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Poor water management, urban encroachment and biological epidemics are threatening the sustainability of Tunisia’s oases.

Three types of oases can be found in Tunisia: continental oases, including Tozeur and Kbilli, littoral oases such as Gabes, and mountain oases in towns like Tamaghza.

Despite centuries of human activity in Tunisian oases, intensive agricultural production, combined with increased demands from industry, tourism and urban populations are threatening the sustainability of these ecosystems, leading to potential environmental, economic and social problems.

WWF named Qatar as the country with the largest ecological footprint, followed by its Gulf Arab neighbours Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates

Denmark and the United States made up the remaining top five, calculated by comparing the renewable resources consumed against the earth's regenerative capacity.

"We are living as if we have an extra planet at our disposal,"

The problem with the headline about vegetarianism is that it suggests that the world is one unit, and that somehow resource constraints would affect the world in a more or less uniform way. Barring the emergence of some centralized global government, this won’t happen. Some people will always be able to afford meat and will consume it. In 50 years, some people will probably still eat as much as modern Americans. The question is how are we going to create a world that is food secure for billions. I’m very confident that we will go through multiple advances in crop science, etc. that will allow us to feasibly grow more than enough food for 9 billion people. Imagine 6-10 tonnes of harvest per hectare. I’m 100% a techno-optimist in that regard. I’m not, however, optimistic that we are guaranteed to sort out how to ensure that people are food secure, meaning that the food that is produced can reach people who have the purchasing power to acquire it. Ultimately, “food security of billions” will boil down to the ability of those billions to purchase  what they can’t grow themselves, and that is a complicated issue that was addressed by Malin Falkenmark in her talk(s), but by very few others

understanding how governments, private entities, etc. induce changes in human behavior. Governments tend to use the strong arm of the law, rather than creative incentives. Private companies on the other hand, have a very well-practiced and nuanced marketing sense, because they have to if they want consumers to purchase their products. Its surprising to me then that Nestle and PepsiCo the two mega-large corporate sponsors/ participants in this year’s World Water Week didn’t collaborate and host a special session on human behavior change, in a very applied practical sense

I’m excited by a “new” effort to develop an international standard method (ISO) for water footprinting assessments. I was at first fascinated by the idea of looking at “embedded water” in products, also known as the virtual water content of a product. A popular quote is 1000 litres of water to make 1 litre of milk, or 16000 litres of water for 1 kilogram of beef. National Geographic has created posters, and World Water Week’s corridors had large displays showing us how much water was required to make various food items and beverages. However, what does any of that mean? In what context was that beef grown? Are you assuming it was grain fed on a feedlot or grass fed in a country hillside? Are these beef cattle eating grain grown in tropical drylands (e.g. the Sahel in Africa), or temperate rainy areas (i.e. the Pacific Northwest of the USA)? Those details can make the difference between completely unsustainable and completely sustainable methods of food production. If the ISO standard can serve to improve the transparency and usefulness of the concept of water footprinting, then that would be an important achievement.

a Pacific gray whale was spotted last year off the coasts of Spain and Israel. Scientists believe the ice-reduced Arctic allowed it to cross into the North Atlantic, from where it wandered its way to the Mediterranean Sea

“Whoever cuts a branch from my forest, I will cut his head,” Sultan Mehmed II, who led the Ottomans into Istanbul, is said to have ordered in the 1400s. Today, thousands of trucks carrying soil and construction materials kick up dust along the roads north of Istanbul, depleting those forests that had been protected by sultans for five centuries.

Canal Istanbul (also called Istanbul Kanal), a massive shipping canal meant to route traffic from the Bosporus some 18 miles (30 kilometers) to the east. The homes alongside the new seaway will be replaced with upscale residential and commercial areas. With construction set to start there any day now, real estate speculators descend on the area, clamoring for locals to sell them their land

When completed, the canal will turn the densest part of the city, including its historic center, into an island. The area also straddles one of the world’s most active fault lines.

Instead of drilling wells or purifying seawater, it will wring moisture from the air to create bottled water at a plant 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Dubai

Zero Mass Water, will use renewable energy instead of the fossil fuels that power the many desalination facilities in Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates

Zero Mass isn’t going to rival bulk water processors any time soon. It will initially only be able to produce up to 2.3 million litres annually - about the volume of a typical Olympic swimming pool. The technology is still much more expensive than desalination for the same output of water. So Zero Mass’s will be in the same bracket as imported, high-end brands such as Evian and Fiji

Nur Energy, a collaboration between the British solar plant developer NurEnergie and Tunisian investors, recently held a conference in Tunis announcing the commencement of construction on the world’s biggest solar energy export project.

Privileged by its proximity to Europe and an abundance of renewable natural resources, North Africa could play a central role in an envisioned integrated electrical network joining Europe and the Middle East. Consisting of solar, wind, and hydroelectric means of electrical production, the backbone of this network would be the sun-soaked deserts of North Africa.

“The countries of North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe are facing the challenge of giving future generations access to clean and sustainable energy. Thanks to the complementarity of their renewable resources and their seasonal demand for energy, these regions make ideal partners

the developed world tends to be profligate in its use of natural resources, because most western companies have in the last century experienced few limits on their ability to access raw materials in peacetime, thanks to the opening up of global trade

The failure of businesses, individuals and governments to improve their efficiency, even by relatively small amounts, has been one of the conundrums for resource economists in recent years. According to standard economic thinking, rising prices should prompt more efficiency, but this has happened at a much slower rate than should have been the case.

This obsession with perpetual economic growth (whether it's coming from consumer capitalism, nationalist industry expansion, or whatever) is a hideous destructive beast which must be slain, and quickly.

"On this International Day, we stress the critical importance of protecting the environment in times of armed conflict and restoring the good governance of natural resources during post-conflict reconstruction. We also recognize the important role that natural resources play in supporting the livelihoods and resilience of all members of society, especially women, and the implications of sustainable natural resource management for conflict prevention and peace." Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

the environment has often remained the unpublicized victim of war.Water wells have been polluted, crops torched, forests cut down, soils poisoned, and animals killed to gain military advantage

over the last 60 years, at least 40 percent of all internal conflicts have been linked to the exploitation of natural resources, whether high-value resources such as timber, diamonds, gold and oil, or scarce resources such as fertile land and water. Conflicts involving natural resources have also been found to be twice as likely to relapse