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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 »Canadian Ambassador: Water Wars With U.S. Will Become Bigger Issue Than Pipelines
February 25th, 2014
Via the Vancouver Sun, an article reporting that some senior Canadian diplomats think that water wars with the U.S. will soon become more important than current cross-border deliberations over potential petroleum pipelines: Canada must prepare for diplomatic water wars with the U.S., as demand on both sides of the border grows for this vital but […]
Read more »The Drying Of The American West
February 23rd, 2014
Courtesy of The Economist, a sobering report on the drought conditions in the American west: THE first rule for staying alive in a desert is not to pour the contents of your water flask into the sand. Yet that, bizarrely, is what the government has encouraged farmers to do in the drought-afflicted south-west. Agriculture accounts […]
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 »Iran Confronts Crisis Of Water Supply
January 31st, 2014
Courtesy of the New York Times, a look at Iran’s water crisis in Lake Urmia, where only 5 percent of the water remains: After driving for 15 minutes over the bottom of what was once Iran’s largest lake, a local environmental official stepped out of his truck, pushed his hands deep into his pockets and […]
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