Graph of the Day: Observed Change in US Annual Average Precipitation, 1958-2008

US precipitation has increased an average of about 5 percent over the past 50 years. Projections of future precipitation generally indicate that northern areas will become wetter, and southern areas, particularly in the West, will become drier. While precipitation over the United States as a whole has increased, there have been important regional and seasonal […]

Image of the Day: Indus River Flooding Viewed from Orbit, 12 August 2010

Kashmor, Pakistan, 9 August 2009   Kashmor, Pakistan, 12 August 2010 Caption by Holli RiebeekAugust 19, 2010 By mid-August, the extreme monsoon floods that had overwhelmed northwestern Pakistan had traveled downstream into southern Pakistan. The bottom image, acquired by the Landsat 5 satellite on August 12, 2010, shows flooding near Kashmor, Pakistan, just before the […]

Flooding in Pakistan will get worse, aid agencies say

By CTV.ca News Staff Sat. Aug. 21 2010 6:15 PM ET Aid workers say the flooding in Pakistan that has forced millions from their homes will get worse before it gets better. Rahul Singh, of the aid group Global Medic, told CTV News Channel that he and his fellow aid workers are trying as quickly […]

Mauritania plants trees to hold back desert

Reporting by Laura Martel; writing by David Lewis; Editing by Alison WilliamsSat Aug 21, 2010 11:11am EDT NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) – Mauritania has launched a tree-planting program aimed at protecting its capital from the advancing desert and coastal erosion, a project that could eventually extend thousands of kilometers across Africa. President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz on […]

Plight of Pakistan’s flood-devastated areas comes into focus

It has taken weeks for the trail of destruction in mountain villages to be starkly revealed, writes By MARY FITZGERALD Foreign Affairs Correspondent, The Irish Times Friday, August 20, 2010 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan — NESTLED AMID the fabled Karakoram range of the greater Himalaya, Kohistan has long been home to one of the most remote […]

Image of the Day: Indus River Flooding Viewed from Orbit, 17 August 2010

Indus River, 18 August 2009   Indus River, 17 August 2010   Caption by Michon Scott18 August 2010 By mid-August 2010, some 20 million people in Pakistan had been affected by the intense monsoon rains, according to news reports. Roughly a fifth of the country was underwater, and extensive damage to agricultural lands was expected […]

Attempts to tame Indus River contributed to disaster in Pakistan

By ROBERT MACKEYAugust 18, 2010, 6:57 pm In a radio interview broadcast on Wednesday, Daanish Mustafa, a scholar who studies the intersection of development and water resources, told the BBC that attempts to tame the Indus River, beginning during British rule in the 19th century, laid the foundations for the deadly floods that swept Pakistan […]

Desperation grows over Pakistan flood damage

By WAQAR GILLANIPublished: August 17, 2010 LAHORE, Pakistan — With disastrous flooding spreading yet more widely in Pakistan, reports of looting and protests over food on Tuesday deepened the sense of desperation across Punjab Province, the country’s most populous region and its agricultural hub. Flood survivors told stories of taking the search for aid upon […]

Misery for ‘doomed orphans’ of Pakistan floods

By Sajjad Tarakzai (AFP)16 August 2010 NOWSHEHRA, Pakistan — Six million children are suffering from Pakistan’s devastating floods: lost, orphaned or stricken with diarrhoea, they are the most vulnerable victims of the nation’s worst-ever natural disaster. At relief camps in government schools and colleges, and in tent villages on the edge of towns and by […]

Fatal cloudburst devastates Himalayan desert town

By Anil Ananthaswamy 17 August 2010 15:12 Even as the world’s attention was focused on the floods in Pakistan, a rare and extreme cloudburst devastated the Himalayan town of Leh in Ladakh, India – normally one of the driest regions on Earth. Heavy rainfall is common elsewhere in the Himalayas, but not in Ladakh. The […]

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