Peak Water: ‘The iconic rivers of our imagination are drying up’

By SYLVIA THOMPSON FORGET PEAK OIL. Forget climate change. Peak water is where it’s at, according to Scottish journalist and broadcaster, Alexander Bell, who has just written a fascinating book, Peak Water (Luath Press, Scotland). “It’s the coming issue of our age,” says Bell. “Civilisation is thirsty. It has never stopped to think about what […]

Himalaya villagers confront drought, flood, and receding glaciers

By Andrew BuncombeFriday, 22 January 2010 At times, the moonscape land of Ladakh can appear as dry as a desert. In this most northerly part of India, tucked high in the Himalayas, there is virtually no rainfall and almost 75 per cent of the local farmers rely on meltwater from the glaciers to irrigate their […]

Graph of the Day: NW India Groundwater Depletion, 2002-2008

GRACE measures groundwater level variations, including groundwater depletion in northwest India. Since 2002, groundwater has been lost from that region at a rate of 17.7 km3 per year, largely due to pumping for irrigation. GRACE Can Monitor Human-induced Groundwater Depletion Technorati Tags: freshwater depletion,drought,agriculture,India,GRACE

Poachers set to cash in on Year of the Tiger

By MATT WADE HERALD CORRESPONDENTDecember 18, 2009 RANTHAMBORE, Rajasthan: India’s wild tigers already compete for survival with nearly 1.2 billion people. But conservationists warn that a new threat looms – the Chinese New Year. February 14 marks the start of the Year of the Tiger and there are fears this will fuel the illicit trade […]

Year of the Tiger dawns with only 3,200 wild tigers left

KATHMANDU, Nepal, December 28, 2009 (ENS) – To mark 2010 as Year of the Tiger, the government of Nepal has announced the expansion of Bardia National Park in the Terai Arc landscape by 900 square kilometers (347 square miles), which will increase critical habitat for wild tigers. Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal says the government […]

Graph of the Day: Carbon Deposition on Tibetan Glaciers, 1955-2007

Organic carbon (OC) concentrations in the Zuoqiupu ice core for the monsoon (June–September) and nonmonsoon (October–May) seasons, and for the annual mean. Fig. 3 shows the Zuoqiupu data broken down by monsoonal and nonmonsoonal periods. The monsoonal period has lower BC and OC concentrations because of the high precipitation rate, but the source is unambiguously […]

Graph of the Day: Daily Precipitation in India, 1950–2000

Torrential rainfall increases – e.g. development of the summer monsoon. Goswami, B.N. et al. (2006), Science 314 Ambitious climate protection targets are needed – or the cost of climate change will keep rising  [pdf] Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,flood,monsoon,India

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 […]

Another fatal blow to Asian vultures

By John Platt As if it weren’t bad enough that 99.9 percent of Asian vultures have been killed off in the past 20 years, now comes news that yet another potential man-made disaster waits in the wings. Millions of Asian vultures, particularly those in India, have died off over the last two decades after being […]

Tigers endangered in half of Indian reserves

By Matthias Williams, NEW DELHI, Wed Dec 9, 2009 6:50am EST NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Tigers are in a “very, very precarious” state and could disappear altogether in nearly half of India’s tiger reserves, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Wednesday. India is a key player in efforts to conserve the dwindling global tiger population, […]

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