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The Queen of Sin City’s Royal Flush
June 22nd, 2008
Via The Las Vegas Sun, an interesting look at Pat Mulroy of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the actions that Las Vegas has taken to secure water supplies. As the article notes: “…Water is fuel. Without it, runaway growth across the Southwest would not be possible. To witness what cheap, federally subsidized water out […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon’s Thirsty Games
June 21st, 2008
Via Forbes, another article detailing how residents of China’s barren northern villages, still gasping from the effects of a severe drought, have been told it is their national duty to “safeguard the Olympics” by sacrificing their own meager water supplies. As the article notes: “…The Olympic rowing park was created last year by diverting a […]
Read more »Shrinking Lake Chad
June 21st, 2008
Via National Geographic, dramatic satellite images from 1972 (left) and 2007 (right) which show the water-level decline in Lake Chad, once the world’s sixth largest but now one-tenth its former size due to declining rainfall and diversion of water for human use. While not yet a site of water conflict, given the lake’s location at […]
Read more »Central Asia: Water Tensions Soon To Boil Over?
June 20th, 2008
From Radio Free Europe, a detailed look at how age-old water problems are bringing tensions to a boil in Central Asia. As the article notes: “…The cities, towns, and villages of western Uzbekistan, and western Central Asia in general, are facing the same hot summer short of water — a cruel fate considering many of these areas […]
Read more »Turkmenistan’s Lake in the Desert: A Modern Day Mirage?
June 17th, 2008
Via Aquadoc, a report that Turkmenistan is proceeding with its grand scheme to create a lake in a desert located in the northwest part of the country, southwest of Sarykamish Lake, in the Karashor Depression. Initally conceived during the tenure of its late dictator Saparmurat Niyazov (aka ‘Turkmenbashi’ – ‘Father of all Turkmens’) ground for […]
Read more »Central Asia’s Water Challenges: Uzbekistan’s Legacy of Salt
June 17th, 2008
Via The New York Times, an interesting article detailing the destructive environmental and human legacy left behind in Uzbekistan, a land-locked country whose rivers were diverted to grow cotton on arid land, causing the Aral Sea, a large saltwater lake, to lose more than half of its surface area in 40 years. As noted in […]
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