E-waste has caused serious environmental problems. |
D.The amount of e-waste is sharply increasing every year. |
A.They only apply to certain e-waste. |
B.They are not environmentally friendly. |
C.They generate metals with a complex process. |
D.They cause a sharp rise in local temperatures. |
A.It has been applied abroad. | B.It releases no poisonous gas. |
C.It promotes the local export trade. | D.It recovers metals by microbes. |
A.A news report. | B.A fiction novel. | C.A scientific journal. | D.A health magazine. |
【推荐3】Humans need homes as sheltered bay to protect themselves from bad weather and threats from other animals and creatures. Birds also need habitats for survival. Yet, climate change has posed a great threat to their habitats. Like Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, for example. As an important habitat for the Siberian crane (鹤), an endangered species in the world. Poyang Lake has experienced unnatural ups and downs in recent years. “In some years the lake experiences floods, while in others it experiences droughts. Both of these situation create food shortages in the cranes’ habitat,” Qian Fawen, a research professor from the National Bird Banding Center of China, told China Daily.
To solve such habitat problems, China has recently recognized 1,140 sites as important breeding (繁殖), wintering grounds, and migratory (迁徙的) stops, with most of them located in wetlands. Wetlands include coastal areas with a water depth of no more than 6 meters at low tide, but exclude rice fields and areas of water used for fishery and artificial breeding, noted the National Forestry and Grassland Administration. Referred to as the “Kidneys of the Earth” and as “species gene pools”, wetlands conserve clean water, maintain biodiversity, help contain floods and prevent droughts.
To protect China’s wetlands, a law was also introduced in 2022 to restrict construction at important national wetlands and ban harmful activities including over-farming, over-harvesting and the discharging of wastewater. Since these measures have gone into effect, more birds have been spotted wintering in the nation’s wetlands. In February, government in Hunan province reported 72 species of waterbirds that spent this past winter in Dongting Lake. Mallards and Eurasian cranes are among the birds which stay at the lake. Black-faced spoonbills, a rare and endangered species, were also spotted at Dongting after an absence of five years. The number of spoonbills has increased from 300 in the 1980s to more than 5,000 presently, according to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.
1. Why did the author mention Poyang Lake?A.To stress the risks of serious water shortage in China. |
B.To argue for the need of dealing with climate change. |
C.To explain the importance of wetlands for bird habitats. |
D.To describe the living environment of endangered birds. |
A.The lack of food. | B.The loss of habitat. |
C.The change of weather. | D.The failure of artificial breeding. |
A.They keep the balance and diversity of nature. |
B.They are partly used for fishery and artificial breeding. |
C.They feature a water depth of 6 meters at low tide. |
D.They are places where rice are grown to feed birds. |
A.The reappearance of some dangerous birds. |
B.The significant increase of migratory birds. |
C.The declining species of endangered birds. |
D.New discoveries of bird migratory patterns. |
A.Challenges to the endangered birds in China. |
B.The role of wetlands in fighting climate change. |
C.The success of a new law on bird conservation. |
D.China’s protection of wetlands for bird habitats. |
【推荐1】Over the last 60 years, the size of farm machinery has been increasing. For example, from 1958 to 2020, the typical weight of a fully loaded combine harvester for corn or wheat increased nearly ten times.
In a way, it’s fantastic if you see how much we can harvest in a certain amount of time today and how long it would have taken us 60 years ago. Some wheat harvesters, for example, can clear 30 acres in an hour. That incredible efficiency enables about 5 percent of the world’s population to feed the other 95 percent.
But it is at the soil’s expense. One recent study reported that soil compaction (土壤板结) from heavy machines has reduced yields in some fields by as much as 50 percent. If current trends continue, it may eventually reduce global crop production by as much as 20 percent.
“Healthy soil is alive. A teaspoon of garden soil might hold a billion bacteria and networks of air pockets. Heavy farm machinery squeezes the life out of that rich soil by compacting it at depths of a foot or more, lowering oxygen levels and destroying the life that creates the basis for healthy soil. Once damaged, heavily compacted soil can take decades to recover, if it recovers at all.” says Paul Hallett, a soil physicist at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland.
Farm machinery makers have tried to limit the impact on the soil by equipping heavy vehicles with fatter tires, which distribute the load more widely and keep the vehicles from sinking too deeply into the soil surface. “But if you have a heavier load, the stress decreases less quickly with depth.” says Paul Hallett. “It is a bit like the way tall chimneys on a power plant spread air pollution far downwind.”
1. What does the author think of the heavy farm vehicles?A.They are environment-friendly. | B.They will go out of style very quickly. |
C.They do much harm to the soil. | D.They can help increase crop production. |
A.Decreased crop production. | B.Soil with abundant air pockets. |
C.Lack of bacteria in the fields. | D.Lower oxygen levels in the soil. |
A.It is a very good idea to spread air pollution downwind. |
B.Vehicles with fatter tires will be less harmful to the soil. |
C.Heavy farm machines with fatter tires just spread the stress. |
D.More effective measures have to be adopted to cut pollution. |
A.We have to strike a balance between efficiency and damage. |
B.It’s fantastic to use more and more advanced farm machinery. |
C.It is high time that we let the damaged soil recover slowly. |
D.We can’t produce enough food to feed the world’s population. |
【推荐2】Not unlike the wings of airplanes, the blades (叶片) of wind turbines (涡轮机) need to be kept ice-free in order to function properly. Scientists have now developed an inexpensive method of using drones (无人机) to apply an eco-friendly anti-icing coating (涂层) to those blades.
If too much ice builds up on wind turbine blades, they will turn more slowly, producing less energy. What’s more, if an equal amount of ice isn’t present on all three blades, the turbine’s balance may be thrown off, leading to increased wear and possibly even disastrous failure.
There are anti-icing heating systems that can be built into the blades, but these may be beyond the financial means of many wind farm (风电场) operators. The same can be said for using helicopters to apply ice-prevention chemicals.
Seeking a more economical but still effective alternative, scientists from two branches of Germany’s Fraunhofer research group recently started looking to drones. The research project is known as “TURBO: Temporary coating by means of drones — Icing protection of wind turbines as a case study”.
In the current version of the resulting system, a hexacopter drone is equipped with a small pump that delivers anti-icing liquid. The liquid is sprayed (喷洒) at high pressure — which is just 0. 3 mm wide — producing tiny droplets with a diameter of 100 micrometers.
Using this setup, the drone has successfully been used to apply coatings of the droplets onto the edges of wind turbine blades, even at wind speeds of up to 35 km/h (22 mph). Once solidified (固化/凝固), those coatings prevent ice formation for several weeks before a fresh coating is applied.
The scientists are now seeking industry partners to help commercialize (商业化) the TURBO technology. It could also find use in the maintenance (维护) of power lines, the upper levels of tall buildings, or other things that are difficult to reach by conventional means.
1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?A.Problems caused by icing. | B.The process of ice formation. |
C.Disasters brought about by drones. | D.The function of wind turbines. |
A.Ineffective. | B.Unnecessary. | C.Expensive. | D.Dangerous. |
A.It has a wider range of applications. |
B.It is a relatively traditional approach. |
C.It can solve the problem once and for all (一劳永逸). |
D.It is more costly than using ice-prevention chemicals. |
A.The Advantages of Using Wind Energy |
B.Drones Protect Wind Turbines From Icing |
C.Wind Turbines Remove Ice on Their Own |
D.A Major Breakthrough in Drone Technology |
【推荐3】I am asked repeatedly why anyone would want to keep an “ugly” building or a building that is dirty and clearly in need of work. I guess you could say we preservationists (文物保护者) look at buildings through a different angle — an angle that can see the swan in the ugly duck, the story in the simple lines, and the book behind the cover.
The Queen Emma Building is remembered by many as one of the ugliest buildings in town. Yet the angle from which a preservationist views the building is that it is uniquely constructed with an artistical sun shield to block the sunlight, a decorative wall designers used concrete bricks to form. Unfortunately, it was removed in 2011, making the building one of many contemporary buildings in town.
Other times, when a beautiful site is replaced by a “horrible” building, people hate it and can’t get over their anger, even when that “horrible” building becomes an important part of our story. This is particularly true in San Francisco with many Victorian buildings, which are many. preservationists’ favorite. Yes, it was a tragedy that many Victorian buildings. got torn down several decades ago, but those losses also tell another important story. It tells the story of the 1950s and 1960s when there was hope for a more equal society with inexpensive housing for the working class. Should that history be wiped from our memories?
Preservation is not just about keeping pretty, well-kept buildings, but about holding on to parts of our history — not just the history of huge events, but the story of how everyone used to go to a certain corner market. Our history cannot be told only in buildings that meet someone’s criteria of beauty; sometimes our history is painful, but no less important.
1. Which section might the passage come from?A.Opinion and Views. | B.Health and Well-being. |
C.Space and Exploration. | D.Business and Finance. |
A.It’s incredible. | B.It’s regrettable. | C.It’s inspiring. | D.It’s entertaining. |
A.To wipe the history of the Victorian era. |
B.To make land available for cheap housing. |
C.To ease the deep anger of the working class. |
D.To revive the architecture of the Victorian era |
A.To analyze the role of preservationists. |
B.To introduce buildings with historical value. |
C.To explain why architects make ugly buildings. |
D.To stress the significance of preserving “ugly” buildings. |