The Mediterranean is a cradle — of civilization, of agriculture, of history. But the region, stretching across southern and southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, is also a…
Dams fragment rivers, endanger aquatic species, emit large amounts of carbon and methane, cause deforestation, and hurt traditional communities, but we still need their benefits. Scientific management may be the answer.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national emergency on April 18 as the death toll from floods in KwaZulu-Natal province climbed over 440, with dozens of people still missing.…
ACCRA, Ghana — White waves collide in a crash where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean near Ada Foah. Warm, tropical air hovers over Ghana's coastline – but as…
BRUSSELS — This past week, the U.K. and Western Europe were hit by a trio of powerful storms that battered the region with wind and rain, causing widespread damage to…
Three years after the collapse of a mining dam forced them from their homes in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, a small community of Pataxó and Pataxó Hãhãhãe Indigenous peoples face…
In 2017, catastrophic flooding in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, left at least 1,000 people dead and many more homeless. In a matter of minutes, mudslides wiped out homes and destroyed…
The Bolivian government has revived a long-held plan to build a hydroelectric plant in a corner of the country’s western La Paz department, sparking concerns about the potential displacement of…
BARINGO COUNTY, Kenya — Across the arid landscape of Baringo county in western Kenya, in the geologically active Great Rift Valley, the December heat is scorching. Although the Indigenous pastoralist…
The flooding of land for hydroelectric dams has affected more than one-fifth of the world’s tigers (Panthera tigris) and one in two hundred jaguars (Panthera onca), according to the findings…
PENYARINGAN, Indonesia — Stretching across Bali’s southwest coast and up into the mountainous hinterland is Jembrana, one of the least populated of the Indonesian island’s nine administrative districts. Its name…
For the second year in a row, La Niña conditions have developed across the Pacific Ocean. A climate pattern that occurs every few years, La Niña heralds broadly cooler and…
RIO BRANCO, Brazil — In the space of just a few months, entire cities and small communities in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon have faced extreme weather conditions this…
Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD), a holistic sustainable approach to water management, could give the world’s cities a viable means of dealing with the climatic shocks ahead. Cape Town and Singapore point the way.
TIMBULSLOKO, Indonesia — For Kartimah, traveling to the doctor’s office for her regular checkups is no longer such a simple journey. The trip used to be a short hop by…
Record extreme weather in the U.S., Brazil, China and elsewhere is impacting food production this year, with the future expected to be far worse. Agriculture requires “transformational change” to meet the climate crisis, say experts.
Record floods are battering the western and central Amazon, inundating Manaus and other communities and wrecking crops. To prevent future extreme weather events, deforestation and carbon emissions must be controlled.
JAKARTA — Massive deforestation for coal mines may have exacerbated floods that recently inundated the eastern part of Indonesian Borneo, the country’s coal heartland. Fourteen villages in Berau district, East…
The Aedes aegypti mosquito, with its distinctive white-spotted spindly legs, is one of our species’ most irksome foes, sucking blood and capable of spreading dangerous diseases like dengue. Attempts to control their…
JAKARTA — Hundreds of mining concessions across Indonesia lie in areas prone to earthquakes, landslides and floods, making them ticking time bombs for local communities, according to a new report.…
JAKARTA — Police in Indonesia are considering opening an investigation into allegations that a recent deadly flood in Borneo may have been exacerbated by environmental degradation linked to coal mining…
Swamps, sloughs, marshes, bogs, fens; water purification, flood control, wildlife nurseries, nutrient providers, carbon sinks: wetlands have many names and serve many environmental purposes. But for centuries they have been…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has walked back its denial that deforestation for coal mines exacerbated recently deadly flooding in southern Borneo, saying it will now push to rehabilitate abandoned…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has denied that deforestation for oil palm plantations and coal mines contributed to a recent deadly flood in southern Borneo. At least 21 people died…
JAKARTA — Recent floods that inundated large areas of the southern part of Indonesian Borneo might have been exacerbated by massive deforestation for oil palm plantations and coal mines, activists…
The planned 650 MW dam on the Rio Branco in Brazil’s Roraima state is scheduled to become operational in 2028; it could do extraordinary socio-environmental harm.
Brazil’s current 10-year Energy Expansion Plan calls for three more large dams in Amazonia by 2029, and the country’s 2050 National Energy Plan lists many more — putting the environment at risk.
JAKARTA — Newly published research has linked the spread of oil palm and rubber plantations across a watershed area of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island to worsening floods in the region. The…
Like the rainforest which takes its name, the Amazon is the largest and most biodiverse river on the planet: the Amazon carries more than five times the volume of world's…
Hundreds of dams are planned within global protected areas, a prospect that threatens people, plants and animals that rely on the lifegiving waters of free-flowing rivers. According to a first-of-its-kind…
