By David Stanway, with additional reporting by Niu Shuping in Beijing and Ruby Lian in Shanghai; Editing by Ken Wills25 May 2011 BEIJING (Reuters) – The worst drought to hit central China in half a century has brought water levels in some of the country’s biggest hydropower producing regions to critical levels and could exacerbate […]
By Leslie Hook in Beijing, with additional reporting by Gwen Chen in Beijing 24 May 2011 Chinese authorities will step up the release of water from the Three Gorges Dam in a bid to tackle a drought in southern China which has put pressure on drinking water, crops, shipping lanes and electricity production in what […]
Over the past year, persistent and unprecedented rains have resulted in massive flooding in Colombia that has affected close to 3 million people. In March 2011, Refugees International sent a team to assess the situation. This report describes significant shortcomings in the Colombian government’s and international agencies’ response to the disaster. While Colombia has spent […]
[En Español. RI says that if you enable captions in the player, you’ll see subtitles, but this hasn’t worked for Desdemona.] By Alice Thomas19 May 2011 Unprecedented rain that has hammered Colombia over the past year has affected three million people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. In March, I spent three weeks traveling across […]
Writing by Neil Chatterjee; Editing by Ramthan Hussain; Additional reporting by Niluksi Koswanage in KUALA LUMPUR, David Fogarty in SINGAPORE and Alister Doyle in OSLO20 May 2011 JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia revealed a long list of exemptions on Friday to a two-year moratorium on new permits to clear forest, a concession to the hard-lobbying plantation […]
Note that the previous record level was 58 feet. Mississippi River at Natchez Technorati Tags: flood,North America,global warming,climate change,agriculture,infrastructure failure
By Jerry Lackey21 May 2011 Weather disasters across the nation already have wreaked havoc on 2011 agriculture, maybe worse than millions of feral hogs are doing to livestock, irrigated crops, city parks and golf courses. But hold onto your hat, more is ahead as meteorologists predict an active hurricane season from June through November. Croplands […]
By Andrew Nikiforuk, TheTyee.ca 20 May 2011 Wildfires ripping through Alberta’s boreal forest or what government officials call “freakish” firestorms are really a snapshot of how warming global temperatures and intensified insect infestations will change the nation’s boreal forest, say scientists. In the last week nearly 100 wildfires, battled by 1,000 forest fighters, have shut […]
Contact: info@maplecroft.com or call +44 (0)1225 42000018 May 2011 18/05/2011 The Gulf nations of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are rated as the world’s most water stressed countries, with the least available water per capita, by a new ranking of 186 countries. The Water Stress Index, released by risk analysis and mapping firm Maplecroft, […]
By Scott Haggett and Jeffrey Jones; editing by Rob Wilson18 May 2011 CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Canadian oil production cuts could more than double by Wednesday as companies move to protect employees and property from wildfires raging through northern Alberta and cope with the shutdown of a key pipeline. Oil companies had shut in close […]