Local leaders of the Rural Sanitation Services (RSS) warn that the digging of illegal wells by large agro-export companies in Chile is aggravating the effects of drought and threatening drinking water supplies and social peace.
With the satisfaction of knowing he was doing something good for himself and the planet, Salvadoran farmer Luis Edgardo Pérez set out to plant a fruit tree on the steepest part of his plot, applying climate change adaptation techniques to retain water.
Faced with cyclical droughts and low water levels in supply dams, Zimbabwe is turning to boreholes for relief, raising concerns about already precarious groundwater levels across the country.
After losing everything in the recent devastating flood that swept the northeastern districts in Bangladesh, pregnant mother Joynaba Akter, her three children and her husband took refuge in a shelter centre at Gowainghat in Sylhet.
Acaba Mundo has fallen into oblivion, despite its apocalyptic name – which roughly translates as World’s End - and historical importance as an urban waterway. It is a typical victim of Brazil’s metropolises, which were turned into cemeteries of streams, with their flooded neighborhoods and filthy rivers.
Imagine a patient connected to a vital oxygen device to keep him or her breathing, thus alive. Then, imagine what would happen if this patient unplugged it. This is exactly what humans have been doing with the source of at least 50% of the whole Planet’s oxygen: the oceans.
Alex Leiva woke up at 4:00 a.m. to perform a key task for his family’s survival in the Salvadoran village where he lives: filling several barrels with the water that falls from the tap only at that early hour every other day.
"Water is part of our culture, it is intrinsic to the Amazon," said José Manuyama, a member of a river defense committee in his native Requena, a town located in the department of Loreto, the largest in Peru, covering 28 percent of the national territory.
So busy as they are with strengthening military alliances and devoting billions of taxpayers' money to double their war budgets and subsidise fossil fuels, European Governments seem not to care about the reiterated alerts that their continent faces a serious risk: the reduced availability -and more polluted– drinking water.
Thorny bushes and barren soil made it look like a bad bet, but Cuban farmer José Antonio Sosa ignored other people’s objections about the land and gave life to what is now the thriving La Villa farm on the outskirts of Havana.
The southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais owes its name to the main economic activity throughout its history: mining – of gold since the 17th century and later iron ore, which took on an industrial scale with massive exports in the 20th century.
"We do everything through parties, we don't want power, we don't want to take over the role of the State, but we don't just protest and complain," said Itamar de Paula Santos, a member of the
United Community Council for Ribeiro de Abreu (Comupra), in this southeastern Brazilian city.
After working on the family farm, Carlos Salama comes home and plugs his cell phone into a socket via a solar-powered electrical system, a rarity in this rural village in southern El Salvador.
It will take billions of dollars and many years to fix a growing problem that has placed Jamaica into the unlikely bracket of being among the world's most water-scarce countries due to the unavailability of potable water.
People around the world are unknowingly being exposed to water laced with antibiotics, which could spark the rise of drug-resistant pathogens and potentially fuel another global pandemic, warns a new report.
When it comes to water security – a reliable, good supply of safe water – just 29 African countries have made some progress over the past three to five years. Twenty-five have made none.
India began its journey as an independent nation in 1947 with fresh memory of the Bengal Famine of 1943 which claimed 1.5 to 3 million lives. Against this backdrop, the First Five Year Plan (1951-56) prioritized agriculture which, however, shifted to heavily industrialization in the second Plan.
The Pacific Ocean could quench the thirst caused by 10 years of drought in Chile, but the operation of desalination plants of various sizes has a long way to go to become sustainable and to serve society as a whole rather than just corporations.
At the World Water Forum this week (March 21-26), the international community will raise awareness of the
2 billion people worldwide who lack access to clean water and sanitation. Among them are millions of women and girls, who walk hundreds of miles each year to find water for their families and are blocked from education and economic empowerment also due to poor sanitation services.
As Yemen enters its 8th year of an escalating conflict, 21.7 million of my fellow Yemenis are forced to rely on humanitarian assistance to survive. The conflict has left a trail of devastation in its wake – the country is in economic freefall, and families face intensified violence, hunger, and disease.
As we also mark another World Water Day on March 22, within Women’s History Month, it is a time to reflect on the immense water and sanitation crisis that continues to take countless lives – and how it impacts women and girls so acutely. The destruction of the country’s health and water infrastructure has left Yemen acutely vulnerable to multiple epidemics including malaria, diphtheria, dengue, cholera, and COVID-19.
Groundwater is invisible and yet its impact is visible everywhere – this infinite resource provides almost half of all drinking water worldwide. About 40% of water for irrigated agriculture and about 1/3 of water required for industry is from groundwater resources. Despite these impressive facts, groundwater remains invisible and less prominent compared to surface water.