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World Water Use
June 21st, 2008
Via Forbes, an insightful map in which the size of each nation is distorted to illustrate its respective total annual water consumption. China, India and the United States appear largest, indicating they use the most water overall. These tables show the countries that use the most and least water per square centimeter of land. Relatively […]
Read more »Shrinking Lake Chad
June 21st, 2008
Via National Geographic, dramatic satellite images from 1972 (left) and 2007 (right) which show the water-level decline in Lake Chad, once the world’s sixth largest but now one-tenth its former size due to declining rainfall and diversion of water for human use. While not yet a site of water conflict, given the lake’s location at […]
Read more »Central Asia: Water Tensions Soon To Boil Over?
June 20th, 2008
From Radio Free Europe, a detailed look at how age-old water problems are bringing tensions to a boil in Central Asia. As the article notes: “…The cities, towns, and villages of western Uzbekistan, and western Central Asia in general, are facing the same hot summer short of water — a cruel fate considering many of these areas […]
Read more »Turkmenistan’s Lake in the Desert: A Modern Day Mirage?
June 17th, 2008
Via Aquadoc, a report that Turkmenistan is proceeding with its grand scheme to create a lake in a desert located in the northwest part of the country, southwest of Sarykamish Lake, in the Karashor Depression. Initally conceived during the tenure of its late dictator Saparmurat Niyazov (aka ‘Turkmenbashi’ – ‘Father of all Turkmens’) ground for […]
Read more »Central Asia’s Water Challenges: Uzbekistan’s Legacy of Salt
June 17th, 2008
Via The New York Times, an interesting article detailing the destructive environmental and human legacy left behind in Uzbekistan, a land-locked country whose rivers were diverted to grow cotton on arid land, causing the Aral Sea, a large saltwater lake, to lose more than half of its surface area in 40 years. As noted in […]
Read more »Water Squabbles Irrigate Tensions in Central Asia
June 17th, 2008
Via Reuters, more on water-related tensions in Central Asia: “…Gulbakhor’s despair, shared by millions of Tajiks in this tiny ex-Soviet nation north of Afghanistan, reflects a growing sense of alarm throughout Central Asia where stability depends on the region’s scarcest and most precious commodity: water. From tiny irrigation canals to the powerful Soviet-era hydroelectric plants, […]
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