Global Rundown
- A new report identifies global drought hotspots since 2023 and outlines vulnerabilities, impacts, causes, and response strategies.
- Some 60,000 residents in northeastern France are under a tap water ban after elevated PFAS levels were detected nearby, the result of airport pollution.
- The replacement of Flint, Michigan’s lead pipes has finally been completed.
- A judge in Texas has ruled that produced water — fracking wastewater — is owned by oil companies, not landowners.
The Lead
In 2023 and 2024, a strong El Niño weather pattern layered atop a warming climate was a double whammy that produced the warmest two years on record. Alongside the heat were calamitous droughts that dried up drinking water sources, killed livestock in the Horn of Africa and fish in the Amazon, restricted shipping through the Panama Canal, and caused human deaths from hunger.
Those impacts and other frictions are detailed in a new report on drought hotspots since 2023.
Hotspots included the Amazon basin, which saw rivers plunge to record lows and widespread fires, and the Mediterranean, where drinking water shortages hit southern Spain and Catalonia. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa were also stricken. Ethiopia witnessed an increase in child marriage as families sold young brides for a price to reduce their household size. Zambia experienced blackouts due to a reduction in hydropower, its main source of electricity.
“This is not a dry spell,” said Dr. Mark Svoboda, report co-author and director of the National Drought Mitigation Center. “This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I’ve ever seen. This report underscores the need for systematic monitoring of how drought affects lives, livelihoods, and the health of the ecosystems that we all depend on.”
The report, which was produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center, the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, and the International Drought Resilience Alliance, recommended several responses. Among them: better early-warning systems; nature-based solutions to restore watersheds; infrastructure designed for extreme dry and wet periods; care for women, girls and children; and global cooperation.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- In Juneau, a new website offers anxious residents a better way to prepare for annual floods — The interactive Juneau Flood Dashboard shares maps, alerts, and water level forecasts for valley homes under different flood scenarios.
- The Season of Our Growing Discontent — Summer is when natural hazards are most pronounced.
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
60,000
Number of people in France’s northeastern Haut-Rhin region who are living under a total ban on tap water, the Guardian reports. Tests conducted earlier this year showed that local water sources contained four times the recommended limit for PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.” Their source has been traced back to chemical-laden firefighting foams used by a local airport until 2017. The ban is France’s largest ever, stretching across 11 communes near the Rhine River and is likely to last until at least the end of the year, as officials work to install water filters. The area’s residents, most of whom have consumed contaminated water for decades unknowingly, have reported ailments and illnesses, suffered miscarriages, and endured pain.
11,000
Number of lead pipes that have been replaced in Flint, Michigan, more than a decade after the town’s water crisis began, the Washington Post reports. In a progress report submitted to a Michigan federal court, state officials confirmed that 28,000 properties had been “excavated and checked for lead pipes,” at last completing the free-of-charge replacements that were part of a 2017 settlement.
On the Radar
As part of Texas’s rule of capture, whoever owns a parcel of land, owns the groundwater beneath it. But this has been called into question as landowners lease their properties to companies drilling for oil and gas. After fracking, wastewater — also known as produced water — flows back up to the surface. Billions of gallons of produced water sit throughout the state, and its ownership lately has been contested as “the race is on to turn produced water from a waste stream into a valuable product,” Inside Climate News reports.
Last week, the debate ended. The Texas Supreme Court ruled that “the drilling company that holds the oil and gas lease, not the surface owner, owns the produced water.”
Efforts to recycle the wastewater have taken on various forms over the past several years, though momentum for reuse is increasing — and may potentially be lucrative — as Texas recently passed a law allowing treated produced water to be used for irrigation.
Fresh: From the Great Lakes Region
Detroit River Restoration Progress: An annual report released by the Detroit River Canadian Cleanup indicates that the river, currently listed as a Great Lakes’ Area of Concern, is progressing in its ecological recovery. As outlined in the 1987 Amendment to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, 14 beneficial uses — which include recreational, ecological, and economic benefits that result from a healthy aquatic environment — “were identified and used to establish 43 Areas of Concern (AOCs) within the Great Lakes,” CKLW Windsor reports. As of this year, 11 of the Detroit River’s 14 beneficial uses have been restored.
Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television, Michigan Public and The Narwhal work together to report on the most pressing threats to the Great Lakes region’s water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work here.
- How Ontario could have cracked down on Chemical Valley pollution — but chose not to — The Narwhal
- New report shows PFAS contamination in 98% of waterways tested — Great Lakes Now
- US Supreme Court to consider Line 5 lawsuit jurisdiction case — Michigan Public
- Iconic whitefish on edge of collapse as Great Lakes biodiversity crisis deepens — Bridge Michigan