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Drought Relief Farm fields across the Midwestern United States were quenched this week as heavy rainstorms over the central part of the country continued to relieve one of the worst droughts in U.S. history, Reuters reported. Grain prices, which were pushed up to record highs last summer due to the drought-damaged U.S. corn crop, could [...]
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Water Infrastructure Ghana’s water infrastructure is in such a state of disrepair that it threatens the country’s economic growth, which is predicted to reach 8 percent in 2013, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Some companies have turned to private water tankers to secure supplies for their factories because of intermittent service. U.S. Natural Disasters A new report [...]
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Peru Plans for a $500 million water project in Peru could divert rainwater across the Andes from the Amazon Basin to the country’s dry coast, turning the desert there into farmland, Reuters reported. The Olmos Irrigation Project is slated to start in 2014, and is one of seven large projects Peru has planned to increase [...]
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U.S. consumers have just started to feel the effects of last summer’s drought at the supermarket. Prices are expected to continue increasing throughout 2013.
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Though corn acreage is forecasted to rise slightly over last year’s planting, the biggest jump is predicted for sorghum, which uses less water.
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South America A new billboard in Peru is creating fresh water from the air, helping to supply local communities, according to the Global Post. Though the area typically receives very little rainfall, the billboard takes advantage of the region’s high humidity. In an effort to clean up oil projects in the Amazon, Peru has declared [...]
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To kick off World Water Day 2013, the United Nations released an analytical brief about global water security and the global water agenda. The report includes a working definition of “water security” as “The capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of and acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, [...]
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Environmental Threats Natural disasters cost the world approximately $US 138 billion last year, the third consecutive year that economic losses from disasters have exceeded $US 100 billion, AlertNet reported. Floods and droughts accounted for almost 80 percent of disaster victims in 2012. Failure to address environmental threats like climate change, deforestation, air pollution, and water [...]
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Water Disputes China is once again eying the Nu River (Salween River) for dam development, which could cost 60,000 people their homes, Reuters reported, citing government officials. The river is part of a UNESCO protected area due to the region’s high level of biodiversity. India and Bangladesh remain embroiled in a dispute over the sharing [...]
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Policy Pakistan has developed its first national policy framework for taking action on climate change, including prevention, mitigation and adaptation measures, AlertNet reported. The country has been hit in recent years by increasingly severe floods and droughts. In opposing a European Commission proposal that would allow the privatization of water supplies, the German Bundesrat, the [...]
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Food Sustainability A new interactive tool, developed by the nonprofit Oxfam, rates the supply chains of the ten largest global food companies on their performance in areas like water consumption and human rights, The New York Times reported. Oxfam hopes the scorecards will spur consumers to demand more from their favorite food brands. Extreme Weather [...]
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United States In his State of the Union address yesterday, President Obama promised to take action on climate change, even if Congress refuses. “The fact is the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods — all are now more frequent and more intense,” he said. [...]
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Americas Water levels on Lake Michigan and Lake Huron have reached their lowest point since record keeping began in 1918, surpassing the previous record low set in 1964, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. While warm, dry weather has drawn lake levels down, dredging of the St. Clair River has also contributed to a long-term decline [...]
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Consecutive hot, dry years have Texas lawmakers pondering billions of dollars in water projects.
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The freshmen have been initiated, the committees settled and the staffs filled. Now comes the law making. Here’s the first batch of water-related bills in the 113th Congress: Harry Reid (D-Nevada) reintroduced the farm bill that the Senate passed in June 2012. Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan), the Senate Agriculture Committee chair, said that she would hold [...]
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Africa Water service, as well as electricity and phone service, has been cut in Timbuktu, the latest casualty of the ongoing conflict in Mali, CNN reported. The Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA), a group active in northern Mali that opposes the government, blamed the outages on “terrorist” sabotage. Following a devastating drought in 2009, pastoral [...]
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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in its first-ever inventory of the state of federal flood control systems, found that 22 percent of the levees surveyed were rated “unacceptable”, according to the Associated Press. The corps, claiming the threat of terrorism and sabotage, would not say why those levees were so rated. Some 40 percent [...]
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Rivers Vietnam and Cambodia urged Laos to halt its controversial Xayaburi dam project on the Mekong River at a recent meeting of the Mekong River Commission, the Guardian reported, citing NGO International Rivers. In 2012, Laos held a formal groundbreaking ceremony for the dam, which some fear could threaten food security and wildlife. A photo [...]
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Ambition, differentiation, and flexibility will define the U.S. position leading to a new treaty in 2015.
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The third U.S. National Climate Assessment gets quickly to the point. “Climate change is already affecting the American people,” the opening sentence of the draft report declares. More critically, the report states that current U.S. actions that have reduced greenhouse gas emissions – the shift from coal to natural gas, and various state, local and [...]
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