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The Tragedy Of The Aral Sea
May 30th, 2015
Via National Geographic, a detailed look at the tragedy of the Aral Sea since 1987, when the Aral Sea split into northern and southern halves. The completion of Kazakhstan’s Kokaral Dam in 2005 worsened the divide, reviving the northern sea but cutting off the southern sea from the Syr Darya river. By 2014, irrigation and […]
Read more »Where The River Runs Dry: Southwestern America’s Water Crisis
May 29th, 2015
Courtesy of The New Yorker, a detailed look at the US southwest’s water crisis: Our pilot, David Kunkel, asked me to retrieve his oxygen bottle from under my seat, and when I handed it to him he gripped the plastic breathing tube with his teeth and opened the valve. We had taken off from Boulder […]
Read more »Federal Dollars Financing The Water Crisis In The American West
May 28th, 2015
Via Pro Public, an interesting detailed look at how federal dollars are financing the water crisis in the West: STATE ROUTE 87, the thin band of pavement that approaches the mostly shuttered town of Coolidge, Ariz., cuts through some of the least hospitable land in the country. The valley of red and brown sand is interrupted […]
Read more »The End Of California?
May 3rd, 2015
Courtesy of the New York Times, commentary on California’s drought: A buoy stuck on the bottom of a bone-dry Lake McSwain. IN a normal year, no one in California looks twice at a neighbor’s lawn, that mane of bluegrass thriving in a sun-blasted desert. Or casts a scornful gaze at a fresh-planted almond grove, saplings […]
Read more »Harnessing The Mekong Or Killing It?
May 3rd, 2015
Courtesy of National Geographic, a detailed look at the impact that dams rising all along the Mekong have upon the people and environment in the region: Pumee Boontom lives in northern Thailand, but he tunes his television to the Chinese weather forecast. A big storm in southern China means a big release of water from […]
Read more »Beyond The Politics Of The Nile
April 13th, 2015
Via the Eurasia Review, a look at the politics surrounding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: On March 23, 2015, Egypt, Ethiopia and the Sudan signed a declaration of principles on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam[1] (GERD). Since then, an intense debate has been going on regarding the modalities and core principles which were spelled out […]
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