Drought | Water News
NASA US groundwater depletion 2011

Using calculations based on satellite observations and long-term meteorological data, a new map shows that groundwater is extremely depleted across more than half of Texas, as well as areas of Alabama, the Carolinas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, and Oregon.

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freshwater-use-by-pplants

Water-energy choke points in Texas serve as examples of a larger issue for the United States, as pointed out in a new report for the Energy and Water in a Warming World Initiative, spearheaded by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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Red Tide Dead Fish Algae Blooms

High temperatures and salinity concentrations along the Texas Gulf Coast are behind a toxic red tide, fish kills, and an influx of oyster parasites. Additionally, several saltwater species have been found upstream, surviving in a typically freshwater environment and signaling a large change in these delta ecosystems.

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Somalia Suffers from Severe Drought

Meteorologists are hopeful for future rainfall, though they say the current disaster was preventable. The lack of rain, which is also affecting neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, and political instability have tipped Somalia into a food crisis that could persist, even as drought conditions abate.

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There is a long history of conflicts over water. The first known water war was nearly 5,000 years ago: a conflict over irrigation ditches between the cities of Umma and Lagash in ancient Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq.

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houston

The preference for government mandates reinforces the idea that water is not like other goods.

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Tehuacan Video Essay

The Tehuacán Valley captures the tragedy and triumph of Mexico’s worst freshwater crisis in decades. In this video, meet Francisca Rosas Valencia, a leader who is working to better her community’s water future.

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Wild rice on the Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin is in the floating leaf stage by early June, with a single shoot lying on the water’s surface. This is considered one of the most critical—and and dangerous—stages in the rice’s life cycle. The plants are just beginning to change physiologically from exchanging gases with the water column to exchanging gases with the air. Therefore, they are very susceptible to heavy rains and flooding events that can either rip out the young plants by the roots, or drown them. June 6, 2011.

For generations, the upper Great Lakes region has boasted harvests of wild rice, growing in Lake Superior and other watersheds within the basin. But disease, dams, and climate change are now endangering the uncultivated bounty.

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un70x70

Climate change became a hot-button issue at a recent U.N. Security Council meeting.

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Map Weather Extremes Floods Droughts Tornados

Extreme weather events in 2011 have been numerous and diverse, prompting some analysts to link the natural disasters to climate change. Most recently, many states are under exceptional-drought and extreme-heat advisories.

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