As population grows and demand for food and products increase, so does our demand for water. But in the face of growing pressure on our water resources from depletion, pollution and climate change, we need to make more of what we have.

The Earth Institute’s annual donor report for fiscal year 2011 is now available in an interactive digital format. We remain committed to finding extraordinary support to unprecedented global challenges, many of which are outlined in this report. We have highlighted some of our innovative projects in research, policy, and education, as well as the partnerships that are helping to support them.

Flood relief efforts, immediate needs assessments, and coordinated damage assessments in Haiti’s Côte Sud region are underway following the rains and flooding that began October 9 and continued through October 11. The Earth Institute Haiti team, working through the CSI partnership, Millennium Village Project (MVP) sector leads, and with the Government of Haiti, are jointly… read more

Recent heavy rains and consequent flooding in Haiti’s Côte Sud region—the site of the Côte Sud Initiative (CSI) and Port-à-Piment, designated as the first Millennium Village in the Western Hemisphere— required the not yet fully formed team to leverage the CSI partnership framework to help coordinate an immediate and ultimately lifesaving emergency response. The first of a two-part blog.

Columbia scientists and affiliates from four continents came together for the first time last week to discuss global water scarcity, present solutions from their own countries, transfer knowledge and present next steps to scale up current projects.

After working with over 500 farmers last year to conduct a field experiment on the use of tensiometers to reduce irrigation in rice fields, this year they will be working with about 5,000. As part of this expansion, our program partners at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) are working with Cooperative Societies, a network of which reaches some 3,000 villages in the state.

In honor of World Water Day, Columbia Water Center is releasing a new White Paper: Addressing the Water Crisis in Gujarat, India. The paper presents the results of Columbia Water Center’s study of the severe groundwater crisis in the Mehsana region of Northern Gujarat, India. The study concludes that the current pattern of groundwater exploitation is both costly for the state and unsustainable for farmers, and could lead to the complete failure of agriculture in the area within a few years if left unchecked.

As explained in a recent blog post, falling groundwater levels in the Northern regions of the state of Gujarat, India, are reaching dramatically dangerous proportions.  Columbia Water Center (CWC), however, believes that there are numerous technologies and practices that could save significant amounts of water and energy.  Farmers have shown interest in applying them, but… read more

Last month I went to visit our Mali project site with two other Water Center staffers. We visited the village and garden where we worked last year (Koila Markala and Tibibas, respectively) and many other gardens where we hope to work in the future.

The Open Society Foundations have awarded $800,000 to the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment to promote integrated development in Timor-Leste in collaboration with the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI). Though rich in oil and gas, the island nation of Timor-Leste remains one of the least developed countries in the world.  To use its revenues… read more