BLOG
Desalination Quenching California’s Thirst: Pipe Dream?
April 5th, 2022
Via The Economist, an article on how much desalination can help California diversify its water supply as the West dries up: Carlsbad State Beach is a Southern California idyll. Palm trees adorn the cliffs above the sand, and surfers paddle out for the waves. From the beach it is impossible to tell that a huge desalination […]
Read more »California Drought May Be Worse Than Currently Believed
April 5th, 2022
Courtesy of The New York Times, commentary on US west’s drought: Outside my lab near Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada of California, new animal tracks are on the snow after a winter of hibernation, bird songs are lofting through the air, and the creek is flowing strongly with water from the melting snow. Spring […]
Read more »The Volga: A River No Longer Runs Through It
April 2nd, 2022
Via MIT’s Technology Review, an article on how too many dams have made Russia’s most important river dysfunctional: You can find Dubna, a small town three hours away from Moscow by train, both on a map and in the periodic table: dubnium, element number 105, was discovered at a research center there, and named after […]
Read more »Zimbabwe’s Drought-Induced Climate Migration: A Sign Of What’s To Come
April 2nd, 2022
Via MIT’s Technology Review, a look at Zimbabwe’s drought-induced climate migration, a precursor to climate change expected impact in forcing tens of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa to migrate by 2050: Julius Mutero has harvested virtually nothing in the past six years. For his entire adult life, he has farmed a three-hectare plot in […]
Read more »Senegal’s Water-Stressed Capital Faces Difficult Future
April 2nd, 2022
Via Terra Daily, an article on Dakar’s water stressed future: Many residents of the Senegalese metropolis Dakar get up in the middle of the night hoping to collect water from their taps, which mostly run dry. “We wake up at 4 or 5 am to get water, says Sidy Fall, 44, in his kitchen in […]
Read more »How We Drained California Dry
April 2nd, 2022
Via MIT Technology Review, an article on California’s water scarcity challenge: The wind finally blew the other way last night and kicked out the smoke from the burning Sierra. Down here in the flatland of California, we used to regard the granite mountain as a place apart, our getaway. But the distance is no more. […]
Read more »