Archive for the 'desertification' Category

Encroaching Deserts Threaten Life Along Tibet’s Longest River

Published on 03/02/2012 in agriculture, climate change, desertification, drought, glaciers, hydrology, hydropower, peak water, rivers and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Photo retrieved from: www.trust.org

“Rising temperatures, reduced rainfall and excessive numbers of grazing animals are worsening desertification and drying up grasslands in western Tibet, says a Chinese geologist who has explored one of the region’s uncharted rivers.

Yang Yong said he had observed desertification in parts of the upper reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, and believes this could be caused by climate change as well as human activity.

The Yarlung Zangbo (also called the Yarlung Tsangpo) is Tibet’s largest river, originating in the west of the region. Along its 2,057 km (1,286 mile) length, it passes through India, where it is known as the Dihang and the Brahmaputra, and Bangladesh, where it is called the Jamuna.”

Read more: AlertNet

 

lily victoria

Africa’s great ‘water grab’

Published on 12/03/2011 in agriculture, deforestation, desertification, displacement of people, drought, erosion, hydrology, policy, rivers, water rights, water shortage, water wars and world water supply. 0 Comments

The banks of the Niger river, in southern Mali, have been flooded by a steady stream of foreigners. Coveted by foreign investors eager to snap up large tracts of fertile farmland, the river basin has been at the centre of a race to get hold of African land at rock-bottom prices. Meanwhile, last week, hundreds of smallholder farmers and civil society activists flocked to the same river basin for the first international conference to tackle the global rush for land.

West Africa‘s largest river, the Niger is thought to sustain over 100 million people as it snakes 4,180km through Guinea, Mali and Niger before emptying into Nigeria’s colossal Niger Delta. In Mali, the Office du Niger is home to the vast majority of the country’s largescale land deals, seen by campaigners as emblematic of the “land grabs” taking place in developing countries. Recent estimates suggest that foreign investment in Mali’s limited arable land jumped by 60% between 2009 and 2010. But the potential knock-on effects of these land deals on local communities’ access to water has rarely made it centre-stage.

Ongoing research from the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development seeks to redress this blindspot, honing in on how such land deals might affect water access for fishing, farming and pastoralist communities. In a policy paper out on Thursday, the IIED’s Jamie Skinner and Lorenzo Cotula warn that an alarming number of African governments seem to be signing away water rights for decades, with major implications for local communities.

Read More: The Guardian

 

jenna cavelle

Critics blast Las Vegas pipeline proposal

Published on 11/20/2011 in desertification, management, uncategorized and water diversions. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Retrieved from: blog spot

“An attorney for the LDS Church called a proposal for tapping ground water in the dry regions of Nevada and pumping it to Las Vegas a disaster with good intentions.

“It’s the cotton candy of good intentions with nothing good at its core,” attorney Paul Hermonskie said Friday. “It does not provide the protection my client must have.”

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is just one of hundreds of protestors who have lined up against the proposal for tapping groundwater aquifers in eastern Nevada. Hermonskie was among several who testified Friday’s closing hearing convened by the Nevada State Engineer’s Office. Hearings first began in September in which hundreds of documents were submitted and more than 80 people have testified.

“At issue is the divisive proposal by the Southern Nevada Water Authority to take ground water so it can supply the future needs of customers in the Las Vegas area. As many as 126,000 acre-feet of groundwater would be tapped to fill the proposed 300-mile, $3.5 billion pipeline that proponents say is necessary to keep the tourism industry — and the economy — of Las Vegas and Nevada afloat.

“The authority is seeking water right applications for a pipeline delivery system that has been the target of controversy because of concerns it would deplete ground water supplies in the arid region.”

Read more: Desert News

sammykayed

Holy Water: A precious commodity in a region of conflict

Published on 11/09/2011 in agriculture, desertification, groundwater, hydrology, policy, rivers, wastewater, water diversions, water shortage and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.aljazeera.net

“IN ISRAEL, not far from the place where Jesus is said to have walked on water and fed thousands with just five loaves of bread and two fish, government engineers have performed a miracle of their own—they’ve made a river disappear. The Jordan River leaves the Sea of Galilee on its way to the Dead Sea in a slow laze past a series of campsites to a concrete complex, beside which white-robed pilgrims submerge themselves in its waters. From there, it pushes onward, winding through olive groves, farmers’ fields, and patches of brushwoods. Then, suddenly, it stops. At a pumping station less than three kilometers from the river’s source, five broad green pipes dip like elephant trunks to suck the water out. Beyond this point, the river has been reduced to less than 2 percent of its original flow.

The disappearance of the Jordan River, much like the area’s dropping aquifers, is a symptom of the struggle for water that has shaped the modern Middle East. The flow of a river that once irrigated the fields of the West Bank has been channeled through pipes, pumps, and canals to gush from the taps in Tel Aviv, and to “make the desert bloom” in the Negev. This diversion of water may be a technical marvel, but it’s emptying rivers and leaving critical aquifers dangerously susceptible to the intrusion of salt water and raw sewage.”

Read more: Orion Magazine

 

lily victoria

Vegas tries to kick its water addiction

Published on 09/05/2011 in desertification, hydrology, lakes, solutions and outreach, water conservation and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

“At first glance, it’s pretty easy to say Las Vegas has an unhealthy water fetish. There’s the 22-million-gallon Bellagio fountain, which rockets dancing cylinders of well water 500 feet into the air to the tune of “God Bless the USA.” There’s the liquid volcano at The Mirage, where water seems to bubble like lava. And, finally, the blue canals inside (inside!) the Venetian hotel, where water buoys gondolas for the amusement of gamblers and tourists.

“Keep in mind that this city is in the middle of the Mojave Desert, one of the hottest and driest places in the world.

“Step off reality-defiant Las Vegas Boulevard with its neon-soaked casinos and lavish “water features” and you’ll find a place that gets only 4 inches of rain in an average year — where the air is so dry that tourists keep lip balm and eye drops close at hand to avoid getting “lizard lips” and, generally, having all life-giving moisture vacuum-sucked right out of them. It’s a place where workers plant rocks instead of vegetation beside the roads, because you don’t have to water rocks, and water is one resource this manufactured oasis certainly doesn’t have in spades.

“Throw in a population boom, record drought, and climate change that scientists say will make such droughts more common in the future, and you’ve got the recipe for a water obsession that threatens Vegas’ very existence.”

Read more: CNN

jenna cavelle

Police Beat, Tie-Up, and Fire On Citizens Protesting Dying Ramsar Protected Lake in Iran

Published on 08/30/2011 in agriculture, climate change, contaminated water, dams, desertification, drought, lakes, management, nuclear power, peak water and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Lake Urmia protests. Retrieved from: www.greenprophet.com

“Like a chain of dominos, citizen protests are erupting everywhere: following the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions catalyzed in part by skyrocketing food prices, political protests have swept throughout the Arab world. But it hasn’t stopped there, and not all battles are political.

In Jordan, ordinary people are protesting government plans to include nuclear power in its arsenal of energy sources, while in the United States, Bill McKibben and other well-respected community members, including Jim Hansen from NASA, have been arrested for marching against the Keystone XL Pipeline –  a carbon bomb that climatologists say would officially end the battle against climate change (humanity 0 vs. climate change 7 billion). But none of these latter environmental events has garnered such an extreme response as the Lake Orumiyeh protests in Iran, where bloggers report that people are being arrested, beaten, and in some cases tied to trees for protesting the slow death of the world’s second largest salt lake.

Dried up Mecca

In part because of drought and in part because of poorly managed dam construction and irrigation projects, Lake Orumiyeh or Urmia in Northwestern Iran has shrunk to roughly 60% of its original size. Once a mecca for flamingos and other wildlife, the dying lake now more closely resembles a dusty moonscape.

Residents in Azerbaijan that rely on the Ramsar protected site for their sustenance claim that Revolutionary Guards are responsible for shrinking lake levels and the subsequent rise in salinity and decrease in biodiversity. Global Voices claims that if Lake Urmia dries up completely, millions of people will have to settle elsewhere.”

Read more: Green Prophet

 

 

lily victoria

Expanding Deserts, Falling Water Tables and Toxins Driving People from Homes

Published on 08/24/2011 in aquatic ecosystems, climate change, desertification, drought, groundwater, hydrology, peak water, tap water, water shortage, water wars and world water supply. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.commondreams.org

“People do not normally leave their homes, their families, and their communities unless they have no other option. Yet as environmental stresses mount, we can expect to see a growing number of environmental refugees. Rising seas and increasingly devastating storms grab headlines, but expanding deserts, falling water tables, and toxic waste and radiation are also forcing people from their homes.

Advancing deserts are now on the move almost everywhere. The Sahara desert, for example, is expanding in every direction. As it advances northward, it is squeezing the populations of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria against the Mediterranean coast.

The Sahelian region of Africa – the vast swath of savannah that separates the southern Sahara desert from the tropical rainforests of central Africa – is shrinking as the desert moves southward. As the desert invades Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, from the north, farmers and herders are forced southward, squeezed into a shrinking area of productive land.”

Read more: Common Dreams

 

lily victoria

Drought Just One Example of Africa’s Changing Environment

Published on 07/18/2011 in agriculture, aquatic ecosystems, climate change, deforestation, desertification, displacement of people, drought, hydrology, peak water and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.reuters.com

“As a prolonged, severe drought puts 10 million people at risk in East Africa, humanitarian agencies are hard-pressed to supply enough food and water. Crops have been destroyed, farmland damaged, seeds consumed as food and livestock sold so families can survive. Thousands of people have migrated to neighboring countries hoping to find relief. They often just find more of the same.

The U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) has issued warnings for years on the affects of potential climate change, deforestation and the loss of grasslands and wetlands.

“This is not a new phenomenon. I mean we seem to be seeing the increasing frequency over recent years these kinds of events,” said Nick Nuttall, chief spokesman for UNEP, which is based Nairobi.

While droughts are not definitive proof of climate change, Nuttall said,” “It certainly is part of environmental change, which is happening in the Horn of Africa, but also happening across Africa in terms of land quality…availability of fresh water, in terms of more frequent drought and floods.”

Read more: VOA News

 

lily victoria

Oroumieh Lake, Iran’s Largest, Turning To Salt

Published on 05/26/2011 in agriculture, climate change, dams, desertification, drought, lakes, management and policy. 0 Comments Tags: .

An abandoned ship is stuck in the solidified salts of the Oroumieh Lake, some 370 miles (600 kilometers) northwest of the capital Tehran, Iran. Retrieved from: www.huffingtonpost.com

“From a hillside, Kamal Saadat looked forlornly at hundreds of potential customers, knowing he could not take them for trips in his boat to enjoy a spring weekend on picturesque Oroumieh Lake, the third largest saltwater lake on earth.

“Look, the boat is stuck… It cannot move anymore,” said Saadat, gesturing to where it lay encased by solidifying salt and lamenting that he could not understand why the lake was fading away.

The long popular lake, home to migrating flamingos, pelicans and gulls, has shrunken by 60 percent and could disappear entirely in just a few years, experts say – drained by drought, misguided irrigation policies, development and the damming of rivers that feed it.

Until two years ago, Saadat supplemented his income from almond- and grape-growing by taking tourists on boat tours. But as the lake receded and its salinity rose, he found he had to stop the boat every 10 minutes to unfoul the propeller – and finally, he had to give up this second job that he’d used to support a five-member family.

“The visitors were not enjoying such a boring trip,” he said, noting they had to cross hundreds of meters of salty lakebed just to reach the boat from the wharf.”

Read more: Huffington Post

 

lily victoria

WA dams set to dry up by summer’s end, expert warns

Published on 05/25/2011 in desertification, drought, hydrology and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: ABC

“Perth’s drinking water supplies from dams will run out by the end of next summer even with decent rainfall, according to predictions by the Centre for Water Research.

“By then, Perth and the South-West would become solely reliant on water supplied from the already stressed Gnangara Mound aquifer and the Kwinana desalination plant, director Jorg Imberger said.

“Even using an optimistic calculation that 35 gigalitres (35 billion litres) of rainwater would flow into the city’s dams – far greater than the 13 gigalitres last year – the dams would run dry.

“(Even) given recycled water, less water use, pumping the surface aquifer at Gnangara Mound a little bit more and hoping for rain, we’ll basically have no water left at the end of summer 2012,” Professor Imberger said.

“The comments confer with the national Climate Commissioners First Report released yesterday, which warns that water availability will be at great risk before the end of the century due to changing rainfall patterns.

“WA’s South-West region was already “drying out” and all projections showed no improvement, the report by Professor Will Steffen said.”

Read more:  SMH

sammykayed