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U.S. Southwest Water Problem About ‘People and Politics’
October 6th, 2022
Via Grand Junction Sentinel, commentary on the relationship between water and politics: The most important long-term issue for Colorado today is the same as it was 120 years ago… water. In 2010, Smithsonian Magazine published an article titled, “The Colorado River Runs Dry.” The article included a quotation from Brad Udall of Colorado State University, […]
Read more »Ogallala Aquifer: The Wells Dried Up This Year
October 5th, 2022
Via KTIC’s Rural Radio, a report on the dire impact the summer’s drought had on the Ogallala Aquifer: A post on social media from Haskell County, Kansas, pointed to a stark example of the impact of extreme drought and high crop irrigation demand in the 2022 year. “(The) well is basically out of water now. Been […]
Read more »Will the Mekong River Really Become the Next South China Sea?
October 5th, 2022
Via The Diplomat, a look – amid competition between China and the U.S. – at how the question of the river’s fate has been imbued with a strategic undercurrent: In recent years, the fate of Southeast Asia’s great river – the Mekong – has attracted growing international scrutiny. The Mekong faces many challenges, from the […]
Read more »As Himalayan Glaciers Melt, A Water Crisis Looms In South Asia
October 4th, 2022
Via Yale e360, a look at how – as warmer air is thinning most of the vast mountain range’s glaciers, known as the Third Pole because they contain so much ice – the melting could have far-reaching consequences for flood risk and for water security for a billion people who rely on meltwater for their […]
Read more »Heavily Subsidized Water Is Driving Utah Dry
October 1st, 2022
Courtesy of The Guardian, an article on how heavily subsidized water ‘made the desert bloom’ in Salt Lake City, but the tradition is now driving Utah dry: In June 2021, Marlene and Emron Esplin stopped watering their front lawn. Given that the Esplins live in Utah, where maintaining lush green turf is often associated with the […]
Read more »Will Drought Put U.S. Alfalfa Farmers Out Of Business?
October 1st, 2022
Via The Guardian, an article on how agriculture – mainly alfalfa – consumes 80% of the Colorado River’s dwindling water supply, prompting calls for conservation: On an early August morning in California’s Imperial Valley, tractors rumble across verdant fields of alfalfa, mowing down the tall grass and leaving it to dry in shaggy heaps under […]
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