São Paulo drought pits water prospectors against wildcatters

By Lourdes Garcia-Navarro10 March 2015 (NPR) – Geologists say the problem with wildcatters is that new wells are contaminating São Paulo’s natural aquifer not to mention damaging the structure of many buildings. Transcript RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: In Brazil, prospectors are hoping to strike the mother load. And what they are drilling for isn’t your usual […]

Graph of the Day: Deforestation inside and outside riparian protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon, 1988-2010

ABSTRACT: Brazilian environmental law imposes more restrictions on land-use change by private landowners in riparian forests than in non-riparian forest areas, reflecting recognition of their importance for the conservation of biodiversity and key ecosystem services. A 22-year time series of classified Landsat images was used to evaluate deforestation and forest regeneration in riparian permanent preservation […]

UK plans first new coal power station since 1974 – and it burns forests too!

By Almuth Ernsting    17 March 2015 (The Ecologist) – A new coal and biomass-fired power station could soon be built at Drax in Yorkshire, already the UK’s biggest coal burner, writes Almuth Ernsting. It comes with a weak promise of possible ‘carbon capture and storage’ – an expensive, inefficient technology shunned elsewhere. As the Government’s […]

February 2015 was wettest month for São Paulo since 1995, but little help for reservoirs

9 March 2015 (The Economist) – February 2015 was the wettest month in the region around São Paulo since 1995, with rainfall 36% above the historical average [This isn’t evident from the graph. I think the author means “36% above the historical minimum.”  –Des]. But the water emergency in South America’s biggest metropolis is not […]

From the droughts of Northeast Brazil to São Paulo’s thirst – Alliance for Water calls for emergency measures

By Mario Osava 10 March 2015 SÃO PAULO (IPS) – Six million people in Brazil’s biggest city, São Paulo, may at some point find themselves without water. The February rains did not ward off the risk and could even aggravate it by postponing rationing measures which hydrologists have been demanding for the last six months. […]

It’s supposed to be the rainy season in Brazil, so where has all the water gone?

By Tom Di Liberto6 March 2015 (NOAA) – It’s amazing to think, but in Brazil, a country that boasts both the Amazon Rain Forest and River, parts of the country are in danger of seeing their water supplies dry up after back-to-back rainy seasons failed to live up to their name. Southeastern Brazil—the country’s most […]

Water rationing alone won’t save São Paulo

By Marussia Whately and Rebeca Lerer11 February 2015 São Paulo (The Guardian) – It should be the rainy season. Instead São Paulo state is experiencing a third consecutive year with soaring temperatures and rainfall patterns well below historic records. The main water reservoirs are operating at their lowest capacity. The Cantareira reservoir system, which serves […]

What’s behind the recent surge of Amazon deforestation? ‘If you cleared illegally, you got away with it. And the expectation is that if you clear illegally now, sooner or later there will be another amnesty.’

By Richard Schiffman9 March 2015 (Yale Environment 360) – Ecologist Philip Fearnside has lived and worked in the Brazilian Amazon for 30 years and is one of the foremost authorities on deforestation in the world’s largest tropical forest. A professor at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon, Fearnside has focused his work on […]

First major protest against the water crisis in São Paulo – ‘Police will guard the water for those who can pay for it, while we die of thirst’

By Mídia NINJA and Laura Capriglione  27 February 2015 (NINJA) – The Iguatemi Mall, on Faria Lima Avenue, did not seem to welcome the crowd. Neither did the Rolls Royce store, on Cidade Jardim Avenue. These sacred luxury consumer temples (where the water tanks are always full), lowered their doors before the march that brought […]

Photo gallery: The empty reservoirs of megacity São Paulo

26 February 2015 (Washington Post) – Aerial view of a depleted water reservoir in São Paulo state, Brazil. The water level of the reservoirs in the Cantareira System in Braganca Paulista, Brazil, is at a tenth of its total capacity, the result of Brazil’s driest summer in 84 years. Photo: Victor Moriyama / Getty Images […]

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