Women fetch water from an opening made at a dried-up lake in Chennai, India, on 11 June 2019. Photo: P. Ravikumar / Reuters

India is running out of water – “If nothing changes, and fast, things will get much worse, with severe water scarcity on the horizon for hundreds of millions”

By Bill Spindle and Gareth Phillips 19 August 2019 LEH, India (The Wall Street Journal) – The Ladakh region of northern India is one of the world’s highest, driest inhabited places. For centuries, meltwater from winter snows in the Himalayan mountains sustained the tiny villages dotting this remote land. Now, like many other places in […]

Villagers in Maharashtra state climb on a water truck to attach hoses for their daily water supply during India’s crippling drought of 2019. Photo: Al Jazeera

Inside India’s water crisis: Living with drought and dry taps – “There is no rainfall, so the land is of no use. We can’t grow anything.”

MAHARASHTRA, 27 July 2019 (Al Jazeera) – This year, large parts of India have seen the worst drought in decades. The monsoon, which usually provides some relief, was weeks late and when it finally arrived, it was once again deficient, with less rainfall than expected. Despite India’s economic growth in recent years, it remains one […]

A woman walks past a window reflecting a thermometer showing a temperature of 41 degrees Celsius on 25 July 2019, in Paris, as a new heatwave hits the French capital. Photo: Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty Images

All-time heat records melt in Europe – Paris warmer than Singapore at 42.6°C (108.7°F) – National records broken on Wednesday fell again on Thursday – “‘If you’d have said five years ago we’d see temperature records fall this frequently, I wouldn’t have believed you”

By William Wilkes and Megan Durisin 24 July 2019 (Bloomberg) – Europe’s latest summer heatwave broke heat records just weeks after the continent had its hottest ever June, fueling concern that a shifting climate is triggering more extreme weather. Germany probably set a new all-time temperature record of 42.6 degrees Celsius (108.7 Fahrenheit) in the […]

Puddles are seen in farm fields as heavy rains caused unprecedented delays in U.S. corn planting in the spring of 2019, near Sheffield, Illinois, 13 June 2019. Photo: Tom Polansek / REUTERS

U.S. farmers now face extreme heat wave after floods and trade war – “We’ve never seen a year like this”

By Emma Newburger 20 July 2019 (CNBC) – In the past year, torrential rains have dumped water on U.S. farmlands, destroying acreage and delaying crops from getting planted on time. Now, farmers face another hurdle: a stifling heat wave that’s spreading across the United States and is expected to be the worst in the farm […]

A young man looks for mud crabs and snakehead fish as he walks on the parched bed of Chembarambakkam Lake, on the outskirts of Chennai, on 21 May 2019. Photo: Arun Sankar / AFP / Getty Images

In Chennai, water is now more expensive than petrol – 600 million people dealing with high to extreme water shortages – “I know what I am doing is wrong, but we are in a situation where you have to do what you can to survive”

By Karim Raslan 21 July 2019 (The Star) – Nearly four years ago, the south Indian city of Chennai (capital of Tamil Nadu) was under water. The worst floods in living history – the result of cyclones from the Bay of Bengal – had reduced this manufacturing and services powerhouse of eleven million to a […]

Number of undernourished people and prevalence of undernourishment globally, 2005-2018. The number of undernourished people in the world has been on the rise since 2015 and is back to levels seen in 2010–2011. Graphic: FAO

Over 820 million people suffer from hunger, with number increasing for third straight year – Overweight and obesity rising in almost all countries

15 July 2019 (UN News) – After nearly a decade of progress, the number of people who suffer from hunger has slowly increased over the past three years, with about one in every nine people globally suffering from hunger today, the United Nations said in a new report released on Monday. This fact underscores “the […]

A woman wades through a flooded street during monsoon rain in Mumbai, July 2019. Photo: PTI

Deluge and drought: A tale of two Indian cities – Worst floods in 14 years cripple Mumbai while Chennai thirsts for a drop of water – “It’s scary and the problem persists every year despite government promises”

2 July 2019 (Gulf News) – Mumbai: Wall collapses in Mumbai and nearby towns, caused by the worst monsoon rains in a single day in 14 years, killed 30 people on Tuesday and disrupted rail and air traffic, prompting officials to shut schools and offices. Financial markets were open in the city of 18 million […]

Groundwater levels across Chennai, June 2018 and June 2019. Wells in Anna Nagar and Choolaimedu in June 2019 were dry. Data: The Rain Centre, Chennai / Gaurav Dogra. Graphic: Reuters

Villagers accuse city of seizing water as drought parches “India’s Detroit” – “Private tankers have fitted more than eight bore wells in our village and are indiscriminately extracting thousands of liters of water every day”

By Sudarshan Varadhan 2 July 2019 CHENNAI (Reuters) – In the small village of Bangarampettai, 20 miles from India’s manufacturing capital Chennai, about 150 people last month “captured” a water tanker, breaking its windscreen and deflating its tires before handing it over to a nearby police station. People living on the outskirts of this southern […]

Floodwaters inundate a farm on Tuesday, 2 July 2019 in Ripley, Tennessee. Officials say water from the bulging Mississippi River has flooded thousands of acres of farmland in west Tennessee. Photo: Adrian Sainz / AP Photo

River flooding in Tennessee ruins cotton, soybean crops – “It’s been devastating”

By Adrian Sainz 2 July 2019 RIPLEY, Tennessee (AP) – Wearing wading boots and a wide-brimmed hat, Derrick Currie casts his green fishing line into a pool of brown water along a rural Tennessee road. In a couple of minutes, he reels in his flapping bounty: A nice-sized catfish that he puts in a cooler […]

Aerial view of flooding in Kingfisher, Oklahoma on 21 May 2019. Photo: Bloomberg

Wettest weather in 124 years has U.S. farmers speeding crops – “It’s hard to imagine that climate change did not rest a heavy thumb on the scale”

By Denitsa Tsekova and Brian K. Sullivan 1 July 2019 (Bloomberg) – After suffering through the wettest 12 months since at least 1895, U.S. farmers have plans to adapt next year to what some forecasters say may be an increasingly soggy new normal for the nation’s midsection. The plans include bigger and faster tractors to […]

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