The Iguazu Falls in Brazil are part of the Guarani Aquifer, one of the world’s major underground reserves of fresh water. The 8th World Water Forum, part of 2018 World Water Day, is being held in Brazil, home to the most fresh water on Earth.
(Shutterstock)
Water is one of our most precious resources, yet it’s in danger. World Water Day reminds us of the need to develop policies and governance to avoid squandering water.
In the Randilen Wildlife Management Area. higher densities of giraffes and dik-diks were found.
Author supplied
A new study found that community-based wildlife conservation can quickly result in clear ecological success.
Images created by NASA with satellite data helped the U.S. Department of Agriculture analyze outbreak patterns for southern pine beetles in Alabama, in spring 2016.
NASA
Big data open-access publishing and other advances offer ecologists the ability to forecast events like pest outbreaks over days and seasons rather than decades. But scholars need to seize this opportunity.
Since 1800, the world’s population has multiplied eight times.
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Gilles Pison, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)
The world’s population has reached 8 billion and is expected to climb to nearly 10 billion by 2050. Why will population growth inevitably continue? Should we try to reduce or stop this growth?
Sand for use in hydraulic fracturing operations at a processing plant in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in 2011.
AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)
Overuse of sand for construction and industry is harming the environment and fueling violence around the world. Scientists explain why we need international rules to regulate sand mining and use.
The climate crisis demands not only green technologies, but a completely different approach to economic development.
Environmental destruction is a negative externality to be isolated and managed. Here, Native Americans at Standing Rock defend sacred land from a proposed oil pipeline.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Ariadna Estévez, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
Today’s ugly politics are not a backlash against global capitalism, they’re an open embrace of the racism and greed that has always underpinned so-called global governance.
No matter how hard we dig, the Earth’s resources are ultimately finite.
Mining image from www.shutterstock.com
The government has decided to protect vast new expanses of land and sea. But bad planning and lax regulations are likely to limit, or even undermine, this conservation effort.
Think of all the resources needed to transform Shenzhen, a fishing town 35 years ago, into a megacity of more than 10 million people.
Wikimedia Commons
André Stephan, The University of Melbourne; Alexei Trundle, The University of Melbourne; Dave Kendal, The University of Melbourne; Hayley Henderson, The University of Melbourne; Hesam Kamalipour, The University of Melbourne e Melanie Lowe, The University of Melbourne
Our cities need to become much more efficient not just to conserve precious resources but to improve the economy, wellbeing and resilience to environmental change and disasters.
Hundreds of small-scale miners are scraping out tiny quantities of increasingly precious gold in El Corpus, southern Honduras.
Edgard Garrido/Reuters
The impact of small businesses on the environment has largely been ignored, but getting them to implement environmental management systems won’t be easy. This is because of their culture of resisting red tape and the way they operate.
While politicians like Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce do the traditional photo-ops, fewer people than ever are taking on farming, which can no longer support vibrant rural and regional communities on its own.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
What are the issues facing rural and regional Australia? The challenges are many and varied – and only some have made the national political agenda – but these areas deserve better than neglect.
Many developing countries are highly urbanised but lack large industrial sectors.
Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye
Developing countries, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa, are urbanising without industrialising, a trajectory that leaves them with relatively higher poverty rates and share of slums.
The fall in commodity prices has hit the DRC hard. This is a lesson to resources-dependent countries in Africa that they need to diversify their economies.
In 1991 Iraq forces set fire to Kuwait oil fields.
By Jonas Jordan, United States Army Corps of Engineers [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Acts perpetrated during the course of warfare have, through the ages, led to significant environmental destruction.
An oil worker stands on the deck of a tanker at Bonga off-shore oil field outside Lagos. Africa’s extractive industries are committed to local content but universities aren’t producing the right kind of graduates.
Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye
Huge investments have been made to develop Africa’s extractive industry. The challenge now is to forge collaboration between the industry and institutions of higher education to build a skills base.
What goes around comes around –
New circular thinking, access to abundant solar energy and supporting new technology could provide a competitive advantage for Australian industries.
Flickr/Beyond Zero Emissions
Australia’s relative share of global economic opportunity derived from smarter use of materials, energy and water could be $26 billion each year by 2025. Here are four ways Australia could make the most of the circular economy boom.