Global Rundown
- Jordan is spending $6 billion to build the world’s second-largest desalination plant, which will supply up to 40 percent of the country’s drinking water.
- Rainstorms that began as a welcome end to Morocco’s seven-year drought have failed to relent. More than 150,000 people have been displaced as flooding worsens.
- Record snowfall in coastal Japan has killed dozens of people, while officials brace for flooding as warm weather threatens rapid melting.
- Residents in Australia have filed a class-action lawsuit against one of the world’s largest gold mines for allegedly polluting their drinking water and rivers with heavy metals.
The Lead
The world’s second-largest desalination facility is coming to Jordan, one of the most water-stressed countries on the planet.
Planned to be built at the port of Aqaba on the shores of the Red Sea, the $6 billion plant will turn 225 million gallons of seawater into potable water daily. A 280-mile pipeline will convey this volume north to the capital Amman, where the supply is expected to meet 40 percent of the country’s drinking water needs, Engineering News-Record reports. The project — a collaboration between French engineering firms, an Egyptian construction company, and the Jordanian government — is on track to open in 2029, and 28 percent of the facility’s energy needs will be supplied by a solar farm.
Water shortages are a chronic problem in Jordan and the Middle East more broadly. According to a 2022 Unicef report, agriculture accounts for 5 percent of the country’s GDP, but more than 50 percent of its water consumption. Prior to the announcement of this project, the number of people affected by water shortages was expected to rise by between 1 percent and 1.5 percent annually through 2100.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- A Michigan Dairy CAFO Clash Over Manure Digesters and Clean Water — Circle of Blue / The New Lede
- USDA Pauses Manure-to-Gas Loans Amid High Delinquency, Project Failures — Circle of Blue / The New Lede
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
At least 45 people have died in Japan’s worst snowstorm in decades, with more than 5 feet of snow accumulating in north-central prefectures along the western coast of the Sea of Japan, NHK World Japan reports. The unusually heavy snowfall is attributed to gusts of cold air arriving from the Arctic. Of Japan’s 47 prefectures, 15 have experienced travel delays, power outages, or other disturbances, and more than 500 people nationwide have been injured. With warm fronts in the forecast, officials now worry that rapid snowmelt will trigger floods and overwhelm drainage systems.
Record rains and resulting floodwaters have displaced more than 150,000 Moroccans in the past week, with little relief in sight. What began as a welcome reprieve — the end of the country’s seven-year drought — has evolved into torrential downpours, overwhelming infrastructure and killing at least four people. In rural areas, agricultural authorities have begun distributing animal feed to livestock farmers whose supplies have washed away, Hespress reports.
François Gemenne, director of the Hugo Observatory, a Belgium-based research center dedicated to environmental migration, stressed that sudden deluges interspersed with long droughts portend to be an increasingly common experience in North Africa. “Clearly, this is an episode that is part of a lasting climate change in the Maghreb. We know that the Mediterranean region will experience most of the effects of climate change, and one of these effects will be the increase in these extreme events,” Gemenne told Africa Radio. “They are, in reality, two sides of the same coin.”
On the Radar
One of the world’s largest gold mines, located in New South Wales, Australia, has been accused of subjecting communities to a “toxic trifecta” of air, water, and land pollution, Australia Broadcasting Corporation reports.
In a class action lawsuit filed last week against mine operators Cadia Holdings, lawyers allege — with three years of citizen science testing — that 2,000 properties have been contaminated with arsenic, heavy metals, and PFAS since production began in 2013.
“I’ve got heavy metals in my water, in my dams, my water tanks are testing extremely high for heavy metals,” Jann Harries, a lead litigant in the case, tells the Guardian.
An independent review commissioned by Australia’s Environmental Protection Agency and published last year found “no conclusive evidence linking Cadia Valley Operations to significant degradation of waterways” but did identify several “localised trends, particularly elevated metals in groundwater and sediments.”
In 2024, farmers near the southern border of the mine noted white foam appearing in the Belubula River, a crucial source for irrigation. Laboratory tests found the foam to contain PFOS. Subsequent EPA testing identified the presence of PFAS at 16 catchments in the basin, and fishing was banned when specimens were found to contain up to 40 times the daily PFOS intake limit.
Community members are seeking both financial compensation and an injunction to limit further pollution from the facility, which produces more than 33 million tons of ore annually.
Wetland Watch
Source of Life: A natural reservoir in Angola spanning more than 20,000 acres has received official Ramsar recognition as a wetland of international importance, Mongabay reports. The high plateau habitat, called “source of life” in the local language, is marked by marshes, peatlands, lakes, and rivers. Much of the freshwater that flows through the Okavango and Zambezi river watersheds originates in springs within the area.
“Every 20 kilometers there’s a valley and there’s a river,” Kerllen Costa, Angolan director for the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, tells Mongabay. “They’re all crystal-clear, free-flowing, there’s absolutely no development; people live according to their ancient traditions and beliefs.”
