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Flooding Kenya is struggling to help the 90,000 people displaced by spring floods, which have also destroyed crops, AlertNet reported. The country’s cycle of floods and droughts have spurred calls for better disaster management at the national level. Months after monsoon floods hit southern Pakistan, displaced residents face a difficult road to recovery in 2013, [...]
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Wine turned Peter Thum to water. While working on a project in South Africa involving two wineries, Thum saw the difficulties that many people experienced just trying to get clean water every day. “I did a bit of research and began to see the size and magnitude of this problem,” he says. So he decided [...]
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Winter Storms An Israeli security barrier built mostly in occupied areas of the West Bank is blocking the drainage of flood waters after a winter storm, Reuters reported. The wall does have drainage channels, but many are closed or clogged with debris. Conditions for Syrian refugees have further deteriorated after the eastern Mediterranean region was [...]
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The Washington Post reports that rain, runoff from the season’s first snowfall, and restored flow release levels, have contributed to a rise in the alarmingly low water levels of the Mississippi River. As of yesterday, the St. Louis channel, the river was at 12 feet deep, up from 10.5 feet on Monday. The fear is [...]
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Myanmar’s forests, river systems, and the wildlife they support may face challenges as the country becomes more democratic and open to foreign investment, Yale Environment 360 reports. Early moves suggest the government is taking care to protect the environment, but conservationists worry that a “Wild West” scenario could unfold. Africa Rice crops in western Kenya [...]
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Sandy, the hurricane turned mega-storm that battered the United States’ East Coast earlier this week, could cost insurers $US 5 billion to $US 10 billion, while economic losses are estimated anywhere between $US 10 billion and $US 20 billion, Reuters reported. The increasing cost of natural disasters could pressure Congress to take action on climate [...]
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Oceans In a new study, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration finds that nutrient concentration affects ocean acidification, which is the process of water absorbing carbon dioxide. Nutrient levels are linked to algae growth, and when oceans acidify their ecosystems are put at risk. This can negatively impact businesses such as oyster fisheries. For more, [...]
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A sudden water shortage is the latest hardship blighting the city of Aleppo, already facing a humanitarian crisis. A main pipe burst during fighting between the Syrian military and rebel fighters, The New York Times reported. On Friday, 12 people died in clashes between cattle herders and farmers in southeastern Kenya over land and water, [...]
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In the worst attack since post-election violence in Kenya four years ago, 52 people—primarily women and children—were killed in an ethnic clash over land and water, AFP reported. Thousands more Chinese citizens living near the Three Gorges Dam may be forced to move as landslides sparked by changing reservoir levels become a serious problem, according [...]
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U.S. Drought Continues The drought has literally hit home in the rural Midwestern United States, where some citizens are turning on their faucets to find their wells have dried up, The Associated Press reported. The Missouri government will subsidize the drilling of new wells for more than 3,700 farmers and ranchers hit by extreme drought, [...]
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France, the United States and G20 president Mexico have scheduled a conference call at the end of this month to decide whether they should hold an emergency international meeting to address potential food price spikes amid a relentless drought in the U.S. and poor crops in key Black Sea grain regions, Reuters reported. A group [...]
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Poor rains have led to crop failures in Somalia, and the threat of food price increases could push parts of the country back into famine. Meanwhile, there is little relief for those who fled to neighboring Kenya, as the refugee camps there are facing water shortages.
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Dams Communities in Mexico’s southern states of Puebla, Tabasco, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas have united against the potential social, economic and environmental effects of the region’s mini dams, according to Inter Press Service. This fall, San Francisco Bay Area residents will vote to determine whether to drain a 117-billion-gallon reservoir in the Hetch Hetchy Valley. [...]
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Brian McSorley, Oxfam’s humanitarian coordinator, promotes water, sanitation, and hygiene programs in Northern Kenya. This includes Dadaab refugee camp, where 88,000 people rely on Oxfam to provide facilities. “Water keeps us alive. But get too little, or too much, or the wrong kind, and results can be catastrophic — drought, floods, crop failure, children dying [...]
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African culture can be a hindrance to talking about sanitation issues, says David Kuria, but it’s something he is nevertheless tackling head-on. Founder of EcoTact, a Kenya-based NGO that focuses on water sanitation and scarcity issues, Kuria believes that opening the dialogue about public sanitation issues is only the beginning to combating the 80 percent [...]
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A revised management plan—with no change to surface water limits, but an even stricter cap on groundwater withdrawals—for Australia’s Murray-Darling river basin has infuriated many groups, especially farmers. The head of the New South Wales irrigators council called for revisions, lest “social and economic Armageddon” come to farm communities. Victoria’s water minister labeled the plan [...]
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Following devastating news of poisoned children in Afghanistan, reporter Codi Yeager look at water security and conflicts around the globe.
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Water levels on the flooding Rio Negro in Brazil have reached 29.78 meters, the highest in a century, prompting 53 cities to declare a state of emergency, Xinhua reported. India could see its first commercial shale gas production in four years, Bloomberg News reported. Companies are waiting for further data analysis and government policy before [...]
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Although a repeat famine is unlikely, the situation in East Africa remains dire despite recent rains.
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Federal budget cuts at Environment Canada, the country’s environmental department, have forced the agency to trim some of its wastewater monitoring programs and water conservation efforts, among others, Postmedia News reported. Tens of thousands of refugees in a South Sudanese camp must be relocated immediately to escape life-threatening water shortages and diseases, the international aid [...]
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