Last week, scientists published a study in the journal PNAS that warned that deforestation in the Amazon could significantly decrease the power output of hydroelectric dams, which are a major source of energy in the region.

The study noted that although removal of trees tends to increase the amount of water that runs off the land, and therefore swells rivers, that short-term boost is outweighed by another force. Tropical trees transpire a large amount of moisture through their leaves, much of which eventually coalesces back into rain clouds, and then eventually returns to earth.

By cutting down trees, people disrupt that cycle, and that may result in less water in river systems. Less water means less power to turn turbines and generate electricity.

Deforestation scars a hill in Rio de Janeiro. Photograph by Alex Rio Brazil, Wikimedia Commons

Until that paper the dogma was that the vegetation you find anywhere in the world is a consequence of the climate but has no effect on the climate, but that just busted that old paradigm.

What becomes even more interesting and worrisome is how it ties in with climate change. Brazil’s best climate scientist, Carlos Nobre, did some work for the World Bank looking at the dieback issue and found there is likely to be a tipping point at 20% deforestation. So this paper is in one sense old wine in a new bottle, but it is also new and fresh detail and has very specific implications for the energy sector.

Yes absolutely, I mean the energy interests have a serious vested interest in maintenance of the hydrological cycle. So whether it is individual companies, or since most of those hydroprojects in Brazil are run by the government power agency, that agency (Electrobras) has a vested interest in maintaining the water flow.

All the soybean farmers just south of the Amazon depend to a fair degree on rain that comes from the Amazon, so if they keep eating away at the Amazon to grow more soybeans all of a sudden they won’t be able to grow them at all. What this comes down to is the Amazon has to be managed as a system.

I know Brazil’s minister of the environment is really interested in getting integrated planning going. At the moment the transportation sector plans its roads, the energy sector plans power separately, agriculture wants to plan their activities separately, and so on, but it all has to be integrated to manage the Amazon as a system.

Brian Clark Howard covers the environment for National Geographic. He previously served as an editor for TheDailyGreen.com and E/The Environmental Magazine, and has written for Popular Science, TheAtlantic.com, FastCompany.com, PopularMechanics.com, Yahoo!, MSN, and elsewhere. He is the co-author of six books, including Geothermal HVAC, Green Lighting, Build Your Own Small Wind Power System, and Rock Your Ugly Christmas Sweater.

Someday these will grow into the biggest fish in North America, but for now, they’re the precious cargo of a state program to bring these freshwater giants back to their native habitat. (Read more about the world’s giant fish.)

A lake sturgeon seems to smile. Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic

Topping six feet (two meters) long and weighing nearly 200 pounds (90 kilograms), lake sturgeon once roamed rivers and lakes of the Mississippi River, Hudson Bay, and the Great Lakes. Unchanged from prehistoric times, the lake sturgeon has unusual features not seen in today’s fish, including an external skeleton that gives it an armored appearance.

But this ancient survivor has had trouble fending off human threats, including overfishing in the late 1800s, dams that have blocked migrations, and industrial pollution that has poisoned the fish’s spawning grounds. (Learn more about freshwater threats.)

Today there are genetically unique populations of sturgeons in at least eight rivers around Lake Michigan, with about 166 fish in the Kalamazoo River, according to Kregg Smith, senior fisheries biologist at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

No one knows how many fish once lived in the Kalamazoo. But Smith and others did know the fish—deemed a threatened species in Michigan—needed a helping hand.

A lake sturgeon hooked in the Kalamazoo River this year is released back to its environment. Photograph courtesy Kregg Smith, Michigan DNR

So, starting in 2003, Smith and a team of nonprofits, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and native tribes set up the streamside rearing facility, which raises juvenile fish and releases them back into the rivers. So far they’ve sent 116 young fish back into the river, where they’ll eventually end up in Lake Michigan.

No Place Like Home

Inside the Kalamazoo River facility—a small trailer near a stand of trees a few hundred feet from the river’s banks—and USFWS fisheries biologist Elliott Kittel is showing me an image of a sturgeon egg zoomed in on a laptop.

Elliott Kittel shows a picture of a sturgeon egg zoomed in on his laptop at the Kalamazoo River streamside rearing facility. Photograph by Christine Dell’Amore, National Geographic

Just days from hatching, I could see its curved backbone and healthy, clear yolk sac. In the wild, most of these babies wouldn’t make it—a female sturgeon can spawn millions of eggs, and “99.9 percent mortality is a good day,” Kittel said.

But eggs and larvae brought up in the rearing facility have better odds, since they’re less vulnerable to predation, disease, and starvation.

The sturgeon team’s strategy centers around rearing the young fish in water pumped from the Kalamazoo River, thus “imprinting” the juveniles with the chemical signature of the river. (Test your freshwater IQ.)

Young lake sturgeon are raised in this trailer near the Kalamazoo River. Photograph by Christine Dell’Amore, National Geographic

Sturgeon live most of their lives in lakes, but are born in rivers and return to the same place to spawn—for males, that’s every two years; for females, every four to six. So the biologists hope that when the human-raised sturgeon grow old enough to spawn, they’ll “home” to the place where they were born.

This reduces the possibility that sturgeon will wander into other rivers, where the wayward fish could breed with other populations, diluting their genes. (See other pictures of megafishes around the world.)

As another backup, scientists take eggs that are naturally spawned by females living in the Kalamazoo and raise them in the rearing facility.

Males are sexually mature at 10, but females don’t start breeding until about 22 years of age. Sturgeons are incredibly long-lived, sometimes reaching over a hundred: A specimen caught in Canada in 1953 was 152 years old, according to a 1954 article in the Milwaukee Journal.

Once the babies hatch, the biologists get them up to about 6 to 10 inches (15 to 20 centimeters) long, tag them, and release them into the river in the fall. The team then monitors the fish to see if they return to the river to spawn.

Once they’re about six months old, lake sturgeon are released into the river. Photograph by Christine Dell’Amore, National Geographic

But the sturgeon team will have to wait until 2021—when the first released males turn 10—to see if they come back, Smith said.

Personable Fish

To the people trying to save this unusual fish, there’s just something about sturgeon.

Ron Clark, a volunteer with the nonprofit Kalamazoo River Sturgeons for Tomorrow who was helping out at the Kalamazoo facility, said that being part of an effort to save such an ancient species “intrigued me.”

Clark, who has found the fish docile and easy to handle, said they seem to have individual personalities … they’re more like a [mammal] than a fish.”

Fisheries biologist Smith added that he likes the look of the prehistoric fish and its weird adaptations. For example, sturgeons have spiracles, which are holes in the side of the fish that allow them to breathe along with their gills.

He added that bringing the sturgeon back would give the public a chance to learn about a fish that had to survive during the dinosaur era.

“It’s the most unique fish in the Great Lakes.”

This story was made possible in part by a fellowship from the Institutes for Journalism & Natural Resources.

Lisa Borre is also from Michigan originally, and she has been covering lakes for Water Currents. We’ve been learning about temperature and lake level changes, but sometimes it’s also great to bask in the raw beauty of nature.

Shawn Malone from Lake Superior Photo made the beautiful “dreamlapse” above along Lake Superior in northern Michigan. Malone wrote, “It took a year to shoot in many cold nights and took a lot of coffee, a bit tenacity and persistence to get this into a form of coherent electrified cosmic goodness.”

I recognized Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and the city of Marquette, and she also made it to Isle Royale, one of the least visited National Parks.

Malone listed some of her favorite moments: “Rare pairings caught on camera include ribbons of aurora above a full moon fogbow on the horizon of Lake Superior, the aurora and an isolated singular lightning storm cloud over Lake Superior, and the aurora and Milky Way in several scenes including Copper Harbor, Marquette, Isle Royale, Pictured Rocks, and Eagle Harbor Lighthouse…There are also a couple sequences of rare magenta/red aurora that I will never tire of.”

My mom loves lighthouses, so I visited many historic ones in Michigan growing up. It was great to see them bathed in such celestial color. I only saw the northern lights a few times, and never so spectacular.

Now that’s Pure Michigan.

Brian Clark Howard is an Environment Writer and Editor at National Geographic News. He previously served as an editor for TheDailyGreen.com and E/The Environmental Magazine, and has written for TheAtlantic.com, FastCompany.com, PopularMechanics.com, Yahoo!, MSN, Miller-McCune and elsewhere. He is the co-author of six books, including Geothermal HVAC, Green Lighting and Build Your Own Small Wind Power System.

The Min River in Nanping, China. Photograph by Pan Shi Bo, Wikimedia Commons

By Kelli Barrett, Ecosystem Marketplace

In East China’s Fujian Province, the booming economy has been good to the cities of Sanming and Nanping, as well as to farmers in the surrounding hills. That, however, has been bad news for the Min River and to the downstream city of Fuzhou, which gets its water from the Min. As farmers chopped down the trees that anchored the steep slopes of the Min River valley, silt began to pile up in the river as those slopes eroded.

To ease the burden of filtering out all the silt from its municipal water supply, Fuzhou pays Sanming and Nanping roughly $800 million annually to encourage farmers to reforest the denuded hills and implement sustainable land-use practices.

It’s all part of the Min River Watershed Water Resource Protection Eco-Compensation Program – one of several “eco-compensation” programs that use investments, incentives, and even market mechanisms to promote healthy watershed stewardship on a grand scale. By implementing these programs nationally, a country notorious for its rigid, centralized government has become the leading proponent worldwide of an approach to conservation that is fine-tuned to match the needs of each watershed and the populations that rely on them.

Indeed, China accounted for a staggering 91% of watershed investments in 2011, according to Ecosystem Marketplace’s “State of Watershed Payments 2012 report.” As a result, eco-compensation will take center stage on May 16, when environmental NGO Forest Trends and the government of China team up to host the Katoomba XVIII: Forests, Water and People, a global forum taking place in Beijing.

Securing Sloping Lands

China’s biggest and most successful eco-compensation program so far has been the Conversion of Croplands to Forests and Grasslands (CCFG), otherwise known as the Sloping Lands Conversion Program. This program converts land that was cleared for farming back into forests and grasslands. It was implemented after flooding across China in the 1990s displaced millions of people and killed thousands.

When the heavy rains came, there were no forests or vegetation to slow or absorb the water as it slid down hills and into villages.  Sloping cropland also contributes 65% of the 2 to 4 billion tons of silt that is dumped into the Yangtze and Yellow – China’s longest and most productive rivers – every year.

In this program, farmers have to stop working the land that has been selected for reforestation. But those farmers need to find other sources of employment and food. To account for this, the government provides compensation – in the form of rice and money – to farmers that switch to another way to earn a living.

The Sloping Lands Conversion Program was a success and by 2003, more than 2,000 counties in 25 provinces had put it into practice. As of 2007, the program had rebuilt forests on over 9 million hectares of land – an area slightly smaller than the state of Maine.

Western Origins for Eco-Compensation

Ironically, these mechanisms were invented in the Western World as an efficient alternative to command-and-control regulation—government actions made without public input and enforced unilaterally. Outside China, the largest program of this kind is in New York City’s watershed, where farmers and other communities upstate are compensated for maintaining the watershed serving the City’s drinking water supply.

Similar programs are underway across Latin America and Africa as well, but only China has embraced and implemented this approach on a national level to address its emerging water challenges.

China may face a number of environmental issues, but when it comes to watershed management, other countries dealing with water woes should take note of the country’s successes.

Surrounded by giant sacks of malt and wooden barrels, a glass of beer appropriately in hand, Suprise told a group of journalists he’s sending a simple message: “You can’t have a sustainable culture or society without our most precious resource, and that’s water.” (Learn more about freshwater.)

Brewing beer is a water-intensive process, as the grains—usually malted barley—have to be steeped in water before yeast is added for fermentation. Breweries that don’t track their water use can take up to 10 barrels of water to make 1 barrel of beer, according to Suprise. (Learn more about beer’s water footprint.)

According to NRDC’s Josh Mogerman, who was also on the media tour, 22 craft breweries have already joined the campaign, which is the first of its kind nationwide. So far, most of the brewers are located in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin (see the full list).

Craft breweries—defined as small, independent, and traditional—are growing in the U.S., with a 15 percent increase in new businesses between 2011 and 2012, according to the Brewers Association. (Even President Obama is taking a crack at homebrewing with the White House Honey Brown Ale.)

Tim Suprise talks about clean water during a May 3 media tour. Photograph courtesy Michael Scott/IJNR

By emphasizing the importance of water to a person’s favorite local brew, Mogerman hopes to create “evangelism” for strengthening the U.S. Clean Water Act of 1972. Though the legislation has kept billions of pounds of sewage, chemicals, and trash out of the waterways, there’s still much to be done: One-third of U.S. waterways studied still don’t meet water quality standards, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Can you find a better spokesperson than a craft brewer?” Mogerman said. They’re “totally reliant on the watershed, so protection of water is important to them.”

Testing the Waters

Arcadia Ales takes its water from the Battle Creek city water system, whose main water source is a sandstone aquifer near the city. Battle Creek’s treated wastewater is then released into the Kalamazoo River, a 130-mile (209-kilometer) waterway in western Michigan with a polluted past. Paper mills once dumped PCBs—a type of carcinogenic synthetic chemical—into the water, harming wildlife, especially fish. The river is healthier now, and Suprise is building a new, more water-efficient brewing facility on the banks of the river. (Take a pledge to save a river with Change the Course.)

At the new brewery, his goal is to cut water use by 25 to 30 percent, mostly by recycling wastewater. Historically, water left over after making beer was dumped down the drain, where it ended up at local water-treatment plants.

“Today, we can take that same [wastewater] and put it in a big tote, [and] it’s picked up by a biofuel company and fermented into ethanol,” Suprise said.

That’s “one example of how we as brewers can minimize water usage and wastewater usage.”

Already, the Arcadia Ales team is more mindful of how much water they use to clean tanks and other brewing infrastructure, for example by using flow meters whenever possible, he added. Suprise doesn’t have hard numbers, but he said he’s sure that the brewery is already using less water.

Arcadia Ales has committed to using less water during its brewing process. Photograph courtesy Trudy E. Bell

Currently Arcadia’s ratio of barrels of water to beer is about 5-to-6 to 1, though Suprise hopes to bring that number down at the new facility.

All Hands on Deck

Mogerman acknowledges Brewers for Clean Water is “light green,” in that it’s a voluntary program meant to attract supporters for the Clean Water Act.

But just raising the profile of water conservation is crucial, especially since it’s a tough sell for many audiences—including young beer drinkers, according to water experts. (Calculate your water footprint.)

“For me, any partnership that’s going to bring attention to the need for clean water nationally brings value,” said Mark Gold, associate director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

Gold noted that the Clean Water Act regulations haven’t been updated this century. So “trying new ways and developing new partnerships with business becomes all the more important,” said Gold, who has worked with NRDC on other initiatives.

Jason Morrison, program director at the Pacific Institute, which works on water sustainability, noted the fact businesses are supporting water conservation is notable in and of itself.

“I’m old enough to remember the times when almost any piece of federal legislation was vehemently opposed by industry,” Morrison said.

Mike Antos, research manager at the California-based Council for Watershed Health, added by email that any business that’s sensitive to its water use “is a solid win.”

“We need all-hands-on-deck as we try to change how we use water,” he said.

This story was made possible in part by a fellowship from the Institutes for Journalism & Natural Resources.

Anti-fracking activist Jonathan Deal, winner of a 2013 Goldman Environmental Prize, discusses strategy to save the Karoo region of his native South Africa from gas drilling. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize

“We’ve got to stop doing this,” said Jonathan Deal, with a sense of urgency tinged with discomfort.

Deal could well have been talking about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the oil and gas drilling practice he has tirelessly fought to stop in his native South Africa.

But at this moment, he was talking about the energy-guzzling extravaganza in full swing all around us at a gathering in Washington, DC.  As we eyed hundreds of people in cocktail attire partaking of bounteous food and wine across a chandeliered room, I sensed Deal’s inner discord: this lavish event was in honor of him.

Deal had just been awarded a Goldman Environmental Prize for his successful grassroots effort to win a moratorium on fracking in South Africa.  And on this mid-April spring night at the Ronald Reagan Building near the National Mall, a magnificent reception followed a ceremony to honor and applaud Deal’s success, along with that of the five other remarkable 2013 prize winners.

While Deal accepted his award with humility and grace, and was deeply grateful for the spotlight it shined on his work, he was making an important point.  Unless we rein in our energy consumption, his fight will have been for naught. And it must start with each of us, here and now, addressing the discord between what we know and what we do.

An Uphill Battle

With no prior experience in grassroots organizing, Deal orchestrated a campaign against fracking in South Africa to protect the Karoo, a semi-desert region of the eastern Cape that he had come to know and love.  Famed for its beauty, the Karoo boasts the richest diversity of succulents on the planet, and is home to many unique species of lizards and tortoises, as well as the riverine rabbit, one of the most endangered mammals in all of Africa.

The region also supports a diverse and bountiful array of agricultural products, from wool and meat to fruits, olives, wine and honey.

The Karoo is also underlain by vast deposits of gas-bearing shale.  South Africa is estimated to have the fifth largest volume of shale gas in the world – some 7.3 percent of the global total – and most of that gas is in the Karoo.

In early 2011, Deal read of plans by the oil company Royal Dutch Shell to apply for exploratory permits to drill for natural gas in the Karoo.  The drilling would be done by fracking, which involves blasting water mixed with sand and chemicals deep underground at high pressure so as to fracture the shale rock and release the oil and gas it holds. Some of the chemicals are known or suspected carcinogens.  Each fracking well consumes 1-8 million gallons of water.

Deal, who had written a book on the Karoo, took on the mantle of activist to save his beloved land from the onslaught of drilling rigs and tanker trucks, and the threats of water stress, well failures and toxic pollution.

Deal formed the Treasure the Karoo Action Group (TKAG) and led a team of scientists, legal experts, and volunteers in preparing a report on the risks of fracking in the Karoo. TKAG delivered the report, which called for a moratorium on fracking, to President Jacob Zuma.  Deal also challenged Shell executives to debate the merits of fracking at public meetings and in the media.

Deal’s hard work and personal sacrifices – he poured his family’s savings into the campaign – paid off when, in April 2011, the South African government announced a nationwide moratorium on fracking.

But the moratorium lasted only 17 months: in September 2012, the government lifted it.  Still, Deal and TKAG had gotten South African officials to take the dangers of fracking more seriously, and studies are now under way to more carefully examine fracking’s risks to the Karoo environment.

Hands Across the Ocean

Ten days after the ceremony in Washington, DC, Deal was in Elmira, New York, sharing his experience in South Africa with community members concerned about the threats of fracking in their region.

“We’ve kept (the oil companies) at bay for two-and-a-half years,” Deal said, “and we’re going for three.”

He told the group assembled at Trinity Lutheran Church that three companies, including Shell, have applied to the government to drill on 230,000 square kilometers of land in South Africa.

We can’t beat this country by country, Deal said. There needs to be “a global alliance.”

Natural gas was once viewed as the “bridge fuel” to a renewable energy future—a lower-carbon energy source that could help the world transition from dirtier oil and coal to more climate-safe renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

But thanks to fracking’s ability to exploit vast reserves of once-inaccessible shale gas, natural gas has become, in the words of climate blogger Joe Romm, a “bridge to nowhere”: it will merely perpetuate fossil fuel dependence and lead the world into catastrophic climate change.

While in the United States, Deal worked to start building the alliances he feels are necessary to stop the global march of fracking. In addition to visiting communities across the country, he is strengthening ties with Americans Against Fracking, a coalition of some 270 disparate organizations, including 350.org, Breast Cancer Action, Food and Water Watch, and New Yorkers Against Fracking.

Meanwhile, back in his native South Africa, Deal’s own organization will get a significant boost from his Goldman recognition: Deal is giving his $150,000 in prize money to TKAG to strengthen the fight to save the Karoo.

Watch a short video, narrated by Robert Redford, of Jonathan Deal’s story and work by clicking here.

Sandra Postel is director of the Global Water Policy Project and Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society. She is co-creator of Change the Course, the national freshwater conservation and restoration campaign being piloted in the Colorado River Basin.

The geopolitics of water management in the Middle East are primarily governed by the basic distribution of freshwater resources: there are vast differences between the naturally available water resources in the region. Layer to this the additional complexity of political stability, financial assets, and other socioeconomic factors, and the potential for improved transboundary water management in the Middle East becomes vastly complicated.

Simply, some nations have few water resources and a lack of capabilities to effectively manage their limited resources – their water security is at risk. Other nations, those with more technological and economic capacity to maximize their limited resources, have less at stake. Our recent trip to the Middle East in February underscored the well-known perspective that while Israel is making great advances in water management in the region, Palestine and Jordan are simply further behind.

The actions, decisions, and processes that led to this imbalance are complex. While Israel is currently a regional (and global) leader in water management strategies, the nation has faced many challenges with competing user-groups, made trade-offs between short-term economic investment versus long-term sustainability, and leveraged its economic and political clout to ensure that the financial assets were in hand to prioritize water management solutions.

Israel’s path to achieve water management success was not simple or easy. At the same time, while Jordan and Palestine have historically encountered many struggles to manage their incredibly scarce water resources, which for Palestine includes the challenge of being land-locked (save its Dead Sea access), making autonomous desalination impossible.  Water managers in Palestine and Jordan are actively striving to improve the technological capacity and policy portfolio to optimize water use in the future.

Israel’s Geopolitical Advantages

As described in our previous post in Water Currents, Israel is a regional and global leader in water management strategies. Israel has a diverse portfolio of water sources that includes an extensive supply of desalinated water and recycled wastewater and, consequently, puts less pressure on its limited, natural freshwater sources from surface water and groundwater. Israeli water managers have detailed knowledge and data about how much water they have, the precise source of that water, how much water is being used at any given moment, and specifically who is using that water and for what purpose.  Every last drop of water is accounted for. There is a direct line of communication between the Water Authority and Mekorot, the national water utility company, which allows for the supply and demand as well as the pricing of water in Israel to be meticulously monitored and regulated. Israel’s water management system is a well-oiled, robust machine.

Israel’s detailed understanding of its water resources has allowed the nation to strategically invest in new technology and solutions that allow for more stable and sustainable water planning. Furthermore, the economic and political clout that Israel can leverage to finance such solutions is significant. Without investment, political commitment, and long-term planning, Israel’s water success would not exist. In addition, Israel’s geographic assets – mainly it’s shoreline on the Mediterranean Sea – are essential to its success. The Mediterranean provides Israel an unlimited supply of water as long as the investment for infrastructure and energy costs for desalination are met. With new natural gas reserves discovered off the coast, once prohibitive energy expenses will now be obsolete. Armed with detailed knowledge about its water resources, new energy sources, and a strong sociopolitical backing, Israel’s water future looks bright.

An ancient aqueduct in East Bethlehem now runs dry and is filled with trash – a symbol of the West Bank’s deteriorated water infrastructure. Photo by: Kate Voss.

Tapping the Root of Jordan and Palestine’s Struggle

Yet while Israel is leading the world in innovative water strategies, its neighbors, Palestine and Jordan, are clearly struggling. The core differences in the naturally available water resources as well as the social, economic, and political capability to address water resource management challenges was staggering. Before meeting with water management officials in Jordan, we had the opportunity to drive beyond the sprawl of Amman and into the surrounding desert.

The land outside the city boundaries is vast, dry, and desolate – there are no water resources to speak of. Communities that dot the highway are dependent on either dwindling groundwater reserves or weekly water tankers. The situation is dire. Without proactive efforts to find and transport new sources of water, many of these communities will probably cease to exist, leaving only the shadow of a civilization, akin to the ancient ruins of Petra.

Jordan’s water managers are trying their best to develop innovative, long-term solutions to its water crisis. The pioneering solutions from Israel, such as desalination or wastewater recycling, may have a place in Jordan’s water strategy, but even those options are difficult to acquire. Wastewater recycling necessitates steep financial investment, as does desalination, and these solutions often force Jordan to place its water security in the hands of another nation. Neither option is perfect. Consequently, long-distance conveyance alternatives from friendly neighbors, such as pumping groundwater from Saudi Arabia or tanking water from Turkey, do not seem obscure when forced to cope with a physical water scarcity emergency.

Jordan’s dire water situation is not for lack of effort or vision, but mainly a lack of resources. Few natural water assets combined with a weak socioeconomic foundation makes investment in long-term water strategies incredibly difficult. In Palestine, the situation is similar. According to a World Bank report from 2009, “economic disparities between West Bank Gaza (WBG) and Israel are large – in 2005, Israel’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita was almost eighteen times the Palestinian GNI per capita. Water resources availability in the two neighbors is likewise far apart, with fresh water per capita in Israel is about four times that of WBG. Whereas Israel is known for efficient water infrastructure and management, Palestinians are struggling to attain the most basic level of infrastructure and services of a low income country.”  Add to the weak economy the fact that water rights in Palestine are directly linked to the broader conflict between Palestine and Israel, particularly in the West Bank, and water management in Palestine becomes more convoluted and challenging.  Palestine’s situation is analogous to Jordan’s crisis, but with the added complexity of unclear sovereign rights to access and improve water resources.

The moon rises over Amman, a sprawling city surrounded by desert. With increasing population and limited water resources, Jordan’s capital is already facing a water crisis. Photo by: Kate Voss.

Knowledge for a Sustainable Water Future

While visiting with water management officials  in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, we discussed the shared need for better monitoring — a need that the U.S. has in common with the Middle East — in order to have essential, baseline data for characterizing regional water availability.  Based on this information, water managers can develop short- and long-term strategies that are rooted in the reality of actual water availability and use. Without this information, any decisions or solutions are based on speculation, at best, and politics at worst.

As previously mentioned, Israel has a stronger foundation in data and monitoring than either of Palestine and Jordan. That said, water managers in Palestine and Jordan are actively making substantial efforts to lay the framework for an improved water monitoring system and are beginning to collect core data on their native resources.  With clear evidence about their changing water availability, water managers will hold more power to leverage for the political and economic support they need to create actual change. In the future, our hope is that we at UCCHM will be able to support these efforts by providing training workshops based on our research, to provide the capacity for water managers in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan to utilize new advances in satellite data to monitor and manage their water.

With these fundamental data and information in hand, water managers in Palestine and Jordan can begin to close the gap on their investment needs and to implement their own innovative solutions to tackle their water challenges. For Israel, there are clear economic and political benefits for improved water management in Palestine and Jordan. With any luck, water management will come forward as an issue of mutual interest for regional cooperation. This will, of course, necessitate strong political, economic, and social backing from national, regional, and international leaders.

Throughout the Middle East we heard that “water cannot be removed from politics” in this region. Consequently, the broader political and socioeconomic intricacies must be incorporated into water management and vice versa. With this complexity in mind we can only hope that the political currents of the region lead to improved water management and that, collectively, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan can see the benefit of sustainable solutions for their shared water future.

The Choctaw bass, a new species? Photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife

Bass fishing in the American Southeast may have just gotten a little bit more complicated. According to a release filed this week, biologists from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) would like to name a new species of black bass, the Choctaw bass, or Micropterus haiaka. 

In 2007, FWC scientists found an unusual DNA profile of a bass collected in the Chipola River. “We didn’t set out to find a new species,” Mike Tringali, who heads the genetics lab at the FWC’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, said in the statement. “It found us.”

The Choctaw bass looks very similar to its cousin the spotted bass, so identification currently isn’t easy. The FWC puts it this way: “Choctaw bass can usually be distinguished from other basses by counting scales, fin rays and gill rakers, which are comblike projections inside the gills that prevent particles from collecting on the gill filaments. Foolproof identification, however, requires genetic testing.”

Ongoing study has suggested the Choctaw bass can be found in the western Florida panhandle and coastal river systems in Alabama (see map below).

Projected range of the Choctaw bass and its closest relatives. Illustration via Florida Fish and Wildlife

“We chose the name ‘Choctaw bass’ because the species’ range overlaps the historic range of the Choctaw Indians,” said Tringali. Haiaka in the proposed Latin name is Choctaw for “revealed,” he added.

Before the species is officially recognized, the American Fisheries Society must approve it.

The FWC is working to determine the new animal’s conservation status. So far, the specimens have been found only in areas that are absent their closest relatives, suggesting that the related species aren’t very compatible.

We’ve written before that the American Southeast has more freshwater biological diversity than any other place on Earth, so it’s perhaps not surprising that a new species of fish would be discovered. Unfortunately, the region has also seen significant threats in the form of pollution, development, dams, and over-harvesting.

Some 50 known species have already gone extinct there, and this latest finding suggests there may be some as of yet undescribed.

If there is one place that transforms wastewater from trouble-maker to life-saver it’s the site of Las Arenitas sewage treatment plant in the Mexican state of Baja California.

There, nasty urban wastewater that once made a smelly health hazard of the New River near the U.S.-Mexico border is now sustaining a wondrous wetland and bird-watchers’ paradise in the northwest corner of the Colorado River Delta.

In this way, Las Arenitas joins La Ciénega de Santa Clara – the “accidental wetland” – in showcasing the revival possible by adding water to the once-verdant, but now desiccated delta.

Located about 16 miles (26 kilometers) southeast of the border city of Mexicali, Las Arenitas at first glance looks like any municipal wastewater treatment plant.  A big underground pipeline daily delivers nearly 20 million gallons of Mexicali’s sewage, which then undergoes conventional physical, biological, and chlorination processes to remove bacteria and other harmful pollutants.

The plant was designed to discharge the treated effluent to an agricultural drain that empties into the Hardy River, which joins the Colorado River before reaching the sea.  After its start-up in 2007, however, the plant not only failed to meet the required water quality standards, it was sending raw sewage down the Hardy.

A year later, even as the public services commission in Mexicali took steps to improve the plant’s operation, two conservation groups – Pronatura Noroeste, based in Ensenada, Baja California, and the Sonoran Institute, based in Tucson, Arizona – seized the opportunity to help solve the pollution problem while restoring vital delta habitat:  they partnered with the commission to construct a 250-acre (100-hectare) wetland.

Just as wetlands do in nature, the constructed cattail marsh at Las Arenitas removes pollutants from the wastewater, giving it an additional cleansing before its release to the river or to farmers.

At the same time, the wetland creates a home for resident and migratory birds that have seen their delta habitat shrink nearly to oblivion from the damming and diverting of the Colorado River upstream.

And treated wastewater from the marsh has roughly doubled the flow of the Rio Hardy, enhancing fishing and economic opportunities.

During a visit to Las Arenitas in February, the marsh was a riot of birds.  A yellow-rumped warbler sang from atop a mesquite tree.  Flotillas of American coots plied the lagoons.  And hiding in the cattails, a secretive sora delivered its telltale descending whinny call.

For Javier Orduño Valdez, director of the state public services commission in Mexicali, Las Arenitas anchors a grand vision for recreation, tourism, and economic development in the region.  He described plans to build a nature park with trails around the marshes, along with exhibits to explain the importance of the wetlands to the Rio Hardy and the delta.

“With this water we give life to all this area,” said Orduño Valdez.  “The important thing right now is not us, but the future generations.”

There are plans to double the treatment capacity of Las Arenitas over the next several years.  And in exchange for constructing additional wetlands at the site, the conservation groups have the opportunity to acquire more flows for the Hardy River.

Las Arenitas has benefited residents north of the border, too.  For decades, sewage from Mexicali flowed untreated into the New River, which begins 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of the city, flows north across the border, and then traverses sixty miles (97 kilometers) of California’s Imperial Valley before emptying into the Salton Sea.

At times, the stench near the border was overpowering.  Signs placed along the river’s course warned visitors to avoid contact with the river’s hazardous brew.

But today, thanks to Las Arenitas, the New River is much cleaner, especially near the border.

And the 20 million gallons a day of raw sewage that used to pollute the New now sustains wetlands, birds, fish, wildlife, and river flows in the delta.

It’s a great example of taking the “waste” out of wastewater – and of the promise of restoring the Colorado Delta.

Help restore water to the Colorado River by joining Change the Course. Sign up online or text ‘River’ to 77177.

Sandra Postel is director of the Global Water Policy Project and Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society. She is the author of several acclaimed books, including the award-winning Last Oasis, a Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment, and one of the “Scientific American 50.” She is co-creator of Change the Course, the national freshwater conservation and restoration campaign being piloted in the Colorado River Basin.

Special thanks to Silk, the Charter Sponsor for Change the Course. Additional funding generously provided by the Walton Family Foundation.

Half of all cities with populations >100,000 are located in water basins in which more than half of available water supplies are being depleted during some portion of the year.

Today, global demands for food, energy, and shelter are putting unprecedented pressure on the resources of the planet. Water is at the heart of this crisis.

In fact, more than half of the world’s cities are already experiencing water shortages on a recurring basis – based on findings from a study that I published, along with 13 of my colleagues, this week in the Water Policy journal. These water-stressed cities are finding it extremely difficult and expensive to secure the additional water supplies needed to support their growth.

Our study, “Tapped Out: How Can Cities Secure Their Water Future?” highlights the reality that many growing cities are badly in need of new, low-cost, and reliable sources of water. We found that a key strategy cities should consider is to form partnerships with agricultural producers to conserve water use on farms, thereby freeing up water that can be used in the city.

Even a modest level of reduction (15-20 percent) in agricultural water consumption, globally, could make more water available than all the water consumed in cities and industries today.

Where Did all the Water Go?

In conducting the study, we identified cities around the world that are situated in water-scarce regions, and then assessed how water is being used in those regions.

It was not difficult to see why so many cities got into trouble with water.

The water sources they depend upon – rivers, lakes, and aquifers – have for decades been heavily used for irrigated agriculture.  Since 1950, the consumption of water globally for irrigation has tripled in volume, a trend that played a large role in enabling food production to more than double over the same period.

The result:  Water-stressed cities are trying to expand in places where most of the water is already being consumed by irrigated agriculture. In fact, more than 90% of the water being consumed from those shared water sources is going to growing crops.

In particular, we closely examined the challenges and responses of four cities: Adelaide, located just outside but dependent upon the Murray–Darling River Basin of Australia; and three cities in the U.S.: Phoenix, located in the Gila River Basin in Arizona; San Antonio, dependent on the Edwards Aquifer in Texas; and San Diego, which relies upon the San Diego, Colorado, and Sacramento River Basins in California.

The Unsustainable Pursuit of More Water

Looking at the investments that these cities have made – and plan to make in the future – to access more water, we found similar patterns in their water development: 1) They began by exhausting their local surface and groundwater supplies; then 2) imported water from other rivers and aquifers; and finally 3) turned to recycling of wastewater or stormwater, or desalination of either seawater or brackish groundwater.  We found that water conservation efforts did help mitigate, to varying degrees, the timing of water-system expansions and the extent to which cities had to rely on new sources of supply.

Trends in water supply sources for the Phoenix metro area.

We found this typical water development pattern to pose significant problems from a sustainability perspective – as it is usually associated with serious negative ecological and social impacts – and lacking cost effectiveness.

The heavy exploitation of freshwater sources – a result of growing urban demands on top of heavy agricultural use – has caused severe damage to freshwater ecosystems, impaired the ability of ecosystems to provide services to people, and created health problems in many regions. In addition, groundwater depletion (lowering of underground water levels) has led to increased electricity costs for pumping the water from ever-increasing depths.  When cities extend their reach into other rivers or aquifers to access water supplies, they spread negative impacts over great distances. Energy-intensive technologies such as recycling and desalination are expensive, resulting in higher water bills for consumers as well as increased carbon emissions that accelerate climate change.

Water flows in the lower Colorado River have been heavily depleted by agricultural irrigation and urban water consumption, resulting in considerable damage to the river ecosystem and its species. This has in turn led to severe impacts on indigenous cultures dependent on fish and other resources in the delta.

So, what can be done?

Place Your Bets on Water Conservation

Far and away, water conservation is the most cost-effective, immediate, and environmentally desirable means for addressing water shortages.  But few cities have maximized their conservation potential.

This comparison of the costs of future water supply options for San Diego illustrates the impressive cost-effectiveness of both urban and agricultural water conservation.

In addition to investing in urban water conservation – e.g., by installing low-water plumbing fixtures, fixing leaks in water distribution lines, or reducing landscape watering – considerable potential exists to make more water available locally by reducing water consumption in irrigated agriculture.

Promising opportunities exist to free up the water presently used in agriculture through techniques such as reducing unproductive water consumption (e.g., stopping canal leakage, reducing soil and reservoir evaporation), changing crop types, introducing rotational fallowing, temporary fallowing during droughts, or the elimination of low-value farming.

In our recommendations for water sharing going forward, we advocate for ‘urban–rural partnerships.’ While there are formidable hurdles to forming urban–rural partnerships to share water (these challenges are detailed in our paper), the payoff is too big to ignore.

In many basins, a reduction of agricultural water consumption of just 15–20% can yield massive volumes of water that can be saved for other uses. For example, if adopted globally, this level of reduction in agricultural water consumption would make more water available than all the water consumed in cities and industries today.

A Role for Markets?

Our paper also highlights the role of water markets in facilitating water sharing and transfers of water rights among cities, farmers, and environmental interests.  For example, my organization, The Nature Conservancy, is exploring how to expand water markets more broadly. In places where water markets exist, such as the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia or in the Edwards Aquifer of Texas, we see the potential for multi-win benefits to farmers, cities, and the environment. Just as a farmer can sell “saved” water to other farmers, or cities, we can serve as the buyer or help facilitate the purchasing of a water right, and allow the water to remain in the river or aquifer to support ecological health and water availability for other uses.

In addition to the Murray-Darling and Edwards Aquifer, we are looking at opportunities to buy water for conservation purposes in the Guadalupe River in Texas, the Colorado River Delta, and other places.  We are also working with local governments and water users in the U.S. and abroad to create new water markets, or to improve the functioning of existing markets, so that water is available to those that need it most.

But perhaps most important of all, we are also working with governments to help them understand the hazards of overusing a water source.  When too much water is being taken from a river, lake or aquifer, everyone is at risk!