BLOG
Iranian Drought Begets Farmer Protests, Power Outages, and Widespread Water Rationing
June 22nd, 2021
Via Circle of Blue, a report on Iran’s drought: Lack of water is one of Iran’s biggest environmental and social risks. On the outskirts of Tehran, and in the country’s rural expanses, the signs of such stress are abundantly visible: brittle plains, cracked ground, sinkholes, sandy plateaus. A decades-long drought in one of the warming […]
Read more »Uzbekistan and Tajikistan Talk Dams, Not Rogun
June 22nd, 2021
Via The Diplomat, an article on Tashkent’s strategy to delicately remove itself from discussing Dushanbe’s Rogun dam, instead offering alternatives: Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev paid an official visit to Dushanbe on June 10-11. It was Mirziyoyev’s second visit to the Tajik capital since his presidency began in 2016. In 2018, Mirziyoyev made a state visit to […]
Read more »Historic Drought Threatens Brazil’s Economy
June 17th, 2021
Via Phys.org, a report on Brazil’s drought: The worst drought in nearly a century to hit two key regions in Brazil is wreaking havoc on hydroelectric dams and crops—and threatening the nascent pandemic recovery of Latin America’s biggest economy. Months of sparse rain have shrunk rivers, left their banks cracked and parched, and reduced normally […]
Read more »As a Hot, Dry Summer Begins in California, More Water Wells Are Failing
June 17th, 2021
Courtesy of Circle of Blue, an article on California’s drought: On Memorial Day, while many Californians were celebrating the unofficial start to summer, the owners of the home off of County Road 200 were contemplating a loss. That day, the homeowners in northern Glenn County submitted an anonymous report to a state database indicating that their drinking […]
Read more »Iran: Facing Water ‘Bankruptcy’
June 16th, 2021
Via Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, a report on Iran’s depleted aquifers: Iran is facing a state of water bankruptcy that threatens its socioeconomic development and natural environments. Using an exceptionally rich measured groundwater dataset, we illustrate the extent and severity of Iran’s groundwater depletion and salinization problems during the 2002 to 2015 period, […]
Read more »Drought Exacerbating Central Asian Regional Conflicts
June 16th, 2021
Via Window on Eurasia, commentary on how drought is exacerbating Central Asian conflicts: The drought in Central Asia means that the flow of the Amudarya River is currently 24.5 percent lower than in 2019 and 16.4 percent lower than it was last year when the region began suffering a drought. There is thus less water […]
Read more »