Less than eight months after Hurricane Harvey pelted the Texas Gulf Coast with torrential rainfall, drought has returned to Texas and other parts of the West, Southwest and Southeast, again forcing state governments to reckon with how to keep the water flowing.
Nearly a third of the continental U.S. is in drought, more than three times the coverage of a year ago.
And the specter of a drought-ridden summer has focused renewed urgency on conservation efforts, some of which would fundamentally alter Americans’ behavior in how they use water.
In California, for example, officials are considering rules to permanently ban water-wasting actions such as hosing off sidewalks and driveways, washing a vehicle with a hose that doesn’t have a shut-off valve, and irrigating ornamental turf on public street medians.
In Amarillo, Texas, the water department stresses conservation with the message “every drop counts,” and urges customers to do “at least one thing a day to save water.” Oklahoma City has a similar mantra.
To understand the potential dangers, U.S. officials could look to parched Cape Town, South Africa.
The city of 4 million spent months struggling to fend off Day Zero, when it was projected to become the first major urban center to run out of water.
Residents skimped on dishwashing and laundry, took minishowers and washed their hands with sanitizer.
The objective: to cut individual water consumption to 50 liters a day, or 13.2 gallons, far below the U.S. average of 80 to 100 gallons.
U.S. government and environmental experts generally agree that no major city is in imminent danger.

Water scarcity already affects more than 40 per cent of the world’s population and is expected to rise due to global warming. Drought-stricken Cape Town could run out of water as soon as April, but South Africa is not alone in its struggle as ever more world cities battle acute water shortages. Water scarcity already affects more than 40 per cent of the world’s population and is expected to rise due to global warming, with one in four people projected to face chronic or recurring shortages by 2050, according to the United Nations. Already hosting more than half the world’s people, cities are at the forefront of the problem, as population growth increases pressure on reserves, which are already stretched by too little rain and too much waste. Following are some of the crisis cities: MELBOURNE The Australian city suffered the so-called ‘Millennium drought’ between 1997 and 2009. It was one of the worst dry…

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Drought-stricken Cape Town could run out of water as soon as April, but South Africa is not alone in its struggle as ever more world cities battle acute water shortages. Water scarcity already affects more than 40 percent of the world’s population and is expected to rise due to global warming, with one in four people projected to face chronic or recurring shortages by 2050, according to the United Nations. Already hosting more than half the world’s people, cities are at the forefront of the problem, as population growth increases pressure on reserves, which are already stretched by too little rain and too much waste. Following are some of the crisis cities: SAO PAULO The reservoir supplying Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and a metropolitan region of 20 million people, nearly dried up in 2015, as the country faced its worst drought in 80 years, depriving many residents of water for 12 hours a day. The city was criticized by U.N. experts for losing 31 percent of its treated water to leaks and theft, compared to an average of…

Report: Pakistan could face mass droughts by 2025.
(Web Desk) – Pakistani experts have warned that the country could face drought in the near future.
Experts have further warned that the country will approach “absolute scarcity” level of water by 2025.
According to the Independent, a report by The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) states that Pakistan touched the “water stress line” in 1990 before crossing the “water scarcity” in 2005.
An unnamed government official said that an urgent research is needed to find the solution – but warned that the country’s government lacks sufficient funds.
Pakistan ranks fourth in the world for its highest rate of water usage, but is dependent on water from a single source – the Indus River basin located in India – and since the rainfall has been slowly declining, amid claims from the experts that this is due to climate change.
Pakistan’s largest city Karachi, home to million people, where very few of the city’s residents have access to running water since most of the land’s water has dried up, has forced many residents to queue for hours for water.
Goats walk over a barren land near the Afghan border in Baluchistan province, Pakistan.
Some say the issue has worsened due to climate change and poor water management.
The authorities need to act now.

Why a population of, say, 15 million makes sense for Australia.
Even those who acknowledge that numbers are relevant are often quick to say that it’s our consumption patterns, and not our population size, that really matter when we talk about environmental impact.
The growth coalition has no real interest in the cumulative social or environmental downside effects of this growth, nor the actual welfare of the immigrants.
A better measure of wellbeing than GDP The idea that population growth is essential to boost GDP, and that this is good for everyone, is ubiquitous and goes largely unchallenged.
Based on the work of the American economist Herman Daly in the 1970s and ’80s, GPI takes into account different measures of human wellbeing, grouped into economic, environmental and social categories.
While global GDP (and GDP per capita) continued to grow strongly after the second world war, and continues today, global GPI basically stalled in 1970 and has barely improved since.
What has all the growth been for?
It is reasonable to ask, therefore, what exactly has been the point of the huge growth in GDP and population in Australia since that time if our level of wellbeing has declined.
At the peak of GPI in Australia in the mid-1970s our population was under 15 million.
This can be done simply by winding back the large and expensive program of importing consumers to generate GDP growth – currently around 200,000 people per year and forecast to increase to almost 250,000 by 2020.

Of pigs, pythons and population growth – setting the record straight.
I am constantly startled by references to “population growth” as a cause of a number of development challenges.
I can almost see Thomas Malthus grinning at me from the shadows.
It gets worse.
The highest fertility is in sub-Saharan Africa, with Southern Africa having fairly low levels by comparison.
Family planning, child survival, and female education will have huge impacts on the highest fertility countries, but the trajectory of most other countries is a declining one already.
Of the top ten highest fertility countries, nine are in Africa, and eight of those are listed as being fragile.
So, fertility is highly correlated with crisis, uncertainty, and poor access to services.
Yes, of course numbers matter: Food and water scarcity, pressures on urban transport or on roads are correlated with how many people there are.
But why do infrastructure based services affect some people more than others?

Wastewater treatment and Sustainable development.
Why in news?
Industrial water consumption accounts for 22% of the global water used, when public awareness of pollution is limited the cost of pollution to our health and the ecosystem is huge.
What is the problem in India?
Traditional wastewater treatment plants may not remove certain pollutants.
The industrial sector in India discharges around 30,730 million cubic metres of effluents, without proper treatment, into water bodies.
Run-off from agriculture fields is another major source of pollution.
What are the water Management strategies?
Market-based strategies such as environmental taxes, pollution levies should be implemented.
The benefits to our health, and in terms of economic development and environmental sustainability, business opportunities and ‘green’ jobs far compensate the costs of wastewater management.