Posts tagged with 'water security'
Map of tree cover loss in Brazil
How Forests Affect the Fate of Cities in Eastern Brazil
Global forest loss remains high. In 2021, the tropics lost 11.1 million hectares of tree cover, according to WRI’s latest analysis. This annual figure included 3.75 million hectares of loss within tropical primary rainforests, resulting in 2.5 gigatons of CO2 ...
Water Is Key to Our Economic Future: Why Aren’t We Investing in it Like We Should?
Water Is Key to Our Economic Future: Why Aren’t We Investing in it Like We Should?
Water ripples through many sectors of the global economy. Whether companies are in the business of hygiene or hamburgers, phones or pharmaceuticals, they all have water in their supply chain. It takes 12,000 liters of water to produce a single ...
Cities Are Surprising Leaders in Forest Conservation
Cities Are Surprising Leaders in Forest Conservation
The world’s forests face a dire threat. Each year, 6 to 9 million hectares (15 to 22 million acres, an area roughly the size of Denmark) of forests are permanently cleared and many millions more are degraded. But many decisions affecting forests ...
Improving Water Security Helps Reduce the Gender Gap in Mexico City
Improving Water Security Helps Reduce the Gender Gap in Mexico City
Water for human consumption is increasingly inaccessible, due to poor management, degradation of water sources, the effects of climate change and more. Marginalized groups — such as minorities, rural communities and women — are disproportionately affected by water security issues, and women often play a key ...
Combating the Coronavirus Without Clean Water
Combating the Coronavirus Without Clean Water
As the coronavirus crisis spreads throughout the world, it is increasingly clear that people with the least access to essential services like water will feel the most dramatic effects. Major health organizations advise washing hands more frequently – for at least ...
Responding to Day Zero Equitably: Water Crisis Lessons from Cape Town and Chennai
Responding to Day Zero Equitably: Water Crisis Lessons from Cape Town and Chennai
When Cape Town, South Africa, and Chennai, India nearly ran out of water, these two cities managed to avert Day Zero with solutions that were creative and effective but far from perfect. In Cape Town, there were mile-long queues of people waiting for hours for water. ...
We’re Grossly Underestimating the World’s Water Access Crisis
We’re Grossly Underestimating the World’s Water Access Crisis
In Cape Town, South Africa, and Chennai, India, “Day Zero” events where cities run out of water have drawn global media attention. But while these catastrophes seem like rare, temporary crises caused by droughts or mismanagement, life without ample water ...
17 Countries, Home to One-Quarter of the World’s Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress
17 Countries, Home to One-Quarter of the World’s Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress
Once-unthinkable water crises are becoming commonplace. Reservoirs in Chennai, India’s sixth-largest city, are nearly dry right now. Last year, residents of Cape Town, South Africa narrowly avoided their own “Day Zero” water shut-off. And the year before that, Rome rationed water to conserve scarce ...
PODCAST: How Chennai's Water Got to Day Zero
PODCAST: How Chennai’s Water Got to Day Zero
One of South India’s biggest cities is almost out of water. A year after Cape Town, South Africa, had its own “Day Zero” crisis, the reservoirs in Chennai are nearly dry, leaving millions in this usually-wet coastal city wondering if they ...
Bridging the Gap Between Climate Adaptation and Equity: TheCityFix Labs Mexico
Bridging the Gap Between Climate Adaptation and Equity: TheCityFix Labs Mexico
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report on the prospects for staying under 1.5 degrees of warming is a call to action and a warning. The world is not on track to limit dangerous temperature rise and its follow-on ...
Help for São Paulo’s Complex Water Woes: Protect and Restore Forests
Help for São Paulo’s Complex Water Woes: Protect and Restore Forests
In 2014, São Paulo nearly ran out of water. Schools closed, crops faltered and reservoirs were left at a tiny 5 percent of their capacity for the city and its surrounding population of 22 million. It was the worst drought in eight decades. ...
Can Housing Be Affordable Without Being Efficient?
Can Housing Be Affordable Without Being Efficient?
About 3 billion people, or 40 percent of the world’s population, will need new housing by 2030. That will require constructing approximately 21 million new homes every year across the world. Several of the fastest-growing countries have ambitious goals to ...
Solving for Water Security at the Source
Solving for Water Security at the Source
In the 1990s, New York City needed a new water filtration system to serve its nearly 8 million people. But the prospect of spending $6-10 billion on a new water treatment plant, and another $100 million on annual operating costs, ...
4 Andean Cities Adapting to Glacier Retreat to Preserve Water Security
4 Andean Cities Adapting to Glacier Retreat to Preserve Water Security
Glaciers do more than feed our rivers and lakes, they also serve as critical savings banks for water withdrawals when other sources dry up. In South America, the glaciers and snowpack that crown the Andes provide slow, consistent meltwater that ...
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