As rapidly increasing water scarcity threatens to aggravate the effects of climate change on agriculture in the dry areas of the Middle East and other developing countries, scientists launched this week an ambitious seven-country project, which offers new hope for farmers in the face of acute and growing water shortages.

Gathering in Amman, Jordan, for a global conference on food security and climate change in dry areas, experts reported that improved irrigation techniques in rainfed cropping will allow farmers to more than double their wheat yields using only one-third the water they would use with full irrigation; the new methods have been shown to boost farmers’ yields up to five-fold over those crops which relied on rainfall only. Such innovative strategies could provide a much-needed lift to livelihoods in dry areas in the developing world, home to almost 25 percent of the world’s population.

For full article, visit:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/bc-sut020210.php

Water is the new oil, and we’re running out. How did this happen, and what can we do about it?

The lack of water is no longer just a problem in the arid West. Drought, contaminated groundwater, overuse, and more have affected water supplies from Massachusetts to California, from Georgia to Wisconsin.

Aqua Shock is a clear-eyed, objective look at how we arrived at this crisis point. Find out what’s happening to America’s shrinking water supply: the problems, the players, the complexities, and the possible solutions.

For full article, visit:
http://refugewest.blogspot.com/2010/02/water-crisis-in-america.html

Thanks to Bill Geohagen for this article from the New York Times.
———————–

The drought that gripped the Southeast from 2005 to 2007 was not unprecedented and resulted from random weather events, not global warming, Columbia University researchers have concluded. They say its severe water shortages resulted from population growth more than rainfall patterns.

The researchers, who report their findings in an article in Thursday’s issue of The Journal of Climate, cite census figures showing that in Georgia alone the population rose to 9.54 million in 2007 from 6.48 million in 1990.

“At the root of the water supply problem in the Southeast is a growing population,” they wrote.

For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com

Water scarcity as a result of climate change will create far-reaching global security concerns, says Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chair of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Pachauri spoke this morning at the 2009 Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN

“At one level the world’s water is like the world’s wealth. Globally, there is more than enough to go round. The problem is that some countries get a lot more than others,” he says. “With 31 percent of global freshwater resources, Latin America has 12 times more water per person than South Asia. Some places, such as Brazil and Canada, get far more water than they can use; others, such as countries in the Middle East, get much less than they need.”

For full article, visit:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091006155858.htm

Thanks to Mary de Lavalette for this article.
————————-

Even as drought kills off Yemen’s crops, farmers in villages like this one are turning increasingly to a thirsty plant called qat, the leaves of which are chewed every day by most Yemeni men (and some women) for their mild narcotic effect. The farmers have little choice: qat is the only way to make a profit.

Meanwhile, the water wells are running dry, and deep, ominous cracks have begun opening in the parched earth, some of them hundreds of yards long.

“They tell us it’s because the water table is sinking so fast,” said Muhammad Hamoud Amer, a worn-looking farmer who has lost two-thirds of his peach trees to drought in the past two years. “Every year we have to drill deeper and deeper to get water.”

For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009

Thanks to Fred Stanback for this article. See his comment at the end of the article.
————————-

One type of vehicle is always within sight on Yemen’s roads: the water truck.

The brightly coloured, dilapidated tankers, often driven by Kalashnikov-wielding tribesmen, travel winding mountain roads and cross deserts to bring Yemenis a commodity more precious than petrol. It is one that increasingly only the rich can afford, with supply through the water mains regularly cut off. Others must rely on scarce rain, charity or crime to stave off thirst.

Yemen is set to be the first country in the world to run out of water, providing a taste of the conflict and mass movement of populations that may spread across the world if population growth outstrips natural resources.

For full article, visit:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6883051.ece

Thanks to Fred Stanback for this article.
———————–

The World Economic Forum (WEF) issued a report (pdf file) warning that in less than 20 years the world may face a water bankruptcy of fresh water shortages so huge and pervasive that “global food production could crater” as the world could “lose the equivalent of the entire grain production of the US and India combined.” The report warns that half of our global population will be affected by water shortages, millions will die, and water wars will increase over shrinking supplies. The gravity of the water crisis is exacerbated by the interrelationship between water and economic growth, political stability, health, food, alternative energy, climate change, human rights and life itself.

For full article, visit:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/26/211428/517

Thanks to Fred Meyerson for this article. The article points to population growth leading to increasing water uses and falling water tables.
———————–

Eli Raz was peering into a narrow hole in the Dead Sea shore when the earth opened up and swallowed him. Fearing he would never be found alive in the 30-foot- deep pit, he scribbled his will on an old postcard.

After 14 hours a search party pulled him from the hole unhurt, and five years later the 69-year-old geologist is working to save others from a similar fate, leading an effort to map the sinkholes that are spreading on the banks of the fabled saltwater lake.

These underground craters can open up in an instant, sucking in whatever lies above and leaving the surrounding area looking like an earthquake zone.

For full article, visit:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel

From IDS Knowledge Services. See http://eldis.org/vfile/upload/1/document/0907/Horizon_Briefing_1_final.pdf

“Is population growth the elephant in the (development) room? Some commentators assert it is the most pertinent development issue the world faces, but one which policy makers – for fear of impinging ‘human rights’ – are unwilling to address. What is certain, however, is that unchecked population growth places an ‘ever-increasing’ strain on finite global resources.”

Population Growth Environment and Food Security Horizon Briefing (PDF, 466 KB)

Thanks to Lester Brown for this article.
———————

In April 2005, the World Food Programme and the Chinese government jointly announced that food aid shipments to China would stop at the end of the year. For a country where a generation ago hundreds of millions of people were chronically hungry, this was a landmark achievement. Not only has China ended its dependence on food aid, but almost overnight it has become the world’s third largest food aid donor.

The key to China’s success was the economic reforms in 1978 that dismantled its system of agricultural collectives, known as production teams, and replaced them with family farms. In each village, the land was allocated among families, giving them long-term leases on their piece of land. The move harnessed the energy and ingenuity of China’s rural population, raising the grain harvest by half from 1977 to 1986. With its fast-expanding economy raising incomes, with population growth slowing, and with the grain harvest climbing, China eradicated most of its hunger in less than a decade–in fact, it eradicated more hunger in a shorter period of time than any country in history.

For full article, visit:
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch09_ss1.htm