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An Elegy For The Amu Darya River
March 6th, 2024
Courtesy of Guernica, a look at how – in so many ways – human behavior is emptying the Amu Darya: Most mighty rivers enjoy a spectacular finale: a fertile delta, a mouth agape to the sea, a bay of plenty. But it had taken me almost a week to find where the Amu Darya comes […]
Read more »Climate Change, Cost and Competition for Water Drive Settlement Over Tribal Rights to Colorado River
March 6th, 2024
Via AP News, a report on how a Native American tribe with one of the largest outstanding claims to water in the Colorado River basin is closing in on a settlement with more than a dozen parties, putting it on a path to piping water to tens of thousands of tribal members in Arizona who […]
Read more »One Of The World’s Great Lakes Is Vanishing – and Leaving Toxic Dust In Its Wake
March 1st, 2024
Via The Independent, a report on the Great Salt Lake, the largest saline lake in the western hemisphere, which is at risk of disappearing in just five years: Some things are so precious, so essential for the common good, they cannot be bought or sold. They fall, instead, to the public trust, a doctrine of […]
Read more »Humans Killed Cataract Canyon. It Brought Itself Back to Life
February 26th, 2024
Courtesy of Rolling Stone, a look at how – after damming the Colorado River wiped out a magnificent stretch of rapids for half a century – they are now, incredibly, returning — on their own: THE RIVER CHURNS a muddy brown as it carries us through towering vermilion rock walls toward the roar of Gypsum Canyon […]
Read more »The Parched Tiger: India, Pakistan, and the Politics of the Indus River
February 23rd, 2024
Via Harvard’s Mittal South Asia Institute, commentary on the politics of the Indus River: The Mittal Institute’s Syed Babar Ali Fellow, Muhammad Imran Mehsud comes to Cambridge from Hazara University Mansehra, Pakistan, where he is an Assistant Professor of International Relations. He is an expert on South Asian transboundary hydropolitics and his research project at the […]
Read more »On The Colorado River, There Are No Simple Disputes
February 23rd, 2024
Via J. Fleck’s Inkstain, commentary on the foundational disputes that are holding up a new agreement on the Colorado River: One of the commentors to our January 19th, 2024, blog post titled “Are We headed for the First Colorado River Compact Tripwire?” – John C. (who, by-the-way runs a very talented water resources engineering firm) […]
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