India’s impending health crisis can be found in its toxic water supply. In January’s most popular post, Jennifer Möller-Gulland, J. Carl Ganter, and Cody T. Pope of Circle of Blue report on India’s widespread use of contaminated wastewater by farmers to raise their crops. Water contamination caused by the discharge of untreated, highly polluted industrial, municipal and agricultural wastewater has spread deeper into the country’s major rivers and food supply causing burning lakes, decreasing agricultural exports, and increasing rates of diseases. With no alternative, India’s farmers pray that wastewater will continue to flow.

This past month the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released the 2019 National Intelligence Strategy (NIS). In January’s second most read post, Marisol Maddox reviews the new strategy’s departure from the previous 2014 NIS in its single mention of climate change and resource shortages as “pressure points.”

Our third and fourth most popular posts this month focus on policy reform. Loren B. Landau and Iriann Freemantle look at the impact that “hit from behind” policies like enhanced border control and support of authoritarian regimes have on migration, global development, security, and environmental resilience.

Before the introduction of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act (DRRA), U.S. disaster relief law required infrastructure to be replaced or rebuilt in a “substantially similar” manner. Ladeene Freimuth argues that this law is a major step forward, but more needs to be done to enhance resilience from the community to the global level.

China is the world’s largest timber importer and consumer of timber products, but communities of supplying countries like the Solomon Islands’ and Papua New Guinea bear the brunt of the timber trade. Truett Sparkman recounts a recent Wilson Center event that explores China’s demand for these raw materials and their use of host countries’ weak laws, agencies, and regulatory capacities.

1. Toxic Water, Toxic Crops: India’s Public Health Time Bomb by Jennifer Möller-Gulland, J. Carl Ganter & Cody T. Pope

2. Anticipatory Intelligence: Climate Change in the National Intelligence Strategy by Marisol Maddox

3. The Tetherball Effect: How Efforts to Stop Migration Backfire by Loren B. Landau & Iriann Freemantle

4. Disaster Relief Law Updated to Enhance Resilience of Critical Infrastructure by Ladeene Freimuth

5. China’s Demand for Raw Materials Harms Communities Around the World by Truett Sparkman