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NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
Showing posts from category urbanization.
  • Groundwater Scarcity, Pollution Set India on Perilous Course

    ›
    Choke Point  //  Guest Contributor  //  January 15, 2019  //  By Keith Schneider
    2017-07-India-Food-Water-Security-JGanter-B11A0433-Edit-2500

    This article first appeared on Circle of Blue as part of the multi-year Choke Point: India, a collaboration between Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center on the global implications of water, energy, and food challenges in India.

    Doula Village lies 55 kilometers (34 miles) northeast of New Delhi on a flat expanse of Uttar Pradesh farmland close to the Hindon River. Until the 1980s Doula Village’s residents, then numbering 7,000, and its farmers and grain merchants, thrived on land that yielded ample harvests of rice, millet, and mung beans. The bounty was irrigated with clean water transported directly from the river, or with the sweet groundwater drawn from shallow wells 7 meters (23 feet) deep.

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  • Recycled Water Could Solve Beijing’s Water Woes, But Implementation Falls Short

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    China Environment Forum  //  Guest Contributor  //  November 19, 2018  //  By Danielle Neighbour
    shutterstock_419704441

    Huo Chang grows visibly exasperated as he speaks about his city’s water crisis. From his office in Beijing’s largest state-owned environmental investment and service company, China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group (CECEP), the water expert explains how Beijing is in the throes of a population and economic boom that has left its water resources both polluted and depleted. In response to these opposing pressures, the city turned to controversial measures to avoid a Cape Town-like Day Zero crisis in which Beijing would no longer be able to meet the daily water needs of its population of nearly 22 million.

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  • Resilient Cities Need to Support the Informal Economy: Millions of Overlooked Working Poor

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    Guest Contributor  //  October 31, 2018  //  By Caroline Wanjiku Kihato & Mike Rogan
    Bangkok Street Vendors

    For this World Cities Day, the UN’s theme calls for “building sustainable and resilient cities.” Cities across the Global South are assessing their physical preparedness against future shocks. Can cities that leave out—or often push out—poor workers claim resiliency? These moves are, in fact, weakening any preparedness. The foundations of truly sustainable and resilient cities lie in their residents’ abilities and agency.

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  • Cape Town’s Harrowing Journey to the Brink of Water Catastrophe

    ›
    Guest Contributor  //  September 14, 2018  //  By Brett Walton
    2018-04-South-Africa-Cape-Town-BWalton-IMG_4939-Edit-2500

    The original version of this post by Brett Walton appeared on Circle of Blue. Travel funding for this story came from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
     

     This is what a water panic looks like in a major global city.

    People hoard water. They queue for hours, well into the night, to fill jugs at natural springs. Like mad Christmas shoppers, they clear supermarkets of bottled water. They descend on stockers before they can fill the shelves.

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  • Rush Hour: Three Commutes, Three Stories

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    From the Wilson Center  //  August 16, 2018  //  By Rebecca Lorenzen
    Mexico-City-Traffic

    “The idea to make this film came from a very personal place,” said filmmaker Luciana Kaplan at a recent Wilson Center screening of her documentary Rush Hour, recalling how a woman who worked for her spent six hours a day on public transportation. “I have to make a film about this,” she said she told herself, “because this is a silent enemy that is attacking all of us in big cities.”

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  • China’s Waste Import Ban: Dumpster Fire or Opportunity for Change?

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    China Environment Forum  //  July 19, 2018  //  By Guo Chen
    Empty Chinese plastic bottles ready to be recycled

    In early January of this year, China’s “National Sword” policy banned imports of non-industrial plastic waste. The ban forces exporting countries to find new dumping grounds for their waste, which is estimated to total nearly 111 million metric tons by 2030. China’s decision has exposed deep structural flaws and interdependencies in the global waste management system. Western countries that have long depended on China to take their garbage are now struggling to deal with mounds of plastic trash, while China lacks the low-priced labor needed to effectively sort and process waste.

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  • Mapping Refugees and Urban Job Opportunities

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    Eye On  //  July 2, 2018  //  By Daniel Lohmann
    Urban refugees

    Although most of us picture refugees living in remote, dusty camps, as many as 2.1 million of the developing world’s working-age refugees reside in major urban areas—where they should have greater access to employment opportunities. However, according to a new report from the Center for Global Development, finding employment remains “one of the major unmet needs identified by refugees.”

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  • Avoiding a Water Crisis: What’s Next for Cape Town — and Beyond?

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    Friday Podcasts  //  April 20, 2018  //  By Wilson Center Staff
    water_capetowndrought

    Intense drought in South Africa’s Western Cape Province has led the world-renowned city of Cape Town to the brink of “Day Zero”—the date at which residents would be forced to collect strictly rationed water supplies from shared distribution taps. Water conservation efforts have so far prevented a massive water shutdown, but the city’s rapid population growth and reliance on surface water dams makes it particularly vulnerable to lower precipitation levels. 

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