Group items tagged

"More than 100 environmental, social and indigenous organisations protested in the Chilean capital, Santiago, this week to demand that the state regain control of the management of water, which was privatised by the then dictatorship in 1981."

"Every inhabited continent, to varying degrees, has areas where there is extremely high water stress. These are areas where more than 80% of the local water supply is withdrawn by businesses, farmers, residents and other consumers every year. These so-called stressed areas are also the ones most vulnerable to episodic droughts. With chronic overuse of water resources, it only takes a string of years with bad rainfall or poor management decisions to plunge a region into crisis and chaos. Here's a look at seven extreme droughts that have occurred in the past decade."

"The Colorado River flows from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado through the southwestern United States. Along its route, the river passes through an elaborate water-management system designed to tame the yearly floods from spring snowmelt and to provide a reliable supply of water for residents as far away as California. The system is appreciated for the water it supplies, but criticized for the environmental problems and cultural losses that have resulted from its creation."

The government is to sell off water allocations to farmers who operate alongside the Murray-Darling river system for the first time since a deal that aims to end two decades of arguments on how to manage the resource.