water matters48
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Central Asian Water Summit
This week five leaders of Central Asian nations are holding a summit to try and achieve a solution to their bitter dispute over water use in one of the driest regions of the world. According to Reuters, the trouble over sharing water across borders has been bubbling to new heights with its growing scarcity. Presidents…
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Shriveling Rivers
The ramifications of climate change are often discussed in terms of rising sea levels, atmospheric changes, desertification, and worsening, more frequent natural disasters. Another impact of climate change could have immediate and disastrous effects on water availability both here in the US and abroad. Recent research increasingly suggests that the world’s major rivers are essentially…
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India’s “Revolution”
Last week, NPR ran a two part story on water status in Punjab state in northern India. This is an area where the Columbia Water Center is doing a lot of work, and the article hit on several themes important to us, particularly the fact that current policies, while promoting food security, have had devastating…
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Tampa Bay Water has Bleak Outlook
Tampa Bay is probably most known in the water community for having one of the largest desalinization plants in the nation, and is looked upon by many as the model to see if desal is a feasible alternative for the future. So far, the plant has been full of issues, such as costing $40 million…
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Water Center Conference: Water Security in India
Last night (Wednesday, April 15) the Water Center kicked off its conference on Water Security in India with a lecture and reception at the Asia Society in New York. Led by a formal talk given by Alok Sikka (see here for more information about Sikka and the other panelists), the evening addressed pressing water issues…
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What is the future of the Everglades?
At the beginning of April, Florida Governor Charlie Crist announced a dramatic change to the proposed plan to buy and restore a significant section of the Florida Everglades. Originially, the plan was to purchase 180,000 acres of the Everglades that is currently farmed by the United States Sugar Corporation for $1.34 billion. This was actually…
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Intelligent Infrastructure
As part of the Obama administrations’ new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, $80 billion dollars have been dedicated to investment in infrastructure. Rather than regurgitating traditional infrastructure that is based on an outdated conception of human-environment interactions, this influx of capital for infrastructure has the potential to be leveraged for innovation instead. Building Infrastructure that…
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Where is the Water-Powered Car?
This week, General Motors has been in the news as they scramble to plan for bankruptcy after the US government announced it would not grant their request for a larger financial lifeline. A year ago, however, GM was making headlines (albeit smaller ones) for their Equinox Fuel Cell— technology that promised to make the nearly…
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Renewables May Gain Momentum in Response to Water Shortages
Most of the time, when you hear about environmentalists decrying the construction of a new coal-fired power plant, their objections are in relation to localized pollution or carbon dioxide emissions. Less frequently do you hear about protests related to the vast amounts of water that are needed to keep these plants running – water that…