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Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

newscientist.com

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Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#41

Post by lupusreal »

x775 wrote: post #34

> Maple trees need to consume around 50 litres of water per day. Since street trees can’t get much of this from rainwater, which falls on concrete and drains into the city’s sewers, Poirier says the most likely explanation is that it is coming from Montreal’s leaky pipes, which lose 500 million litres of water per day. I feel like this is burying the lede. What can be done to reduce leakage?

Why should anything be done to reduce leakage? They take water out of the St Lawrence and, as much isn't diverted by trees, it goes back in (cleaner then when it came out.)

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#42

Post by btbuildem »

The city where I live estimates that we lose somewhere between 25% and 30% of drinkable water to leaky infrastructure.

We've had something close to a drought this summer -- unseasonally long periods without rain. You can see the young trees on the streets and trees in the middle of large parks suffer from it - wilted leaves and leaves dropping earlier than usual. BUT, large old trees seem to be thriving - full canopies, lush, firm leaves.

I've been suspecting the big street trees do so well because they benefit from the dilapidated state of our water delivery infra. It's nice to read of a study that confirms my amateur observations and musings.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#43

Post by ocdtrekkie »

npstr wrote: post #38
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, utilities do care quite a bit about leaks (it's service they are providing which they can't bill for!) and use various testing apparatus to locate leaky parts of underground systems for repair and replacement. Considering the difficulty and cost of repairing underground anything, most of which will be there for many many decades, it's never going to be perfect, but there's a lot of resources that…

Why can't they bill for it? It's not like they are losing money on it, it's simply getting priced into the billable services they provide. Utilities are usually monopolistic, so there is little incentive for them to fix this.

Fundamentally it is getting priced into services provided to residents as a whole. But you're also forgetting water is generally not provided by a business: Local government is not a profit enterprise, and generally has a lot of pressure to reduce (or limit the rise of, anyways) the bill.

I can tell you factually a lot of work goes into measuring leakage, narrowing down what part of the water system it is coming from (most active components are metered in some way, and you can use math to determine where all of the water is not making it through a segment), and correcting those issues where it is cost-effective to do so.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#44

Post by x775 »

CalRobert wrote: post #35
x775 wrote: post #34

> Maple trees need to consume around 50 litres of water per day. Since street trees can’t get much of this from rainwater, which falls on concrete and drains into the city’s sewers, Poirier says the most likely explanation is that it is coming from Montreal’s leaky pipes, which lose 500 million litres of water per day. I feel like this is burying the lede. What can be done to reduce leakage?

Hopefully the lede, lead would be an even bigger concern.

Hah, that was an unfortunate auto-correct. Fixed!

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#45

Post by devnullbrain »

btbuildem wrote: post #42

The city where I live estimates that we lose somewhere between 25% and 30% of drinkable water to leaky infrastructure. We've had something close to a drought this summer -- unseasonally long periods without rain. You can see the young trees on the streets and trees in the middle of large parks suffer from it - wilted leaves and leaves dropping earlier than usual. BUT, large old trees seem to be thriving - full canopi…

Older, bigger plants have roots that go deeper and have access to more water. You can see the same effect in gardens, where new plants wilt sooner than established plants (and the care instructions advise frequent watering for the first couple of weeks).

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#46

Post by ghaff »

hinkley wrote: post #40
buildsjets wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some genius planted a curly willow right in the middle of my house’s septic drain field. That tree cost me $20,000.

You’re not supposed to plane ANY trees in the middle of the septic system.

You're not. But people often don't even fully know exactly where the limits of their septic system (including leach fields) are. SUPPOSEDLY they know where their septic tank is but tree roots grow, records are lost, etc.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#48

Post by Spooky23 »

btbuildem wrote: post #42

The city where I live estimates that we lose somewhere between 25% and 30% of drinkable water to leaky infrastructure. We've had something close to a drought this summer -- unseasonally long periods without rain. You can see the young trees on the streets and trees in the middle of large parks suffer from it - wilted leaves and leaves dropping earlier than usual. BUT, large old trees seem to be thriving - full canopi…

That’s really high. There’s either a big problem in your city, or they are making generous estimates to justify asking for more capital. 10-15% is more typical.

In my region, the street trees are usually getting sewer water. Residential service in older houses are usually clay pipes with lead solder that the tree infiltrates. It’s not a problem until the clay pops and roots clog it.

It varies a lot by region and jurisdiction. One of the cities near me made the mistake of using riveted pipe from rolled steel to save money 75 years ago, and regularly has catastrophic main breaks as the rivets aren’t as robust as a regular pipe.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#49

Post by pixl97 »

npstr wrote: post #38
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, utilities do care quite a bit about leaks (it's service they are providing which they can't bill for!) and use various testing apparatus to locate leaky parts of underground systems for repair and replacement. Considering the difficulty and cost of repairing underground anything, most of which will be there for many many decades, it's never going to be perfect, but there's a lot of resources that…

Why can't they bill for it? It's not like they are losing money on it, it's simply getting priced into the billable services they provide. Utilities are usually monopolistic, so there is little incentive for them to fix this.

> so there is little incentive for them to fix this.

This kind of stuff is typically death by a thousand cuts.

Add on that a lot of the places it leads are under roads that will have to be shut down for weeks/months and you start to realize the costs and impact of fixing these leaks are enormous.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#50

Post by mlinhares »

Spooky23 wrote: post #48
btbuildem wrote: post #42

The city where I live estimates that we lose somewhere between 25% and 30% of drinkable water to leaky infrastructure. We've had something close to a drought this summer -- unseasonally long periods without rain. You can see the young trees on the streets and trees in the middle of large parks suffer from it - wilted leaves and leaves dropping earlier than usual. BUT, large old trees seem to be thriving - full canopi…

That’s really high. There’s either a big problem in your city, or they are making generous estimates to justify asking for more capital. 10-15% is more typical. In my region, the street trees are usually getting sewer water. Residential service in older houses are usually clay pipes with lead solder that the tree infiltrates. It’s not a problem until the clay pops and roots clog it. It varies a lot by region and juri…

TIL clay pipes are a thing but it does make a lot of sense there would be.
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