Graph of the Day: Rainfall Deficits in East Africa, November 2009

Due to the current El Niño event, above‐average rainfall was forecast for the areas of East Africa that receive October to December rains. These rains were expected to contribute to a reduction in the high to extreme levels of food insecurity that have affected many parts of the region following several consecutive failed rainy seasons. […]

North America's biggest fish slips toward extinction

As efforts falter to save North America’s largest freshwater fish – a toothless beast leftover from the days of dinosaurs – officials hope to stave off extinction by sending more water hurtling down a river so the fish can spawn in the wild. By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Writer BILLINGS, Mont. — As efforts falter […]

Milluni Reservoir: Then and Now

Reuters: Climate change and the fast diminishing glaciers in the Andes are posing a serious threat to water supplies in the Bolivian highlands. The rapid pace at which glaciers are melting in the Andes mountain range is posing a serious threat to the water supply of many Andean countries, and particularly Bolivia. Scientists expect that […]

Bad news for billions who rely on glacial meltwater

COPENHAGEN—The Altiplano, or high plain, of Bolivia and Peru is getting a new climate. In the past 60 years temperatures have risen, rainfall patterns have changed and soils have begun to dry out even further. As a result, farmers move their crops further up the mountainsides, like endangered species seeking refuge at cooler elevations. Floods […]

Australia: NSW Premier tours region hit by historic drought

THERE was only one way to describe it: “Terrible.” That was the response from cattle grazier Mick Tomb when new NSW Premier Kristina Keneally asked him how things were on her first visit to drought-ridden NSW. His one word answer was no exaggeration. If it doesn’t rain in the next two months, the Tomb family […]

Groundwater loss in Central Valley since 2003 equal to volume of Lake Mead

Irvine, Calif., December 14, 2009 — New space observations reveal that since October 2003, the aquifers for California’s primary agricultural region – the Central Valley – and its major mountain water source – the Sierra Nevada – have lost nearly enough water combined to fill Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir. The findings, based on satellite […]

Bolivia glacier melt: ‘Money cannot buy water’

By ELISABETH ROSENTHALPublished: December 13, 2009 EL ALTO, Bolivia — When the tap across from her mud-walled home dried up in September, Celia Cruz stopped making soups and scaled back washing for her family of five. She began daily pilgrimages to better-off neighborhoods, hoping to find water there. Though she has lived here for a […]

Black carbon deposits on Himalayan ice threaten Earth's 'Third Pole'

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Black soot deposited on Tibetan glaciers has contributed significantly to the retreat of the world’s largest non-polar ice masses, according to new research by scientists from NASA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Soot absorbs incoming solar radiation and can speed glacial melting when deposited on snow in sufficient quantities. Temperatures […]

Pollution soon to render Dong Nai River unusable

For decades, ‘development’ has meant allowing industrial parks to discharge untreated wastewater directly into millions of local residents’ water supplies. The Dong Nai River supplies water to some 15 million people in southern Vietnam, but that has not stopped callous companies from dumping so much toxic sludge in the river that scientists say it will […]

Deforestation and climate change beset India farmers

By Nidhi Tiwari In the hinterlands of Malnad, lies an obscure hamlet — Balagi. Three homes, few terraces, plentiful greenery, steep sloped mountains, the landscape is picturesque. Chandra Naik’s family came here about 40 years ago when his house was submerged by the Linganamakki dam. With five sons and four daughters, less than two acres […]

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