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In MENA, Making Every Drop of Water Count
January 24th, 2025
Via The World Bank, an article on efforts to maximize and conserve water: In the Middle East and North Africa region, water is truly life. For centuries, the region was renowned for its innovation in conserving water and delivering it to people. Think of the waterwheels of Hama in Syria, early irrigation dams in Yemen, and […]
Read more »Close to 30 Million Americans Face Limited Water Supplies
January 24th, 2025
Via The Lede, a report that close to 30M Americans face limited water supplies: Nearly 30 million people are living in areas of the US with limited water supplies as the country faces growing concerns over both water availability and quality, according to a new assessment by government scientists. The US Geological Survey (USGS), which is part […]
Read more »The Threat of Sea Level Rise To Groundwater
January 22nd, 2025
Via Western Water Notes, a report on a new study looking at the impacts of sea level rise on coastal groundwater aquifers: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech If you read this newsletter regularly, you know my interest in groundwater stems, in part, from the fact that groundwater is invisible to us much of the time. Over the past […]
Read more »The Shrinking Caspian Sea: An Environmental and Geopolitical Emergency
January 22nd, 2025
Via The Diplomat, an article on allowing the Caspian Sea to succumb to industrial exploitation and climate-induced desiccation would be an irreversible tragedy: Last month, an 18th-century 28-meter wooden shipwreck was discovered off the Mazandaran coast of the Caspian Sea in southern Iran. Operating under Russian influence, the ship likely comprised part of a merchant fleet carrying botanical […]
Read more »The U.S. Water Supply, Visualized
January 17th, 2025
Via Western Water Notes, a report on a new USGS assessment highlighting water availability: The U.S. Geological Survey released a water assessment on Thursday that found about 27 million people in the United States live in areas with high to severe levels of water scarcity. Although the agency has studied water quantity and quality in […]
Read more »Stable On The Colorado River: When “Good” Is Not Good Enough
January 17th, 2025
Via JFleck at Inkstain, a report on the Colorado River: Stable isn’t good enough. Preliminary year-end Colorado River numbers are stark. Total basin-wide storage for the last two years has stabilized, oscillating between 30 and 27 maf (million acre-feet), where storage sits at the start of 2025[1]. That is lower than any sustained period since […]
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