As many people have had to wade through floodwaters, they need to be aware of the risk of infection and disease from contaminated waters.
AP Photo/David J. Phillip
As Houston continues to rescue residents whose homes were ruined, it also begins to deal with issues related to contaminated floodwaters and overflowing reservoirs. It won't be easy.
Heavy storms in February caused parts of a California highway to give way.
Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo
If the river islands are bombed away and if the riverscape is engineered into something more like a large artificial canal, then endangered species face extinction.
A degraded wetland in the Pilot Wilderness area, Kosciuszko National Park, is subject to increasing numbers of feral horses.
Graeme Worboys collection
Old and degraded infrastructure costs the United States money and puts lives at risk. A civil engineer describes some innovative ways to measure risks and prioritize repairs.
We're working on a project to map all of Europe's waterways and dams.
The Brahmaputra is known for its unpredictable fury. Assamese plains dwellers are often victims of floods but also earn a livelihood from the river.
Utpal Baruah/Reuters
At the heart of the Himalayas, the ongoing conflict between China and India for the hydro-power race will affect the whole region.
The Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam will bring more power to Ethiopia but is already creating tensions over water rights with its neighbors Sudan and Egypt.
Tiksa Negeri/Reuters
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, under construction on the Blue Nile, will bring electricity and wealth to East Africa, but could also have harmful environmental and political impacts.
Mega development projects can have a positive impact. But there are risks. Between 2004 and 2013, some 3.4 million people were ‘physically and economically displaced’ by World Bank projects alone.
The Koka Reservoir in Ethiopia. Steps have been taken to reduce malaria infections without sacrificing the primary purposes of the dam.
David Stanley/Flickr
Jonathan Lautze, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research; Dr Solomon Kibret, University of California, Irvine, and Matthew McCartney, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
The construction of dams in Africa, in some cases, bring an unintended consequence – an increase in malaria in the surrounding areas.
The 'Muskrat Falls' hydroelectric project is being built in anticipation of the Innu voting away ownership of their own land.
Spangled perch are one of Australia’s strongly migratory native fish. After storms in January 2015 these fish were actively travelling up a flooded road in outback Northern Territory.
Jessica Brown
Toxic algal blooms were unheard of in Australia's major waterways before 1991. Now the Murray River has been struck by four major events in less than a decade, with more likely in the future.
The past century hasn’t seen the worst drought that Australia’s climate can throw at us.
CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons
A new millennium-long record reveals that Australia has suffered longer droughts and wet periods than those recorded in the past century's weather observations.
Moo-ve along: livestock are one of many threats to Australian freshwater ecosystems.
Mick Stanic/Flickr
Freshwater covers only 0.5% of the Earth's surface but is home to 10% of the world's lifeforms.
Major development banks are funding logging, mining and infrastructure projects that are having enormous impacts on nature. Here, forests are being razed along a newly constructed road in central Amazonia.
William Laurance
Big new investors such as the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank are key players in a worldwide infrastructure, and that could be bad news for the environment.
