Posts tagged with 'water'
For decades, Kampala has raced to keep up with its own rapid growth. Set alongside Lake Victoria, the Ugandan capital more than quadrupled in physical footprint between 1991 and 2012 as population doubled to 1.5 million people. One of Kampala’s ...
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. ...
Most people don’t associate cities with trees, but urban areas are actually dependent on healthy forests. Trees within cities reduce heat, provide spaces for recreation and socialization, and increase property values. Nearby trees in the watersheds around cities filter drinking water and ...
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, ...
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 ...
If you’re reading this, you are probably a city dweller. More than half of humanity lives in cities, and the percentage continues to grow. As more and more of us move from the rural landscapes our ancestors called home, we are particularly estranged ...
Cape Town is running out of water. After three years of intense drought, South Africa’s second-largest city is just a few months away from “Day Zero,” the day when the city government will shut off water taps for most homes and businesses. The impacts ...
There were 663 million people without access to safe drinking water in 2015, according to the United Nations and World Health Organization. Many of those going without are from low-income households in cities across the global south. Jenna Davis, associate professor ...
The Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico, as Mexico City’s wider metropolitan area is locally known, faces a two-fold dilemma. In recent years, the intensity of rains has increased, straining drainage systems and causing severe flooding in low-lying areas. ...
As India’s summer intensifies, many states are already in the midst of a drought—and the hottest days have yet to arrive. At the same time, water-intensive agriculture, rapid urban expansion, increases in industrial activity and growing energy production are driving ...
The journey of our water from source to tap is long, and not one we think much about. For most of us, our water starts high in the mountains, hundreds of miles away. From there, water flows across natural and ...
In 2015, the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that there are 663 million people around the world without access to safe drinking water, with nearly half of these people living in sub-Saharan Africa. While Africa’s urban areas ...
Leia este post em Português. Serious water crises have plagued Brazil’s major cities in recent years. Severe pollution in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay is jeopardizing sailing and other water sports at the upcoming Olympic Games. A historic drought from 2013 to 2015 in São Paulo ...
This article was originally posted on the Pacific Standard. For the past five years, the World Economic Forum has listed water crises among the world’s top global risks, alongside others like “major systemic financial failure” and cyberattacks. Unfortunately, the ranking has proven ...
Last December, Beijing’s city government issued a “red alert” for smog levels—the highest possible designation. Schools and construction sites closed, traffic was restricted, and air pollution reached 10 times the World Health Organization’s recommended limit. Meanwhile, residents in neighboring cities ...
