Water Scarcity News

People seldom think of wet soil until they step in it, but the Earth’s soggy places quietly do the work of legions: holding together coasts, giving shelter to young fish,…

When Hans Peter Lankes, a top official at the International Finance Corporation, visited Madagascar in February, he made it a point to tour the IFC-backed BoViMa facility near the southern…

It's freezing cold. The wind whistles. A gentle drizzle falls from the sky, and the ground wheezes like a soaked sponge with every step. It is an inhospitable and at…

JAKARTA — The Waladuna mosque is submerged in a meter of seawater, about 3 feet deep. It’s low tide in northern Jakarta. During high tide, the water creeps up to…

New research finds that if humans carry on with business as usual and the environmental degradation that results, we will pay a steep price — quite literally. Researchers with WWF,…

Local forest managers in southeastern Mexico are sounding the alarm that their livelihoods are under threat, as companies press for access to the region’s gold, silver and other minerals. “They…

This article is the last of a two-part series on the Kaliwa Dam project. Part One: Controversial dam gets greenlight to flood a Philippine protected area GENERAL NAKAR, Philippines —…

This is the first article in a two-part series on the Kaliwa Dam project. GENERAL NAKAR, Philippines — In the barangay, or village, of Lumutan, the Dumagat-Remontados tribe speaks of…

CIBULAO, Indonesia — A light drizzle falls outside Kiryono's home as he peers at the thermostat on a coffee roaster. The 39-year-old's green robusta harvest absorbs the heat in the…

The world is in a slow-moving, persistent water crisis. Rapidly rising water usage, increasingly uncertain rainfall, and widespread water pollution push more of our world into water stress and intensify…

KENDARI, Indonesia — Next year will mark the completion of a nearly mile-long bridge being built over this booming industrial city’s iconic bay, say government officials here. But researchers studying…

The climate crisis is bringing extreme storms, drought and temperatures to the High Plains, even as U.S. administrations from Clinton to Trump have withdrawn aid to reservations.

Deforestation can reduce communities’ access to clean drinking water, according to a recent study conducted in Malawi. A lot of prior research on how deforestation impacts water dynamics has shown…

With India just a few weeks away from the general elections, a new survey has shed light on what the country's voters want. The survey, released by the NGO Association…

This month’s nationwide blackout forced citizens to deforest parks for firewood, to pull water from polluted rivers, and resulted in the death of hospitalized babies and endangered wildlife.

There’s another world beneath the soil of Central Texas, one that is dark, wet, and mysterious. It’s an isolated kingdom ruled by a unique group of underground salamanders. Now, new…

LA GUAJIRA, Colombia — “It was beautiful here,” said Mariella. “There were crops, flowers, animals. There was life.” Mariella is an indigenous Wayuu from the community of Wasimo in the dusty desert…

HO CHI MINH CITY – Earlier this month the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a new report on the potential impacts of a 1.5C rise in global temperatures…

African elephants use areas of grassland, bushland, and woodland, but how do they move through these different vegetation types in different seasons, especially where water becomes a seasonally scarce resource?…

Australia’s Murray Darling basin covers more than a million square kilometers, 14 percent of the country’s landmass. It’s the site of tens of thousands of wetlands, but increasing demand for…

As secret negotiations progress and Donald Trump threatens to walk away from NAFTA, trade experts ask how to make the agreement better for people and planet.

GAZA CITY – Red-faced and with his hair still wet, Hani Abu Amirah's grandson sobbed as he shuffled over to where she sat, looking out on the Mediterranean Sea from…

MEXICO CITY – Strolling through the forest under a canopy of pine trees along a path lined with shaggy native grass, Agustín Martínez Villarreal pauses to point out signs that…

In an uncertain world, UNESCO’s environmental, sustainability and peace programs benefit all nations; Trump’s U.S. pullout most deeply hurts Americans, say experts.

As Trump firms build golf courses in Southeast Asia, imitating the Scottish landscape where the game was born, tropical habitat and aquifers are put at risk, according to environmentalists.

USAID has improved rural climate change resilience since 2013; now the U.S. may cut that lifeline, with dire results for Zimbabwe’s poorest.

Over at the California Water Blog, UC Davis fish biologists Peter Moyle and Jason Baumsteiger observe that two species of California fish — one small and the other big —…

Located on the Siretsy river delta in Papua’s Asmat district is the picturesque hamlet of Yepem, the 655 residents of this coastal enclave on the shore of the Arafura Sea…

CORREGO GRANDE RESERVE, Brazil - Brazil’s southeast coastal state of Espírito Santo is rapidly heading toward desertification. In just a few decades, the region has gone from being one of…

On the eastern Indonesian island of Flores, verdant bamboo groves and thickets of tall mahogany and teak trees today carpet once bare hills. The young forest is the handiwork of…