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Indonesia: Disjointed Islands Make Water Scarcity A Problem
December 29th, 2014
Courtesy of STRATFOR (subscription required), interesting analysis of Indonesia’s water scarcity challenges: Indonesia is in a transitional period as new President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo attempts to improve governance, fight corruption and centralize government regulations. Like his predecessors, however, Jokowi will struggle with the geographic constraints inherent to Indonesia. While Jakarta is poised to benefit from […]
Read more »Thirsty Agriculture: Water Source For California Almonds May Run Dry
December 28th, 2014
Courtesy of the New York Times, an interesting article on the water-food nexus in the United States: California’s almond orchards have been thriving over the past decade and now provide an $11 billion annual boost to the state economy. Covering 860,000 acres, they account for 80 percent of world production. But the growth coincides with […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: Doubts As Giant Project’s Water Reaches Capital
December 28th, 2014
Via Terra Daily, a report on China’s South-North Water Diversion project: A towering dam in central China holds back a vast expanse of water destined to travel over 1,000 kilometres north to Beijing, but critics say it will only temporarily quench the city’s thirst. China’s capital on Saturday received its first flows from the South-North […]
Read more »South Africa’s Water Needs
December 26th, 2014
Courtesy of STRATFOR (subscription required), an interesting analysis of South Africa’s water needs & constraints: Over the coming decades, South Africa will face constraints associated with water availability that will have a broad impact on its economy and could temper economic growth. The water-intensive coal power production and mining sectors in particular will be impacted […]
Read more »Iraqi Diyala Residents Face ISIS ‘Water War’
December 22nd, 2014
Via Al Arabiya, a sobering report on ISIS’ latest effort to utilize water as a weapon of war: An Iraqi official warned on Saturday of a “humanitarian disaster” after Islamist militants diverted Al-Roz River away from Bildoz district in the eastern province of Diyala, affecting thousands of people in what he described as a “water […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: Opening The Tap – China’s Water Diversion Starts To Flow
December 12th, 2014
Via the Financial Times, an update on China’s South-North Diversion Project: ©EPAFishermen in front of the Danjiangkou dam China officially inaugurated one of the world’s largest and most controversial engineering projects on Friday as water from the Yangtze River valley finally arrived in the parched capital, Beijing. The $60bn South-North Water Diversion project will eventually […]
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