The Yangtze River near Chongqing. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue

Global Rundown

  • The diversity and abundance of fish in China’s Yangtze River have increased just a few years after a widespread fishing ban was implemented.
  • Communities across South Africa’s Western Cape are weeks away from running out of water amid drought and sparse rains.
  • Key watersheds in Suriname’s rainforests are at risk of pollution as a major agribusiness deal moves forward despite the federal government’s opposition.
  • Regulators in Texas will require data centers to disclose their water usage and energy sources.

The Lead

For the first time in 70 years, fish biodiversity and biomass on the Yangtze River have improved, according to a study published last week in the journal Science. 

The ecological resurgence of the 4,000-mile-long river — upon which 400 million people rely for drinking water, food, and financial health — is credited to a sweeping, decade-long fishing ban that was implemented in 2021 after records indicated fish stocks on the Yangtze had fallen by 85 percent. As part of the ban, China’s government spent roughly $3 billion helping 200,000 fishers find alternative employment, the Guardian reports. 

Compared to the two years before the ban went into effect, overall fish biomass doubled and diversity improved by 13 percent between 2021 and 2023. The study’s authors regarded their findings with cautious optimism, noting that illegal fishing, poor water quality, and dams remained threats to the river’s wildlife.

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Two major dams on South Africa’s Western Cape have fallen to 30 percent and 14 percent capacity as a result of below-average rains exacerbating drought conditions in the country’s most visited and wealthy province, the Knysna-Plett Herald reports. Municipal officials have urged residents to reduce their water consumption by 15 percent, though records indicate average water consumption has actually increased since November amid the shortages. Farmers have been hit particularly hard by the drought, Reuters reports, with widespread livestock deaths prompting the government to declare a national emergency. In the tourist town of Knysna, where 55 percent of the community’s available drinking water is lost to leaking pipes, roughly 20 days of water remained as of the first week of February, BBC reports.  

A private agribusiness has begun clearing more than 280,000 acres of rainforest in Suriname as part of a contentious land deal that critics say will threaten Amazon watersheds and risk the country’s carbon-negative status, Mongabay reports. 

The public-private initiative, which aims to clear forest for industrial agriculture and bioenergy projects, was approved in 2024 under Suriname’s previous government. Despite the new administration’s disapproval of the project, clear-cutting has proceeded according to plan, even without necessary permits from federal agricultural and forestry agencies.

“Nobody knows what is happening,” Erlan Sleur, a biologist and president of the environmental NGO ProBios, told Mongabay. “Even the people in the new government don’t know what is happening.”

The swath of affected land is located between the Nickerio, Wayanbo, and Coppename rivers in north-central Suriname, a freshwater network that supports transportation and irrigation in the region.

On the Radar

A seven hour-long hearing held last week by the Texas House Natural Resources Committee on Groundwater Management and Conservation is indicative of the complex yet urgent need for updated water policy in the state, KXAN reports. 

Freshwater availability is declining at a troubling rate in Texas, where roughly 95 percent of groundwater districts estimate that their required future water needs are unsustainable based on current supply and conditions. No state laws can be passed until the 2027 legislative session, though Gov. Greg Abbott signed off on a constitutional amendment last year that will provide $1 billion per year for water infrastructure projects from 2027 to 2047. 

In the meantime, regulators are targeting data centers, which use an estimated 25 billion gallons of water in Texas each year — one percent of the state’s annual water needs — a figure that is expected to triple by 2030, the Valley Central reports. The state Public Utility Commission will require data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities to divulge direct water usage, the cooling technologies used on site, and which power plants provide these businesses with electricity, information that will offer insight into their indirect water needs.

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer from Chicago. He is passionate about climate and cultural phenomena that often appear slow or invisible, and he examines these themes in his journalism, poetry, and fiction.