Circle of Blue | Water Reporting, Data & Convening

New Satellite Will See Water’s Big Picture

November 14, 2022

SWOT mission aims to fill global gaps in key water data.

2022 Election Recap: Landslide Victory for Florida City’s ‘Right to Clean Water’ Amendment

November 10, 2022

Voters approved most water-related initiatives on the November 8 ballot.

Slow to Start, Federal Water Bill Assistance Program Ramps Up

November 3, 2022

New program encounters many hurdles.

2022 Election: Water Regulation and Spending Punctuate State and Local Ballots

October 26, 2022

Groundwater regulation, legal rights to clean water, and spending measures highlight this election cycle.

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Communities Turned into Sewage Swamps

October 19, 2022

South Africa’s wastewater crisis is making life unbearable for its residents.

Award-winning nonprofit journalism from the frontlines of water, food, and energy in the changing climate.

Latest Stories

New Satellite Will See Water’s Big Picture

November 14, 2022

SWOT mission aims to fill global gaps in key water data.

2022 Election Recap: Landslide Victory for Florida City’s ‘Right to Clean Water’ Amendment

November 10, 2022

Voters approved most water-related initiatives on the November 8 ballot.

Slow to Start, Federal Water Bill Assistance Program Ramps Up

November 3, 2022

New program encounters many hurdles.

2022 Election: Water Regulation and Spending Punctuate State and Local Ballots

October 26, 2022

Groundwater regulation, legal rights to clean water, and spending measures highlight this election cycle.

riversofsewage4 0821 SteveKretzman YF 01

Communities Turned into Sewage Swamps

October 19, 2022

South Africa’s wastewater crisis is making life unbearable for its residents.

Voices from the Drying Rio Grande

October 13, 2022

One of the West's iconic waterways, the Rio Grande is under assault from a warming climate.

In New Mexico, Partners Collaborate to End Siege from Megafires

October 12, 2022

Initiative in the Rio Grande basin intends to thwart catastrophic wildfires that wreck watersheds.

Mine Cleanup Law Weakened By Coal’s Decline

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October 6, 2022

Reclamation is a flashpoint for the partisan divide over fossil fuels.

The President and Congress Deliver $11 Billion for Abandoned Mine Cleanups

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October 4, 2022

Midwest is the target of more dollars to secure water and revive former energy strongholds.

Tap Water Failures and Distrust of Government: A Conversation with Manny Teodoro

October 3, 2022

Bad tasting and polluted tap water are not just infrastructure problems.

Perspective | Transforming the Economics and Governance of Water

September 27, 2022

Water-related crises around the world have shown that current systems of governance and economic organization are unsuited for a world altered by global warming.

Remedies for Harmful Algal Blooms Are Available in Law and Practice

September 27, 2022

They are expensive, in many cases experimental, and take a long time to work.

What’s Up With Water — October 25, 2022:

Cholera has broken out in more than two dozen countries, causing a vaccine shortage that is challenging global health organizations. The body that coordinates the distribution of cholera vaccines said it will now use a single dose instead of the typical two-shot regimen. Restricting patients to a single shot will reduce the vaccine’s effectiveness in children. But the strategy allows for more vaccines to go around.

One such recent disaster occurred in Pakistan, where about one-third of the country and much of its farmland was submerged by severe monsoon flooding. As the waters recede there has been a surge in childhood hunger and malnutrition.

In South Africa, reservoir levels are declining and the leading water utility is restricting water in the country’s most populated province. Gauteng is home to about a quarter of South Africa’s people, including its largest city, Johannesburg. Rand Water serves Gauteng and three neighboring provinces, and it announced a 30 percent cut in water deliveries.

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Circle of Blue · What's Up With Water - October 25, 2022

Weekly Summary of Global Water News

Your Global Rundown:

Multiple cholera outbreaks in countries like Haiti, Malawi, and Syria are challenging global health agencies.
The Mississippi River drops to a record low at Memphis, Tennessee.
Scarce water in Colorado is increasing the cost of new homes along the Front Range and prompting landscaping restrictions.

To have new, international water news delivered to your inbox, sign up for Circle of Blue’s The Stream.

Weekly Digest of U.S. Water Policy and Trends

The Rundown:

Interior names its price for water conservation in the lower Colorado River basin that will keep water in Lake Mead.
The EPA submits draft PFAS drinking water regulations for review.
Researchers test homes around California’s Clear Lake for cyanotoxins from harmful algal blooms.
An EPA research office examines better approaches to measuring cumulative impacts of pollution.
The U.S. Geological Survey published a new visual representation of the water cycle – adding human influences such as groundwater pumping and urban runoff.

For this and more of the latest U.S. government water policy news, read Federal Water Tap.

Biweekly Breakdown of Great Lakes Region News

This Week’s Watersheds:

Climate change could hike the cost of maintaining Ontario’s transportation infrastructure by over $1.5 billion annually.
Michigan’s attorney general sues a company for leaving behind hazardous substances in the state.
Indiana regulates the underground storage of carbon dioxide.
Wisconsin’s environment agency once again begins drafting rules to limit PFAS pollution.
New data out of Chicago shows high levels of lead in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
In central Illinois, residents are reluctant to make way for an underground carbon dioxide pipeline.

For this and more of the biggest international, state, and local policy news stories facing the Great Lakes region, read Fresh.

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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: As Floods Subside, Pakistan’s Economy Is on a Knife-Edge

September 12, 2022

Monsoon rains arrive as the country battles a financial crisis.

HotSpots H2O: In Northern Mexico, Harsh Drought Compounds Water Inequality

August 15, 2022

Poor residents in Monterrey are buying bottled water from companies that extract groundwater from beneath their feet.

HotSpots H2O: What’s Driving Vulnerability Behind South Asia’s “Biblical” Floods?

July 19, 2022

Regional experts point to deficits in local institutions and risk planning.

HotSpots H2O: “Day Zero” Looms for South African Province

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June 20, 2022

Government dysfunction has multiplied drought risks.

Circle of Blue is a partner of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets covering climate

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 manage 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