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Why the Aral Sea’s Restoration Matters Beyond Central Asia
April 3rd, 2026
Via The Diplomat, a report on how the Aral Sea’s story demonstrates how human actions can profoundly alter natural systems, yet it also shows that determined cooperation can begin to repair environmental damage that once seemed irreversible: Few environmental disasters illustrate the consequences of human mismanagement as starkly as the fate of the Aral Sea. Once the […]
Read more »Qosh-Tepa Looks Like a Disaster. Uzbekistan Thinks Otherwise.
April 3rd, 2026
Via Havli substack, commentary on how Central Asian countries are able to use their position as power exporters for leverage as Taliban-run Afghanistan presses ahead with an ambitious canal project. If Shavkat Khamroyev is feeling nervous these days, he is doing a good job of hiding it. After all, Uzbekistan’s water resources minister would have […]
Read more »‘The Precedent Is Flint’: How Oregon’s Data Center Boom Is Supercharging a Water Crisis
March 29th, 2026
Courtesy of Rolling Stone, an insightful report on how Amazon has come to Oregon’s eastern farmland, worsening a water pollution problem that’s been linked to cancer and miscarriages: In the spring of 2022, Jim Doherty kept having the same conversation with folks at the only grocery store in Boardman, his eastern Oregon hometown, or at the grain […]
Read more »Iran’s Water Weapon Against the Gulf
March 28th, 2026
Via Project Syndicate, commentary on how – while the rest of the world is mainly concerned about the energy disruptions caused by the Iran war – the Gulf countries are more anxious about the Islamic Republic’s threats to their desalination facilities: The oil-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf are often described as petrostates. But the […]
Read more »The Audacious Plan to Refill Great Salt Lake
March 28th, 2026
Via NBC News, a report on how a “Herculean” goal to replenish the water in Utah’s Great Salt Lake by the 2034 Olympics is gaining momentum and attracting strange bedfellows: The Great Salt Lake has been shriveling up for decades. At its record low about four years ago, the exposed lake bed became a source of […]
Read more »The Global Water Crisis: Stress, Scarcity, and Conflict
March 25th, 2026
Via the Council on Foreign Relations, a report on growing water stress which is threatening the health and development of communities worldwide. The United Nations warns the planet has entered an era of “water bankruptcy,” as climate pressures and rising demand intensify the strain on global water resources. Water stress occurs when demand for safe, […]
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