Water Scarcity News

Seven billion people inhabit the planet and all require food and water, but less than one percent of the water found on the planet is fresh and accessible and 70…

How a sample payment for ecosystem services project works. Click to enlarge. Unlike cars, hamburgers, and computers, clean drinking water is a requirement for human survival. In a bid to…

Loita hills forest in Kenya. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Kenya's forests provide greater services and wealth to the nation when they are left standing. A landmark report by The…

Pastoruri Glacier. Photo by: Edubucher/Wikimedia Commons. Glaciers are melting faster than ever in the tropical Andes, warns a new study published in The Cryosphere, which puts the blame for vanishing…

Mwamanongu Village water source in Tanzania.. Photo by: Bob Metcalf. This summer, while climate change silence reigned in the U.S. presidential race, the Stockholm International Water Institute's conference for World…

A fisherman on the Mekong River in Laos. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Fish are a hugely important protein source for many people around the world. This is no more…

Drought has created a standoff over water supplies in the U.S. Midwest between energy producers and farmers, reports Bloomberg. Natural gas and oil producers have been forced to seek new…

An interview with the Nature Conservancy's China Program. TNC staff and volunteers repairing signage at Meili Snow Mountain National Park in northwest Yunnan. Community benefits and ecotourism are at the…

Suburban sprawl in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The average American's ecological footprint is the fifth highest in the world. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Human society is consuming natural resources as if…

As a part of PBS' new series Coping with Climate Change reporters visit several towns in Texas which has suffered unprecedented drought beginning in 2010. The drought, which climatologists say…

Turkey's stunning landscapes and wildlife are under threat due to government ambivalence. Here, the sun sets outside Igdir, Turkey. Photo by: Cagan Sekercioglu. Turkey: the splendor of the Hagia Sophia,…

Access to clean water is most difficult in Africa. Here a woman in Tanzania gathers water from a hole in a riverbed. Photo by: Bob Metcalf. Over the past two…

Victories won by activists around the world tops our list of the big environmental stories of the year. In this photo: a young woman is placed in handcuffs and arrested…

The Turkana tribe of northern Kenya are buffeted by constant drought and food insecurity, which recent research says may be worsening due to climate change. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.…

Not too long ago policy-makers, scientists, and environmentalists saw biofuels as a significant tool to provide sustainable energy to the world. However, as it became clear that biofuels were not…

The UN-backed Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) is urging nations to conserve their forests in a bid to mitigate rising water scarcity problems. "[Forests] reduce the effects of floods, prevent…