Map showing global water stress projected to 2050. By 2050, an additional 1 billion people are expected to live with extremely high water stress, even if the world limits global temperature rise to 1.3 degrees C to 2.4 degrees C (2.3 degrees F to 4.3 degrees F) by 2100, an optimistic scenario. Global water demand is projected to increase by 20 percent to 25 percent by 2050, while the number of watersheds facing high year-to-year variability, or less predictable water supplies, is expected to increase by 19 percent. Data: wri.org/aqueduct. Graphic: WRI

25 countries, housing one-quarter of the population, face extremely high water stress – By 2050, an additional 1 billion people will live with extremely high water stress

By Samantha Kuzma, Liz Saccoccia, and Marlena Chertock 16 August 2023 (WRI) – New data from WRI’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas show that 25 countries — housing one-quarter of the global population — face extremely high water stress each year, regularly using up almost their entire available water supply. And at least 50% of the world’s population […]

Aerial view of the Paso Severino reservoir that supplies water to Montevideo, Uruguay, in July 2023. It is nearly completely empty and currently only holds only 3 percent of its normal capacity due to three consecutive years of drought. Uruguay is facing the worst water crisis in its history due to the prolonged drought. Photo: Guardian News

Three consecutive years of drought leave millions in Uruguay without tap water fit for drinking – Main reservoir for capital at 3 percent of capacity

By Martín Tocar 15 July 2023 (The Guardian) – More than half of Uruguay’s 3.5 million citizens are without access to tap water fit for drinking, and experts say the situation could continue for months. Some had predicted the crisis years ago when pointing out the vulnerability of the single reservoir supplying water to the […]

(a) Individual contributors to the polar motion (PM) excitation trend. (b) Sum of PM excitation trend contributors with (solid blue) and without (dashed blue) groundwater depletion. Red arrow is the observed PM excitation. Graphic: Seo, et al., 2023 / Geophysical Research Letters

Humans have pumped so much groundwater that we’ve nudged the earth’s spin – “As a resident of Earth and a father, I’m concerned and surprised to see that pumping groundwater is another source of sea-level rise”

WASHINGTON, 15 June 2023 (AGO) – By pumping water out of the ground and moving it elsewhere, humans have shifted such a large mass of water that the Earth tilted nearly 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) east between 1993 and 2010 alone, according to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, AGU’s journal for short-format, high-impact research with […]

An aerial view shows the normally submerged colonial-era Dominican church in Quechula, Mexico, in June, 2023. The 16th-century construction emerged from reservoir waters amid a drought. Photo: Raul Vera / AFP / Getty Images

Drowned 16th-century church emerges from bottom of Mexico reservoir after drought – “What do I support my family with? Right now, I have nothing.”

By Aristos Georgiou 19 June 23 (Newsweek) – A 16th-century church has emerged from the waters of a reservoir in Mexico amid a drought. The colonial-era Dominican church is located in Quechula in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The building had been almost entirely submerged since 1966 when a dam was built on a […]

Map showing the number of subglobal climate (two local exposure boundaries), functional integrity, surface water, groundwater, nitrogen, phosphorus and aerosol safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) currently transgressed by location. No more than seven of these eight metrics have their ESBs transgressed in any one pixel. Since climate is a globally defined ESB, we use wet bulb temperatures of over 35°C for at least 1-day per year and low-elevation coastal zones (

Earth is “really quite sick now” and in danger zone in nearly all ecological ways, study says – “We are moving in the wrong direction on basically all of these”

By Seth Borenstein 31 May 2023 (AP News) – Earth has pushed past seven out of eight scientifically established safety limits and into “the danger zone,” not just for an overheating planet that’s losing its natural areas, but for the well-being of people living on it, according to a new study. The study looks not just […]

Map showing maximum land subsidence rates around the world, 2015-2020. Sea levels are rising at an average global rate of 3.4 millimeters. Many places are sinking (known as land subsidence) further than that in a year. Data: Wu, et al., 2022. Graphic: Kasha Patel / The Washington Post

Land around the U.S. is sinking. Here are some of the fastest areas.

By Kasha Patel 30 May 2023 (The Washington Post) – Imagine Earth’s surface is like a stack of pancakes. The pancakes, or layers of soil and rocks, may appear fairly evenly stacked and fluffy. Over time though, the stack can become compressed, thinner and shorter. Scientists observe this downward motion of land, called land subsidence, […]

The Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona, performed high flow experiments on 25 April 2023. Video: John Farrell / The Washington Post

Lake Powell is rising more than a foot a day, but megadrought’s effects will still be felt – “It’s maybe a year’s worth of breathing room. The crisis is still very real and very much in front of us.”

By Scott Dance 11 May 2023 (The Washington Post) – Weeks after the surface of Lake Powell sunk to an all-time low, the key Colorado River reservoir is rising more than a foot a day — on track to deepen by some 70 feet in the coming months. Spring flows into the lake are among the […]

Houses abandoned at Al-Bouzayad village in Iraq’s Diwaniya province due to climate change-driven drought. Photo: AFP

Iraq’s climate migrants flee parched land for crowded cities – “Thousands of hectares have been abandoned”

KARBALA, Iraq, 9 May 2023 (AFP) – Mr Haydar Mohamed once grew wheat and barley, but Iraq’s relentless drought has forced him off the land and into the city where he now works in construction and drives a taxi. “The transition is difficult,” said Mr Mohamed, 42, who abandoned village life several years ago for […]

These two images show shrinking water reservoirs in the Catalonia region of Spain on 21 Mar 2021 and 12 Apr 2023. Photo: Allison Nussbaum / NASA

Spain records hottest and driest April on record – “This is the worst period that we have had for the last 100 years”

MADRID, 8 May 2023 (AP) – Drought-stricken Spain says last month was the hottest and driest April since records began in 1961. The State Meteorological Agency, known by the Spanish acronym AEMET, said Monday the average daily temperature in April was 14.9 degrees Celsius (58.8 Fahrenheit), that is 3 degrees Celsius above the average. AEMET […]

Aerial view of homes buried in snow in Soda Springs, California in March 2023. Photo: Josh Edelson / The Washington Post

A wet winter won’t stave off the Colorado River’s water cuts – “There are discussions going on but they’re not making much progress. The level of distrust and animosity is really remarkable.”

By Joshua Partlow 3 April 2023 GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado (The Washington Post) – The abundant snow in the Rocky Mountains this year has been a welcome relief, but is not enough to overcome two decades of drought that has pushed major reservoirs along the Colorado River down to dangerous levels, Camille Calimlim Touton, the commissioner […]

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