Graph of the Day: SW Western Australia Rainfall, 1900-2007

Time series of rainfall in southwest Western Australia between May to July and between August to October. South-west Western Australia has experienced significant climate change since the mid-1970s which has impacted on surface water and groundwater yields, and water dependent ecosystems. Over central and northern parts of the project area, the mean annual rainfall has […]

‘Doomsday’ seed vault sets record, over 500,000 samples

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Robin PomeroyWed Mar 10, 2010 7:12pm EST OSLO (Reuters) – A “doomsday” vault storing crop seeds in an Arctic deep freeze is surpassing 500,000 samples to become the most diverse collection of food seeds in history, managers said on Thursday. Set up on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard […]

Drought, agriculture, and pollution are rapidly destroying Kenya's Lake Naivasha

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comMarch 10, 2010 Heavily polluted and shrinking, Lake Naivasha is in dire trouble. Environmentalists say the cause is clear: flower farms. Some 60 flower farms line the entire lakeside, growing cut flowers for export largely to the EU. While the flowers industry is Kenya’s largest horticultural export (405.5 million last year) it […]

Historic Syria drought drags on, rivers polluted, aid funding dries up

DAMASCUS, Syria, March 8, 2010 (ENS) – Up to 60 percent of Syria’s land and over one million people are gripped by the worst drought in 40 years, but a deep funding shortfall for emergency assistance has left the United Nations aid agencies at a loss. The humanitarian arm of the United Nations is being […]

Drought ravages famous rice terraces in the northern Philippines

MANILA (AFP) – A WORSENING drought is exacting a terrible toll on the world-famous mountain rice terraces of the northern Philippines, local officials said Tuesday. A state of calamity was this week declared for the Banaue area that is home to many of the ancient stone-walled paddies and one of the Southeast Asian nation’s most […]

Water scarcity looms for world rice production

Contact: Tara Shyamt.shyam@irri.org656-773-0801International Rice Research Institute Singapore: Singaporeans consume around 275,000 tons of rice each year, which requires 688 billion liters of water to be produced – 2.5 times Singapore’s annual domestic water use. Competition for water is getting fiercer and water supplies are dwindling, yet Singapore can contribute to securing its rice supply by […]

‘A slow, silent disaster’ – Worst drought in a century dries up Vietnam's waterways

By Staff WritersHanoi, Vietnam (UPI) Mar 8, 2009 Vietnam is struggling with its worst drought in more than 100 years. With practically no rainfall since September, the country is facing timber fires, plagues of rice-eating insects that are destroying millions of acres of rice paddies and dried-up rivers, Time magazine reports. For a country that […]

‘We blamed God’ — Women hit by climate change head to Capitol Hill

  (Reuters) – Women hit hard by the effects of climate change — drought, floods, sea level rise and crop failure — gathered on Monday to plan a Capitol Hill push for U.S. legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Climate “witnesses” from the United States, Peru, Senegal, Uganda and other countries aim to tell their […]

India water availability in 2050 less than half of 2001 levels

By Staff WritersNew Delhi (AFP) March 8, 2010 India faces a water crisis with availability in decline and demand rocketing, and the profligate agricultural sector is in the firing line. Farmers’ wasteful use of water is unsustainable in a country with a fast-growing population and rapidly industrialising economy, says Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal. […]

Graph of the Day: Himalaya Snow Cover Trend, 1990-2001

Trend in annual linear snow cover (% per decade) from 1990 to 2001 as obtained from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) EASE Grid weekly snow cover and sea ice extent dataset (Armstrong and Brodzik, 2005). Trend is based on a least-square linear fit. February 03, 2010Julie Chao 510-486-6491  JHChao@lbl.gov   The fact that […]

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