Mountain Water Supply to Two Billion People Could Change
January 18th, 2021
Courtesy of Scientific American (subscription required), a detailed look at how data about Earth’s 78 most important mountaintops foretell changes in the amount and timing of snowmelt: The nights are long inside a tent 5,300 meters above sea level at the snout of Nepal’s Yala Glacier. At 8:00 P.M., after a meal of Nepali dal bhat (lentils […]
Read more »Asian Water Towers On Tighter Budget: More Runoff Won’t Quench Indus or Ganges Thirst
January 11th, 2021
Via Eureka Alert, notice of a new study on the Asian Water Towers: The Third Pole centered on the Tibetan Plateau is home to headwaters of over 10 major Asian rivers. These glacier-based water systems, also known as the Asian Water Towers, will have to struggle to quench the thirst of downstream communities despite more […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon and Parched Tiger: Will China Turn Off Asia’s Tap?
December 26th, 2020
Via Brahma Chellaney, commentary on China’s water pressure on the rest of Asia: China’s megaproject on the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo) is to come up next to Metog (Motuo), just before the mighty river crosses into India. Even after Asia’s economies climb out of the COVID-19 recession, China’s strategy of frenetically building dams and reservoirs on transnational rivers […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon and Parched Tiger: Water – The New Flashpoint in the India-China Stand-Off
December 20th, 2020
Via Byline Times, commentary on China’s plans to build a new dam on the headwaters of the Tsangpo River: At a conference on 26 November Yan Zhiyong, chairman of the state-owned Power Construction Corp of China, announced plans to build a new hydropower dam on one of the largest river’s in the world, which flows […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon and Parched Tiger: World’s Largest Hydropower Project by China on Yarlung/Brahmaputra
December 12th, 2020
Via ORF Online, a report on China’s hydropower project on the Yarlung/Brahmaputra headwaters: The Yarlung snaking its way in between the lofty peaks of Namcha Barwa (R) and Gyala Peri (L) | Source: Google Earth Causing an apparent surprise, news broke last week that hydropower exploitation in the downstream of the Yarlung Zangbo had been made a part […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon and Parched Tiger: India’s Worries and China’s Tibetan Dams
December 9th, 2020
Via Future Directions International, commentary on how Chinese dams on the Brahmaputra River are just one more thorn in the side of India-China relations and India has good reason to be concerned: India has said that it is ‘carefully monitoring’ the situation as China considers building up to 60 gigawatts of hydropower along the Brahmaputra River (known as […]
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