13 Water Conflict

"Emergency regulations force some communities to cut water use by as much as 36% as devastating drought enters fourth year"

"Last week drought in São Paulo was so bad, residents tried drilling through basement floors for groundwater. As reservoirs dry up across the world, a billion people have no access to safe drinking water. Rationing and a battle to control supplies will follow"

"Water regulators in California voted on Tuesday to outlaw watering the lawn within 48 hours of a rainstorm, the latest effort to spur Californians to conserve as the state enters its fourth year of drought."

It's estimated that we use 9tn cubic metres of water every year. As the global population grows, it is becoming an increasingly precious resource, with millions forced to walk for more than a mile to collect their daily supply. We investigate the innovative technologies that will help tackle our water crisis in future.

Bill Gates sipping from a glass of water doesn't sound like riveting television. But add the subtitle: "This water was human waste five minutes earlier" and people will sit up and take notice.

The recent World Economic Forum Global Risks report identifies the 10 "biggest threats to the stability of the world" over the next 10 years. These are difficult times, and the catalogue of potential threats includes many that may seem familiar, including high unemployment, war and the spread of infectious disease.

Desalination plants are crucial installations in the Arabian Gulf, providing fresh water for millions in the region to use in their everyday lives. Vast quantities of seawater are sucked into the plants, which are energy intensive and environmentally destructive.

Severe drought and water shortages are causing blackouts and threatening a range of businesses in Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo, authorities have said. Rio de Janeiro state's government warned on Friday that the Rio region was experiencing its worst-ever water crisis, while low water levels in the Paraiba do Sul river affected Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, which is suffering ts worst drought in nearly 100 years.

"From the iconic Hoover Dam of US to Mao's Three Gorges Dam in China and India's Sardar Sarovar, here is a selection of 12 mega dams of the world - but are they a boon or bane?"

"With the city slipping slowly into the lagoon and sea levels continuing to rise, the delayed €5.4bn Mose flood barrier project will be fighting the laws of nature "

"Rising population and dwindling water supplies will affect millions of people and exacerbate conflict in the region"

"About one third of Earth's large groundwater basins are being rapidly depleted by human consumption even though we have scarce and inaccurate data about how much water remains in them, according to two new studies published in June 2015 in Water Resources Research. This means significant segments of Earth's population are consuming groundwater without knowing when it might run out."

"Research shows that in some places the ground is sinking nearly two inches each month, putting infrastructure on the surface at growing risk of damage"

"Within a week, India's ministry of environment and forest finds itself committed to conducting an overall impact assessment of dams in the rivers Ganga and Brahmaputra"

"Across much of Africa, cities are growing quickly. Current projections estimate that by 2050, 60 per cent of the population will be living in urban areas - half of them in slums. Many of these people have little access to services such as clean water and sanitation, and the UN has identified fixing this as a major priority."

"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."

"Federal prosecutors say Norte Energia, the consortium building the $11bn dam, has violated agreed-to items that are endangering locals' means of survival"

"The heavily polluted Ganges in India needs a clean-up operation, but activists must honour the river's spiritual significance to succeed where others have failed"

"Researchers and citizens have known for some time that Turkey's glaciers are shrinking. Now scientists have calculated the losses and found that more than half of the ice cover in this mountainous country has vanished since the 1970s. A team of researchers from Ege University (Turkey) and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center analyzed four decades of "

"Now in its fourth year, the drought in California has reached record-breaking levels of dryness, with more than half of the state under the most severe level of drought. In some of the hardest hit communities, taps have run completely dry, leaving hundreds of households with no access to running water. On April 1, Gov. Jerry Brown announced the first mandatory water restrictions in California history."