News: Pollution of Lake Tai, China

Lake Tai, the center of China’s ancient “land of fish and rice,” succumbed this year to floods of industrial and agricultural waste.

View this NY Times feature on the environmental impacts of growth in China.

News: Most wars occur in earth's richest biological regions

A new study published by the scientific journal Conservation Biology found that more than 80 percent of the world’s major armed conflicts from 1950-2000 occurred in regions identified as the most biologically diverse and threatened places on Earth.

Read more

News: Turkey's Euphrates and Tigris rivers significant resources for Iraq

The World Bulletin reports that the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources Latif Rashid said that Turkey's Turkey's Firat (Euphrates) and Dicle (Tigris) rivers were two significant water resources for his country.

Learn the basics about the "Land Between the Rivers" at MSN Encarta.

News: The Colorado River's Mega-drought

Science Daily describes an epic drought during the mid-1100s that dwarfs any drought previously documented for a region that includes areas of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

The data from Meko et al can be found here.

Video: Are we running dry?

This documentary chronicles the use of water in the southwestern U.S. and ultimately, asks the question, "Are We Running Dry". This compelling program, narrated by Jane Seymour, takes a serious look at water policy in the Southwest and what changes may be in store in the future.

NY Times: Water Crisis in India

In Teeming India, Water Crisis Means Dry Pipes and Foul Sludge
By SOMINI SENGUPTA

A crisis decades in the making has reduced middle-class people in New Delhi to foraging for water.

Links: Western Water Blog

The Western Water Blog contains a nice collection of water resources and water quality issues in the Western U.S.

Books: Colorado River Basin Water Management

Colorado River Basin Water Management: Evaluating and Adjusting to Hydroclimatic Variability
Tree-ring based reconstructions of the Colorado River's flow over hundreds of years show that average annual flows vary more than previously assumed and that extended droughts are not uncommon, says a new report from the National Research Council. Future droughts may be longer and more severe because of a regional warming trend that shows no signs of dissipating, the report adds. It also states that a preponderance of evidence suggests that rising temperatures will reduce the river's flow and water supplies. Coping with water shortages is becoming more difficult because of rapid population growth, and technology and conservation will not provide a panacea for dealing with limited water supplies in the long run, the report warns.

Order the full report here.

Reference: Drinking Water

Drinking Water: Understanding the Science and Policy behind a Critical Resource, by the National Academies

Do you know where your drinking water comes from? Or how it is treated before it gets to your tap? The United States is fortunate to enjoy sophisticated public drinking water systems that provide clean, reliable water—a resource critical to our health and quality of life. The National Academies created this educational booklet to provide an introduction to the basics of drinking water.

Find the booklet free here.

Books: Total Water Management

Total Water Management: Practices for a Sustainable Future by: Neil S. Grigg, PhD, PE

A quiet revolution is being led by men and women who care about sustainable use of water resources, public health, and the environment. This revolution is directed toward new ways to manage and balance water resources and the needs of the environment. It is Total Water Management, or TWM. TWM is the exercise of stewardship and shared governance of water resources among utilities, business, and government for the greatest good of society and the environment.

Total Water Management: Practices for a Sustainable Future explains what TWM means in unambiguous language. It expands, explains, and illustrates TWM concepts and how to apply them. It is a useful, practical book on water planning for water resource managers, designed to help managers fairly allocate limited water resources among competing users, based on social values, cost-effectiveness, and needs of the natural water systems.

Double Jeopardy: What the Climate Crisis Means for the Poor

The new Brookings Institute report Double Jeopardy focuses on two of the most pressing challenges for global policymakers: reducing global poverty and stabilizing the Earth's climate. Developed following in-depth discussions with leading experts from the climate change and development arenas, including former Vice President Al Gore and Dr. Steven Chu, the new U.S. Secretary of Energy, the report details the need for new global policies that address the interrelated nature of climate change and global poverty issues.

Parched China to slash water consumption by 60%

As rivers run dry and fields turn to dust, China has announced dramatic plans to cut water use by industry and agriculture.

Water resources minister Chen Lei said it would cut the amount of water needed to produce each dollar of GDP by 60% by 2020. With the economy on course to grow by 60% by then, that effectively means it wants to consume no more water then than today.

The announcement suggests that the government has finally decided that it cannot rely on "supply-side" solutions to water shortages, like the $60-billion south-north water transfer scheme, which is aimed at watering the arid north with water from the giant Yangtze river in the south.

It comes after China's worst drought in half a century, and increased water shortages caused by industrial pollution that makes river water unfit for drinking, even after treatment.

 Read the World Watch Institute's special report on China.

National Academies' Press

Water Information Center is a resource for scientists, managers and researchers around the world with access to over 100 water-related reports from the National Academies.

Including:

River Basin and Watershed Management

Ecological Restoration

and Environmental Assessments

Report on the World's Water

The World's Water 2008-2009 is now available

The much anticipated sixth volume in the highly regarded series, The World’s Water 2008-2009, is now available. Produced by the Pacific Institute. 

Also see an update on the Water Conflict Chronology.

Organizations: Engineers Without Borders

Engineers Without Borders - USA is a non-profit humanitarian organization established to partner with developing communities worldwide in order to improve their quality of life. This partnership involves the implementation of sustainable engineering projects, while involving and training internationally responsible engineers students.

People helping to solve the problem

Water For People helps people in developing countries improve their quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities and health and hygiene education programs.

Around the world, 884 million people do not have access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion are without adequate sanitation facilities. Every day, nearly 6,000 people who share our planet die from water-related illnesses, and the vast majority are children.

Their vision is a world where all people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation; a world where no one suffers or dies from a water- or sanitation-related disease.

Media: Flow for the Love of Water

Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.

Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

http://www.flowthefilm.com/

UN Millennium Goal #7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability

Target 7.A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources

Target 7.B: Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss

Target 7.C: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

Target 7.D: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

Read more about Goal #7

What is Integrated River Basin Management?

"Integrated river basin management (IRBM) is the process of coordinating conservation, management and development of water, land and related resources across sectors within a given river basin, in order to maximise the economic and social benefits derived from water resources in an equitable manner while preserving and, where necessary, restoring freshwater ecosystems."

Adapted from Integrated Water Resources Management, Global Water Partnership Technical Advisory Committee Background Papers, No. 4, 2000.)