Tag archives for drought
Posted by As temperatures in Southern Iraq approached 52 degrees Celsius (126°F) last July, Habib Salman, a 52-year-old farmer in the Al-Islah township, shot himself in the head, leaving behind an eleven-member family. The stream on which their farm relied had recently dried up, jeopardizing his family’s survival.
NG Young Explorer Julia Harte documents the culture of the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq through text and photos, as well as a video shot and edited by team member Anna Ozbek.
NG Young Explorer Julia Harte examines the historical importance of water in Mesopotamia’s cultures and religions through text and photos, as well as a video shot and edited by team member Anna Ozbek.
NG Young Explorer Julia Harte begins her expedition northward along the Tigris River, where she will examine the impacts of Turkey’s Ilısu Dam, with initial glimpses at water issues in Southern Iraq and an introduction to the heated controversy surround the dam.
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Now that a red flag has been raised by the Colorado River Basin Study – a federal and state cooperative analysis published in late 2012 – that there will be water shortages across much of the U.S. Southwest, the handwringing has started. Our cities, farms, and rivers face a slow-motion disaster; what are we going…
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The Great Lakes hold 20 percent of the world’s available surface freshwater–enough to cover the continental United States with 10 feet of water if you turned them upside down. In many places along the lakes, you can stand on one side without seeing the shoreline on the other because they are so huge. It’s difficult…
As Drought Persists in the West, Time to Prepare for Summer Shortages
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on February 25, 2013 
Drought, drought, and more drought seems to be what’s in store for most river basins in the West, including the Colorado, the lifeline for 30 million people. Back in late November, I wrote about how NOAA’s seasonal drought outlook for mid-November to late February indicated the persistence of dryness in most of the Colorado River…
Drought Fuels Water War Between Texas and New Mexico
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on January 18, 2013 
As climate change alters rainfall patterns and river flows, tensions are bound to rise between states and countries that share rivers that cross their borders. In the Rio Grande Basin of the American Southwest, that future inevitability has arrived. Last week Texas, suffering through a devastating drought, filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court…
Geography in the News: Australian Fires Out of Control
Posted by Neal Lineback of Maps101.com and Maps.com on January 9, 2013 
By Neal Lineback and Mandy Lineback Gritzner, Appalachian State University Raging Australian Wildfires Australia is under siege by raging out-of-control wildfires. The fires are being blamed on the continent’s long droughts. Most of its climates are relatively dry ones anyway, but Australia’s long series of droughts has created dry conditions even in its humid climatic…
A Groundbreaking Agreement to Save Australia’s Ailing Murray River
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on December 28, 2012 
After years of debate, fiery protests and intense negotiations, Australia has adopted a historic plan to restore flows to the suffering Murray-Darling River Basin. It is one of the boldest water pacts to restore nature on the books, and if successful, could offer a roadmap for overtapped river basins in other arid lands. The plan…
With Drought Looming, Colorado River Basin Needs Solutions
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on November 29, 2012 If early forecasts pan out, the Colorado River Basin could be in for yet another year of intense drought. On NOAA’s seasonal drought outlook map for mid-November to late February, the entire basin is shaded in dark brown, signaling the anticipated persistence of drought conditions through most of the winter. That could again wreak havoc…
Romney, Obama Make History with Failure to Mention Climate Change in Last Debate
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on October 25, 2012 The final foreign-policy-focused presidential debate made history Monday when candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama failed to mention climate change. Despite historic drought and record melting of Arctic sea ice, failure to visit the topic marked the first time since the 1980s climate change hasn’t come up in a presidential debate. Some argued the climate should have come up, as almost every major international issue—food prices, military operations and…
How the Yampa River, and its Dependents, Survived the Drought of 2012
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on October 18, 2012 
As this year’s drought deepened and spread across the United States, many cities and farms took steps to cope. Bans on landscape irrigation conserved municipal supplies. Farmers pumped more groundwater for their crops to make up for the lack of rain. But what’s a river to do? Most rivers are last in line for help…
Experts Debate a Link between Climate Change and Extreme Weather
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on October 11, 2012 As the 2012 harvest season comes to a close, pumpkins appear to be one of the few successes for farmers following the severe drought felt across many parts of the United States. Damage to the nation’s two largest crops, corn and soybeans, puts these staples below demand for the first time since 1974, while the rising cost to feed cattle drives up…
Deep-Sea Methane, Wind that Could Power World?
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on September 13, 2012 The U.S. Energy Department announced plans to spend more than $5 million researching the potential to produce natural gas from deep-sea methane hydrates—ice-like formations that contain natural gas and are stable at depths of more than 300 feet. The Energy Department calls them “the world’s largest untapped fossil energy resource”—some estimate they are twice as abundant as all remaining…
The High Costs of Free Water
Posted by Brian Richter of The Nature Conservancy and University of Virginia in Water Currents on August 29, 2012 
When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water. – Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1746 The problem with water, many economists say, is the fact that it is essentially free. That may come as a surprise to you if you receive a monthly bill from your local water utility. But the economists…
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Weather forecasting has gotten a lot better in the U.S. in the last 20 years — today, the four-day forecast is as accurate as the two-day forecast was in 1988. And storm forecasting — both for tropical storms, like Isaac, and winter storms — is also dramatically better. But seasonal forecasting remains poor, and the…
Crop Damage Sparks Fuel Versus Food Debate
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on August 16, 2012 Dry conditions that continue to grip Midwestern states, damaging crops and threatening to push up food prices, stirred new debate this week after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released crop yield projections capturing the severity of the drought. Though the U.S. is the largest producer of corn and soybeans, the report puts corn production at 10.8 billion bushels, down 13…
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Deep in the Karoo of South Africa’s Eastern Cape is a land starting over. The air is dry, the ground recovering from drought, and on high plateaus great plains of golden grass are home to large herds of zebra, red hartebeest, blesbuck and wildebeest. The animals never descend to the bushland below which is also…
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Water is one of the greatest equalizers. Within regions, most of our water is delivered via the same municipal systems, derived from the same, shared sources and treated in the same manner. That’s why I’ve always told my family, friends, students and colleagues that there is vast potential to make great strides on water issues…
Harnessing Sun, Wave Power for Energy
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on July 26, 2012 Oceans, which cover more than two-thirds of the planet, hold a large amount of energy. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates ocean wave and tidal currents have the potential to account for 15 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030. While technologies harnessing energy from tides and currents have been domestically discussed for decades, the…
Posted by This week Water Currents’ own Jay Famiglietti came to Washington from California to testify before Congress on the importance of supporting research on drought and hydrology science. Famiglietti, a professor at the University of California, Irvine’s Department of Earth System Science and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is perhaps best known for his satellite-based research on over-pumping…
That Sinking Feeling About Groundwater in Texas
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on July 19, 2012 
In case we need another example of the disturbing ramifications of extreme drought for our future water security, we can look to recent news out of northwest Texas. The High Plains Water District, based in Lubbock, recently reported that the 2011-12 drought drove groundwater levels in its sixteen-county service area to drop an average of…
U.S. Makes Strides on Climate Change
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University in Road to Rio+20 on July 19, 2012 As Grist puts it, contrary to popular belief, the U.S. is making progress on climate change. Overall, the country’s carbon emissions fell 1.7 percent last year—in part because of the explosive growth of natural gas and the Great Recession. Looking at energy-related carbon emissions in the last five years, the U.S. has experienced a roughly…
As I write this, the air outside is hazy from the fires raging up and down Colorado’s Front Range, including the Flagstaff fire, pictured above, as seen from my office window in Boulder, Colorado. Some of the smoke is what’s left of nearly five hundred homes that have burned in communities to the north and…
