Tag archives for food security
Our Oversized Groundwater Footprint
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on August 13, 2012 
We don’t see it, smell it or hear it, but the tragedy unfolding underground is nonetheless real – and it spells big trouble. I’m talking about the depletion of groundwater, the stores of H2O contained in geologic formations called aquifers, which billions of people depend upon to supply their drinking water and grow their food.…
Drip Irrigation Expanding Worldwide
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on June 25, 2012 
As the world population climbs and water stress spreads around the globe, finding ways of getting more crop per drop to meet our food needs is among the most urgent of challenges. One answer to this call is drip irrigation, which delivers water directly to the roots of plants in just the right amounts. It…
Damming the Poor: It’s Time to Create River Parks for People
Posted by Brian Richter of The Nature Conservancy and University of Virginia in Water Currents on April 19, 2012 
Chief Omar Abdalla Hama was pleading with us to help save his people from starving. My colleagues from The Nature Conservancy and I were visiting Ozi Village along the Tana River in southeastern Kenya. We were exploring opportunities to work with local communities, government officials, and other researchers on a sustainable development plan for the…
The Power of a Radically Affordable Irrigation Pump
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on April 18, 2012 
One of the more transformative technologies ever developed for the world’s poor farmers is a water-lifting device called a treadle pump. It looks and operates much like a Stairmaster exercise machine that you’d find in a gym. But the dollar-a-day farmers who use these devices are not trying to lose pounds; they’re trying to…
Reflections on a Thirsty Planet for World Water Day
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on March 22, 2012 
Water, I have learned, means different things to different people. To the novelist D. H. Lawrence, water was mysterious. It is “hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing, that makes it water and nobody knows what that is.” To the anthropologist Loren Eiseley, water was supernatural: “If there is…
From Texas to India to the Horn of Africa, Concern about Weather, Water, and Crops
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on March 6, 2012 
Hardly a week goes by without new reasons to be concerned about the impact of changing precipitation patterns and mounting water stress on food production. This past week, officials in Texas cut off irrigation water to rice farmers downstream of reservoirs depleted by the worst one-year drought in Texas history. Even with recent rains,…
Posted by In these times of tumultuous weather patterns and no certainty about the future stability of Earth’s climate as civilization has known it, it’s reassuring that a significant portion of the planet’s legacy of plant diversity has been stashed for safekeeping deep inside an Arctic mountain.
