Breaking News

Price of Water 2019: Even Without Federal Infrastructure Deal, Cities Continue to Invest

June 18, 2019

The rising price of water continues to raise questions about affordability for households at the bottom of the income distribution.

HotSpots H2O: Violence Flares in India Amid Record Heat and Delayed Monsoon Rains

0 Comments

June 16, 2019

India’s monsoon, essential for the country’s water supply, arrived a week late this year, testing the patience of a country where extreme weather is fraying the social fabric.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/budapest-danube-river-nature-833723/

Pesticides, Antibiotics, Heavy Metals Tarnish Europe’s Waterways

0 Comments

June 11, 2019

New chemicals and medicines are being developed, then leaching into waterways, faster than researchers can study them.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/unsom/32608087796

HotSpots H2O: Somalia on the Edge of Famine After Driest Rainy Season In Decades

0 Comments

June 10, 2019

Somalia’s current rainy season has failed, a situation that the United Nations warns could leave a third of the country’s residents food insecure by July.

With Heavy Spring Rains, Lake Erie Algal Bloom Forecast Gets Worse and Worse

0 Comments

June 7, 2019

The latest Lake Erie forecast projects a large buildup of harmful cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, this summer.

Latest Stories

Price of Water 2019: Even Without Federal Infrastructure Deal, Cities Continue to Invest

June 18, 2019

The rising price of water continues to raise questions about affordability for households at the bottom of the income distribution.

Pesticides, Antibiotics, Heavy Metals Tarnish Europe’s Waterways

0 Comments

June 11, 2019

New chemicals and medicines are being developed, then leaching into waterways, faster than researchers can study them.

With Heavy Spring Rains, Lake Erie Algal Bloom Forecast Gets Worse and Worse

0 Comments

June 7, 2019

The latest Lake Erie forecast projects a large buildup of harmful cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, this summer.

Two Hurricanes, Two Floods: North Carolina Town Fights To Stay Alive

June 5, 2019

Aging Sewer System Imperils North Carolina Town’s Finances

June 5, 2019

The Rural Dilemma: Q&A With Al Leonard, Fair Bluff Town Manager

June 5, 2019

Photo Gallery: Scenes from Fair Bluff

June 5, 2019

Michigan leads nation in PFAS. It will lead cleanups, too, U.S. reps say

May 30, 2019

A report this month found Michigan leads the nation in sites contaminated with toxic chemicals known as PFAS, and the state’s bipartisan delegation in Congress has introduced a flurry of legislation to increase testing.

More WaterNews

After Fair Bluff Flooded

Flooded by hurricanes twice in three years, the small town of Fair Bluff, North Carolina, is a poster child for the devastation of powerful, slow-moving storms.
The town’s struggle to recover from those storms reflects demographic, economic, and technological changes that are eroding small communities across rural America.

Read The Full Series Here

After Paradise Burned

The tragic burning of Paradise represents a new chapter in America’s relationship with fire damage. No contemporary town has encountered a water system so extensively contaminated by chemicals released during a fire. Utility leaders and outside experts say that ridding the pipes of benzene and other volatile chemicals may take years. The health of the water system has emerged as the central tension in the town’s recovery.

Read The Full Series Here

Uniting classic journalism and data literacy, Circle of Blue informs global audiences about the growing competition between water, food, and energy in a changing climate.

Daily Summary of Global Water News

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces ambitious plan to pipe clean water to all rural homes by 2024. Israelinstalls a fourth water pipeline into Gaza. A new study warns that rising global temperatures could bring more severe drought and flooding to Africa than previously thought. A week of rain arrives is expected in Sydney, Australia, but meteorologists say it won’t be enough to break the city’s drought. A sweltering heat wave kills dozens and leaves many without water in India. Read More

Weekly Digest of U.S. Water Policy and Trends.

The legislation aims to force the EPA to regulate at least two PFAS chemicals in drinking water and monitor many others. Because of heavy spring rains, researchers forecast a large Lake Erie algal bloom and Gulf of Mexico dead zone. Eight senators call for more oversight of British Columbia mines that could harm salmon. The Supreme Court allows a civil lawsuit against Flint officials to proceed. TVA agrees to remove coal ash from an unlined pit that was polluting the Cumberland River in Tennessee. The GAO criticizes the Defense Department’s climate change planning. The Department of Energy analyzes the country’s geothermal power potential. The EPA’s draft Lead and Copper rule is in its final stage of internal review. And lastly, President Trump orders agencies to cut the number of expert advisory committees by at least one-third. Read More

HotSpots H2O examines regions and populations that are most at risk from water-related unrest and conflict. It reveals the challenges individuals confront — and the solutions they discover — as they face the greatest challenge of the 21st century: water.

HotSpots H2O: Violence Flares in India Amid Record Heat and Delayed Monsoon Rains

0 Comments

June 16, 2019

India’s monsoon, essential for the country’s water supply, arrived a week late this year, testing the patience of a country where extreme weather is fraying the social fabric.

HotSpots H2O: Somalia on the Edge of Famine After Driest Rainy Season In Decades

0 Comments

June 10, 2019

Somalia’s current rainy season has failed, a situation that the United Nations warns could leave a third of the country’s residents food insecure by July.

HotSpots H2O: Islamic State’s Scorched-Earth Tactics Devastate Promising Harvests

0 Comments

June 3, 2019

Wheat and barley fields across Iraq and Syria are ablaze following attacks by Islamic State militants.

HotSpots H2O: Two Years After Siege, Thousands Still Lack Clean Water in Philippines City

0 Comments

May 28, 2019

Two years after an Islamic State siege on Marawi, tens of thousands of people still have not returned to their homes in the lakeside city in the southern Philippines.

What’s Up With Water – June 17, 2019

This week’s edition of What’s Up With Water includes stories on:

Suffocating heat and drought have gripped parts of India.
How in Australia, the Queensland government approved a groundwater management plan for the controversial Carmichael coal mine and cleared the Adani mining company to begin work at the site.
How Europe’s rivers and streams, meanwhile, are increasingly loaded with harmful levels of pesticides, antibiotics, and heavy metals, according to several recent studies.
Nitrate pollution in U.S. drinking water, which could be linked to more than 12,000 cancer cases annually, according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Research.
The Michigan Department of the Attorney General unexpectedly dismissed criminal charges in eight cases linked to the Flint water crisis.
How in Uganda, a proposal to build a power plant on the Nile River is getting pushback.

2016-07-01 India Rajasthan Jaisalmer JGanter_G3_5835-Edit-2500 (1)

How the world responds to water challenges in the next months and years will have effects for generations.

Delhi is thirsty, even parched. As the 3rd largest population center in the world, its 25 million people need water, and lots of it, to survive. It’s clear that how India responds in the next months and years will have effects for generations. How will it mange the intensifying competition between water, food and energy in a changing climate?

It’s clear that getting enough water day-by-day is foremost on people’s minds. When the challenge is so great and children so thirsty, people often take their water sources into their own hands. Some entrepreneurs bring water by tank pulled by a tractor, and sell at an inflated rate. Others drill their own unsanctioned wells, some even in the middle of the street.

ChokePoint:

The conflicting demand for water, food, and energy is the defining challenge of our century. Global Choke Point, a collaboration between Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center, explores the peril and promise with frontline reporting, data, and policy expertise.

No one is better positioned to deliver groundbreaking knowledge on the critical resource of global water than Circle of Blue.

Ian Bremmer, President, Eurasia Group

Changing the face of journalism.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The combining of journalism, science, data, design and convening power is an innovative model that works.

Hon. Jane Harmon, President, Wilson Center

To respond to the world’s greatest, most urgent challenges, we need trusted information, clear context, and solutions-focused dialogue. Circle of Blue cuts through the complexities of global development. Through knowledge and informed action, we can make a better future.

Henrik Skovby, Executive Chairman, Dalberg Group

I am happy that this meeting is taking place, for it represents yet another stage in the joint commitment of various institutions to raising consciousness about the need to protect water as a treasure belonging to everyone, mindful too of its cultural and religious significance.

Pope Francis