By Staff WritersGish Abay, Ethiopia (AFP) Sept 26, 2010 Here in the shadow of Mount Gish, the spring water that forms the Blue Nile is believed to have healing powers, but Ethiopians say that is the only benefit they get from the mighty river. “These waters are sacred, they perform miracles for the sick,” Berhanu […]
AGU Release No. 10–3023 September 2010For Immediate Release WASHINGTON—In recent decades, the rate at which humans worldwide are pumping dry the vast underground stores of water that billions depend on has more than doubled, say scientists who have conducted an unusual, global assessment of groundwater use. These fast-shrinking subterranean reservoirs are essential to daily life […]
By Ben CubbySeptember 24, 2010 THE company about to start coal seam gas drilling around southern Sydney and the Illawarra plans to use the controversial ”fracking” technique to mine directly beside Warragamba Dam, which holds much of the city’s drinking water. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves pumping a mixture of water, sand and chemicals deep […]
By Nicole EckersleySeptember 14, 2010 Author, journalist and science writer Julian Cribb has created a sobering text in The Coming Famine: The global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it, from CSIRO Publishing. Cribb’s view of the global food crisis paints a frightening picture: demand for food slowly outstripping supply, food production […]
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological SurveyReleased: 9/20/2010 4:00:00 PM WASHINGTON — Dust caused by human activities in the American desert Southwest is a contributing factor in speeding up the melting of snow and reducing runoff in the mountains of the Colorado River basin, according to a new study led by NASA and co-authored […]
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com 17 September 2010 Lago Agrio, Ecuador (September 17) – A group of highly respected American technical and medical experts, using conservative assumptions, have concluded that it could cost Chevron up to tens of billions of dollars to clean up oil waste discharged into Ecuador’s rainforest and compensate local […]
Rio De Janeiro (AFP) Sept 15, 2010 – A severe drought parching northern Brazil this year has shrunk the mighty Amazon River — the world’s longest river — to its lowest level in 47 years, officials said Wednesday. The waterway’s depth at Manaus, the main city in the Amazon region, was just 19.34 meters (63.45 […]
Lake level products from the NASA/USDA/FAS. Topex/Poseidon (blue), Jason-1 (red), and Jason-2 (purple) radar altimeters. The lakes reside in the USA (Michigan), Argentina (Chiquita), Iran (Urmia), Tanzania (Rukwa), and China (Hulun). State of the Climate in 2009, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Climatic Data Center, as appearing in the June 2010 issue (Vol. 91) […]
Beijing (AFP) Aug 31, 2010 – China will spend billions of dollars treating sewage and planting forests to arrest massive environmental degradation along the Yangtze river and its Three Gorges reservoir, officials said Tuesday. “Generally speaking, the ecological state (of the river) is still far from what the Communist Party and people are demanding,” forestry […]
Stockholm (AFP) Sept 7, 2010 – Global efforts to improve access to drinking water have been hampered by rapid urbanisation, with the proportion of people in urban areas with access actually declining, according to UN figures presented at a conference in Stockholm this week. “In cities, there are today more people suffering from a […]
