The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban not only threatens people’s lives, security, and fundamental freedom, but also significantly increases risks of water insecurity both immediately and in the long term. While our hearts and minds are with the people struggling for survival and freedom in Afghanistan today, we should not forget that the implications of Taliban rule will add yet another challenge to the long-term future of the Afghan people, and possibly also to the entire region’s stability.

With white sandy beaches, cerulean waters, and lush jungles, Indonesia’s Raja Ampat Islands are some of the world’s most beautiful islands—and currently under threat from a growing plastic waste crisis. Covering 40,000 square kilometers of land and sea off the northwest tip of West Papua, Raja Ampat lies at the intersection of the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean tides in a biodiversity hotspot known as the Coral Triangle. 

One of the biggest challenges facing China’s future development is water, which must support the country’s 1.4 billion people and booming industries. Despite being one of the top five countries with the largest freshwater resources, on a per capita basis, China faces serious water shortages which are further compounded by a highly uneven spatial distribution and precipitation: the densely populated north suffers from acute water shortages whereas the south is prone to severe floods. To optimize the allocation of water resources, China has embarked on the construction of a mega engineering project, the South North Water Diversion project (SNWD).

Connected and healthy rivers deliver diverse benefits that are often overlooked: freshwater fish stocks that improve food security for hundreds of millions of people, nutrient-rich sediment that supports agriculture and keeps deltas above rising seas, floodplains that help mitigate the impact of floods, and a wealth of biodiversity. Navigating Trade-Offs Between Dams And River Conservation, a new report in the journal, Global Sustainability, reveals that if all proposed hydropower dams are built, over 260,000 km of rivers (160,000 miles), including the Amazon, Congo, Irrawaddy, and Salween mainstem rivers, will lose free-flowing status.

Better access to safe drinking water and sanitation around the world could prevent the deaths of 297,000 children aged under 5 years from diarrhea each year. Likewise, the risk of infection of other common infectious diseases including cholera, hepatitis A, typhoid, and most recently – the coronavirus, can be reduced by improving access to clean water and sanitation facilities. 

In Sidoarjo City, Indonesia, student river detectives catalog the microplastics they sample from the Brantas River, the longest river in East Java. Plastic waste threatens this water that seventeen million people depend on for drinking water, fishing, and irrigation. Daru Setyorini and her team from ECOTON (Ecological Observation and Wetlands Conservation) organized this program to educate youth and inform policymakers on the scope of the problem. 

“We see women playing a critical role in water resource management and decision-making at the family level as well as the community level. However, they’re very often absent from high level water-related negotiations and agreements,” said Merissa Khurma, director of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program (MEP), introducing a Wilson Center event on the inclusion of women in water leadership and diplomacy in the Middle East, co-hosted by the Environmental Change and Security Program, MEP, and EcoPeace Middle East.