The Power of Water:
Miami Herald Photographs Capture Flood Devastation in Haiti
Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor; On the Surface, She’s a Beauty
By Violet Law
HONG KONG - Of the nearly 7 million people in Hong Kong, Sing Lai has one of the best views of the city’s dazzling Victoria Harbor.
As a skipper on the Star Ferry line for more than 30 years, he has shuttled thousands of commuters across the jade green harbor, rimmed with gleaming skyscrapers and steep verdant hills. He has come to know the waters like an old friend and he says he has seen remarkable change for the better. He spots less driftwood and garbage, he said, and more fish. “The currents still sweep the trash in,” Mr. Lai said, “but a ...
Going to War over Water; Preventive Steps At The U.N.
WHERE THE WATER IS: The blue areas on this United Nations map of Africa show concentrations of underground water, in some cases crossing several national borders. The brown areas have limited underground water. The areas in green are somewhere in between.
See the full map.
The Latest on Water
From Our Worldwide Water Columnist,
Venkata Vemuri
Water knows no boundaries, but nations do. And what if two neighboring nations go to war over the use of water beneath their boundaries? Even the United Nations has no answer in the absence of an international treaty that would spell out the terms for fairly sharing water in underground lakes or aquifers. But that is changing.
Spreading the Word On Clean Water In Rural India
By Dee DePass
NEW DELHI – In the small town of Arugolanu, 900 miles southeast of here, a young barefoot woman has become an evangelist for clean water.
To Manu Anand, an engineer who has been involved in water purification for much of his life, the woman symbolizes his work in trying to improve sanitation and health in rural India, the world’s second most populous country after China with 1.2 billion people.
Mr. Anand does not know the barefoot woman’s name. But he knows the story of how clean water changed her life and how she
Uganda: Precious Water
KALUNGI, Uganda – A young girl in this small village in East Africa washes with a few drops of water. There is no running water in the village. It is a 45-minute walk to the nearest water, a stagnant pond. Of the world’s 6.6 billion people, 1.2 billion live their lives, like the woman here, with limited access to water. Sanitation is poor. Illness is widespread and often fatal, especially among the youngest children.
Villagers: Air War Against Cocaine ‘Ruins Our Water;’ Officials Say No
By Kelly Hearn
PUERTO NUEVO, Ecuador - Climbing to the metal lip of the 60-foot water tower here, Orlando Gomez huffed, out of breath and drenched in an Amazonian sweat. Mr. Gomez is in charge of drinking water for this little town deep in the rain forest, a two hour’s drive by beat-up road from an oil town called Lago Agrio.
From the tower, Mr. Gomez could see the dirt roads and little tin-roofed wooden houses of this gritty river settlement. He turned slightly toward a distant green wall of mahogany and cedar trees and the muddy San Miguel River, which marks the border between Ecuador and Colombia.
The Business of Water In An East African Shanty Town
By Sarah Stuteville
NAIROBI, Kenya--As day breaks over the rusty tin roofs and makeshift homes of the sprawling Kibera slum in Nairobi, the water sellers are already at their water tanks, waiting for their first customers.
Selling water in one of the world’s largest slums is a good business. On most days the vendors charge 5 cents for five gallons, 100 times the cost of piped water provided by the city. But the city does not send water to the residents of Kibera--at any price.
You can lend your voice to discussions taking place online about global water issues. 1H2o is partnering with helium.com in another effort to bring awareness of the global water crisis through the creation of media on the subject. Click on one of the titles below to participate and compete in the 1H2o Citizen Journalism Awards Contest.
How does the health of a river affect the vitality of a region?
1 of 21By David Gittlin
The earth is one big ecosystem. Think of it as a human body. Every cell every organ every system of organs is interdependent. Think of the water in the earth's rivers as blood in the body's circulatory system. What happens to the body when infection invades the blood stream? What happens when the body cannot produce enough cells to maintain a sufficient systemic blood level? The answer of course is illness.
Industrialization urbanization and global warming have adversely affected
Read all answers.
Question: Is corporate involvement in the world water crisis good for society?
By John DeVera
The crisis over the availability of potable water in the world is tremendously complicated. The poisoning of aquifers is endemic. The shortage of waste water treatment plants means that polluted water often contaminates the uncontaminated ground water. Global climate change has made certain areas arid and global unrest has made the transport of clean water to these arid areas problematic. So far the corporate world has had very little positive influence on the matter, but that is a dynamic that must change.
Corporations obsessed with short term goals and temporary profits are sometimes part of the problem.
Read more at Helium.com...
Click here for previous winners
Author’s statement:
I am very pleased to have won your 1H2O.org writing contest on the topic of "Is corporate involvement in the world water crisis good for society?" The current and emerging water crisis is a threat to our lives and public consciousness is necessary if we are to meet this challenge with appropriate and visionary solutions.
Bio:
John DeVera is an English teacher in California. He has a Bachelor of Art's degree in English from the University of California at Santa Barbara and Master of Arts degree in Literature from Fresno Pacific University.
Click here for more author's statements
