Global Rundown
- A factory in India that makes iPhone parts is facing a shutdown order after authorities discovered it was discharging polluted effluent into farmers’ water.
- Half of the world’s freshwater reservoirs may be at least half-filled with sediment by 2060, severely limiting global storage capacity, researchers warn.
- Thousands of water-scarce villages in Bangladesh face looming bans on irrigating crops with groundwater amid widespread shortages.
- India is constructing two large hydropower dams on a river it shares with Pakistan as the countries’ water-sharing treaty remains suspended.
HotSpots H2O: Tamil Nadu, India
A factory that manufactures components for iPhones is facing a forced shutdown in India’s Tamil Nadu state following complaints that the facility is contaminating the groundwater used by nearby farms, Reuters reports.
The looming shutdown order, administered by a state pollution regulator, comes after months of outcry from local farmers. A series of five inspections conducted between last December and this May revealed that the factory’s parent company, Tata Electronics, had been discharging its wastewater into a rainwater harvesting pond that overflowed to contaminate the wells on nearby agricultural fields. Tata, which has said that it is “in full compliance with all regulatory norms,” may have its power switched-off if it does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the practice and take corrective action.
According to Reuters, just over 4 percent of India’s 544,364 industries were found to be non-compliant with the country’s environmental standards over the past year. Some 3,600 were shut down by pollution control authorities.
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This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
7
Percent of freshwater storage capacity the world is losing each decade to the build-up of sediment in reservoirs, according to a study published this month in the journal Nature Sustainability. As a result, researchers warn, half of the world’s 550,000 reservoirs may become “functionally dead” — meaning at least half-filled with sediment — by 2060 if this pattern is not corrected.
The two most-impacted countries, as predicted by the researchers, are Australia and Spain. Roughly 85 percent of Australia’s reservoirs, and 75 percent of Spain’s reservoirs, are likely to pass their functional lifespans by 2060.
82
Percent of Bangladesh’s agricultural Barind region that is facing severe water stress, the Guardian reports, as decades of irrigation coincides with erratic precipitation.
Groundwater scarcity in the historically dry northwestern tract has prompted farmers to dig deeper underground to connect their irrigation pipes to the rapidly shrinking water table — an expensive project that a recent government order has criminalized. Groundwater extraction for irrigation has been banned across some 5,000 villages deemed “water scarce” for the next decade, a sweeping ban that has destabilized pastoral and rural life.
Though officials in January lifted the ban for two years, many farmers, facing dire financial straits, are uncertain of what their futures hold.
On the Radar
Tensions remain high in the Indus River Valley after India’s Minister of Water said last week that New Delhi was working to ensure that “not a single drop of water” will flow into Pakistan, the Independent reports.
The weighty declaration has been echoed on several occasions in the past year, during which time the two countries’ ongoing water-sharing dispute has reached new heights. Following deadly attacks in the Kashmir region in April 2025, India suspended its involvement in the then-65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty, which divides control of six major rivers in the basin between the two countries. Since 1960, the treaty has ensured that Pakistan receives 80 percent of its surface water access from rivers which flow across the border from India.
This access is crucial, and experts have warned that India exercising restrictive control of Indus River inflows to Pakistan could have devastating ecological, economic, and humanitarian impacts. Roughly 90 percent of Pakistanis live within the Indus River basin. Agriculture, which accounts for 94 percent of the country’s water withdrawals, represents nearly one-quarter of Pakistan’s GDP. All 21 of Pakistan’s hydropower plants, which generate one-fifth of the country’s total electricity, are located in the basin as well.
Last fall, during heavy monsoon rains, India released water from overflowing dams that caused flooding downriver in Pakistan. Despite initially claiming that they would not participate in any communications concerning water-related matters, Indian officials did give prior warning of the event. Those forecasts marked the first exchange in months between the two countries.
Pakistani leaders remain on high-alert for transboundary water transgressions, which they said they would consider “an act of war.” Last month, India announced it had fast-tracked two large hydropower projects on an Indian length of the Chenab River, whose wider water rights, per the now-suspended treaty, belong to Pakistan.
