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Afghanistan’s Water Challenges
November 13th, 2012
Via a LinkedIn discussion, some commentary by a World Bank official on the water challenges facing Afghanistan: With war and neglect, Afghans face water shortage. “Water is said to be politics and war — and the source of future wars. We are not the only ones who will see our population grow,” Afghanistan needs billions […]
Read more »Central Asia’s Looming Conflict Over Water: The Downriver Countries
November 13th, 2012
Courtesy of STRATFOR (subscription required), further analysis of water competition in Central Asia: Shared but limited water resources are always potential catalysts for regional disputes, especially if those resources are mismanaged. However, the developing conflict involving the Aral Sea basin is unique due to its relatively recent emergence since the fall of the Soviet Union […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: China Heading Towards An Unavoidable Water Crisis
November 12th, 2012
Via OilPrice.com, a report on China’s thirst for water: China is a huge producer and consumer of commodities. Not only is it the largest global producer of key crops and meat, it has the largest appetite for goods that cover the gamut from rice to rubber, from cotton to copper. But one of its largest […]
Read more »The Nile…Under Threat
November 12th, 2012
Courtesy of The Los Angeles Times, an interesting look at how poor African capitals are increasingly challenging Cairo for the Nile’s water, without which Egypt’s economy would wither and die: Overwhelmed by cascading economic and political problems since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, this nation teeters from within even as it biggest threat may lie […]
Read more »Central Asia’s Looming Conflict Over Water: The Upriver Countries
November 12th, 2012
Via STRATFOR (subscription required), a detailed look at how two of Central Asia’s poorest countries, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, are attempting to leverage one of their few geographic advantages — control over the headwaters of two major regional rivers — to build new hydropower dams. The proposed dams, which were originally drawn up by the Soviet […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: Scarcity Of Water & Land Shifts Geography of Food Production & Irrigation Networks to China’s Northeast
November 11th, 2012
Courtesy of Circle Of Blue, a report on how rich land, ample water, and dogged persistence turned China’s virgin northeast into the nation’s breadbasket: Farmers harvest corn near Tongliao in Inner Mongolia. China, the world’s largest nation and second-largest economy, is pursuing grain production with a single-minded purpose. On the south side of the two-lane […]
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