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Burma – Emerging from International Isolation – Pursues Major Hydroelectric Plans
March 26th, 2013
Via Oil Price.com, a look at Myanmar’s hydroelectric plans and the regional impact of such: What a difference two years makes. Since Burma’s junta in March 2011 allowed a nominally civilian government led by President Thein Sein, who had previously served as a general and then prime minister under the junta, Western governments and energy […]
Read more »Tibetan Dams
March 26th, 2013
Courtesy of Tibetan Plateau, a updated map and list of hydropower projects (HPP) in the watersheds of the Drichu, Zachu and Gyalmo Ngulchu rivers: China’s government is planning and preparing for the construction of a cascade of hydropower projects along each of the three rivers: the Salween, the Mekong and the Yangtze. Many of these […]
Read more »Are African Land Grabs Really Water Grabs?
March 26th, 2013
Via CNN, an interesting article on whether overseas investors to Africa have been actually buying water rather than land access: Millions of hectares of land have been acquired in the past few years across Africa by investors who are moving into large-scale agriculture to take advantage of potential windfall gains. Popularly these deals have become […]
Read more »The Dam That Divides Ethiopians
March 26th, 2013
Courtesy of the BBC, a detailed analysis of the domestic Ethiopian conflict and controversy surrounding the Gilgel Gibe III Dam: Most people in Ethiopia’s lower Omo River Valley continue to exist much as they have done for hundreds of years with virtually no concession to the 21st Century, with one disturbing exception: automatic weapons. Almost […]
Read more »The Looming Threat Of Water Scarcity
March 26th, 2013
Via Worldwatch Institute, a new report on the global water scarcity crisis: Some 1.2 billion people—almost a fifth of the world—live in areas of physical water scarcity, while another 1.6 billion face what can be called economic water shortage. The situation is only expected to worsen as population growth, climate change, investment and management shortfalls, […]
Read more »Phoenix And LA Spar Over Colorado River Water
March 26th, 2013
Courtesy of National Geographic, an interesting article on the increasing tensions between Phoenix and Los Angeles over dwindling supplies of Colorado River water: In a recent volley between Phoenix and Los Angeles, newspapers in those two arid cities pointed fingers at each other over who has the least sustainable water supply. In the L.A. Times, […]
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