Global Rundown
- A court has ruled that the second-largest dam in Brazil has failed to comply with requirements to preserve Indigenous communities’ access to clean water.
- A new study suggests that High Mountain Asia, known as the continent’s “Water Tower,” is losing nearly 27 billion tons of groundwater each year.
- Climate change is making regional rains in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa — such as those that killed 200 people last month — up to40 percent stronger.
- In a precedent-setting act, a Welsh town will buy and demolish homes that have suffered from repeated flooding and are deemed unable to be protected from future storms.
The Lead
A Brazilian court has ruled that one of the world’s largest hydropower dams has been operating for nearly a decade in breach of environmental and social requirements.
The Belo Monte facility, which dams the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon and supplies 10 percent of the country’s electricity, has been the subject of controversy for decades since it was planned in the 1970s. Environmental impact assessments that revealed concerns about major flooding, deforestation, threats to biodiversity, and emissions delayed the project until 2010, when first contracts were signed. Following litigation and Brazil’s largest-ever public hearing, the project was paused in 2011 over ecological problems.
Construction recommenced later that year, and the dam opened in 2016 on the condition that it would neither threaten ecosystems in the Xingu Basin nor disrupt the lives of nearby Indigenous communities. This week, a judge ruled that the dam has failed considerably to meet these requirements.
The evidence is overwhelming, the Associated Press reports. Natural sources of fresh water adjacent to the dam have dried up since its operations began, leaving entire communities dependent on bottled water. Irrigation and drinking water wells have run completely dry as groundwater reserves disappear. Massive diversions of the Xingu’s flows — between 70 and 80 percent of its water — have decimated fishing economies and impeded travel to healthcare facilities, jobs, and schools.
“Belo Monte is a reminder that climate leadership is not just about curbing deforestation or making speeches at COP summits,” Natalie Unterstell, president of Talanoa, a Brazilian climate think tank, told the Associated Press. “It is also about how the state plans, operates and corrects infrastructure in an era of climate change.”
By installed capacity, the dam is the second-largest in Brazil, and fifth-largest in the world.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- Chris Jones Campaigns to Clean Up Iowa’s Water — Iowa scientist and activist launches bid to be state agriculture secretary.
- 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.
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
26.7 billion
Tons of groundwater depleted annually across High Mountain Asia, a region known as “Asia’s Water Tower” for its critical stores of fresh water. Nearly 2 billion people across a dozen countries and 10 river basins — including the Indus, Ganges, and Amu Darya — depend on the water flowing from these high-elevation plateaus for agriculture, trade, travel, fishing, security, and urban drinking and sanitation supply.
According to a recent study published in Environmental Research Letters, 69 percent of the region experienced groundwater storage declines between 2003 and 2020. Human activities accounted for 38 percent of these losses, and climatic drivers contributed to 47 percent. Accelerated glacial melt is expected to replenish losses for several more decades, but this “buffer” will likely disappear in the 2060s.
40
Percent by which climate change has intensified regional rainfall in southern Africa, according to a new report from the research group World Weather Attribution (WWA). Since December, roughly 200 people have died in floods in Mozambique, Eswatini, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. In Mozambique alone, where the government estimates reconstruction costs to exceed $650 million, at least 100,000 people remain crowded inside temporary shelters.
La Niña weather conditions likely amplified the strength of the past month’s storms by 22 percent, according to WWA estimates. More than 105,000 hectares of agricultural land were lost, and 36,000 livestock were killed. “Human-caused climate change is supercharging rainfall events like this with devastating impacts for those in its path,” Izidine Pinto, the study’s co-author and a senior climate researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, told Reuters.
The Global South is disproportionately vulnerable to the weather and financial effects of climate change.
On the Radar
The borough council of Rhondda Cynon Taf county, located just north of Cardiff, Wales, will buy and bulldoze 16 homes that have suffered damage from repeated flooding, and are unable to be protected from future storms, the Guardian reports.
It is believed to be the first time in the United Kingdom that a local authority has bought inland homes to shield residents from the impacts of the climate crisis. The properties, all located along Nant Clydach, the local river, have in recent years been inundated with more than six feet of water during storms and fast-moving surges. Most of the stone homes in the former mining village were built at the turn of the 20th century.
“It’s been horrifying,” Paul Thomas, a resident of one of the homes, tells the Guardian. “You only get a few months of rest in the summer. When the winter comes, you’re just waiting for disaster.”
Residents’ legal and rehousing costs will be covered by the council, whose decision may be seen as a precedent-setting arrangement. Scientists say that an increase in winter rainfall in the United Kingdom is already 20 years ahead of past predictions, with some officials preparing for the inevitability of people being forced to abandon their flood-prone homes.
Wetland Watch
Rocky Mountain Revival: Artificial beaver dams in Rocky Mountain National Park have helped divert snow runoff and floodwaters over more than two football fields’ worth of meadows in Kawuneeche Valley, The Colorado Sun reports, revitalizing a network of wetlands that had disappeared amidst the American West’s megadrought.
World Wetlands Day: Monday, February 2 was World Wetlands Day — a United Nations-enshrined day meant to raise awareness about the importance of wetlands for human and environmental health. This year’s theme was “Wetlands and traditional knowledge: Celebrating cultural heritage.”
