Uganda:

Yellow Drinking Water, Can It
Be Healthy?

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UGANDA – Drinking Water Always Boiled.

Photo by Joe Nam

By Joe Nam

KAMPALA, Uganda - People in this East African capital woke up one morning to a striking frontpage headline in the New Vision, Uganda’s leading newspaper. They had grown used to seeing splashy tales of corruption and sex scandals in the paper. But this story took them aback: The city’s yellowish drinking water not only looked strange, the newspaper said, but contained human waste and high-levels of dirt.

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Reviews

BOOK REVIEW:

Blue Covenant
Coming Battle
For Right to Water

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By Maude Barlow, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, New Press (Paperback, June 1, 2009; Hardcover, Feb. 1, 2008)

Reviewed By Alexandra De Filippo

MIAMI - I thought I knew a lot about the serious problems with water around the world – the shortages, the pollution, the impact on cities and villages. After all, we have been hearing for some time that if the wars of the 20th centuries were fought over oil, those of the 21st century would be fought over water.

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Scarcity

Northern Peru:

Jungle Rivers Where the Sweet Water No Longer Flows

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By Kelly Hearn

Nueva Jerusalén, Peru - Tomas Carijano sat at the front of the canoe, whittling the wooden dart to a deadly point, a blowgun propped against his knee. Then, with a nod, he gave the signal.

On the Macusari River, whose muddy waters flow into the Amazon River here in northern Peru, the pilot cut the engine, letting the canoe slip silently into a tiny inlet. The Indians pushed with poles, and then dipped gourds into the amber water.

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Pollution

Panama

Pig Farm Stirs Concerns
About River Pollution

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Scarcity

World Watch:

Asia Society
On Water Crisis

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Scarcity

World Water Forum

Simple Way
Often Best Way



On Location: Istanbul

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Videos

World Water Forum

A Personal Story
Of Water In Yemen
-Pulitzer Center
on Crisis Reporting



Nadia Abdulaziz Al-Sakkaf

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A Special Helium Contest Winner: World Water Day Celebrated With Parties, Workshops, Debate

By Debbie Lester

World Water Day was celebrated this year with festivals, workshops, mini-marathons and beach parties and it was the focal point of closing ceremonies at the World Water Forum in Istanbul, a gathering of more than 25,000 diplomats, government and corporate officials, members of non-governmental organizations and others dedicated to addressing the international water crisis.

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Corruption

Kenyan Forest Beset By Loggers and Settlers; Rivers, Economy Suffer

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By Zachary Ochieng

Narok, Kenya—The sprawling Mau Forest complex—the starting point for a dozen rivers in Kenya and one of the last surviving blocks of uninterrupted forest land in East Africa, is shrinking as logging companies and growing numbers of settlers hack away its trees. 

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Scarcity

La Tierra Prometida: Panama’s waterless Promised Land

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By Andrew Donovan & Natalia Vanegas

LA TIERRA PROMETIDA, Panama – Tucked away among the rolling hills of Panama’s impoverished Sector C countryside rests a small and secluded village known as La Tierra Prometida.

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Kenya Family Stricken After Drinking Foul Water

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Photo by Zachary Ochieng


By Zachary Ochieng

NAIROBI - Michael Onyango, 26, a resident of one of Nairobi’s poorer neighborhoods, groans on his bed at the Kenyatta National Hospital, East Africa’s largest teaching and referral institution.  In another ward, his wife, Jane, and two-year-old daughter, Magdalene, wait patiently for the nurses to do their rounds.
The Onyangos have been admitted here following a diagnosis of

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Rainy Season Brings Return of Cholera; Disease Rages Next Door In Zimbabwe

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Photo by: Richard Mulonga

By Timothy Kasonde Kasolo

LUSAKA, Zambia – The rainy season has begun here in southern Africa and once again cholera has broken out.

Officials here in Zambia, one of the poorest countries in the world, said that 176 cases of cholera and at least four deaths had been reported in the capital city of Lusaka by mid-December. But they said…

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Scarcity

South African Family Struggles to Get Water As Safari Parks Replace Farms

By Hayley Mueller, Xoli Matomela and Joe Edmeades

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GRAHAMSTOWN, South Africa - Nomsimelelo Mekane wakes up every morning wondering where the water supply for the day will come from.  Bathing, cooking, drinking, cleaning and washing have all become luxuries.  Usually, she has water only when she can coax people nearby to give her some.  Some days, when no one is feeling charitable, she says, she has to resort to stealing.

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Video: Norway Expert on World Water Crisis

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Book Shelf

A Writer’s Everglades

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Photo Courtesy The International Sea Keepers Society


In her work, The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), Marjory Stoneman Douglas painted a literary portrait of the Everglades that emblazoned images of this vast system into the public mind, which resulted in federal protection of significant sections of this unique area.

Stoneman Douglas depicted the Everglades, beginning at the shore of Lake Okeechobee, as a vast river of grass, dominated by

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From the book, Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration, edited by Mary Doyle and Cynthia A. Drew, University of Miami faculty

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Corruption

Provision of Clean Water Threatened

By Joy Elliott

UNITED NATIONS, New York—From bribes of a few dollars to kickbacks and embezzlement running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, corruption relating to water is undermining the health and well-being of billions of people around the world.

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Dr. Huguette
Labelle,
Transparency
International

That’s the conclusion of a book-length study by Transparency International, an organization with headquarters in Berlin that has been tracking corruption in business and government for years.

In the new study, “The Global Corruption Report 2008: Corruption in the Water Sector,” Transparency International concentrated for the first time on water. The theme of its global report last year was corruption in the judiciary. 

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Pollution

SEATTLE:  A River Runs Through it; But What A River It Is

By Jessica Partnow

SEATTLE – The Duwamish River is Seattle’s industrial backbone, a source of much of the city’s history, and one of the country’s most contaminated chemical waste sites.  Gary Thomsen, a high school history teacher who has devoted much of his career to studying the history of the river, says the now-polluted river valley once boasted “the most fertile soil in the world, second only to the Amazon River.”

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Scarcity

Jeffrey Sachs Looks To The Future: “No One Will Take Water for Granted.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and one of the world’s leading experts on economic development and the environment, says he sees major problems with water in much of the world and that “we have not been attentive” to them.

In a video interview with Joseph B. Treaster, the editor of 1h2o, Dr. Sachs said that “at least some of the roots of the conflict” in Darfur in the Sudan can be traced “to great water stress, declining rainfall and rising population.”

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Videos

La Tierra Prometida: Panama’s waterless Promised Land

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By Andrew Donovan & Natalia Vanegas

LA TIERRA PROMETIDA, Panama – Tucked away among the rolling hills of Panama’s impoverished Sector C countryside rests a small and secluded village known as La Tierra Prometida.

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Videos

Ethiopia: Water, Climate Change and Conflict

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Global climate change is making a bad situation worse. As we see in this report from the rugged region of southern Ethiopia, where drought is drying up wells, threatening an ancient way of life and fueling conflict.

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Scarcity

The Death of A Lake: Nobody Took Care of It; A Cactus Rises Where Fishing Boats Once Bobbed

By Sarah Stuteville

HARAR, Ethiopia - Girma Moges is angry. He was here in eastern Ethiopia four years ago when the pump he managed for a decade stopped forever. And he’s still here now, just outside the ancient walled city of Harar.

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China

Struggling with Water Shortage
That Threatens Booming Economy

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Photo courtesy University of Alabama

From Our Worldwide Correspondent
Venkata Vemuri

Beijing - You may have heard that a water shortage is threatening China’s economy and that in the next 20 years the problem could become severe.

As China struggles to head off the problem, an expert in water in China at the University of Alabama, Dr. Chunmiao Zheng, said the water shortage and problems with pollution have “already become a…

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England:

Rising Sea Levels Raise Concerns
About Thames River Defenses

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LONDON SCHOOL CHILDREN gather around their teacher,
Catherine Marshall, to learn about Thames River Defenses. Photo by Violet Law

By Violet Law

LONDON - They are the modern-day knights in shining armor, guarding London from their outposts in the River Thames. Each rises 66 feet – nearly seven stories above the water – and sports a stainless steel skin over its 4,000-ton hulk. They stand shoulder to shoulder across the width of the river, ready for action whenever roiling tides threaten to ...

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Philippines

Early Typhoons and Heavy Rains
Forcing Change in Planting Season

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FARMERS transplanting rice. Photo: part of the image collection of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

From Our Worldwide Correspondent
Venkata Vemuri

Manila - Typhoons are not new to the Philippines. As many as 20 of them strike every year. But the storms, known as hurricanes in the United States and cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, are beginning to arrive earlier than usual - in April and May, rather than June. And that two…

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Vietnam:

Dutch Project Bringing Clean Water
To Vietnam, 8 Other Countries

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Water Plant Worker, Nguyen Cong Gan

Photo by Ann-Christin Sjölander

Swedish correspondent
Ann-Christin Sjölander reports:

DA NANG, Vietnam - Outside the old water treatment plant women in conical straw hats carry heavy sacks of cement. They wear masks to protect themselves from the dust. Big, noisy power shovels are gnawing trenches into the earth. The huge, gray cement culverts that will go into the trenches are scattered around the heavy machinery.

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Tennessee:

Three Rivers Polluted
In Huge Coal Ash Spill;
But How Great the Danger?


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SWAMPED IN SOGGY COAL ASH, a house near Kingston, Tenn.

Photo Courtesy Obrag.Org



By Kelly Hearn

KINGSTON, Tenn. - A tidal wave of water and ash. That’s what people here and officials of the federal Environmental Protection Agency said it looked like when more than a billion gallons of soggy coal ash smashed down a retaining wall at a sprawling storage pond near here and gushed into the Emory, Clinch and Tennessee Rivers.

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China:

Shenzhen River
Shows Wear and Tear
Of Industrial Boom

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FISHING FOR GARBAGE in downtown Shenzhen.

Photo by Violet Law


By Violet Law

SHENZHEN, China – In 30 years this former farming village of a few thousand peasants has mushroomed into a sprawling metropolis of 11 million people. Where thatched-roof mud huts once dominated the landscape, glazed-glass condo towers now gleam in the sunlight and smokestacks in factory compounds belch charcoal black fumes.

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Ethiopia

Signs of Climate Change
At A Desert Water Hole

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ETHIOPIA – Boney cattle gathering at a desert water hole.


Photo by Alex Stonehill


By Ernest Waititu

DUBLUCK, Ethiopia—It’s mid-afternoon in this cattle-herding settlement in southern Ethiopia. Thousands of cattle shuffle in the dust, bored and irritated with their minders who are making them wait for the water they have walked dozens of miles to drink.

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Central America:

Panama Canal Authorities Say Expansion
Benefits Economy without Environmental Harm

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PANAMA CANAL – Ship waiting to go through the canal.


Photo by Andrew Donovan


By Andrew Donovan

PANAMA CITY, Panama – Nearly 100 years after its completion in 1914, the Panama Canal is now more than a year into an expansion project that is expected to have major implications for Panama’s future.

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East Africa:

Small Farmers Find
Hippos Rowdy Neighbors


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Hippos May Love Each Other, But People?
Photo by Rich Beckman


By Michael Ouma

NAIROBI, Kenya – Daybreak and dusk are scary times for the families farming small patches of land near the water treatment plant just outside this East African capital.

The problem is hippos – huge, leathery beasts that come snorting out of the darkness like army tanks, trampling people, smashing cars and uprooting crops.

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The Power of Water:

Miami Herald Photographs Capture Flood
Devastation in Haiti

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Miami Herald: Full Haiti Coverage

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Middle East Water:

Making Every Drop Count;
Even Drinking From The Sea

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Iraq – A drying marsh, aching for rain
Photo by Carlesmari

From Our Worldwide Correspondent
Venkata Vemuri

MANAMA, Bahrain – Concerned about increasing shortages of water in the Middle East, independent scientists have begun working to develop ways of stretching the available fresh water and of converting more sea water for drinking and irrigation.

The region has struggled for centuries with low-rainfall and drought, but the scientists say the water situation is becoming more critical as population continues rising and ever more people are forsaking the countryside for the cities.

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Obama’s Pledge:

“Let Clean Waters Flow.”

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Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor; On the Surface, She’s a Beauty

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Photo by Paul Santos


By Violet Law

HONG KONG - Of the nearly 7 million people in Hong Kong, Sing Lai has one of the best views of the city’s dazzling Victoria Harbor.

As a skipper on the Star Ferry line for more than 30 years, he has shuttled thousands of commuters across the jade green harbor, rimmed with gleaming skyscrapers and steep verdant hills. He has come to know the waters like an old friend and he says he has seen remarkable change for the better. He spots less driftwood and garbage, he said, and more fish. 

“The currents still sweep the trash in,” Mr. Lai said, “but a lot less than before.”

But there is more in the waters of Victoria Harbor than meets the eye.

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Spreading the Word On Clean Water In Rural India

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Villagers getting purified water
Photo Courtesy Pentair Inc.


By Dee DePass

NEW DELHI – In the small town of Arugolanu, 900 miles southeast of here, a young barefoot woman has become an evangelist for clean water.

To Manu Anand, an engineer who has been involved in water purification for much of his life, the woman symbolizes his work in trying to improve sanitation and health in rural India, the world’s second most populous country after China with 1.2 billion people.

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Uganda: Precious Water

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Photo by Charlotte Southern

KALUNGI, Uganda – A young girl in this small village in East Africa washes with a few drops of water. There is no running water in the village. It is a 45-minute walk to the nearest water, a stagnant pond. Of the world’s 6.6 billion people, 1.2 billion live their lives, like the woman here, with limited access to water. Sanitation is poor. Illness is widespread and often fatal, especially among the youngest children. 

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Villagers: Air War Against Cocaine ‘Ruins Our Water;’ Officials Say No

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Amazon Region by Kelly Hearn

By Kelly Hearn

PUERTO NUEVO, Ecuador - Climbing to the metal lip of the 60-foot water tower here, Orlando Gomez huffed, out of breath and drenched in an Amazonian sweat. Mr. Gomez is in charge of drinking water for this little town deep in the rain forest, a two hour’s drive by beat-up road from an oil town called Lago Agrio.

From the tower, Mr. Gomez could see the dirt roads and little tin-roofed wooden houses of this gritty river settlement. He turned slightly toward a distant green wall of mahogany and cedar trees and the muddy San Miguel River, which marks the border between Ecuador and Colombia.

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The Business of Water In An East African Shanty Town

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By Sarah Stuteville

NAIROBI, Kenya--As day breaks over the rusty tin roofs and makeshift homes of the sprawling Kibera slum in Nairobi, the water sellers are already at their water tanks, waiting for their first customers.

Selling water in one of the world’s largest slums is a good business. On most days the vendors charge 5 cents for five gallons, 100 times the cost of piped water provided by the city. But the city does not send water to the residents of Kibera--at any price.

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You can lend your voice to discussions taking place online about global water issues. 1H2o is partnering with helium.com in another effort to bring awareness of the global water crisis through the creation of media on the subject. Click on one of the titles below to participate and compete in the 1H2o Citizen Journalism Awards Contest.

Current Contest Question

What lessons can we learn from the river?

1 of 5

By Jamyang Zeaba

'A river sings a holy song conveying the mysterious truth that we're a river, and if we're ignorant of this natural law, we're lost.' Thomas Moore.

'For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one', there are many similarities between rivers and our lives, and the river in fact depicts our life with utmost precision and discernment. In life, at times we wander aimlessly without a reason or a cause, and sometimes we rush forward with such ferocity like the rapids devouring everything


Read all answers.


Current Helium Citizen Journalism Winners

Question: How do individual conservation efforts affect worldwide availability of drinking water?

By Danielle "Dames" Keen

Standing at the bench, beaker in hand, I paused and scrutinized the tiny droplets of water still ferociously clinging to the inside of the slowly drying glass. Waiting to do a simple experiment and impatient, I turned to my professor with a scrunched up nose and asked: "Does it matter? Does it really matter if there's still water in the beaker?" He turned to me with the eternal patience only a great teacher can maintain, "Imagine instead the beaker half full. Now, you tell me - does it matter?"

Read more at Helium.com...

Click here for previous winners

Click here for previous author's statements

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the articles published on the websites of Helium, 1H2O.org and the Knight Center for International Media are those of the authors alone. They do not represent the views or opinions of the Knight Center, its partners or its staff.



Editor's Blog

Joseph B. Treaster: Water and The World

The World’s Cities, Growing Like Mad, Are Sitting Ducks For Floods, Hurricanes

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MIAMI - The overpowering and seemingly irreversible trend in the world’s cities has been toward ever greater concentrations of people.  Last year, for the first time, cities had swollen to hold more than half the world’s 6.7 billion people.  The increased density creates bigger, more deadly and more costly targets…

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James Bond And
The Water Works;
Helsinki Labyrinths

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HELSINKI – Ari Nevalainen showed an encoded piece of plastic to an electronic sensor.  In front of his little white car, a gray aluminum door, set into a granite hillside, cracked open and the two halves slid into the rock walls.

Mr. Nevalainen, gaunt and serious, tapped the accelerator and the car rolled forward…

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Hurricanes: You Can’t Win
A Battle with the Wind

MIAMI – When Hurricane Katrina walloped New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast four years ago, the evacuation got started late and many people decided to ride out the storm. Bad decision.

A lot of people had harrowing experiences. About 1,800 ...

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Finland’s
Fabulous Drinking Water,
And How It Got That Way

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HELSINKI – Finland is a good place to get a drink of water. But it wasn’t always so.

More than 30 years ago the pulp paper factories here were booming and polluting the rivers and lakes. The drinking water smelled of chlorine and sometimes…

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How to Get Ready for A Hurricane, A Lesson
That Doesn’t Stick

ORLANDO – Most Americans have never lived through a hurricane. And that’s not so good.

But every year thousands of Americans move into the Hurricane Zone along the southern coasts of the United States. They don’t have hurricane experience. And ...

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Natural Disasters
Not Entirely Natural

MIAMI – Andrew Maskrey, an expert on disasters, was talking about floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, mudslides and other occurrences in nature that can ruin your year – or worse.  They might be called natural disasters, he said, but modern mankind has had a lot to do with making them worse – usually in the name of progress.

Read blog...

In Hurricanes
The Real Killer
Is the Water,
Not the Wind

MIAMI – The house down the street is getting a new roof.  We’ve just put on new shutters – vertical strips of metal that look something like an accordion and are supposed to stop a tank at 100 miles an hour.

Some of the nearby coconut palms are loaded with coconuts and one neighbor has a half dozen decorative gourds dangling on…

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On The Impact And Value
Of The World Water Forum

MIAMI – In the weeks since the World Water Forum in Istanbul, I’ve been wondering about the value and impact of the event – the planet’s largest conference on the world water crisis.

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Water Forum Declines
To Declare Access To Water
A Human Right

ISTANBUL, March 22 – The leaders of the World Water Forum decided once again not to declare that access to water is an inalienable human right.

As the fifth of the triennial Forums of government officials, business leaders and members of non-governmental organizations closed here…

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Water Forum Ends
On World Water Day

ISTANBUL, March 21 – The end is nearing for the week-long World Water Forum.
Formal statements are being issued on Sunday – World Water Day. No breakthroughs are expected. And that comes as no surprise to many participants.

The Forum, which is held every three years, and World Water Day, an annual event, are both ceremonial. They draw a certain amount of attention to…

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Cities Called “Battlefield”
For World’s Water Problems

ISTANBUL, March 20 – The cities around the world are where water policy becomes water reality.

“The cities have to put things in place, they really have to work on the issues,” said Walter Kling, the Director of Water Management in Vienna in an interview here at the World Water Forum where more than 25,000 water experts, government officials and…

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The Worldwide Water Gap;
Looking For A
Break-Through

ISTANBUL, March 19 – Nearly one billion people without water.

It’s not literally true.  But it is close enough to true to have just about everyone here at the World Water Forum buzzing. It’s been a persistent…

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Bathroom Sanitation
Chronic Problem In
Providing Clean Water

ISTANBUL, March 18 – There’s a lot of talk here this week at the World Water Forum about toilets.

The talk is not about unpleasant, smelly toilets or dirty toilets or ones without running water. The talk is about no toilets at all.

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Crusading for Water
For Rich and Poor;
No One Left Out

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ISTANBUL, March 17 – Maude Barlow is a crusader.

She is here at the World Water Forum to campaign for her favorite thing:  Water for everyone, especially the poor. They must not be priced out by corporations that purify water but charge more than many can afford. She calls water a human right.

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Police Disrupt Protest
As World Water Forum
Opens In Istanbul

ISTANBUL, March 16 – While the leaders of the World Water Forum were delivering pro-forma opening day addresses Monday morning at Istanbul’s new glass and marble convention center, a small group of protesters was scuffling with the police outside.

The Istanbul police in their fiberglass riot helmets and shields charged the protesters with batons, sprayed water cannons and fired tear gas canisters, witnesses said. Perhaps a dozen…

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Wars Over Water?
Here’s A Bulletin

ISTANBUL, March 15 – All that talk about water being the cause of future wars?

Very possibly unfounded, at least that’s the word from several experts here at the World Water Forum, the planet’s largest talkfest about water problems, held every three years.

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World Water Forum
Concentrates On
Raising Consciousness

ISTANBUL, March 14 – More than 20,000 people with deep concerns about the environment are converging on Istanbul for the fifth World Water Forum.

The Forum, which begins on Monday, March 16, and runs for a week, was conceived 13 years ago by a small group of water specialists. It is held every three years and has become the world’s largest gathering focused on…

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Obama Urged To Consider
Water As Diplomatic Tool

MIAMI - Long before Barack Obama moved into the White House, Erik Peterson was researching the problems of water around the world and how they can affect America’s relationships with other countries.

With a relatively modest investment, he concluded, the United States could make a huge dent in some of the gravest water problems.  In the process, it could greatly improve its image and influence in parts of the…

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On The Water Front,
Obama Looking Like a Buddy

MIAMI – On that cold inaugural day in Washington, Barack Obama paused in the course of sketching out his hopes and dreams for America to say a few words about water.

Then in February as he pushed through Congress a $787 billion economic stimulus package, he saw to it that $12 billion was designated for water projects.

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Water Projects Get More Money Than Expected
In $787 Billion Economic Stimulus Package

Miami – Things are looking good for water in America, or at least looking up – if money is your measure.

Federal spending on water projects jumped sharply with the enactment of President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package. Altogether $12 billion was designated for water projects – twice as much as initial reports had suggested.

Water experts say much more money is needed to improve and safeguard the nation’s water supply and to try…

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$6 Billion For Water Projects
In Economic Stimulus Plan

MIAMI – President Obama’s economic stimulus program contains a good-sized chunk of money for dealing with water problems in the United States.

As the legislation moves into its final stages of approval, $6 billion has been designated to improve the quality of drinking water in places where it has been becoming iffy, renovating and adding to the nation’s waste water treatment plants, sewer and water lines, pumping stations and…

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India: Holy Water Does Not Equal Clean Water

NEW DELHI – A dull yellow haze hung low over the Yamuna River.  In the distance, a man wrapped in a blanket spread his arms wide, then dropped down on his haunches. I thought he might be praying.  But it turned out he was answering the call of nature.  Another man stepped through a mine field of cow paddies and dropped his trousers.

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When it rains the waste from the poor people living along the bare dirt banks washes into the river.  But the problems of the Yamuna, a sacred river that once nourished New Delhi, are much bigger.

Day and night, raw sewage from Delhi’s…

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James Bond
Discovers Water,
But He’s Not Preaching

COCONUT GROVE, Fla. – I drove over to see the new James Bond movie the other day and it turned into a business trip.  James Bond had discovered water.

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In the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace, water is one of the main plot lines. The villain is a character cutely named Dominic Greene who runs an organization called Greene Planet and is plotting to seize control of the fresh water in – of all places, Bolivia - and sell it back to the government as public drinking water, at double the…

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Bottled Water:
The Distinction May
Be In the Ad Campaign

Bottled water is convenient and has gained a reputation for being especially pure and healthy.  But a lot of research indicates that bottled water may not be as special as people think.

For example, by some accounts, up to 40 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States is merely filtered and packaged tap water.  Some marketing experts say it is…

Read blog...

Corruption Key Factor
in Worldwide Water Problems

UNITED NATIONS, New York - Corruption was the theme. Water was the focus. It was a different take on the worldwide water problem.

Often discussions on water problems hover within the sphere of the environment. But a panel of experts on water and corruption convened at the United Nations recently with the objective of illuminating an ambitious study showing that corruption was a…

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Bottled Water: Signs That People Are Backing Away

MIAMI - The campaign by environmentalists against bottled water may be gaining traction, with a considerable helping hand from the slumping world economy. 

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The latest evidence comes from Pepsi Cola, one of the biggest players in the field.  Pepsi says its most recent quarterly…

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Honduras, Where Floods Keep Killing

Honduras is in the news again these days with more flooding, more deaths and more people with obliterated homes - and weeks if not months of picking up the pieces.

The loses this time are nothing like the nearly 10,000 killed in flooding caused by Hurricane Mitch…

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Tropical Storm Fay: The Problem Solver

CORAL GABLES, Fla., - Tropical Storm Fay turned out to be a blessing for South Florida. 

The storm dumped enough water on the region in August to fill Lake Okeechobee and, at least for the moment, ease a two-year drought. Yet the rain fall was not so heavy that houses were inundated…

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You Can Hear the Splash of Dolphins

MIAMI, Fla. – It’s been an unusual summer in the north end of Biscayne Bay: Blessedly quiet.

For years, I’ve been watching life on the bay from my apartment in a little place half way between Miami and Miami Beach.  Elegant homes and a few condo towers rise…

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More Blogs & Sites

Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin
WaterDoc.org

World News

BBC
BBC: Science/Nature
The New York Times
The New York Times: Science
The Washington Post
Associated Press
Associated Press: Science
Reuters
Reuters: Environment
Al Jazeera: English
National Geographic

Videos

World Water Forum

A Personal Story
Of Water In Yemen
-Pulitzer Center
on Crisis Reporting



Nadia Abdulaziz Al-Sakkaf

View Video...


La Tierra Prometida: Panama’s waterless Promised Land

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By Andrew Donovan & Natalia Vanegas

LA TIERRA PROMETIDA, Panama – Tucked away among the rolling hills of Panama’s impoverished Sector C countryside rests a small and secluded village known as La Tierra Prometida.

View Video...


Ethiopia: Water, Climate Change and Conflict

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Global climate change is making a bad situation worse. As we see in this report from the rugged region of southern Ethiopia, where drought is drying up wells, threatening an ancient way of life and fueling conflict.

View Video...


Innovate or Die - Aquaduct: Mobile Filtration Vehicle

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The Aquaduct is a pedal powered vehicle that transports water and filters it while in motion.

View Video...


Lifestraw

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In an effort to combat water related diseases the Lifestaw purifies water while it is being consumed.

View Video...