BLOG
Preventing Water Wars: Building Bridges Over Water Disputes
October 2nd, 2014
Via The Guardian, a look at how legal and diplomatic policies may help countries to navigate dramatic reductions in water levels that could lead to conflict: The River Nile flows past eleven countries including Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya Fifty years ago, Lake Chad in Africa had a surface area of 25,000 square kilometres. Today, […]
Read more »Thirsty Dragon: A Canal Too Far?
September 28th, 2014
Via The Economist, commentary that the world’s biggest water-diversion project will do little to alleviate water scarcity: THREE years ago the residents of Hualiba village in central China’s Henan province were moved 10km (six miles) from their homes into squat, yellow houses far from any source of work or their newly allocated fields. These days […]
Read more »Hydro-Diplomacy Can Build Peace Over Shared Waters
September 22nd, 2014
Via New Security Beat, a report on hydro-diplomacy: From Ukraine and the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, the world is engulfed in a series of significant international crises. But despite such urgent issues, it would be a grave mistake to forget about the structural foreign policy challenges – such as access to […]
Read more »Tapping the U.S. West
September 19th, 2014
Courtesy of National Geographic, an interesting look at the American West: The American West faces persistent drought, whether or not relief comes this winter. When will the hard choices be made? For three generations the Diener family has farmed the same ten square miles of Central Valley dirt. In the 1920s they grew barley and […]
Read more »Water Wars: Conflicts Of Future Likely To Be Sparked By Climate Change
September 18th, 2014
Courtesy of Foreign Policy, a look at how climate change may spark conflicts over resources like water: To the long list of the world’s woes, add another: the growing impact of climate change, which could heighten tensions among nations and even spark new wars. That’s the grim assessment of the government’s new National Intelligence Strategy, […]
Read more »In Middle East, It Could Soon Be A Battle For Water
August 18th, 2014
Via Down To Earth, an interesting article on how, along with scarcity induced by population pressure, use of water as a weapon of war is also draining resources in the Middle East: Raining rockets and bombs or threat of Islamic State (IS) jihadists are not the only emergencies in the countries of West Asia. The […]
Read more »