Today, Monday, March 22 is World Water Day. It’s great to see the heightened attention to water issues, even if just for the day. The Huffington Post is featuring numerous WWD-related articles and in a recent check, “World Water Day” was the 75th most popular Google search. Virtually every WWD article I’ve seen cites similar statistics, which [...]
As in much of the world, farmers in Punjab, an agricultural state known as the “breadbasket of India,” grow rice via flood irrigation. In this method, fields are flooded with several centimeters of water in order to kill weeds. When the water dries, the field is flooded again – up to 40 times per season. Clearly this uses a [...]
With the Copenhagen climate talks kicking off today, I thought it was worth highlighting the close connection between water and climate, particularly as it pertains to energy use. While goodness knows the delegates in Copenhagen will have enough to do to hammer out even a “framework” agreement, I hope some attention will be paid to the close [...]
At the Columbia Water Center we frequently refer to the water/energy nexus. I am often asked what is meant by this term. Broadly speaking, the water/energy nexus refers to the myriad cyclical ways in which water and energy relate to, and impact, each other. Water is necessary in the production of virtually all types of [...]
Written in collaboration with Meghna Bhattacharjee. Failed monsoon rains put a cloud over the Columbia Water Center’s journey to India this summer. Soaring temperatures hitting 40 degrees Celsius with 100% humidity made for a hazy sweltering experience which begged for some precipitous relief. As we traveled around New Delhi from air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned rooms, [...]
This article is the second in a series inspired by the recent Columbia Water Center trip to India During our recent CWC trip to India (during the first three weeks of August) one news story dominated all others: this year’s near total failure of the monsoon. Many of us in the West don’t really understand what [...]
I recently returned from a CWC trip to India, where we have several projects underway. During this trip, we had the opportunity to talk with a range of water users – farmers, corporations, academic experts, and government officials. One thing became very clear to me: Although India’s water situation is precarious, there is a real [...]
Recently, in a discussion about bottled water, my colleague stated, “I’ve heard this argument before – it’s the bottle, not the water, that’s the problem. Would these people be happier if the bottle was made from recycled glass?” As one of “these people” who are troubled by bottled water (and in spite of the disparaging remark, [...]
Last week, NPR ran a two part story on water status in Punjab state in northern India. This is an area where the Columbia Water Center is doing a lot of work, and the article hit on several themes important to us, particularly the fact that current policies, while promoting food security, have had devastating [...]
A recent article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel highlighted some of the problems of building water infrastructure in the very regions where the Columbia Water Center is trying to work. The article cited intense corruption, as well as other factors, as barriers towards building improved water infrastructure. The most shocking point in the article is that [...]
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