International Water & Irrigation

5 Officials in the region were able to draw some consolation from the fact that the average yield in Tamil Nadu is second only to Punjab in the country. Icebergs could soon be floating in to solve Cape Town’s water crisis Marine salvage experts are floating a plan to tug icebergs from Antarctica to South Africa’s drought-hit Cape Town to help solve the region’s worst water shortage in a century. International salvage expert Nick Sloane recently announced that he he was looking for government and private investors for a scheme to guide huge chunks of ice across the ocean, chop them into a slurry and melt them down into millions of liters of drinking water. South Africa has declared a national disaster over the drought that hit its southern and western regions after 2015 and 2016 turned into two of the driest years on record. Tough water restrictions are already in place and Cape Town authorities have warned that taps could run dry altogether as soon as next year if winter rains do not come to the rescue of the port city’s four million residents. Cape Town-based Sloane said his team could wrap passing icebergs in fabric skirts to protect them and reduce evaporation. Large tankers could then guide the blocks into the Benguela Current that flows along the west coast of southern Africa. A milling machine would then cut into the ice, producing a slurry and forming a saucer structure that will speed up the natural process, he said. According to Sloane a director at the U.S. marine salvage firm Resolve Marine, a single iceberg “could produce about 150 million liters per day for about a year,” around 30 percent of the city’s need, So far Cape Town’s city council has not made a comment. imp.indd 1 24/04/15 11.41