Water

• [New] Due to climate change, population growth, increasing urbanisation etc., many lakes, rivers, wetlands and coastal basins globally are becoming more stressed from pollution, depleting water resources, global warming, increased floods and droughts, and increasing ecological and biological disruptions.
• [New] China's solar-powered vehicle, about the size of a golf cart, will collect data on underground water and look for evidence that the planet may have once harbored microscopic life.
• [New] Availability of safe drinking water is at risk due to global challenges such as rapid urbanisation and changing weather patterns.
• [New] Joseph and Campti warned of poisoned water for years, to Texas, where little has been done to build reliable water systems for people living in low-income border communities.
• [New] The widespread failures in Texas reflect the domino effect that happens in many disasters, as power failures lead to breakdowns in water systems, putting people's health and food security in danger.
• [New] The Mexican irrigation infrastructure has additional opportunities to improve water-use inefficiency and improve soil health.
• [New] As part of the Sustainable Hawai' i Initiative, the State of Hawai' i' s Division of Aquatic Resources leads the Marine 30 x30 Initiative, which committed to effectively manage Hawaii's nearshore waters with 30% established as marine management areas by 2030.
• [New] Memphis Light Gas and Water customers will need to continue to boil their drinking water and conserve water for the foreseeable future.
• [New] In summer the water consumption in Delhi has increased, but the Central government is going to stop the water of Beas river for a month by closing the Nangal Hydel Channel.
• [New] If water and wastewater systems failed in communities across multiple states or US regions, the societal consequences and risk to the lives and safety of affected populations would be difficult to overestimate.
• [New] Today, more than two billion people lack access to safe drinking water at home, and by 2025 more than two-thirds of the world's population will reside in water-stressed areas.
• [New] More than 10% of Americans live within 50 miles of the Long Island Sound's shores, where issues like nitrogen pollution threaten water quality, marine life and coastal resiliency.
• [New] The U.S. must draw a lesson about danger cyberattacks pose to American civilians from the recent severe weather power grid collapse in Texas and a hacker's botched attempt to poison the water supply of a small Florida city.
• [New] China and its downstream Mekong River neighbours disagree on how to manage declining water flows, rising seas and saltwater intrusion - and that failure to cooperate could spark food security concerns there and in rice-buying countries elsewhere.
• In Memphis, residents in the city of 650,000 have been told for nearly a week to boil water for three minutes if they plan to use it for drinking, cooking or brushing their teeth.
• The closed basins of Central Asia are particularly vulnerable; climate change threatens water supply from glacier systems and increases evaporative losses, while demand is rising.
• In Victoria, the degradation of giant Mountain Ash forests greatly reduces the amount of water flowing through the Thompson catchment, threatening nearly five million people's drinking water in Melbourne.
• Residents of Memphis, Tennessee, have been told for nearly a week to boil water if they plan to use it for drinking, cooking and brushing their teeth.
• In every region of the world, climate impacts are threat multipliers - they aggravate the risk of conflict, even if they are not directly responsible for instability or strife.
• The UK recently dispatched an aircraft carrier to the South China Sea and plans to hold naval drills in the waters with Japan and the US.
• California's deep waters and changing winds will be a challenge, and building enough floating windmills to make a dent in California's energy needs could be difficult.
• The crisis in Texas is ongoing, with more than 15,700 people still without power and 8.7 million people experiencing water disruptions Monday morning.

Last updated: 07 March 2021