State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

water matters41

  • How much and how fast: Seminar on changing sea levels

    Professor Benjamin Horton shared his research on how quickly sea levels have increased over time, an important part of putting together the climate change puzzle.

  • From snow to rain? Not so much.

    In a seminar March 4th, Dr. Venkat Lakshmi presented his study showing that snowcover doesn’t directly influence the amount of precipitation during the rainy season, in the Southern Rocky Mountain Region.

  • Simplify, Simplify: CWC Seminar on predicting the affects of climate change

    Columbia Water Center Seminar Series: Murugesu Sivapalan says, “Simplify, simplify” and offers a ‘back-of-the-envelope’ method of predicting the affects of climate change on water basins.

  • Agriculture: Big Water Use, Big Water Savings

    As in much of the world, farmers in Punjab, an agricultural state known as the “breadbasket of India,” grow rice via flood irrigation.  In this method, fields are flooded with several centimeters of water in order to kill weeds.  When the water dries, the field is flooded again – up to 40 times per season.  Clearly this uses a…

  • What did you say? Saying what you mean.

    How we talk about the CWC’s work and about the complex issues we’re working with is very important, but it is often hard to give up specificity in favor of understandability. We can all use reminders about how to communicate clearly and effectively with the general public.

  • A Truce in the California Water Wars

    Nationally, the California Water Wars have been something people have been following for months.  As discussed by Water Center expert Tanya Heikkila in her September blog post “California’s other crisis,”  the state’s reservoirs had been significantly depleted and fights had been breaking out all over the state about who deserved water the most – farmers,…

  • USGS report shows water use in the USA increasingly efficient

    The US Geological Survey report, ‘Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2005’, By Joan F. Kenny, et al, released in 2009, compares recent and historical findings on water withdrawls for fresh surface water, groundwater, irrigation, thermo-electric power generation, public supply, self-supplied industrial use, and livestock, among others.

  • India: Seminar on Increasing Water Efficiency in Agriculture Sector

    Government and Industry leaders in India met last week at a national forum on water use in agriculture, organized by the Confederacy of Indian Industry. According to the press release, they were in agreement on the need to link water efficiency with agricultural production.

  • New Dept of Interior Water Strategy

    “The federal government’s existing water policies and programs simply aren’t built for 21st century pressures on water supplies,” Salazar said. “Population growth. Climate change. Rising energy demands. Environmental needs. Aging infrastructure. Risks to drinking water supplies. Those are just some of the challenges.”

Colorful banner with city: "MR 2025: Mobility, Adaptation, and Wellbeing in a Changing Climate."
  • How much and how fast: Seminar on changing sea levels

    Professor Benjamin Horton shared his research on how quickly sea levels have increased over time, an important part of putting together the climate change puzzle.

  • From snow to rain? Not so much.

    In a seminar March 4th, Dr. Venkat Lakshmi presented his study showing that snowcover doesn’t directly influence the amount of precipitation during the rainy season, in the Southern Rocky Mountain Region.

  • Simplify, Simplify: CWC Seminar on predicting the affects of climate change

    Columbia Water Center Seminar Series: Murugesu Sivapalan says, “Simplify, simplify” and offers a ‘back-of-the-envelope’ method of predicting the affects of climate change on water basins.

  • Agriculture: Big Water Use, Big Water Savings

    As in much of the world, farmers in Punjab, an agricultural state known as the “breadbasket of India,” grow rice via flood irrigation.  In this method, fields are flooded with several centimeters of water in order to kill weeds.  When the water dries, the field is flooded again – up to 40 times per season.  Clearly this uses a…

  • What did you say? Saying what you mean.

    How we talk about the CWC’s work and about the complex issues we’re working with is very important, but it is often hard to give up specificity in favor of understandability. We can all use reminders about how to communicate clearly and effectively with the general public.

  • A Truce in the California Water Wars

    Nationally, the California Water Wars have been something people have been following for months.  As discussed by Water Center expert Tanya Heikkila in her September blog post “California’s other crisis,”  the state’s reservoirs had been significantly depleted and fights had been breaking out all over the state about who deserved water the most – farmers,…

  • USGS report shows water use in the USA increasingly efficient

    The US Geological Survey report, ‘Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2005’, By Joan F. Kenny, et al, released in 2009, compares recent and historical findings on water withdrawls for fresh surface water, groundwater, irrigation, thermo-electric power generation, public supply, self-supplied industrial use, and livestock, among others.

  • India: Seminar on Increasing Water Efficiency in Agriculture Sector

    Government and Industry leaders in India met last week at a national forum on water use in agriculture, organized by the Confederacy of Indian Industry. According to the press release, they were in agreement on the need to link water efficiency with agricultural production.

  • New Dept of Interior Water Strategy

    “The federal government’s existing water policies and programs simply aren’t built for 21st century pressures on water supplies,” Salazar said. “Population growth. Climate change. Rising energy demands. Environmental needs. Aging infrastructure. Risks to drinking water supplies. Those are just some of the challenges.”