Workers race to repair a damaged water main in Calgary on Friday, June 7, 2024. Calgarians are being urged to keep reducing their water usage by 25 per cent as a result of the shortages this break caused.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh)
Calgarians have been asked to reduce their water use. These simple steps can help us all to reduce our water footprint and save money at the same time.
A vendor prepares his umbrella as hot days continue in Manila, Philippines in April 2024. Sizzling heat across Asia and the Middle East will worsen because of human-caused climate change.
(AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
African cities with over 10 million residents are getting hotter fast. Millions face disaster in these urban heat islands unless the cities start greening and adapting to climate change soon.
A firefighter directs water on a grass fire burning behind a residential property in Kamloops, B.C., in June 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
In the lead-up to the 2024 federal budget, there was hope for investments in water management and water-related infrastructure. Those hopes were misplaced.
Farm workers in South Africa will face difficulty working through heatwaves if global warming continues.
Klaus Vedfeldt/Getty Images
The University of Cape Town’s new report on the impacts of climate change in South Africa found that heatwaves and water stress will affect jobs, deepen inequality, and increase gender-based violence.
As droughts become more widespread in tourist hotspots, research finds that timers in showers help tourists and university students shorten their showers and save water.
Workers attempt to repair a water main break in Jackson, Miss.
Joshua Lott/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Extreme downpours and droughts, both fueled by rising global temperatures, are taking a toll. Communities trying to manage the threats face three big challenges.
Natural variability in Australian rainfall can produce “mega-droughts” lasting 20 years or more. Add in human-caused climate change, and future droughts may be far worse than imagined.
El Niño droughts such as this one in southern Malawi are becoming regular features in southern Africa.
Guido Dingemans/Die Eindredactie/Getty Images
Governments in southern Africa don’t invest enough in weather forecasting and fail to work together to prepare for natural disasters, leaving the most vulnerable exposed to successive droughts.
Highway 4 crosses Lake Diefenbaker at Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park. Lake Diefenbaker is a part of the South Saskatchewan river basin which faces unprecedented levels of reduced water flows in 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Michael Bell
Declining precipitation, climate change and governance failures will drive water flow scarcity in 2024 with serious implications across Western Canada.
Donkeys provide vital support to women but their lives are often cut short.
The 2016 El Niño drought in Malawi dried out maize fields, leaving only weeds. It caused a famine that left over 60 million people in Southern Africa dependent on food aid.
Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images
Joachim De Weerdt, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Channing Arndt, CGIAR System Organization; James Thurlow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Jan Duchoslav, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Joseph Glauber, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Liangzhi You, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) et Weston Anderson, University of Maryland
Food security experts recommend that rural farmers in Malawi be given access to irrigation systems to free them from reliance on rain, and find ways outside farming to earn an income.
The impacts of record heat on the global water cycle were severe and wide-ranging – and the trend will continue in 2024.
India’s new water manual aims to establish continuous piped water supply for all Indians moving forward — a goal it is unlikely to achieve.
(AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
Achieving continuous supply requires both a realistic assessment of the situation and a realistic plan to meet the goal. The Government of India’s new initiatives have neither.