Water blog posts

The length of coastal areas around the globe is over 1.6 million kilometers, skirting approximately 150 countries. Many of them are in the tropics with sprawling cities along the coast not far from rural populations. Farmers may be adapting environmentally unsustainable agricultural practices similar to what is being adapted in Keta and Kalpitiya, two coastal regions that are continents apart. Is this level of intensification ecologically sustainable?

For big decisions, like buying a car, we may do a bit of research; but most of the time, we simply follow our gut feeling as a guide. But do we want those who make decisions on some of the biggest issues in development to also follow their gut instinct? Decision analysis tools can improve the decision making process.

Transboundary cooperation in the Water Sustainable Development Goal can benefit from existing research. Here are six indicators for monitoring transboundary water cooperation for the 6th SDG on integrated water resources management.

Most people have played some kind of game in their lifetime. Be it cards, monopoly, or Farmville, this unique form of entertainment allows us to escape reality and spend time focusing on inconsequential goals. But a new realistic game provides a platform for engaging in difficult conversation about cooperative water and land management.

Rainwater harvesting has been practiced for millennia throughout the world yet rainwater harvesting is still unknown to many communities. Recent innovations offer opportunities for expansion.

Big dams have been taking a something of a pounding in recent weeks. A recent article in the New York Times by Scudder, an expert on dams and poverty alleviation, concluded that such behemoths were rarely worth the cost.

No country in the world runs its economy without subsidies. Even avowedly free market states, like the US, are awash with financial fillips for everything from agriculture to green energy. Just how effective these cash comforters are at delivering public goods, however, is hugely debateable.

Multiple use water services takes domestic and non-domestic water needs as a starting point for the planning and provision of water services, holding the water sector accountable for all uses.

Who would have thought that the restoration of natural habitats, such as cloud forests, could help keep the light bulb on a bit longer during periods of water scarcity and electricity rationing?

Community-Based Natural Resources Management has been applied widely, from the forests of Malawi to the coastal zone of Bangladesh. But it appears that leaks are beginning to spring in the CBNRM foundation. No longer considered to be a panacea to natural resource management, many are beginning to recognize the weaknesses and limitations of the approach.

Business as usual in water management will not provide adequate water security, upon which our global economy relies ever more heavily. Part of the business as usual that needs to be shaken up is the process-based IWRM that has dominated discourse on water management over the past 20 years.

As global demands for food and biofuel escalate, foreign investors have shown a keen interest in African land. The furious pace at which large-scale land acquisition investments are occurring have raised questions about the underlying motives, benefits and long-term impacts of these investments on host countries.