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Geopolitics and Petropolitics Over the Caspian Sea
January 1st, 2008
Via John C. K. Daly at UPI, a very detailed analysis of the Caspian region. While the report is written from the perspective of the search for hydrocarbons, it offers a careful look at some of the very real geopolitical complexities – and long-term environmental & hydrological implications – that may arise over the Caspian […]
Read more »Laos as Southeast Asia’s Battery – Too Many Contact Points?
January 1st, 2008
Via Terra Daily, interesting details of the plans of mountainous Laos, one of Asia’s poorest nations, to exploit its hydropower potential to become the “battery of Southeast Asia” and sell electricity to its more industrialised neighbours Vietnam and Thailand. While the focus of the article is primarily over the potential environmental and freshwater impact a […]
Read more »Water in the West: An ‘Agreement to Share Adversity’
December 15th, 2007
As reported in the Los Angeles Times, the federal government – faced with the eighth year of the worst drought in the century-long historic record of the Colorado River – recently adopted new guidelines on managing the Western United States’ most important water source to help avoid disputes between the seven basin states of Wyoming, […]
Read more »Go West (for water), young man…
December 15th, 2007
As The Economist recently noted, America’s West – gripped by drought – is rethinking how it uses water. As the article notes, seven states, as well as northern Mexico, rely on the Colorado River and are quickly coming to the realization that things have changed: “This is not a normal drought,†says Pat Mulroy of […]
Read more »A Mother’s Milk (River): Down to A Trickle but Still Causing Waves
December 7th, 2007
Along the normally placid U.S./Canadian border, American officials are causing waves by contending that the U.S. is not getting its adequate share from the Milk and St. Mary’s Rivers which flow into the Canadian province of Alberta. As the Calgary Herald noted recently, this argument is not just about competing claims between Montana and Alberta, […]
Read more »Tajikistan: Asia’s Reservoir of Last Resort?
December 6th, 2007
In view of the current Water Summit and its focus on the fact that many Asia-Pacific countries lack adequate clean water, NewEurasia offered an interesting look at Tajikistan – a nation often considered as a strategically important country which has huge resources of water. The article notes: “…A lot of people in Tajikistan believe that […]
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