RSS Feed
Archive for September 7th, 2010
Revamping the world’s use of water is crucial, expert says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
Reuters: Rethinking the way the world uses, shares and manages water will be crucial to avoiding conflicts, feeding a growing population and limiting vulnerability to the effects of climate change, a leading water scientist says. "We have taken water for granted, and what we're seeing is it has gone from an abundant supply to scarcity," said Colin Chartres, head of the International Water Management Institute, an arm of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research ...
Posted in 
Developing nations need to diversify water supplies
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
IB Times: Climate change may hit the rural poor hardest because of altered rainfall patterns, according to a new report. That means developing nations will have to diversify the methods they use to manage water supplies. The International Water Management Institute, a Sri Lanka-based think tank, studied the effects of water management projects worldwide. The group argues that the traditional path of building multimillion-dollar dam projects isn't always the best way to go. Instead, ...
In India the granaries are full but the poor are hungry
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
Guardian: India's grain warehouses are bursting at the seams and sacks of rice and wheat lie rotting in the open for lack of storage space. These government-managed stocks are for offsetting a fall in agricultural production in the event of drought or floods, but are also meant for sale to the poorest segment of the population at subsidised prices. But because the public distribution system (PDS) is undermined by bureaucracy and corruption, 60m tonnes of grain is lying in warehouses or under ...
Diverse water sources seen key to food security
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
Reuters: Increasingly erratic rainfall patterns related to climate change pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, water experts said on Monday, arguing for greater investment in water storage. In a report by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), experts said Africa and Asia were likely to be hardest hit by unpredictable rainfall, and urged policymakers and farmers to try to find ways of diversifying sources of water. The IWMI research estimates that up ...
Biofuels and the Scramble for Farmland in Africa
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
AllAfrica: The European Union has been urged to drop its pledge to produce 10 per cent of all transport fuels from biofuels by 2020 because of the effect this has had on the purchase of African land by multinational companies. According to a report released on August 30 by a UK-based campaign group, Friends of the Earth, the amount of land being taken in Africa to meet the EU's rising demand for biofuels "is underestimated and out of control.' Its report echoes findings from another UK ...
Unpredictable Weather Could Lead To Global Food Crisis
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
REDORBIT: Experts meeting in Stockholm during the annual World Water Week conference are concerned that unpredictable weather patterns around the world could endanger global food security, according to Tuesday reports from AFP's Nina Larson. "We are getting to a point where we are getting more water, more rainy days, but it's more variable, so it leads to droughts and it leads to floods," Sunita Narain, the head of the Centre for Science and Environment in India, told Larson during the ...
Climate change threatens rural poor
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
United Press International: Erratic rainfall patterns caused by global climate change are a growing threat to the world's rural poor, a water conference in Sweden was told. "Millions of farmers in communities dependent on rain fed agriculture are at risk from decreasing and erratic availability of water," said Colin Chartres, director general of the International Water Management Institute, which released a report to coincide with World Water Week in Stockholm. "Climate change will hit these people hard, so we ...
How to Stem a Global Food Crisis? Store More Water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
National Geographic: This post is part of a special National Geographic news series on global water issues. The key to averting a global food crisis may simply be a matter of storing more water, according to a new report released yesterday at World Water Week in Stockholm. As we've seen with severe droughts in Pakistan followed just months later by debilitating floods, the climate change impacts scientists have warned us about for years may finally be here, making the weather harder to predict and ...
Diverse water sources seen key to food security
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
Reuters: Increasingly erratic rainfall patterns related to climate change pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, water experts said on Monday, arguing for greater investment in water storage. In a report by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), experts said Africa and Asia were likely to be hardest hit by unpredictable rainfall, and urged policymakers and farmers to try to find ways of diversifying sources of water. The IWMI research estimates that up ...
Ecuador’s tallest waterfall to be destroyed by Chinese dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
Mongabay: San Rafael Falls, Ecuador's tallest waterfall, is threatened by a Chinese-funded hydroelectric project, reports Save America's Forests, an environmental group. The 1,500 megawatt Coca-Codo Sinclair Hydroelectric Project will divert water flow away from the 480-foot San Rafael Falls, leaving it "high and dry." Worse, the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2016, will be pressure on Sumaco Biosphere Reserve, an area so renowned for its biodiversity that "even the oil companies ...