Global Rundown
- Indonesia’s government has revoked the permits of more than two dozen mines whose operations were found to have worsened catastrophic flooding in North Sumatra.
- Water reserves on Cyprus have dipped to 12 percent capacity amid persistent drought, prompting increased government investment in desalination plants.
- Storms and floods this week incurred more than a billion dollars of flood and storm damages along Italy’s southern coast.
- The United Kingdom has announced a “once-in-a-generation” plan to overhaul its national water system, long plagued by pollution and unchecked corruption.
The Lead
In November 2024, torrential rains and subsequent floodwaters swept rapidly through Indonesia’s North Sumatra province. During the downpour, landslides and river surges carried mud and logs into villages, killing more than 1,100 people. Up to 11 percent of the region’s Tapanuli orangutan population was also killed amid the deluges — an “extinction-level disturbance” for the world’s rarest species of ape, which numbers around 800, the Guardian reports.
This level of destruction was quickly scrutinized by environmentalists, who asserted that degradation caused by local mining operations had left watersheds more susceptible to disastrous flooding. Indonesia’s Forest Area Regulation Task Force opened an investigation into these claims, which applied to industrial work across the entire Batang Toru and Garoga ecosystems.
This week, the government’s investigations came to an emphatic resolution: the mining permits of 28 companies working in the area have been revoked, forcing an immediate work stoppage. Six companies were additionally sued for $289 million over “alleged links to the environmental damages in the Batang Toru ecosystem,” according to the Guardian. Indonesia’s environment ministry attributed damages in watersheds spanning 6,200 acres to these half-dozen firms.
The importance of investing in stormwater protections in the country, one of the world’s most flood-prone, was highlighted again this week. On West Java island, located south of North Sumatra, landslides caused by heavy rains killed at least 17 people in recent days, Reuters reports.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- An Obscure Provision In FEMA’s Program To Prevent Disaster Is Making Serious Flooding Worse — An outdated federal rule is routinely blocking projects to improve water quality, prevent erosion, and reduce flooding.
- Planet Enters Era of ‘Global Water Bankruptcy,’ UN Report Says — New approaches needed to adapt to an altered environment.
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
11.8 percent
Current capacity of water reserves on the island of Cyprus, where persistent drought and water shortages have prompted officials to urge citizens to limit their consumption by 10 percent, EuroNews reports. Farmers have been informed that they will have access to 30 percent less water in 2026, compared to historic norms.
In an urgent effort to provide its populace with reliable flows of fresh water, the government approved roughly $36 million worth of desalination projects after an emergency meeting held last week. The decision brings the country’s total spending on new water technology to $237 million, Parikiaki reports. Many of these investments center around desalination infrastructure, pursued at the guidance of the United Arab Emirates. In 2025, the UAE sent 13 desalination units to Cyprus for free as part of a binational agreement.
$1.19 billion
Estimated cost of flood damages in Sicily, Sardinia, and Calabria this week as heavy rains and storm surges battered Italy’s southern coast, Reuters reports. The majority of these economic losses are concentrated in Sicily, where the inland rush of water inundated streets, buildings, and wastewater treatment facilities. Around 1,000 people needed to be evacuated from their homes.
The region of Calabria, known for its specialized farms which grow onions, olives, chili peppers, and citrus also suffered “major damage to agricultural business…with serious repercussions for the rural economy,” regional officials told Reuters.
On the Radar
The United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has unveiled a “once-in-a-generation plan” to overhaul the country’s failing water systems, freshwater habitat, and infrastructure, the government announced last week.
A 52-page white paper titled “A New Vision for Water” lays out the country’s ambitious vision to address continued corruption from private water companies and unchecked discharges of sewage into watersheds. The centerpiece of the plan is the hiring of a single “integrated and empowered” water regulator to enforce stricter environmental oversight and crack down on sewer misuse.
“Water companies will have nowhere to hide from poor performance, customers will get the service they deserve, and investors will see a system built for the future,” Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds said in a news release.
So far, more than $100 billion has been secured from private interests to fund this transition over the next five years. Preliminary projects include a $15 billion effort to improve 2,500 storm outflows, and an $82 billion investment to protect more than 9,000 miles of rivers by 2050. The country also plans to introduce a smart metering program for its water users, which the department estimates will deliver “savings of over [$171 million] on water and energy bills over the next decade.”
Wetland Watch
Pacific Salmon: A new study published in the journal Nature found that the water temperatures of wetlands in the Alaskan communities of Cordova and Yakutat over the past decade have been keeping pace with rising air temperatures — a consequence of global warming in northern latitudes, Alaska Public Media reports. The nearly one-to-one mirroring of temperature rise is a departure from other records, which showed water temperatures increasing slower compared to air temperatures.
These observations spell danger for Pacific salmon, which are born and mature for up to several years in fresh waterways, including wetlands, and are highly susceptible to heat stress.
“Our analysis predicts future thermal stress in northern wetland ecosystems, with cascading effects on stream biota, emphasizing the importance of both temperature and location when predicting the impacts of climate change,” the researchers write in their study.
