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Challenges Facing The Yellow River: Not Water Under the Bridge
January 20th, 2008
NPR has a wonderful five-part series on the environmental crisis facing China’s Yellow River, which snakes through northern China for more than 3,000 miles and has long been known as the country’s mother river — the cradle of Chinese civilization. Unfortunately, it is no longer clean nor in strong supply. Three-quarters of the 4,000 small […]
Read more »Averting Water Wars in Asia – Will Tibet’s Waters Really Save China?
January 15th, 2008
Several months ago, The International Herald Tribune presciently (in our opinion) noted that sharpening Asian competition over energy resources had obscured a far more critical threat that water shortages pose for the region’s rapid economic modernization. Water, in fact, has emerged as a key issue that could determine if Asia is headed toward cooperation or […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: China To Have Exploited All Available Water Resources by 2030
January 4th, 2008
A dramatic report from Reuters on the impending water crisis in China. As the article notes: “…China will have exploited all available water supplies to the limit by 2030, the government has warned, ordering officials to prepare for worse to come as global warming and economic expansion drain lakes and rivers. As well, a state […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: A Deluge of Water Issues Facing China
January 1st, 2008
Given its geographic size, enormous population, and frenetic pace of industrialization, it is perhaps no surprise that water issues are becoming more and more critical in China. And, rather than taking a revisionist approach to history and forgetting all the errors & damage inflicted on water sources around the world by other nations and trying […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: Cameroon & China Strike Water Deal
January 1st, 2008
When first reading the headline of this report at Terra Daily, I immediately thought that China – akin to its other efforts to “lock up” scarce natural resources in Africa (i.e. hydrocarbons, metals, etc.) – had moved its strategic reach further, into the world of water. While the details proved to be slightly less dramatic, […]
Read more »Tajikistan – Delayed Plans to be the Battery of Central Asia
January 1st, 2008
An interesting article examining Tajikistan’s ambitions to become the “battery” of Central Asia, namely a delay in such due to shortages of concrete necessary for a big hydropower plant under construction. According to the article: “…Tajikistan plans to be the largest electricity exporter in Central Asia. Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan have already stated they are […]
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