Water supply at Syowa Station, Antarctica

The Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE) has sourced domestic water for daily use from ponds, snow drifts, and icebergs on sea ice at Syowa Station since the first wintering expedition. These water sources are dependent on weather conditions and maintenance of the sources requires considera...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kenji Ishizawa, Katsumi Hayashibara
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Japanese
Published: National Institute of Polar Research 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.15094/00010747
https://doaj.org/article/d83b96f2ccfd440484ffac4c61d04e17
Description
Summary:The Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE) has sourced domestic water for daily use from ponds, snow drifts, and icebergs on sea ice at Syowa Station since the first wintering expedition. These water sources are dependent on weather conditions and maintenance of the sources requires considerable human effort and thermal energy. For example, the maintenance of outside water tanks and pipelines requires a lot of working force of wintering members and huge thermal energy which has been obtained from waste heat of engine generators. Here, we propose seawater desalination method using a reverse osmosis membrane to provide a reliable domestic water source to Syowa Station. Such a system could meet the station's water needs without requiring a large amount of staff time or heat energy.