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.
One of Melbourne’s drinking water reservoirs at 30% capacity in 2010. At the time of writing, the dam is 60% full.
Melbourne Water/Flickr
Despite its long idle, Melbourne’s desalination plant plays a vital role in providing water in a drying climate.
There are still concerns over the impact of upstream coalmines on water in the Warragamba Dam, a key part of Sydney’s water network.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
The cutting of senior staff from WaterNSW, the body that oversees the safety of Sydney’s water supply, poses serious risks to Australia’s most complex water network.
Oroville Dam in California, where water levels had fallen 30% by 2014.
Dam image from www.shutterstock.com
It’s full steam ahead for bringing vast increases in farming to northern Australia. In fact, probably too fast to adequately consider the environmental impacts.
New data have revealed a disturbing trend in forest loss: the hearts of the world’s forests are disappearing. To stop them bleeding out, we’ll have to say ‘no’ to some developments.
Despite a decade of drought and declining rainfall in parts of Australia, there’s still plenty of water to go around.
Maroondah reservoir from www.shutterstock.com
The Millennium Drought ended more than five years ago, but several years of below-average rainfall and El Niño have brought drought back to many parts of Australia. Our latest report on water in Australia shows rainfall is continuing to decline in eastern Australia and increase in the north.
The Nairobi-Thika highway is being built by China Wuyi, Sinohydro and Shengeli Engineering Construction, and is funded by Kenya, China and the African Development Bank.
Reuters/Thomas Mukoya
China offers an alternative to traditional donors and investors in low- and middle-income countries. Adding to its appeal is its focus on infrastructure projects.
A view from above the burst Samarco dam in Brazil.
Ricardo Moraes/Reuters
Six people are dead and more than 20 missing following the Samarco mine disaster in Brazil. But in the rush to blame we must consider the complexity of such failures.
Despite the noble intentions behind charity wells, they may not be the best thing.
Franco Volpato/Shutterstock
The digging of wells in Africa has often been thought of as the solution to helping rural women walking to get water, but they may cause more harm than good.
New surveys show Australians don’t mind if the water coming from their tap is recycled.
Tap image from www.shutterstock.com
The White Paper on Developing Northern Australia represents the most comprehensive attempt yet to think through the development possibilities of the north.
Cane toads are still spreading across northern Australia.
UNSW
Cane toads, introduced in 1935 to control cane beetles, have now spread across a huge swathe of Australia, from the Kimberley in northern Western Australia to northern New South Wales. They’re still spreading…
Australia won’t be building anything as big as the Gordon Dam any time soon.
JJ Harrison/Wikimedia Commons
The agricultural green paper released last week proposes 27 new water and irrigation projects, which the government claims will be necessary for Australia’s agricultural expansion. The emphasis is firmly…
The Ord River dam, completed in 1971, formed Australia’s largest artificial lake in the far north west.
Graeme Churchard/Flickr
Some 27 irrigation and dam projects are highlighted in the green paper for agricultural competitiveness released this week by agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce. Six of the projects – five in Tasmania…
Warragamba Dam, supplying drinking water to over four million residents of Sydney.
Summer is coming and, with it, dry conditions for many parts of Australia. While it may be difficult to imagine for city dwellers, parts of regional Australia will likely face severe water shortages over…
The once-popular Loch McNess north of Perth has dried up almost completely after a decades-long dry period.
ron_n_beth/Flickr
Since 1970, average rainfall in the south-west of Western Australia has decreased by nearly a fifth, and the science suggests that this is linked to human-caused climate change. Across Australia, CSIRO…
Protestors bust the Belo Monte Dam.
Atossa Soltani/Amazon Watch/Spectral Q
The World Cup has highlighted Brazil’s dissatisfaction with the mega-development involved in building the tournament’s infrastructure. But the football stadiums are just the latest in a long line of Brazilian…
The Three Gorges Dam has changed the lives of millions - not always for the better.
Greg Baker/AP
China is the world’s largest energy consumer, its ferocious industrial expansion and urbanisation driving a demand for electricity that has risen 10% in a single year between September 2012-13. This has…