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The Parched Tiger: Shrinking Water Supply + Rising Demand = Anger
September 26th, 2016
Courtesy of The Economist, a look at India, where shrinking water supply and rising demand is stirring anger: THE toll was not shocking by Indian standards: two dead, nearly 100 vehicles torched and some 400 “miscreants” arrested. Nor did the violence that erupted on September 12th in Bangalore, capital of the southern state of Karnataka, […]
Read more »Indus Waters Treaty Rides Out Latest Crisis
September 25th, 2016
Via The Third Pole, an interesting look at how a recent terrorist attack has led to the questioning of the Indus Waters Treaty in India, but officially there is no move to change or rescind it: The 1960 World Bank-mediated Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan is considered one of the great success stories of water diplomacy, especially […]
Read more »‘I am Lake Urmia’: A Social Media Initiative Focuses On Iran’s Environment
September 24th, 2016
Via The Guardian, an interesting look at how Iran’s Lake Urmia’s grim destiny reflects a wider trend of enviromental problems in Iran, including an over-reliance on dams, extreme weather patterns, climatic changes, poor irrigation practices and unregulated use of water: Long tucked away behind the mountains of northwest Iran, Lake Urmia is becoming a national symbol of environmental […]
Read more »Water Governance in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin
September 22nd, 2016
Via Future Directions International, a report on water governance in the Tigris-Euphrates basin: Key Points The states that share the water resources of the Tigris-Euphrates Basin have come close to creating a water sharing agreement in the past, but narrow self-interest derailed the project. Current regional political crises were caused, in part, by heightened food […]
Read more »USA: Irrigation Nation Faces A Dry Future
September 20th, 2016
Via Pacific Standard, an interesting look at how irrigation helped create America’s breadbasket and how it threatens to destroy it: Rick Hammond turned a yellow dial until it locked into place with a hollow clank, and a high-pressure hum filled the air. Across the windswept field, a light started blinking atop a metal contraption that […]
Read more »Major Water Disputes Are Often Beyond War and Peace
September 20th, 2016
Via the Wilson Center’s New Security Beat, an interesting look at the state of affairs that characterize many important share water basins around the world: Early this June, the Israeli government cut off drinking water to people living in the Salfit region of the West Bank and three villages east of Nablus. The consequences have been dire. […]
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