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AI Is Draining Water From Areas That Need It Most
May 10th, 2025
Via Bloomberg, an article on AI’s water footprint, particularly in areas already facing water scarcity: Each time you ask an AI chatbot to summarize a lengthy legal document or conjure up a cartoon squirrel wearing glasses, it sends a request to a data center and strains an increasingly scarce resource: water. The data centers that […]
Read more »Iraq’s Drought-Doomed Farmers Turn To Groundwater To Boost Agriculture
May 2nd, 2025
Via France24, a report on how – Iraqi farmers facing scarce rainfall and repeated droughts – are drilling wells in the desert to reach groundwater sources and sustain their irrigation systems. While the underground reservoirs help mitigate agricultural losses, it is a risky move as aquifers across the world are depleting fast than they replenish. […]
Read more »Big Tech’s New Data Centers Will Take Water From The World’s Driest Areas
April 11th, 2025
Via The Guardian, a report on how Amazon, Google and Microsoft are building datacentres in water-scarce parts of five continents: Amazon, Microsoft and Google are operating datacentres that use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s driest areas and are building many more, the non-profit investigatory organisation SourceMaterial and the Guardian have found. With Donald Trump pledging to support them, the three technology […]
Read more »Earth’s Soil Is Drying Up. It Could Be Irreversible.
April 3rd, 2025
Via the Washington Post, a look at how losses in soil moisture already pose issues for farming, irrigation systems and critical water resources for humans. But new research shows how the declines are contributing to sea-level rise more than previously thought. The amount of water stored on lands across Earth’s continents has declined at such […]
Read more »The world’s Glaciers Are Losing Three Olympic-Sized Swimming Pools Every Second
March 26th, 2025
Via El Pais, a report on the threat posed by ice melting to water supply and rising sea levels: The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Friday that “accelerating glacier melt risks unleashing an avalanche of cascading impacts on economies, ecosystems and communities, not just in mountain regions but at a global level.” This warning comes on March 21, […]
Read more »Exploring Hidden Depths
March 10th, 2025
Introducing Hidden Depths, a six-part narrative podcast miniseries from CSIS, exploring the dynamics of water conflict and the possibilities for water cooperation.
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