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26 Jul 2021 Zhengzhou, China

China Floods: Death Toll Rises, Hundreds Of Thousands Flee

The severe rainstorms have now moved north impacting neighbouring cities and regions, with collapsed roads and damaged dams and reservoirs cutting off power leaving thousands trapped without electricity and water supplies. In one incident, 12 drowned in a Zhengzhou train.

Locals were unprepared for the downpours as weather forecasters had issued a warning for extreme rain for the wrong place and time.

Farmers in the Henan region have lost livelihoods with at least 200,000 chickens and up to 6,000 pigs lost in the floods

10 Apr 2021 NANJING

China: Flood Risk To New "Silk Road"

Global warming is greening the deserts of Xinjiang as rising temperatures lead to doubling of rainfall over half a century. Scientists warn infrastructure planning and quality standards need to be updated to prepare for "lots of water".

7 Apr 2021 EDINBURGH, United Kingdom

ICT Supply Chain Faces High Flooding Risk

Key river basins that are particularly vulnerable include Taihu, Dong and Zhu in China; Danube and Rhine in Europe; Colorado and Upper Mississippi in the United States.

4 Mar 2021 VIENTIANE, Laos

"Drastic Cut": What Is China Doing With Mekong Dams?

Mekong River water levels between Jinghong hydropower station in China’s Yunnan province and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam fell in recent weeks to worrying levels, says the Mekong River Commission (MRC). The MRC has observed a 25 percent drop in average rainfall since last November, while outflow from Jinghong has been fluctuating wildly, falling to half its normal levels on several days in January...

4 Feb 2021 DELHI, India

India Concern Over China's Upstream Brahmaputra Intentions

Any attempt by China to build a mega dam upstream of the Brahmaputra River would be an “encroachment on the entitled rights of lower riparian states like India and Bangladesh,” the government of India has said. A 20 January statement released by the Jal Shakti Ministry (India’s ministry for water) and widely reported in the Indian media following a meeting of the nation’s Central Water Commission added that such a move would “adversely affect the availability of water in the Brahmaputra basin during the lean season”...

4 Feb 2021 HAMILTON, Canada

The Growing Threat Posed By Ageing Dams

The world's dam-building spree from 1930 to 1970 is catching up with some nations as they face the risks of a crumbling infrastructure exacerbated by climate change. "Ageing Water Storage Infrastructure: An Emerging Global Risk", a report published in January by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), identifies that most of the world’s 58,700 large dams were built during that period with a design life of 50 to 100 years, with 93 Percent of them located in just 25 countries...

12 Jan 2021 MADRID, Spain

Human Depletion Of Groundwater Resources Exacerbates Climate Change Impacts

Large swathes of land in densely populated parts of the world are subsiding rapidly as a result of groundwater depletion. Paired with rising sea levels caused by global warming, this could place many coastal cities at risk of severe flooding by 2040. A UNESCO-funded report published on the Policy Forum of Science Journal deploys a large-scale review of subsidence over the past century and predictions of subsidence susceptibility modelled using a combination of spatial and statistical analyses...

9 Jan 2021 LONDON, United Kingdom

Counting The Cost Of Climate Change To The World's Economy

Christian Aid's annual assessment of weather disasters reports an estimated $150 Billion USD in damages in 2020, reflecting long-term impact of global warming.An estimated 4 Percent of the economic losses from climate-related extreme events occurred in low-income countries were insured, compared to 60 Percent in high-income countries...

17 Dec 2020 GENEVA, Switzerland

Disastrous Climate Damage Continued In 2020

The World Meterological Organization (WMO) assesses that 2020 is on track to be the second warmest year in the most recent decade, with the warmest six years being since 2015.Preliminary information, based on data collected from January to October 2020, shows how high-impact events such as floods, extreme heat and wildfires affected millions of people...

17 Dec 2020 Glasgow, Scotland

US Will Host A Climate Summit In First Quarter Of 2021

United States President-elect Joe Biden has announced that the US will host a climate summit of the world’s major economies before the end of March 2021. Biden has already committed the US re-joining the Paris Climate Agreement on the day of his inauguration in January.The announcement follows a virtual "Climate Ambition Summit" co-hosted by the UN, the United Kingdom, Britain, France, Italy, and Chile on 12-13 Decmber which was organised to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris accord and was held in lieu of the originally-scheduled COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, which will now happen in November 2021...

17 Dec 2020 WASHINGTON DC, United States

US-funded "Mekong Dam Monitor" Launches

A new, United States-funded real-time data platform using remote sensing is designed to bring transparency to dam operations in China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. While the platform will aid understanding of the effects of upstream dams, it may also exacerbate US-China rivalry in the basin...

15 Dec 2020 BEIJING

Eco-conservation In China's Yellow River Basin

Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng has called for efforts to advance eco-conservation and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin. Han stressed regarding water resources as the biggest constraint on the development of population, cities and industries. More efforts should be made to protect and restore ecological systems, focus on improving water quality and step up comprehensive treatment of environmental pollution...