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The Thirsty Dragon: Olympics Water Diversion Causing Olympian Problems
February 29th, 2008
As recently reported by The Financial Times, the diversion of water to Beijing for the Olympics and for big hydropower projects threatens the lives of millions of peasant farmers in China’s north-western provinces. According to the senior Chinese government official quoted in the report, Beijing will need an estimated 300m cubic metres of additional water […]
Read more »Southeastern U.S. Water Wars
February 25th, 2008
As reported in a number of publications, including The New York Times, the water “war” between Tennessee and Georgia has been brought closer to a boiling point by Georgia’s recent legislative attempt to move the border north so the drought-plagued state can tap into the Tennessee River. According to some legislators, Georgia – under this […]
Read more »A Myriad of Small Leaks May Lead to a Deluge of Water Wars in The Middle East
February 19th, 2008
An interesting article in today’s Arabian Business online edition which emphasized that the Middle East is facing the threat of a ‘water war’ unless Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq address their huge water wastage problems. An industry expert with the specialist water group Metito warned that water leakages in these four countries run at […]
Read more »Lake Mead May Go Dry By 2021: “We are beyond the sustainable limit of the Colorado system”
February 13th, 2008
According to a recent study as reported by CNET News, there is a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead – created by the Hoover Dam and the Colorado River – will go dry by 2021 because of escalating human demand and climate change. As noted by the authors: “Today, we are at or beyond the […]
Read more »Water Politics in the Horn of Africa & The Rest of the Continent
February 6th, 2008
Our recent post related to Lake Victoria encouraged us to look more closely at water politics in the Horn of Africa, and we came across this interesting analysis of the Jubba and Shabelle river basins which are located in this water scarce region also fraught with recurrent droughts, devastating floods, a growing population, interlocking conflicts, […]
Read more »Looming Water Supply Crises: Future Water Availability – Winners and Losers
February 5th, 2008
As reported by Terra Daily, a prominent group of hydrologists and climatologists writing in Science magazine argue that climate change has already dramatically altered the water cycle and these changes signal a looming water supply crisis. As the article notes, a picture of future water availability gainers and losers can be projected: “…Our best current […]
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