BLOG
The Thirsty Dragon and Parched Tiger: Tensions Over The Yarlung Tsangpo River
March 11th, 2014
Courtesy of China Dialogue, a close three-part look at the Yarlung Tsangpo river – one of the world’s great transboundary rivers – which starts on the Tibetan Plateau before passing through India and Bangladesh. As background, the Yarlung Tsangpo Brahmaputra-Jamuna river, begins in the high glaciers of the Tibetan Himalaya. Its most dramatic passages come […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: China Falling Behind On 2020 Hydro Goals
March 11th, 2014
Via China Digital Times, a report that China is falling behind on its hydro generation targets: Due to increasingly stringent hydro project approval rules, and despite warnings of a “Faustian bargain” with a runaway “hydro-industrial complex,” China is falling behind on its target to raise the country’s hydro generation capacity by half before 2020. David Stanway at Reuters […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: The Human Impact Of China’s Desperate Need For Water
March 8th, 2014
Via Quartz, a report on how China’s desperate need for water is forcing the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people: Villagers in Danjiangkou prepare to move their belongings in 2009, ahead of the resettlement process. Once a collection of agrarian villages, Danjiangkou, about 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) south of Beijing, is now a small but bustling […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: South-North Water Transfer ‘Not Sustainable’
February 26th, 2014
Via ChinaFile, an update on China’s South-North Water Transfer project which, one official said, would be rendered irrelevant if one-third of buildings in Beijing could collect more rainwater and recycle more wastewater: The bank of the Yangtze River in southwest China’s Chongqing municipality, dried up in a drought that in 2011 forced authorities to halt […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: China’s Transboundary & Third Pole ‘Obstacles’
February 10th, 2014
Courtesy of China Water Risk, a list of China’s top five environmental trends includes the following on water: As long as China does not sign comprehensive water sharing agreements regarding water ulitisation of transboundary rivers with neighbouring countries, transboundary water management will continue to fuel geopolitical fears in the region. Given China’s search for clean […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: The Land Of 28,000 Missing Rivers
February 8th, 2014
Via Counterpunch, a look at China’s water crisis: As a lot of attention is being paid to the negative consequences of environmental pollution in China, another crisis is brewing of equally dangerous consequences for people’s health and for the country’s development: water scarcity. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) report Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds states with regard to China, […]
Read more »