Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
There is no substitute for potable water—despite what economic theory may wish to assert. To get enough of it in many locales will be increasingly expensive as we turn to ever more exotic means to extract water while both population grows and climate-enhanced droughts diminish replenishment of existing sources.
How will we meet the challenges of the world’s growing dependence on groundwater? Authors Bill and Rosemary Alley on one of the globe’s most deadly threats.
Schwennesen is among a new cadre of farmers and ranchers that brings a more holistic, ecological way of thinking to land management.
Does California have too much water? Seriously. Because our actions are sending peculiar messages.
While the media focuses on larger-scale challenges, small-scale, implementable solutions seem absent from the discussion. Small-scale solutions are beautiful because they often address both drought and flood problems. With one of the strongest El Niños on record developing in the Pacific, California may see a massive deluge this winter. It could be damaging if we don’t prepare now. On the heels of a multi-year drought, flash floods and the inundation of dry, crusty soils will be especially damaging.
The Environmental Protection Agency has released its long awaited draft assessment of the impacts that fracking has on the nation’s drinking water supplies.
Perhaps the catalyst could be a life-altering dearth of a critical resource that, until recently, most of us in the United States have taken for granted: water.
Imagine if each tap that delivered water from the Colorado River – whether to a farm, a factory, or a home – suddenly went dry for a year. What would happen to the West’s economy?
The timing might seem odd, even self-destructive. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive order calling for his southern California city to cut its water imports by half within a decade.
We humans need water for life, we love it for leisure, we make art out of it; yet we also waste it, dirty it, privatise it, use it as a weapon and, most dangerously, stir it up brutally in the form of manmade climate change.
I believe one of the major reasons the concept of a steady state economy is not gaining traction is the omission of the role of fresh water in the production and maintenance of all its ecosystem and economic goods and services.
A new study has estimated that collectively the world’s large cities, defined as those with at least 750,000 people, move 504 billion liters (133 billion gallons) of water a day a cumulative distance of some 27,000 kilometers.
