Australia’s emerging green hydrogen industry requires a secure supply of high-quality water. Competing demands for this scarce resource mean careful planning is needed to meet all water users’ needs.
Australian politicians have a history of opting for high-cost, high-emissions desalination projects. The Queensland government is still wary of using the largely untapped resource of recycled water.
The Karoo landscape, a water-scarce area near potential shale gas sites.
Photo courtesy Surina Esterhuyse
We need a radical rethink of water resource planning. Strategies should include reusing water and moving water physically to water-scarce areas.
Maria Khoza collecting water from the City of Tshwane municipality after a short closure of the a treatment plant caused by a sewage leakage in 2019.
Phill Magakoe/AFP/GettyImages
Groundwater has the potential to support broad economic, humanitarian and social development in sub-Saharan Africa, as it has in other regions globally.
California has been through two straight year of drought, and water supplies are limited.
George Rose/Getty Images
Long before climate change was evident, California began planning a system of canals and reservoirs to carry water from the mountains to drier farms and cities. It’s no longer enough.
Afghan security forces stand guard on a roadside in Herat on Aug. 12, 2021, as the Taliban seized the city.
AFP via Getty Images
Herat is home to an India-built dam that provides water for drinking, irrigation and bathing for much of western Afghanistan. If the Taliban control that water, they control the population.
In high alpine terrain, sun and dry air can turn snow straight into water vapor.
Jeffrey Pang/WikimediaCommons
As rivers run dry in the Rocky Mountains and the West, it’s easy to wonder where all the snow you see on mountain peaks goes. Some of it ends up in the air, but researchers aren’t sure how much.
Lake Poopó at a low point in early 2016.
Chiliguanca / flickr
Emad Hasan, Binghamton University, State University of New York and Aondover Tarhule, Illinois State University
Treaties are needed to govern water resource allocation in the Nile basin region. For this to happen it’s critical to have accurate data on how much water there is.
Fracking in the headwaters of the Okavango delta may negatively affect the water quality in this water source area.
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A court victory by an NGO against a South African municipality has laid bare the red tape and misgovernance that often burdens the process of issuing water licenses.
The tourism establishment could be depleting scarce water resources to the detriment of local communities.
GettyImages
Tourism ventures in a water-stressed region like southern Africa need to balance the needs of guests and staff with the needs of surrounding communities.
High resolution satellite image of the Nile River’s delta.
Shutterstock/TommoT
Despite more rainfall, devastating hot and dry spells are projected to become more frequent in the Upper Nile basin in the future.
Waters from the Herbert River, which runs toward one of northern Australia’s richest agricultural districts, could be redirected under a Bradfield scheme.
Patrick White
The ‘New Bradfield’ scheme seeks to revive a nation-building ethos supposedly stifled by bureaucratic inertia. But there are good reasons the scheme never became a reality.
Cities relied entirely on conserving and recycling water to get through the last big drought. We now have desalination plants, but getting the most out of our water reserves still makes sense.