LeakBird

(March 16, 2009, The Environment News Service)
Global demand for water is greater today than it has ever been and demand will increase in the future, thousands of delegates to the Fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul heard at their opening session today. Driving the demand for water are population growth and mobility, rising living standards, [...]

(March 4, 2009, Robert Glennon, The Huffington Post)
Drought has prompted California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state emergency. Water agencies are preparing to impose mandatory water rationing. We’re all hoping that melting snow in the Sierra will save the state’s farmers and city dwellers from hardship.
But once rain starts to fall – and it [...]

(March 8, 2009, The Fresno Bee)
It is China’s latest grand attempt to tame nature. Three canals will bring water hundreds of miles to Beijing and other thirsty cities in the north. More than 350,000 people in the way will be forced to move.
For many in Zhangyigang, a village of 942 people in brick and mud [...]

(Feb. 27, 2009, Reuters)
“The south has plenty of water and the north lacks it, so if possible why not borrow some?” China’s revolutionary communist leader Mao Zedong said in 1952.
That probably seemed a great idea at the time.
But it is causing pollution as well as discontent among farmers facing forced resettlement to make way for a mammoth construction to [...]

(Feb. 27, 2009, The Los Angeles Times)
With California’s budget crisis resolved for the moment, state lawmakers Thursday turned their attention to another emergency: a three-year drought that has left key reservoirs at 35% of capacity.
Legislators stepped forward with plans to ask voters to borrow as much as $15 billion for projects to expand and improve [...]

(Feb. 22, 2009, RedOrbit)
California’s primary source of irrigation water is projected to go dry in 2009 due to drought, idling more than 60,000 workers and up to 1 million acres of farmland, federal officials said Friday.
California water officials declared a zero allocation policy for farmers who purchase water from the federally managed Central Valley Project [...]

(Feb. 17, 2009, CentralAsia, ForeignPolicyBlogs)
In contrast to its neighboring countries with vast oil and gas resources, Tajikistan has the most important resource in the world; large reserves of fresh water. Some of this water is now being used for a single dam, the Nurek, which provides the country’s electricity. Unfortunately, the dam alone cannot provide [...]

(Feb. 12, 2009, Ken Pomeranz, The China Beat)
The Chinese droughts have just begun to move onto the front pages of the world’s newspapers, but the droughts are just the latest sign of much more dire warnings of water woes in China. Some China experts are talking about this (see, for instance, today’s event at the [...]

(Jan. 27, 2009, The Kansas City Star)
America’s roads, public transit and aviation have gotten worse in the past four years. Water and sewage systems are dreadful. The basic physical backbone of American society is barely above failing, a report by top engineers says.
It’ll cost $2.2 trillion to fix America’s ailing infrastructure, according to highlights of [...]

(Jan. 13, 2009, Pacific Institute)
Are we running out of water?
“Is there such a thing as ‘peak water’? There is a vast amount of water on the planet—but we are facing a crisis of running out of sustainably managed water,” said Dr. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. “Humans already appropriate over 50% of [...]

(Jan. 18, 2009, Aguanomics)
I’ve had several emails from people describing how important water is to their community’s culture and lifestyle.
Water has defined us for eons. Water determined where we lived (London, San Francisco, Mumbai, etc.); what we ate (fish or camel? cactus or watermelon?); the location of our borders; and so on…
It is thus [...]