Suicide and water availability at both extremes are examined in a new collaborative study. The assessment randomly selected rural areas in India, defined to have a population of less than 5,000 and where more than 25 Percent of the male population were employed in the agriculture sector.

Analysis of almost 9,500 suicides between 2001 and 2013 revealed an increase in suicides of 18.7 Percent during extremely wet cropping seasons when compared with normal growing seasons. There was a 3.6 Percent increase during extremely dry seasons.

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has launched a new “report card” which is an authoritative overview of the state of nature, marking progress made against 20 global biodiversity targets that were agreed in 2010. It also offers lessons learned and best practices for getting on track to achieve the goals.

Five of the targets have been partially achieved and the others are failures.

The Global Biodiversity Outlook (5) points out that in order to achieve the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity a range of actions are necessary, and that action on any one point alone is insufficient to have meaningful impact.

Government officials in Botswana on September 21 attributed 330 mysterious elephant deaths in May and June to ingestion of toxins produced by cyanobacteria found in algal blooms in regional water holes.

“Our latest tests have detected cyanobacterial neurotoxins to be the cause of deaths. These are bacteria found in water,” Mmadi Reuben, principal veterinary officer at the Botswana department of wildlife and national parks, said in a 21 Sptember news conference. “However we have many questions still to be answered such as why the elephants only and why that area only. We have a number of hypotheses we are investigating.”

York University researchers have just created a publicly available water quality database for close to 12,000 freshwater lakes globally—almost half of the world's freshwater supply—that will help s

As in previous years, [large forest fires] have entered populated areas [in the US], damaging drinking water networks.

The National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) has raised the alarm that the N60 billion sugar investment project in Sunti Golden Sugar Estate (SGSE) in Niger State is reportedly threatened by flood

Last month, Aborigen Forum, a group of Russian indigenous activists and leaders, launched a campaign to raise awareness of Norilsk Nickel’s impacts on their communities and to demand restitution.

The Colorado River Basin is set to experience continued drought and an increased chance of water shortages by 2025 according to new modeling results from the US Bureau of Reclamation. The basin, which supplies water to 40 million people, is in its 21st year of drought.

After decades of argument, Utrecht has restored the ‘singel’ canal that surrounds the city in an effort to promote greener living.