Posts tagged ‘Water scarcity’

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22/03/2016

Indians Have the Worst Access to Safe Drinking Water in the World – India Real Time – WSJ

India has the highest number of people in the world without access to safe water, a report released to mark World Water Day showed Tuesday.

The country has 75.8 million people, at least 5% of its 1.25 billion population, without access to clean water, the report by WaterAid, a water and sanitation nonprofit headquartered in London, says.

The majority of those people come from impoverished communities–living on around $4.31 a day–and are forced to collect dirty water from open ponds and rivers or spend most of what they earn buying water from tankers, the report  says.

Source: Indians Have the Worst Access to Safe Drinking Water in the World – India Real Time – WSJ

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Economics, India alert, water pollution | 1 Comment »

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11/06/2014

Air, Water, Soil: China’s Environment Gets Worse – Businessweek

Each year, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) releases a “state of the environment” report (PDF); it’s a rather grim annual ritual. For all the talk about China’s new “war on pollution” and money pouring into wind farms and river cleanup campaigns, the reality is that, according to most metrics, China’s environmental situation is getting worse, not better.

Pollution levels in several of China's major rivers has grown more severe since 2010

Air pollution in China receives the most attention globally. Despite a recent stretch of fairly nice days in Beijing, according to the MEP’s report, in 2013 only three major Chinese cities met the government’s own standards for urban air quality.

Water pollution—and water shortages—may be an even graver problem. The pollution level in several major rivers, including the Yangtze and its tributaries, has grown more severe since 2010. Meanwhile 11 percent of the land in the Yangtze’s watershed and adjacent areas was watered by acid rain. Sixty percent of groundwater-testing sites nations wide ranked as “poor” or “very poor” in water quality.

via Air, Water, Soil: China’s Environment Gets Worse – Businessweek.

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Posted in China alert, Ecology, Economics, Environment, Pollution | Leave a Comment »

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13/01/2014

China’s water squeeze worsens as wetlands shrink 9 pct | Reuters

China\’s wetlands have shrunk nearly 9 percent since 2003, forestry officials said on Monday, aggravating water scarcity in a country where food production, energy output and industrial activity are already under pressure from water shortages.

Labourers carry a steel bar at a construction site of a wetland park in Suining, Sichuan province October 14, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer

China has more than a fifth of the world\’s population but only 6 percent of its freshwater resources, and large swathes of the nation, especially in the north, face severe water distress.

Since 2003, wetlands sprawling across 340,000 sq. km. – an area larger than the Netherlands – have disappeared, officials of China\’s State Forestry Administration (SFA) told reporters.

\”The investigation shows that China is facing various problems with wetlands protections,\” Zhang Yongli, vice director of the forestry body, told a news conference, adding that loopholes in protection laws imperil the shrinking wetlands.

The lost wetland areas have been converted to agricultural lands, swallowed by large infrastructure projects or degraded by climate change, the forestry administration said.

Wetlands lost to infrastructure projects have increased tenfold since the government\’s last survey in 2003, Zhang added.

Water has emerged as a major issue in China. Its scarcity endangers economic growth and social stability, and China has set aside $660 billion for projects to boost supply this decade.

via China’s water squeeze worsens as wetlands shrink 9 pct | Reuters.

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