Flow of death
A recent WHO meeting brought together experts from Bangladesh and India to develop a common plan of action to arrest arsenic poisoning in both …
Rewind 2018: Is India’s head above water?
Here’s a lowdown on how India struggled to get its act together as its groundwater levels dipped and water bodies diminished
Watered down: Almost half of India’s rivers still remain polluted; here is why
India has mostly focussed on cleaning only major rivers; most states have recently started reviving their small rivers, but the progress remains …
World Rivers Day: Adopt bottom-up approach, says student who cleaned Vadodara stream
Down To Earth talks to Sneha Shahi about the issues facing Indian rivers and her own experience of working with two of them
Chalk streams: why ‘England’s rainforests’ are so rare and precious
England’s chalk streams support a wide variety of biodiversity; but anthropogenic pressures are destroying these icons of English culture
Damming rivers is terrible for human rights, ecosystems and food security
Despite industry rhetoric, hydroelectricity is high-cost and high-risk. There are better options for a post-pandemic recovery and a renewable …
Bihar to change Kosi’s course to save ancient site, says Nitish
Government hasn’t learnt any lessons about a river known to change course itself, say environmentalists
Climate change can affect malaria transmission patterns in Africa: Study
Much of the subsequent increase in malaria transmission could be realised by 2041-2070, according to the study
Cauvery faces manifold threats in Tamil Nadu
The delta is up against a subsidence threat due to lack of sediment flow from upstream and seawater ingress
Hydropower dams can harm coastal areas far downstream
A study in Mexico on four rivers finds that damming rivers has measurable negative ecologic and economic effects on coastal regions more …
Kerala: After the deluge, a drought in the works
Major rivers and wells in the state have seen their water levels dip precariously after a terrible flood hit the state in August
Three rivers are now legally people – but that's just the start of looking after them
Giving legal rights to non-human entities doesn’t mean much if they can’t be enforced
Ganga is a living entity, says Uttarakhand High Court
The only other place in the world to have given rights to a river at par with humans is New Zealand
Bridge over troubled waters
NGOs want an integrated approach to solve water disputes between nations and prevent programme duplication
Cauvery calamity
Promotion of water-guzzling crops like rice is leading to maximum utilisation of river waters in India. The Cauvery dispute between Karnataka and …
The skyway to disaster
The proposed elevated roadway along the Lyari river bed is expected to worsen the already polluted inner city.
Perched atop an abyss
The predatory Nile perch, introduced with all good intentions into the Lake Victoria, is turning out to be the magnificent lake's nemesis
Waters of woe
The recent spate of floods can easily be interpreted as one of the worst floods of the century for India
Engulfed by the ravines
Once a throbbing rural business centre, Birahrua, in Morena district of Madhya Pradesh, is now haunted by devilish gullies
Supreme Court go-ahead for interlinking rivers
Court had earlier said it would not favour interlinking of rivers if it puts a huge financial burden on the Centre
How fracking plans could affect shared water resources in southern Africa
Of all environmental impacts, the negative impact of fracking on water resources is the most serious. This is especially so in water-scarce …
Restore flow, rivers are self-purifying
We need to go back to the drawing board of Jackie King, the South African who won the World Water Prize 2019
How water flows across continents
Hungarian cartographer Robert Szucs has created graphic maps of watersheds across the world. His works can be found here.
Study sheds light on functioning of global river-based ecosystems
Around 153 researchers from 40 countries worked on the paper, which shows how climatic factors that govern decomposition rates are increasingly …
How we're using fish ear bones as 'time capsules' of past river health
Oxygen isotope values of fish ear bones gives information on the temperature of the water, while studying concentrations of trace elements …