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Asia’s Water Insecurity
April 17th, 2009
The Asia Society recently released a new report on Asia’s water challenges and, as Circle of Blue analyzed, there are many imposing obtacles ahead: “…Asia faces “severe†water problems. According to a report released today by the Asia Society Leadership Group — Asia’s Next Challenge: Securing the Region’s Water Future — reduced access to fresh […]
Read more »Southwest U.S.: A Thirsty Las Vegas Looks Northward
April 12th, 2009
Via Time, an interesting article on the further developing water conflicts in the southwest U.S., namely between a thirsty Las Vegas and communities to the north. As the article notes: “The valley below Nevada’s Snake mountains should not have much to fear from Las Vegas. Its dun-colored terrain daubed with the green of shrubs, meadow […]
Read more »Central Asia: Creation of A Downstream Water-Energy Bloc
April 12th, 2009
Via Windows on Eurasia, an interesting report on the geopolitics behind the death of the Aral Sea and the emergence of “the youngest desert in the world, the Aralkum†which, as the article notes, are causing the countries around it to be increasingly drawn into serious conflicts over ever scarcer water resources. “…as a result […]
Read more »Central Asia Water Wars: Turkmenistan To Join Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan Vs. Kyrgyzstan & Tajikistan
April 12th, 2009
Via The Foreign Policy Association, a report that – in advance of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea meeting in Almaty on April 28 – Uzbekistan’s President, Islam Karimov, has been busy convincing Turkmenistan’s President, Gurbangly Berdymukhamedov, to ally with the downstream Central Asian states against the upstream ones. As the article notes: […]
Read more »India & China: A Dam(n) Race on the Brahmaputra
April 12th, 2009
Via The Tibetan Plateau blog, a report that India and China may be about to undertake a race to dam the Brahmaputra. As the article notes: “…Worried that China might build a very big dam on the Brahmaputra River near its borders, India has recently approved two big dams of their own, “in principle”, on […]
Read more »Central Asian Water & An Aral Proverb: “In Every Drop Of Water There Is A Grain of Gold”
April 4th, 2009
In the latest SAISPHERE 2008, John Daly details more about the most severe conundrum facing Central Asian nations: water. As the report notes: The implosion of the U.S.S.R. in December 1991 sundered a country of 15 constituent republics into 15 new nations, which were immediately faced with the consequences of the dissolution of an economically […]
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