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The Thirsty Dragon: China’s Water Challenge – Implications for the U.S. Rebalance to Asia
July 25th, 2013
Via Council on Foreign Relations, a report on Elizabeth C. Economy’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, discussing China’s water scarcity challenge and its potential to destabilize the region: How China manages its water resources over the next five to seven years has profound implications not only for […]
Read more »How Yemen Chewed Itself Dry
July 24th, 2013
Via Foreign Affairs, an interesting report on Yemen’s water crisis: In a little over a decade, Sana’a, Yemen, may become the world’s first capital to run out of water. Failed governance and environmental mismanagement share some of the blame for drying up the city. But there is also a more surprising culprit: a national addiction […]
Read more »Pakistan’s New Big Threat Isn’t Terrorism—It’s Water
July 23rd, 2013
Via The Atlantic, an article on how shortages of water threaten to destabilize south Asia even further: In a report released last week by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Pakistan was pinpointed as “one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, not far from being classified, ‘water-scarce’.” As water demand exceeds supply in the […]
Read more »Asia’s Unstable Water Tower: The Politics, Economics, and Ecology of Himalayan Water Projects
July 21st, 2013
Again via the July 2013 issue of Asia Policy, an interesting article by Kenneth Pommeranz: Asia’s ten largest rivers by volume—including the Yangtze, Mekong, Brahmaputra (which becomes part of the Ganges), and Indus—originate in the Himalayas or on the Tibetan Plateau and collectively serve 47% of the world’s population. Inadequate or unreliable water supplies pose […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: China’s Upstream Advantage in the Great Himalayan Watershed
July 21st, 2013
Via the July 2013 issue of Asia Policy, a comprehensive look at water security in the Himalaya region.  As the journal examines, the scramble for control of natural resources to support economic and population growth, combined with the uncertain effects of climate change on the Tibetan Plateau, is raising tensions in Asia over Himalayan water […]
Read more »Kyrgyz Block Water to Kazakhstan, Demanding the Return of “Their†Land
July 17th, 2013
Via Global Voices Online, an interesting commentary on water dispute in Central Asia: During the enforced brotherhood of communism, land and water were not a source of friction for the peoples of Soviet Central Asia. Over the course of two decades of sovereignty, however, arguments over the delimitation of national borders and access to trans-boundary […]
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