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Tag: Droughts

  • Hungary’s ‘water guardian’ farmers fight back against desertification

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    KISKUNMAJSA, Hungary — Oszkár Nagyapáti climbed to the bottom of a sandy pit on his land on the Great Hungarian Plain and dug into the soil with his hand, looking for a sign of groundwater that in recent years has been in accelerating retreat.

    “It’s much worse, and it’s getting worse year after year,” he said as cloudy liquid slowly seeped into the hole. ”Where did so much water go? It’s unbelievable.”

    Nagyapáti has watched with distress as the region in southern Hungary, once an important site for agriculture, has become increasingly parched and dry. Where a variety of crops and grasses once filled the fields, today there are wide cracks in the soil and growing sand dunes more reminiscent of the Sahara Desert than Central Europe.

    The region, known as the Homokhátság, has been described by some studies as semiarid — a distinction more common in parts of Africa, the American Southwest or Australian Outback — and is characterized by very little rain, dried-out wells and a water table plunging ever deeper underground.

    In a 2017 paper in European Countryside, a scientific journal, researchers cited “the combined effect of climatic changes, improper land use and inappropriate environmental management” as causes for the Homokhátság’s aridification, a phenomenon the paper called unique in this part of the continent.

    Fields that in previous centuries would be regularly flooded by the Danube and Tisza Rivers have, through a combination of climate change-related droughts and poor water retention practices, become nearly unsuitable for crops and wildlife.

    Now a group of farmers and other volunteers, led by Nagyapáti, are trying to save the region and their lands from total desiccation using a resource for which Hungary is famous: thermal water.

    “I was thinking about what could be done, how could we bring the water back or somehow create water in the landscape,” Nagyapáti told The Associated Press. “There was a point when I felt that enough is enough. We really have to put an end to this. And that’s where we started our project to flood some areas to keep the water in the plain.”

    Along with the group of volunteer “water guardians,” Nagyapáti began negotiating with authorities and a local thermal spa last year, hoping to redirect the spa’s overflow water — which would usually pour unused into a canal — onto their lands. The thermal water is drawn from very deep underground.

    According to the water guardians’ plan, the water, cooled and purified, would be used to flood a 2½-hectare (6-acre) low-lying field — a way of mimicking the natural cycle of flooding that channelizing the rivers had ended.

    “When the flooding is complete and the water recedes, there will be 2½ hectares of water surface in this area,” Nagyapáti said. “This will be quite a shocking sight in our dry region.”

    A 2024 study by Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University showed that unusually dry layers of surface-level air in the region had prevented any arriving storm fronts from producing precipitation. Instead, the fronts would pass through without rain, and result in high winds that dried out the topsoil even further.

    The water guardians hoped that by artificially flooding certain areas, they wouldn’t only raise the groundwater level but also create a microclimate through surface evaporation that could increase humidity, reduce temperatures and dust and have a positive impact on nearby vegetation.

    Tamás Tóth, a meteorologist in Hungary, said that because of the potential impact such wetlands can have on the surrounding climate, water retention “is simply the key issue in the coming years and for generations to come, because climate change does not seem to stop.”

    “The atmosphere continues to warm up, and with it the distribution of precipitation, both seasonal and annual, has become very hectic, and is expected to become even more hectic in the future,” he said.

    Following another hot, dry summer this year, the water guardians blocked a series of sluices along a canal, and the repurposed water from the spa began slowly gathering in the low-lying field.

    After a couple of months, the field had nearly been filled. Standing beside the area in early December, Nagyapáti said that the shallow marsh that had formed “may seem very small to look at it, but it brings us immense happiness here in the desert.”

    He said the added water will have a “huge impact” within a roughly 4-kilometer (2½-mile) radius, “not only on the vegetation, but also on the water balance of the soil. We hope that the groundwater level will also rise.”

    Persistent droughts in the Great Hungarian Plain have threatened desertification, a process where vegetation recedes because of high heat and low rainfall. Weather-damaged crops have dealt significant blows to the country’s overall gross domestic product, prompting Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to announce this year the creation of a “drought task force” to deal with the problem.

    After the water guardians’ first attempt to mitigate the growing problem in their area, they said they experienced noticeable improvements in the groundwater level, as well as an increase of flora and fauna near the flood site.

    The group, which has grown to more than 30 volunteers, would like to expand the project to include another flooded field, and hopes their efforts could inspire similar action by others to conserve the most precious resource.

    “This initiative can serve as an example for everyone, we need more and more efforts like this,” Nagyapáti said. “We retained water from the spa, but retaining any kind of water, whether in a village or a town, is a tremendous opportunity for water replenishment.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Colorado River water negotiators appear no closer to long-term agreement

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    LAS VEGAS — The seven states that rely on the Colorado River to supply farms and cities across the U.S. West appear no closer to reaching a consensus on a long-term plan for sharing the dwindling resource.

    The river’s future was the center of discussions this week at the annual Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas, where water leaders from California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming gathered alongside federal and tribal officials.

    It comes after the states blew past a November deadline for a new plan to deal with drought and water shortages after 2026, when current guidelines expire. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has set a new deadline of Feb. 14.

    Nevada’s lead negotiator said it is unlikely the states will reach agreement that quickly.

    “As we sit here mid-December with a looming February deadline, I don’t see any clear path to a long-term deal, but I do see a path to the possibility of a shorter-term deal to keep us out of court,” John Entsminger of the Southern Nevada Water Authority told The Associated Press.

    More than 40 million people across seven states, Mexico and Native American tribes depend on the water from the river. Farmers in California and Arizona use it to grow the nation’s winter vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and carrots. It provides water and electricity to millions of homes and businesses across the basin.

    But longstanding drought, chronic overuse and increasing temperatures have forced a reckoning on the river’s future. Existing water conservation agreements that determine who must use less in times of shortage expire in 2026. After two years of negotiating, states still haven’t reached a deal for what comes next.

    The federal government continues to refrain from coming up with its own solution — preferring the seven basin states reach consensus themselves. If they don’t, a federally imposed plan could leave parties unhappy and result in costly, lengthy litigation.

    Not only is this water fight between the upper and lower basins, individual municipalities, tribal nations and water agencies have their own stakes in this battle. California, which has the largest share of Colorado River water, has over 200 water agencies alone, each with their own customers.

    “It’s a rabbit hole you can dive down in, and it is incredibly complex,” said Noah Garrison, a water researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

    During a Thursday panel of state negotiators, none appeared willing to bend on their demands. Each highlighted what their state has done to conserve water, from turf-removal projects to canal lining in order to reduce seepage, and they explained why their state can’t take on more. Instead, they said, others should bear the burden.

    Entsminger, of Nevada, said he could see a short-term deal lasting five years that sets new rules around water releases and storage at Lakes Powell and Mead — two key reservoirs.

    Lower Basin states pitched a reduction of 1.5 million acre-feet per year to cover a structural deficit that occurs when water evaporates or is absorbed into the ground as it flows downstream. An acre-foot is enough water to supply two to three households a year.

    But they want to see a similar contribution from the Upper Basin. The Upper Basin states, however, don’t think they should have to make additional cuts because they already don’t use their full share of the water and are legally obligated to send a certain amount of water downstream.

    “Our water users feel that pain,” said Estevan López, New Mexico’s representative for the Upper Colorado River Commission.

    Upper Basin states want less water released from Lake Powell to Lake Mead.

    But Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said he hasn’t seen anything on the table from the Upper Basin that would compel him to ask Arizona lawmakers to approve those demands.

    Within the coming weeks, the Bureau of Reclamation will release a range of possible proposals, but it will not identify a specific set of operating guidelines the federal government would prefer.

    Scott Cameron, the bureau’s acting commissioner, implored the states to find compromise.

    “Cooperation is better than litigation,” he said during the conference. “The only certainty around litigation in the Colorado River basin is a bunch of water lawyers are going to be able to put their children and grandchildren through graduate school. There are much better ways to spend several hundred million dollars.”

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  • Brown grass cost a famed golf course a big tournament and highlighted Hawaii water problems

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    HONOLULU (AP) — High up on the slopes of the west Maui mountains, the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort provides golfers with expansive ocean views. The course is so renowned that The Sentry, a $20 million signature event for the PGA Tour, had been held there nearly every year for more than a quarter-century.

    “You have to see it to believe it,” said Ann Miller, a former longtime Honolulu newspaper golf writer. “You’re looking at other islands, you’re looking at whales. … Every view is beautiful.”

    Its world-class status also depends on keeping the course green.

    But with water woes in west Maui — facing drought and still reeling from a deadly 2023 wildfire that ravaged the historic town of Lahaina — keeping the course green enough for The Sentry became difficult.

    Ultimately, as the Plantation’s fairways and greens grew brown, the PGA Tour canceled the season opener, a blow that cost what officials estimate to be $50 million economic impact on the area.

    A two-month closure and some rain helped get the course in suitable condition to reopen 17 holes earlier this month to everyday golfers who pay upwards of $469 to play a round. The 18th hole is set to reopen Monday, but the debate is far from over about the source of the water used to keep the course green and what its future looks like amid climate change.

    Questions about Hawaii’s golf future

    There’s concern that other high-profile tournaments will also bow out, taking with them economic benefits, such as money for charities, Miller said.

    “It could literally change the face of it,” she said, “and it could change the popularity, obviously, too.”

    The company that owns the courses, along with Kapalua homeowners and Hua Momona Farms, filed a lawsuit in August alleging Maui Land & Pineapple, which operates the century-old system of ditches that provides irrigation water to Kapalua and its residents, has not kept up repairs, affecting the amount of water getting down from the mountain.

    MLP has countersued and the two sides have exchanged accusations since then.

    As the water-delivery dispute plays out in court, Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental legal group, is calling attention to a separate issue involving the use of drinking water for golf course irrigation, particularly irksome to residents contending with water restrictions amid drought, including Native Hawaiians who consider water a sacred resource.

    “Potable ground drinking water needs to be used for potable use,” Lauren Palakiko, a west Maui taro farmer, told the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management at a recent meeting. “I can’t stress enough that it should never be pumped, injuring our aquifer for the sake of golf grass or vacant mansion swimming pools.”

    ‘This is water that we can drink’

    Kapalua’s Plantation and Bay courses, owned by TY Management Corp., have historically been irrigated with surface water delivered under an agreement with Maui Land & Pineapple, but since at least the summer have been using millions of gallons of potable groundwater, according to Earthjustice attorneys who point to correspondence from commission Chairperson Dawn Chang to MLP and Hawaii Water Service they say confirms it.

    Chang said her letter didn’t authorize anything, but merely acknowledged an “oral representation” that using groundwater is an an “existing use” at times when there’s not enough surface water. She is asking for supporting documentation from MLP and Hawaii Water Service to confirm that interpretation.

    In emails to The Associated Press, MLP said it did not believe groundwater could be used for golf course irrigation and Hawaii Water Service said it didn’t communicate to the commission that using groundwater to irrigate the courses was an existing use.

    MLP’s two wells that service the course provide potable water.

    “This is water that we can drink. It’s an even more precious resource within the sacred resource of wai,” Dru Hara, an Earthjustice attorney said, using the Hawaiian word for water.

    Recycled water solutions

    TY, owned by Japanese billionaire and apparel brand Uniqlo’s founder Tadashi Yanai, doesn’t have control over what kind of water is in the reservoir they draw upon for irrigation, TY General Manager Kenji Yui said in a statement. They’re also researching ways to bring recycled water to Kapalua for irrigation.

    Kamanamaikalani Beamer, a former commissioner, said he’s troubled by Earthjustice’s allegations that proper procedures weren’t followed.

    The wrangling over water for golf shows that courses in Hawaii need to change their relationship with water, Beamer said: “I think there needs to be a time very soon that all golf courses are utilizing at a minimum recycled water.”

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  • Texas’s Water Wars

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    Charles Perry, a Republican state senator from Lubbock and the legislature’s leading water expert, believes that the ominous 2022 projections are too optimistic; he has said that Texas may face an annual water deficit of up to twelve million acre-feet by 2050. (The municipal supply used by the entire state in 2023 was a bit more than five million acre-feet.) “This is the only thing that we’re not addressing that is going to be the limiting cap on the Texas that we know and love today,” Perry said at a Water for Texas conference earlier this year. “The time has arrived. We can’t go any longer without somebody saying something.”

    Part of the problem is the state’s antiquated approach to water policy. Texas follows the rule of capture, also known as absolute ownership, which allows landowners to draw as much water from below their property as they’d like, even if this has a negative impact on neighboring properties. Critics argue that the rule of capture incentivizes over-pumping, and note that every other Western state has jettisoned the rule, instead opting for an approach that mandates “reasonable use.” In Texas, where private property is regarded as sacrosanct, it’s been harder to get lawmakers to move beyond absolute ownership. But it’s misleading to equate the rule of capture with private property, according to Robert Glennon, an emeritus professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Law and the author of “Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters.” “Property owners in Texas can’t prevent someone next door with a bigger pump and a deeper well from sucking groundwater from underneath their property,” Glennon told me. “Instead of a private-property right, absolute ownership is more of a circular firing squad.”

    The rule of capture, once an obscure provision of Texas law, is now on more people’s radar after a fight over water rights in East Texas went public earlier this year. “This is the No. 1 topic, the one thing that everybody cares about the most here,” Cody Harris, a Republican state legislator who represents the area, told me. “Usually, it’s property taxes, border security, education, things like that. But right now, and for the last few months, it’s been nothing but water.” The issue came to the forefront when Kyle Bass, a hedge-fund manager who cemented his reputation by betting against the subprime-mortgage boom, in 2008, announced plans to intervene in the looming water crisis. Like Perry, he believed that the worrying projections in the 2022 Water Plan weren’t ominous enough. “Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, I can identify significant problems before they happen,” Bass told the Houston Chronicle. A proponent of what he calls “conservation equity management”—that is, increasing property values through environmental stewardship—Bass applied for permits that would allow him to drill dozens of high-capacity wells on his East Texas ranch. The idea was to pull up to nearly forty-nine thousand acre-feet of water from the wettest part of the state and sell it to the fast-growing Dallas suburbs. Although such a plan is perfectly acceptable under the rule of capture, and similar projects are already under way elsewhere in the state, East Texans bristled at the idea. (The Texas Water Development Board has concluded that the permits would allow Bass to withdraw more groundwater than is available in the area, but Bass has said that such an interpretation of his permits is misleading, and that it would be “silly” to take more water than the aquifer could sustain.)

    When Bass’s application came before the board of the Neches & Trinity Valleys Groundwater Conservation District, hundreds of people showed up to the meeting. (In Texas, water boards can approve well-drilling permits, but have a limited ability to adopt pumping caps.) Bass was there, too. When it was his turn to speak, he struck a folksy tone. “I wear boots every day. I wear jeans every day. And I spend about all my time out here in Henderson County,” he told the crowd. “The state of Texas’s main problems are power and water,” and he was hoping to address the issue by “doing things that are responsible by law and by science.” He was followed by dozens of residents, most of whom spoke in opposition to his plans. (Bass would later call the crowd “woefully uninformed and uneducated on the subject” and “obviously very emotive.”) A gray-haired man in a checked shirt who said that he could trace his ancestry back to early Texas settlers called the area’s water “an inheritance for me and my family.” “Amen!” a woman in the crowd shouted. “The aquifer . . . it’s not going to be able to keep up with demand and it’s going to hurt people. It’s going to kill people,” the man went on. (A judge recently halted Bass’s well-drilling project, which is facing a lawsuit from local businesses. Bass has responded by suing to reinstate the project.) The furor was heated enough that it seemed briefly as if the legislature might finally reconsider the rule of capture. Harris has said that he plans to challenge the policy the next time lawmakers meet. “It’s the first time in my career where discussions have been at this serious level, about considering changing rule of capture,” Mace, of the Meadows Center, told me. “I’ve got my bowl of popcorn, and I’ll be watching very closely to see what happens.”

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    Rachel Monroe

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  • Drought mutes fall leaf-peeping season

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    PORTLAND, Maine — Leaf-peeping season has arrived in the Northeast and beyond, but weeks of drought have muted this year’s autumn colors, and sent leaves fluttering to the ground earlier than usual.

    Soaking in the fall foliage is an annual tradition in the New England states as well as areas such as the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina and Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As the days shorten and temperatures drop, chlorophyll in leaves breaks down, and they turn to the autumn tones of yellow, orange and red.


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    By PATRICK WHITTLE and MICHAEL CASEY – Associated Press

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  • Amazon’s ‘flying rivers’ weaken, scientists warn of worsening droughts

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    BOGOTA, Colombia — Droughts have withered crops in Peru, fires have scorched the Amazon and hydroelectric dams in Ecuador have struggled to keep the lights on as rivers dry up. Scientists say the cause may lie high above the rainforest, where invisible “flying rivers” carry rain from the Atlantic Ocean across South America.

    New analysis warns that relentless deforestation is disrupting that water flow and suggests that continuing tree loss will worsen droughts in the southwestern Amazon and could eventually trigger those regions to shift from rainforest to drier savanna — grassland with far fewer trees.

    “These are the forces that actually create and sustain the Amazon rainforest,” said Matt Finer, a senior researcher with Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP), which tracks deforestation and climate threats across the basin and carried out the analysis.

    “If you break that pump by cutting down too much forest, the rains stop reaching where they need to go.”

    Most of the Amazon’s rainfall starts over the Atlantic Ocean. Moist air is pushed inland by steady winds that blow west along the equator, known as the trade winds. The forest then acts like a pump, effectively relaying the water thousands of miles westward as the trees absorb water, then release it back into the air.

    Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre was among the early researchers who calculated how much of the water vapor from the Atlantic would move through and eventually out of the Amazon basin. He and colleagues coined the “flying rivers” term at a 2006 scientific meeting, and interest grew as scientists warned that a weakening of the rivers could push the Amazon into a tipping point where rainforest would turn to savanna.

    That’s important because the Amazon rainforest is a vast storehouse for the carbon dioxide that largely drives the world’s warming. Such a shift would devastate wildlife and Indigenous communities and threaten farming, water supplies and weather stability far beyond the region.

    The analysis by Finer’s group found that southern Peru and northern Bolivia are especially vulnerable. During the dry season, flying rivers sweep across southern Brazil before reaching the Andes — precisely where deforestation is most intense. The loss of trees means less water vapor is carried westward, raising the risk of drought in iconic protected areas such as Peru’s Manu National Park.

    “Peru can do everything right to protect a place like Manu,” Finer said. “But if deforestation keeps cutting into the pump in Brazil, the rains that sustain it may never arrive.”

    Nobre said as much as 50% of rainfall in the western Amazon near the Andes depends on the flying rivers.

    Corine Vriesendorp, Amazon Conservation’s director of science based in Cusco, Peru, said the changes are already visible.

    “The last two years have brought the driest conditions the Amazon has ever seen,” Vriesendorp said. “Ecological calendars that Indigenous communities use — when to plant, when to fish, when animals reproduce — are increasingly out of sync. Having less and more unpredictable rain will have an even bigger impact on their lives than climate change is already having.”

    Farmers face failed harvests, Indigenous families struggle with disrupted fishing and hunting seasons and cities that rely on hydroelectric power see outages as the rivers that provide the power dry up.

    MAAP researchers found that rainfall patterns depend on when and where the flying rivers cross the basin. In the wet season, their northern route flows mostly over intact forests in Guyana, Suriname and northern Brazil, keeping the system strong.

    But in the dry season — when forests are already stressed by heat — the aerial rivers cut across southern Brazil, where deforestation fronts spread along highways and farms and there simply are fewer trees to help move the moisture along.

    “It’s during the dry months, when the forest most needs water, that the flying rivers are most disrupted,” Finer said.

    Finer pointed to roads that can accelerate deforestation, noting that the controversial BR-319 highway in Brazil — a project to pave a road through one of the last intact parts of the southern Amazon — could create an entirely new deforestation front.

    For years, scientists have warned about the Amazon tipping toward savannah. Finer said the new study complicates that picture.

    “It’s not a single, all-at-once collapse,” he said. “Certain areas, like the southwest Amazon, are more vulnerable and will feel the impacts first. And we’re already seeing early signs of rainfall reduction downwind of deforested areas.”

    Nobre said the risks are stark. Amazon forests have already lost about 17% of their cover, mostly to cattle and soy. Those ecosystems recycle far less water.

    “The dry season is now five weeks longer than it was 45 years ago, with 20 to 30% less rainfall,” he said. “If deforestation exceeds 20 to 25% and warming reaches 2 degrees Celsius, there’s no way to prevent the Amazon from reaching the tipping point.”

    Protecting intact forests, supporting Indigenous land rights and restoring deforested areas are the clearest paths forward, researchers say.

    “To avoid collapse we need zero deforestation, degradation and fires — immediately,” Nobre said. “And we must begin large-scale forest restoration, not less than half a million square kilometers. If we do that, and keep global warming below 2 degrees, we can still save the Amazon.”

    Finer said governments should consider new conservation categories specifically designed to protect flying rivers — safeguarding not just land but the atmospheric flows that make the rainforest possible.

    For Vriesendorp, that means regional cooperation. She praised Peru for creating vast parks and Indigenous reserves in the southeast, including Manu National Park. But, she said, “this can’t be solved by one country alone. Peru depends on Brazil, and Brazil depends on its neighbors. We need basin-wide solutions.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • An ancient African tree is providing a new ‘superfood’ but local harvesters are barely surviving

    An ancient African tree is providing a new ‘superfood’ but local harvesters are barely surviving

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    Since childhood, Loveness Bhitoni has collected fruit from the gigantic baobab trees surrounding her homestead in Zimbabwe to add variety to the family’s staple corn and millet diet. The 50-year-old Bhitoni never saw them as a source of cash, until now.

    Climate change-induced droughts have decimated her crops. Meanwhile, the world has a growing appetite for the fruit of the drought-resistant baobab as a natural health food.

    Bhitoni wakes before dawn to go foraging for baobab fruit, sometimes walking barefoot though hot, thorny landscapes with the risk of wildlife attacks. She gathers sacks of the hard-shelled fruit from the ancient trees and sells them on to industrial food processors or individual buyers from the city.

    The baobab trade, which took root in her area in 2018, would previously supplement things like children’s school fees and clothing for locals of the small town of Kotwa in northeastern Zimbabwe. Now, it’s a matter of survival following the latest devastating drought in southern Africa, worsened by the El Niño weather phenomenon.

    “We are only able to buy corn and salt,” Bhitoni said after a long day’s harvest. “Cooking oil is a luxury because the money is simply not enough. Sometimes I spend a month without buying a bar of soap. I can’t even talk of school fees or children’s clothes.”

    The global market for baobab products has spiked, turning rural African areas with an abundance of the trees into source markets. The trees, known for surviving even under severe conditions like drought or fire, need more than 20 years to start producing fruit and aren’t cultivated but foraged.

    Tens of thousands of rural people like Bhitoni have emerged to feed the need. The African Baobab Alliance, with members across the continent’s baobab producing countries, projects that more than 1 million rural African women could reap economic benefits from the fruit, which remains fresh for long periods because of its thick shell.

    The alliance’s members train locals on food safety. They also encourage people to collect the fruit, which can grow to 8 inches (20 centimeters) wide and 21 inches (53 centimeters) long, from the ground rather than the hazardous work of climbing the enormous, thick-trunked trees. Many, especially men, still do, however.

    Native to the African continent, the baobab is known as the “tree of life” for its resilience and is found from South Africa to Kenya to Sudan and Senegal. Zimbabwe has about 5 million of the trees, according to Zimtrade, a government export agency.

    But the baobab’s health benefits long went unnoticed elsewhere.

    Gus Le Breton, a pioneer of the industry, remembers the early days.

    “Baobab did not develop into a globally traded and known superfood by accident,” said Le Breton, recalling years of regulatory, safety and toxicology testing to convince authorities in the European Union and United States to approve it.

    “It was ridiculous because the baobab fruit has been consumed in Africa safely for thousands and thousands of years,” said Le Breton, an ethnobotanist specializing in African plants used for food and medicine.

    Studies have shown that the baobab fruit has several health benefits as an antioxidant, and a source of vitamin C and essential minerals such as zinc, potassium and magnesium.

    The U.S. legalized the import of baobab powder as a food and beverage ingredient in 2009, a year after the EU. But getting foreign taste buds to accept the sharp, tart-like taste took repeated trips to Western and Asian countries.

    “No one had ever heard of it, they didn’t know how to pronounce its name. It took us a long time,” Le Breton said. The tree is pronounced BAY-uh-bab.

    Together with China, the U.S. and Europe now account for baobab powder’s biggest markets. The Dutch government’s Center for the Promotion of Imports says the global market could reach $10 billion by 2027. Le Breton says his association projects a 200% growth in global demand between 2025 and 2030, and is also looking at increasing consumption among Africa’s increasingly health-conscious urbanites.

    Companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi have opened product lines promoting baobab ingredients. In Europe, the powder is hyped by some as having “real star qualities” and is used to flavor beverages, cereals, yogurt, snack bars and other items.

    A packet of a kilogram (2.2 pound) of baobab powder sells for around 27 euros (about $30) in Germany. In the United Kingdom, a 100-milliliter (3.38-ounce) bottle of baobab beauty oil can fetch 25 pounds (about $33).

    The growing industry is on display at a processing plant in Zimbabwe, where baobab pulp is bagged separately from the seeds. Each bag has a tag tracing it to the harvester who sold it. Outside the factory, the hard shells are turned into biochar, an ash given to farmers for free to make organic compost.

    Harvesters like Bhitoni say they can only dream of affording the commercial products the fruit becomes. She earns 17 cents for every kilogram of the fruit and she can spend up to eight hours a day walking through the sunbaked savanna. She has exhausted the trees nearby.

    “The fruit is in demand, but the trees did not produce much this year, so sometimes I return without filling up a single sack,” Bhitoni said. “I need five sacks to get enough money to buy a 10-kilogram (22-pound) packet of cornmeal.”

    Some individual buyers who feed a growing market for the powder in Zimbabwe’s urban areas prey on residents’ drought-induced hunger, offering cornmeal in exchange for seven 20-liter (around 4-gallon) buckets of cracked fruit, she said.

    “People have no choice because they have nothing,” said Kingstone Shero, the local councilor. “The buyers are imposing prices on us and we don’t have the capacity to resist because of hunger.”

    Le Breton sees better prices ahead as the market expands.

    “I think that the market has grown significantly, (but) I don’t think it has grown exponentially. It’s been fairly steady growth,” he said. “I believe at some point that it will increase in value as well. And at that point, then I think that the harvesters will really start to be earning some serious income from the harvesting and sale of this really truly remarkable fruit.”.

    Zimtrade, the government export agency, has lamented the low prices paid to baobab pickers and says it’s looking at partnering with rural women to set up processing plants.

    The difficult situation is likely to continue due to a lack of negotiating power by fruit pickers, some of them children, said Prosper Chitambara, a development economist based in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

    On a recent day, Bhitoni walked from one baobab tree to the next. She carefully examined each fruit before leaving the smaller ones for wild animals such as baboons and elephants to eat — an age-old tradition.

    “It is tough work, but the buyers don’t even understand this when we ask them to increase prices,” she said.

    ___

    For more news on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

    ___

    The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will lose same amount of Colorado River water next year as in 2024

    Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will lose same amount of Colorado River water next year as in 2024

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will continue to live with less water next year from the Colorado River after the U.S. government on Thursday announced water cuts that preserve the status quo. Long-term challenges remain for the 40 million people reliant on the imperiled river.

    The 1,450-mile (2,334-kilometer) river is a lifeline for the U.S. West and supplies water to cities and farms in northern Mexico, too. It supports seven Western states, more than two dozen Native American tribes and irrigates millions of acres of farmland in the American West. It also produces hydropower used across the region.

    Years of overuse combined with rising temperatures and drought have meant less water flows in the Colorado today than in decades past.

    The Interior Department announces water availability for the coming year months in advance so that cities, farmers and others can plan. Officials do so based on water levels at Lake Mead, one of the river’s two main reservoirs that act as barometers of its health.

    Based on those levels, Arizona will again lose 18% of its total Colorado River allocation, while Mexico’s goes down 5%. The reduction for Nevada — which receives far less water than Arizona, California or Mexico — will stay at 7%.

    The cuts announced Thursday are in the same “Tier 1” category that were in effect this year and in 2022, when the first federal cutbacks on the Colorado River took effect and magnified the crisis on the river. Even deeper cuts followed in 2023. Farmers in Arizona were hit hardest by those cuts.

    Heavier rains and other water-saving efforts by Arizona, California and Nevada somewhat improved the short-term outlook for Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which is upstream of Mead on the Utah-Arizona border.

    Officials on Thursday said the two reservoirs were at 37% capacity.

    They lauded the ongoing efforts by Arizona, California and Nevada to save more water, which are in effect until 2026. The federal government is paying water users in those states for much of that conservation. Meanwhile, states, tribes and others are negotiating how they will share water from the river after 2026, when many current guidelines governing the river expire.

    Tom Buschatzke, director of Arizona’s Department of Water Resources and the state’s lead negotiator in those talks, said Thursday that Arizonans had “committed to incredible conservation … to protect the Colorado River system.”

    “Future conditions,” he added, “are likely to continue to force hard decisions.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporter Amy Taxin contributed from Santa Ana, Calif.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Sicilians deal so well with drought that tourists don’t notice. A record dry year could alter that

    Sicilians deal so well with drought that tourists don’t notice. A record dry year could alter that

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    AGRIGENTO, Italy (AP) — Lakes are dry and fields are scorched by heat in Sicily, but water is still gushing copiously for tourists.

    After an almost totally rain-free year on the Italian island, fountains inside Agrigento’s famous archaeological park are still flowing, and pools in rows of hotels are full.

    Like many Mediterranean islands, people in Sicily are used to long spells without rain, but human-caused climate change has made weather more erratic, and droughts can be longer and more frequent. Islanders are surviving as they have for decades – they store as much as they can in cisterns and use tankers to deliver water – and do it so well visitors that don’t feel the difference. But this year, the drought has gotten so bad that it’s putting residents at even greater risk, even as water still flows to hotels and tourist sites.

    Fanaco Lake that provides water to a vast part of souther Sicily, including the city of Agrigento, shows the extremely low level of it’s water after a winter with very scarse precipitations, in Castronovo di Sicilia, central Sicily, Italy, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    Image

    Fanaco Lake that provides water to a vast part of souther Sicily, including the city of Agrigento, shows the extremely low level of it’s water after a winter with very scarse precipitations, in Castronovo di Sicilia, central Sicily, Italy, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    Resilience in a dry year

    The drought is punishing. The local water basin authority has tightly rationed water for almost a million residents – they are allowed as little as two to four hours a week — to get through the summer. And on Friday, the first Italian navy tanker ship arrived to supply 12 million liters (3.2 million gallons) of water to the most affected residents.

    But Agrigento residents are among the most drought-resilient in Italy, and even with rationing, they still run their businesses, hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, and households without missing a shower, neglecting their garden or closing the swimming pool.

    “Nobody can cope with water shortage better than southern Sicilians,” said Salvatore Cocina, head of the local civil protection, who has the hard task of coordinating what little water is left on the island.

    Image

    Visitors refresh at a drinking fountain in the Valley of the Temples archeological park, in Agrigento, southern Sicily, Italy, Thursday, July 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    Image

    Visitors admire the ancient Greek Concordia temple, in the Valley of the Temples archeological park, in Agrigento, southern Sicily, Italy, Thursday, July 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    Water scarcity is not new as southern Sicily’s terrain does not hold much water and the aqueducts are leaking. The region is also prone to dry spells, particularly in the summer.

    Most residents own a private cistern that can hold at least a thousand liters (264 gallons) of water. The city’s rooftops are dotted with large plastic tanks, and just as many are underground in gardens and basements.

    Despite the water emergency, tourists continue to flock to the beautiful beaches of southern Sicily and line up to admire the vestiges of ancient Greek colonies.

    Image

    Antonino Contino, left, and his wife Antonella Croce fill jerry cans with water for daily use at Agrigento’s only public fountain, after they faced difficulties having water delivered by the tankers they were relying on, Southern Sicily, Italy, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    “I did not have any problem with water,” said New Zealand tourist Iain Topp, as he sweated under the blazing sun during a visit to the 2,500-year-old temple of Concord. But he added that he was “told to conserve water because there could be a shortage.”

    Gianluca, an Italian tourist from Lodi who didn’t give his last name, said “there are no problems with drought” in his experience and “at my hotel, they told me they have their own reserves, their cisterns.”

    The Valley of Temples archaeological site, which its director said drew in over a million visitors last year, has also been prioritized, so doesn’t suffer from water scarcity.

    “We have water 24/7,” explained director Roberto Sciarratta. “Our archaeologists are at work, the valley is open also at night with theater plays. We have no problems with water supplies.”

    Image

    Water reserve cisterns are seen on the roof of a building backdropped by the Ancient Greek Concordia temple in Agrigento, southern Sicily, Italy, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    Image

    The Ancient Greek Hera Lacinia temple, known as the Temple of Juno, is backdropped by the nearby city of Agrigento, southern Sicily, Italy, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    Meanwhile, water-scarce residents’ tactics are working reasonably well for now, but they have been facing exceptionally difficult circumstances.

    2024 has been the worst year for rainfall in more than 20 years according to the civil protection regional department. Lake Fanaco, which supplies water to Agrigento province, used to collect up to 18 million cubic meters of water during an average rainy season, which normally runs from September to April. But by April the lake’s water was already below 2 million cubic meters and is now almost completely dry.

    In May, the national government declared a state of emergency for drought and allocated 20 million euros ($21.7 million) to buy water tankers and dig new wells.

    And temperatures in southern Sicily are currently 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) warmer than the 1991-2020 average, according to the Climate Shift Index, meaning water is quick to evaporate.

    “If it does not rain in September, we will have to start tapping critical reserves, and wells and aquifers will also go below critical levels, not just our lakes,” said Cocina.

    Image

    President of the Agrigento Federalberghi, hotel owners association, Francesco Picarella opens the lid of the water reserve that supplies his Hotel Del Viale, in Agrigento, in the southern Sicily, Italy, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    Solutions stretched thin

    Salvatore Di Maria’s phone rarely stops ringing. He is a driver and owner of one of the main water tanker fleets in the area.

    On a recent hot day, Di Maria picked up his phone as he filled his gleaming blue tanker at a public water station to yet another customer.

    “I need 12,000 liters (3,170 gallons) of water,” said the voice on the other end, calling from a tourist resort.

    “There is a waiting list of 10 to 15 days,” Di Maria answered.

    Image

    A worker refills a water tanker at the Aica, Azienda Idrica Comuni Agrigentini, Agrigento municipalities water company, before going to supply a holiday resort in the nearby town of Porto Empedocle, in southern Sicily, Italy, Thursday, July 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    Everyone asks him for water. Everyone wants to make sure they will not run out of water. Everyone wants to have full cisterns. And tankers are the best way to deliver the precious water directly to residents without leaks.

    Dozens of tanker drivers speed along the winding roads delivering water to priority areas as determined by the local water company, AICA. Higher priority groups are sick or elderly people, hospitals, and several key businesses, such as hotels.

    “The drought emergency was a wakeup call,” explained Settimio Cantone, president of AICA. “Our aqueduct leaks 50 to 60 percent of its water.”

    “We are now digging new wells, fixing the entire waterworks and reactivating a desalination plant with the emergency funds. This will make our province more independent,” he said.

    “Sicily is so vulnerable due to leaky pipes and obsolete and undersized infrastructures. It is not just climate,” said Giulio Boccaletti, scientific director of Euro-Mediterranean center on climate change.

    In between visits from water tankers, several Agrigento residents make frequent trips to the only public fountain left open in town to fill their jerrycans on the way home.

    Nuccio Navarra is one of those residents, filling up jerrycans from the Bonamorone fountain two or three times a day. “In my house we receive water every 15 days and the pressure is very low, and those who live on the upper floors cannot fill the cisterns,” he said.

    Climate scientist Boccaletti fears for the future, although he noted that fixing water infrastructure and investing to adapt agriculture and engineering as AICA hopes to do could offset some concerns.

    Image

    Tourists enjoy the swimming pool of the “L’Ancora” holiday resort in the sea town of Porto Empedocle, in southern Sicily, Italy, Thursday, July 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    Image

    Tourists sit on the beach of the sea town of Porto Empedocle, in southern Sicily, Italy, Thursday, July 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    The Mediterranean basin “will experience higher temperatures, less rainfall and continued sea level rise during the coming decades,” according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The group dubbed the region a “climate change hotspot” due to the vulnerability of human society and ecosystems.

    “What used to be extraordinary is the new normal,” said Boccaletti.

    Image

    Tourists and residents hang out in a central street of Agrigento, southern Sicily, Italy, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

    ___

    Leila El Zabri contributed from Rome.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • In Mexico City, women water harvesters help make up for drought and dicey public water system

    In Mexico City, women water harvesters help make up for drought and dicey public water system

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    MEXICO CITY — Gliding above her neighborhood in a cable car on a recent morning, Sonia Estefanía Palacios Díaz scanned a sea of blue and black water tanks, tubes and cables looking for rain harvesting systems.

    “There’s one!” she said, pointing out a black tank hooked up to a smaller blue unit with connecting tubes snaking up to the roof where water is collected.

    “I’m always looking for different rainwater harvesting systems,” she said, smiling. “I’m also always looking for places to install one.”

    Driven by prolonged drought and inconsistent public water delivery, many Mexico City residents are turning to rainwater. Pioneering company Isla Urbana, which does both nonprofit and for-profit work, has installed more than 40,000 rain catchment systems across Mexico since the company was founded 15 years ago. And Mexico City’s government has invested in the installation of 70,000 systems since 2019, still a drop in the bucket for the sprawling metropolis of around 9 million.

    But there’s little education and limited resources to maintain the systems after installation, leading the systems to fall into disuse or for residents to sell off the parts.

    Enter Palacios Díaz and a group of other women who make up the cooperative Pixcatl, which means harvest of water in the Indigenous Nahuatl language.

    In lower-income areas like Iztapalapa — Mexico City’s most populous borough — the group tries to keep systems functioning while also educating residents on how to maintain them. That includes brainstorming their own designs and providing residents with low-cost options for additional materials.

    Palacios Díaz has lived with water scarcity in Iztapalapa as far back as she can remember. “Here, people will get in line starting at 3 in the morning to get water (from distribution trucks) up until 2 in the afternoon,” she said from her mother’s home. “There was a time in which we went for more than a month without a regular supply of water.”

    Earlier this year, the reservoirs that supply the capital were perilously low. Authorities reduced the amount of water being released and neighborhoods not accustomed to water scarcity faced a new reality.

    Entering the rainy season, most of Mexico was in moderate to severe drought. Mexico’s reservoirs are beginning to approach half their capacity, but they haven’t filled by much, according to recent reports by the National Water Commission.

    The country depends on the rains — which normally peter out in October — to fill the reservoirs, but the drought has taken them so low that that might take years.

    That’s encouraged many Mexicans like Palacios Díaz to turn to rainwater harvesting.

    At the height of the pandemic, she taught classes on urban farming and water harvesting at a local community space. It wasn’t until her students said they wanted to learn how to install and understand their own systems that she seriously considered taking a government course. After enrolling in a training program in 2022 to become an installer, she met other young women from the city interested in water harvesting systems and they formed the cooperative.

    Near the skirt of a volcano on the fringes of Iztapalapa, Lizbeth Esther Pineda Castro, another member of the cooperative, and Palacios Díaz adjusted a ladder to reach the roof of a small house. The two-story home inherited by Sara Huitzil Morales and her niece sits in Iztapalapa’s Buenavista neighborhood.

    Huitzil’s mother had qualified for a free water harvesting system from Mexico City’s government in 2021. After the installation, Huitzil requested Pixcatl’s maintenance since she wasn’t sure how to take care of the system.

    Sporting their navy polos with the Pixcatl logo, Pineda and Palacios Díaz cleared debris off the roof so the system only collects fresh rain.

    “We also add a little bit of soap and chlorine to clean the pipes,” said Palacios Díaz as she swept the liquid down a connecting tube that leads to the harvesting system.

    Downstairs, they joined the other members of the cooperative in a courtyard to look at the giant 2,500-liter water tank, enough to serve Huitzil’s needs for several months when filled. The colossal container stood nearly as tall as Palacios Díaz. Another cooperative member cleared a filter of leaves and dirt.

    Last, Palacios Díaz plopped in a couple of chlorine pills to clean and disinfect the water. The frequency of the entire maintenance process depends on several factors, including how much water is in the tank, how much has been used, and whether it has rained.

    Huitzil said before the harvesting system, she endured water shortages and rationing. The publicly available water was consistently dirty and “dark like chocolate.” She often used the water that remained from doing laundry to clean the courtyard. Sometimes when dirty water would arrive, she would put it in buckets and wait for the dirt to settle to the bottom, using the cleanest for showering.

    The system has transformed her daily use of water, and she doesn’t have to think twice about whether it’s safe. The system initially uses six filters, plus three more if the water is to be used for drinking.

    “The water is good, it’s so good!” said Huitzil. “My clothes come out very clean and the water is sweet. You can even harvest it to be cleaner to drink.”

    With over 1.8 million residents, Iztapalapa has been one of the primary beneficiaries of Mexico City’s harvesting system program. But after two years, the city stopped giving away free systems when many residents, facing economic hardship and sometimes struggling to maintain the systems, sold off their parts.

    “It should be easy to maintain, but it’s tedious,” Palacios Diaz said. “Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a scenario in which we not only have environmental problems, but economic problems.”

    Loreta Castro Reguera, an architecture professor at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, focuses much of her work on water and urban design. She said rainwater harvesting is a great solution because during Mexico’s rainy season residents can use rainwater instead of water from the Cutzamala system — a reservoir that provides water to Mexico City and the State of Mexico.

    Palacios Díaz dreams of rainwater systems in markets, malls, and other community spaces. The cooperative is also working on designs personalized for their clients’ needs — whether for a low-cost system or to fulfill a greater demand for water.

    As women, she and the other members of Pixcatl want to set an example for those who want to get involved in water harvesting.

    “I think it’s really beautiful we can inspire young girls and show women in another context,” said another member, Abigail López Durán, “that we can also use tools and aren’t afraid to get hurt.”

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • In Mexico City, women water harvesters help make up for drought and dicey public water system

    In Mexico City, women water harvesters help make up for drought and dicey public water system

    [ad_1]

    MEXICO CITY — Gliding above her neighborhood in a cable car on a recent morning, Sonia Estefanía Palacios Díaz scanned a sea of blue and black water tanks, tubes and cables looking for rain harvesting systems.

    “There’s one!” she said, pointing out a black tank hooked up to a smaller blue unit with connecting tubes snaking up to the roof where water is collected.

    “I’m always looking for different rainwater harvesting systems,” she said, smiling. “I’m also always looking for places to install one.”

    Driven by prolonged drought and inconsistent public water delivery, many Mexico City residents are turning to rainwater. Pioneering company Isla Urbana, which does both nonprofit and for-profit work, has installed more than 40,000 rain catchment systems across Mexico since the company was founded 15 years ago. And Mexico City’s government has invested in the installation of 70,000 systems since 2019, still a drop in the bucket for the sprawling metropolis of around 9 million.

    But there’s little education and limited resources to maintain the systems after installation, leading the systems to fall into disuse or for residents to sell off the parts.

    Enter Palacios Díaz and a group of other women who make up the cooperative Pixcatl, which means harvest of water in the Indigenous Nahuatl language.

    In lower-income areas like Iztapalapa — Mexico City’s most populous borough — the group tries to keep systems functioning while also educating residents on how to maintain them. That includes brainstorming their own designs and providing residents with low-cost options for additional materials.

    Palacios Díaz has lived with water scarcity in Iztapalapa as far back as she can remember. “Here, people will get in line starting at 3 in the morning to get water (from distribution trucks) up until 2 in the afternoon,” she said from her mother’s home. “There was a time in which we went for more than a month without a regular supply of water.”

    Earlier this year, the reservoirs that supply the capital were perilously low. Authorities reduced the amount of water being released and neighborhoods not accustomed to water scarcity faced a new reality.

    Entering the rainy season, most of Mexico was in moderate to severe drought. Mexico’s reservoirs are beginning to approach half their capacity, but they haven’t filled by much, according to recent reports by the National Water Commission.

    The country depends on the rains — which normally peter out in October — to fill the reservoirs, but the drought has taken them so low that that might take years.

    That’s encouraged many Mexicans like Palacios Díaz to turn to rainwater harvesting.

    At the height of the pandemic, she taught classes on urban farming and water harvesting at a local community space. It wasn’t until her students said they wanted to learn how to install and understand their own systems that she seriously considered taking a government course. After enrolling in a training program in 2022 to become an installer, she met other young women from the city interested in water harvesting systems and they formed the cooperative.

    Near the skirt of a volcano on the fringes of Iztapalapa, Lizbeth Esther Pineda Castro, another member of the cooperative, and Palacios Díaz adjusted a ladder to reach the roof of a small house. The two-story home inherited by Sara Huitzil Morales and her niece sits in Iztapalapa’s Buenavista neighborhood.

    Huitzil’s mother had qualified for a free water harvesting system from Mexico City’s government in 2021. After the installation, Huitzil requested Pixcatl’s maintenance since she wasn’t sure how to take care of the system.

    Sporting their navy polos with the Pixcatl logo, Pineda and Palacios Díaz cleared debris off the roof so the system only collects fresh rain.

    “We also add a little bit of soap and chlorine to clean the pipes,” said Palacios Díaz as she swept the liquid down a connecting tube that leads to the harvesting system.

    Downstairs, they joined the other members of the cooperative in a courtyard to look at the giant 2,500-liter water tank, enough to serve Huitzil’s needs for several months when filled. The colossal container stood nearly as tall as Palacios Díaz. Another cooperative member cleared a filter of leaves and dirt.

    Last, Palacios Díaz plopped in a couple of chlorine pills to clean and disinfect the water. The frequency of the entire maintenance process depends on several factors, including how much water is in the tank, how much has been used, and whether it has rained.

    Huitzil said before the harvesting system, she endured water shortages and rationing. The publicly available water was consistently dirty and “dark like chocolate.” She often used the water that remained from doing laundry to clean the courtyard. Sometimes when dirty water would arrive, she would put it in buckets and wait for the dirt to settle to the bottom, using the cleanest for showering.

    The system has transformed her daily use of water, and she doesn’t have to think twice about whether it’s safe. The system initially uses six filters, plus three more if the water is to be used for drinking.

    “The water is good, it’s so good!” said Huitzil. “My clothes come out very clean and the water is sweet. You can even harvest it to be cleaner to drink.”

    With over 1.8 million residents, Iztapalapa has been one of the primary beneficiaries of Mexico City’s harvesting system program. But after two years, the city stopped giving away free systems when many residents, facing economic hardship and sometimes struggling to maintain the systems, sold off their parts.

    “It should be easy to maintain, but it’s tedious,” Palacios Diaz said. “Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a scenario in which we not only have environmental problems, but economic problems.”

    Loreta Castro Reguera, an architecture professor at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, focuses much of her work on water and urban design. She said rainwater harvesting is a great solution because during Mexico’s rainy season residents can use rainwater instead of water from the Cutzamala system — a reservoir that provides water to Mexico City and the State of Mexico.

    Palacios Díaz dreams of rainwater systems in markets, malls, and other community spaces. The cooperative is also working on designs personalized for their clients’ needs — whether for a low-cost system or to fulfill a greater demand for water.

    As women, she and the other members of Pixcatl want to set an example for those who want to get involved in water harvesting.

    “I think it’s really beautiful we can inspire young girls and show women in another context,” said another member, Abigail López Durán, “that we can also use tools and aren’t afraid to get hurt.”

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Rewind. Fast forward. African farmers are looking everywhere to navigate climate change

    Rewind. Fast forward. African farmers are looking everywhere to navigate climate change

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    HARARE, Zimbabwe — From ancient fertilizer methods in Zimbabwe to new greenhouse technology in Somalia, farmers across the heavily agriculture-reliant African continent are looking to the past and future to respond to climate change.

    Africa, with the world’s youngest population, faces the worst effects of a warming planet while contributing the least to the problem. Farmers are scrambling to make sure the booming population is fed.

    With over 60% of the world’s uncultivated land, Africa should be able to feed itself, some experts say. And yet three in four people across the continent cannot afford a healthy diet, according to a report last year by the African Union and United Nations agencies. Reasons include conflict and lack of investment.

    In Zimbabwe, where the El Nino phenomenon has worsened a drought, small-scale farmer James Tshuma has lost hope of harvesting anything from his fields. It’s a familiar story in much of the country, where the government has declared a $2 billion state of emergency and millions of people face hunger.

    But a patch of green vegetables is thriving in a small garden the 65-year-old Tshuma is keeping alive with homemade organic manure and fertilizer. Previously discarded items have again become priceless.

    “This is how our fathers and forefathers used to feed the earth and themselves before the introduction of chemicals and inorganic fertilizers,” Tshuma said.

    He applies livestock droppings, grass, plant residue, remains of small animals, tree leaves and bark, food scraps and other biodegradable items like paper. Even the bones of animals that are dying in increasing numbers due to the drought are burned before being crushed into ash for their calcium.

    Climate change is compounding much of sub-Saharan Africa’s longstanding problem of poor soil fertility, said Wonder Ngezimana, an associate professor of crop science at Zimbabwe’s Marondera University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology.

    “The combination is forcing people to re-look at how things were done in the past like nutrient recycling, but also blending these with modern methods,” said Ngezimana, whose institution is researching the combination of traditional practices with new technologies.

    Apart from being rich in nitrogen, organic fertilizers help increase the soil’s carbon and ability to retain moisture, Ngezimana said. “Even if a farmer puts synthetic fertilizer into the soil, they are likely to suffer the consequences of poor moisture as long as there is a drought,” he said.

    Other moves to traditional practices are under way. Drought-resistant millets, sorghum and legumes, staples until the early 20th century when they were overtaken by exotic white corn, have been taking up more land space in recent years.

    Leaves of drought-resistant plants that were once a regular dish before being cast off as weeds are returning to dinner tables. They even appear on elite supermarket shelves and are served at classy restaurants, as are millet and sorghum.

    This could create markets for the crops even beyond drought years, Ngezimana said.

    In conflict-prone Somalia in East Africa, greenhouses are changing the way some people live, with shoppers filling up carts with locally produced vegetables and traditionally nomadic pastoralists under pressure to settle down and grow crops.

    “They are organic, fresh and healthy,” shopper Sucdi Hassan said in the capital, Mogadishu. “Knowing that they come from our local farms makes us feel secure.”

    Her new shopping experience is a sign of relative calm after three decades of conflict and the climate shocks of drought and flooding.

    Urban customers are now assured of year-round supplies, with more than 250 greenhouses dotted across Mogadishu and its outskirts producing fruit and vegetables. It is a huge leap.

    “In the past, even basic vegetables like cucumbers and tomatoes were imported, causing logistical problems and added expenses,” said Somalia’s minister of youth and sports, Mohamed Barre.

    The greenhouses also create employment in a country where about 75% of the population is people under 30 years old, many of them jobless.

    About 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the capital, Mohamed Mahdi, an agriculture graduate, inspected produce in a greenhouse where he works.

    “Given the high unemployment rate, we are grateful for the chance to work in our chosen field of expertise,” the 25-year-old said.

    Meanwhile, some pastoralist herders are being forced to change their traditional ways after watching livestock die by the thousands.

    “Transitioning to greenhouse farming provides pastoralists with a more resilient and sustainable livelihood option,” said Mohamed Okash, director of the Institute of Climate and Environment at SIMAD University in Mogadishu.

    He called for larger investments in smart farming to combat food insecurity.

    In Kenya, a new climate-smart bean variety is bringing hope to farmers in a region that had recorded reduced rainfall in six consecutive rainy seasons.

    The variety, called “Nyota” or “star” in Swahili, is the result of a collaboration between scientists from the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, the Alliance of Bioversity International and research organization International Center for Tropical Agriculture.

    The new bean variety is tailored for Kenya’s diverse climatic conditions. One focus is to make sure drought doesn’t kill them off before they have time to flourish.

    The bean variety flowers and matures so quickly that it is ready for harvesting by the time rains disappear, said David Karanja, a bean breeder and national coordinator for grains and legumes at KALRO.

    Hopes are that these varieties could bolster national bean production. The annual production of 600,000 metric tons falls short of meeting annual demand of 755,000 metric tons, Karanja said.

    Farmer Benson Gitonga said his yield and profits are increasing because of the new bean variety. He harvests between nine and 12 bags from an acre of land, up from the previous five to seven bags.

    One side benefit of the variety is a breath of fresh air.

    “Customers particularly appreciate its qualities, as it boasts low flatulence levels, making it an appealing choice,” Gitonga said.

    ___

    Tiro reported from Nairobi, Kenya and Faruk reported from Mogadishu, Somalia.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    ___

    AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

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  • Villagers in Mexico organize to take back their water as drought, avocados dry up lakes and rivers

    Villagers in Mexico organize to take back their water as drought, avocados dry up lakes and rivers

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    VILLA MADERO, Mexico — As a drought in Mexico drags on, angry subsistence farmers have begun taking direct action on thirsty avocado orchards and berry fields of commercial farms that are drying up streams in the mountains west of Mexico City.

    Rivers and even whole lakes are disappearing in the once green and lush state of Michoacan, as the drought combines with a surge in the use of water for the country’s lucrative export crops, lead by avocados.

    In recent days, subsistence farmers and activists from the Michoacan town of Villa Madero organized teams to go into the mountains and rip out illegal water pumps and breach unlicensed irrigation holding ponds.

    A potential conflict looms with avocado growers — who are often sponsored by, or pay protection money to, drug cartels.

    Last week, dozens of residents, farmworkers and small-scale farmers from Villa Madero hiked up into the hills to tear out irrigation equipment using mountain springs to water avocado orchards carved out of the pine-covered hills.

    The week before, another group went up with picks and shovels and breached the walls of an illegal containment pond that sucked up water from a spring that had supplied local residents for hundreds of years.

    “In the last 10 years, the streams, the springs, the rivers have been drying up and the water has been captured, mainly to be used for avocados and berries,” said local activist Julio Santoyo, one of the organizers of the effort. “There are hamlets in the lower part of the township that no longer have water.”

    Santoyo estimated that about 850 of the plastic-lined, earthen containment ponds have sprung up in the hills around Villa Madero, usually soon after planters have illegally logged or burned the native pine forest. Pines help the soil retain water, while avocado trees deplete it.

    Francisco Gómez Cortés said residents of his hamlet, El Sauz, had been asking the landowner for 15 years to allow the spring to flow downhill to their community.

    After a year in which Mexico received only about half its normal rainfall, residents became desperate, and last week they worked up the courage to hike up the hill and rip out pumps and hoses for the avocado orchard.

    “We don’t have enough water for human consumption,” Gómez Cortés said.

    “It’s sad. It’s sad to walk down these trails that are now dry, when they once had trees and springs,” he said. “They haven’t even left any water for the (forest) animals that nest along the banks.”

    In a sign of how seriously the local government is taking the potential threat, the group was accompanied by the mayor of Villa Madero, who blamed outsiders for the problem.

    “There are people who aren’t from this town, who come to our township and are invading us,” Mayor Froylan Alcauter Ibarra said. “They are taking water away from the people who live downhill, and they don’t realize these are the poorest people.”

    Residents say they don’t want to deny water entirely to the orchards and have proposed an agreement to give landowners 20% of the water from local streams, if they allow the remaining 80% to keep flowing. They say they haven’t gotten any response yet.

    Drug cartels often make money from illegal logging and extorting money from avocado growers in Michoacan. The activists around Villa Madero have suffered threats, kidnappings and beatings in the past.

    “We are running a serious risk of them killing us for protesting,” Gómez Cortés said. “Out of necessity, we are doing what the government should be doing.”

    The government has long done little to limit the growers and combat deforestation and water takeovers. But it does seem to have developed a sudden interest in preventing the looming conflict.

    In March, activists organized a meeting nearby at Patzcuaro Lake to demand authorities do something about the fast-declining water levels. Patzcuaro is a shallow but extensive lake in Michoacan with a beautiful colonial town on its shores and an island of fishermen perched in the middle.

    The fishermen of Janitzio island with their shallow boats and hooped, figure-eight nets were made famous by photographers and filmmakers in the 1940s and 50s as a symbol of Mexico’s folk traditions. The town of Patzcuaro draws hundreds of thousands of tourists.

    But due to the drought, deforestation, sediment buildup and the increased water demands from avocado and berry growers, Patzcuaro lake has been reduced to about half its size. You can now reach the Janitzio island by wading, and activist Juan Manuel Valenzuela estimates that 90% of the boats that used to fish and ferry tourists around are now out of service.

    Nearby Lake Cuitzeo, one of the largest freshwater lakes in Mexico, is now nearly dried up.

    “We cannot allow them to extinguish our lakes,” Valenzuela said. “It would be a tragedy for Michoacan.”

    Alejandro Méndez, Michoacan’s state environment secretary, acknowledges that the problem has gotten out of hand. So scarce has water become in the once-lushly forested lake areas that orchard owners often send tanker trucks to suck thousands of gallons from the lake to water their groves.

    “As many as 100 trucks could be seen taking water from the lake,” Méndez said of the situation in March.

    So about a week ago, the state police began patrolling the lake shore and detaining any truck drivers they saw extracting water. And Méndez said the state has begun monitoring agricultural holding ponds to see if any are getting refilled from the lake.

    While Lake Patzcuaro has grown and shrunk in the past, this time it may be terminal; farmers are starting to pasture livestock and plant crops on the lake bed.

    “It will be difficult, because the humans and the livestock will survive, barely, but the animals and the plants will be gone — that will all be dried up and gone,” Gómez Cortés said.

    ___

    AP writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

    ___

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  • Ecuador rations electricity as drought persists in the northern Andes

    Ecuador rations electricity as drought persists in the northern Andes

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    QUITO, Ecuador — QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador on Tuesday began to ration electricity in the country’s main cities as a drought linked to the El Niño weather pattern depletes reservoirs and limits output at hydroelectric plants that produce about 75% of the nation’s power.

    The power cuts were announced on Monday night by the ministry of energy, which said in a statement that it would review its decision on Wednesday night.

    “We urge Ecuadorians to cut their electricity consumption in this critical week,” the statement read. “And consider that each kilowatt and each drop of water that are not consumed will help us face this reality.”

    The power cuts in Ecuador come days after dry weather forced Colombia’s capital city of Bogotá to ration water as its reservoirs reached record lows, threatening local supplies of tap water.

    Precipitation has diminished in Ecuador and Colombia this year due to warming temperatures in the south Pacific Ocean, which can cause floods along South America’s west coast but can also generate intense droughts in the Andean valleys, where many of Ecuador’s and Colombia’s main cities are located.

    In Colombia, where hydroelectric plants are also struggling, officials said on Tuesday that they are considering awarding tax credits to companies that reduce their electricity consumption.

    During the first week of April Colombia suspended electricity exports to Ecuador in an attempt to save energy for domestic needs. Colombia gets around 70% of its electricity from hydroelectric plants.

    Camilo Prieto, a climate change professor at Bogotá’s Javeriana University, said that the current spell of dry weather is not as extreme as previous droughts related to El Niño, such as a drought that caused power cuts in Colombia in the early 1990s. But he added that demand for electricity has grown over the years in Colombia and Ecuador, while these countries have made the “mistake” of continuing to rely on hydroelectric power.

    “The world has learned that an energy mix that is diverse and combines different kinds of low-emission sources is safer and more reliable,” Prieto said. “If demand continues to grow and the energy mix in these countries is not diversified, they will continue to be vulnerable.”

    On Tuesday newspapers around Ecuador published schedules for power cuts in cities that included Quito, Cuenca and Guayaquil, where most homes and many businesses were left without power for three hours.

    Ecuador had also experienced power cuts, related to droughts in October, January and February.

    Karen Verduga, the owner of a restaurant with six employees in Quito, said that she was afraid some of her frozen meats and vegetables would decompose if the current round of power cuts continues.

    She said that her workers could not use blenders to make soups and sauces. Instead they were preparing food manually for several hours. “We’ve been forced to do things the old fashioned way,” Verduga said.

    Some merchants said the power cuts provided them with opportunities.

    Oriannis Arcano, a saleswoman at a small candle shop, said that the blackouts have helped to boost her sales. Yet, she said the blackouts presented problems for her business because “most people want to pay with cards” that don’t work when there’s no electricity.

    During an event in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, President Daniel Noboa said that some power plants in the country had been “sabotaged” by his political rivals. Ecuador is set to hold a referendum Sunday where some of Noboa’s security policies will be voted on, including a proposal to legalize the extradition of drug traffickers and other dangerous criminals.

    Noboa did not provide any evidence of the alleged acts of sabotage, but said investigations will be launched. He also wrote a message on X, formerly Twitter, asking Ecuador’s energy minister to resign.

    “Threats to our country require strong decisions,” Noboa wrote in the message where he also said that the nation’s government will subsidize electricity bills in April. “The people of Ecuador cannot pay for the corruption and inefficiency of a few miserable” officials.

    ___

    Rueda reported from Bogotá

    ___

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  • To make water last year-round, Kenyans in dry regions are building sand dams on seasonal rivers

    To make water last year-round, Kenyans in dry regions are building sand dams on seasonal rivers

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    MAKUENI, Kenya — On a dry riverbed one recent sunny morning, residents of Kasengela village toiled away mixing cement and sand to make concrete. The sound of their shovels resonated through the valley while other residents, working in pairs, carried rocks to the site in wooden frames.

    They were building a sand dam, a structure for harvesting water from seasonal rivers. The barrier, typically made of concrete, impedes water flow and coarse grains of sand settle behind it, creating an artificial aquifer that fills up during rainy seasons.

    Seasonal rivers flow a few times a year here, and with little piped water and few reliable alternatives, many people here depend on them for water. Building sand dams on these rivers, where people can scoop the sand to fetch the water or use hand pumps, helps minimize water loss through evaporation and recharges groundwater. This is increasingly important as human-caused climate change is leading to prolonged seasons of drought, scientists say, and the simple sand dam solution has gained traction across dry regions of Kenya and some other parts of Africa looking for reliable water sources. But experts also warn that finding the right sites for structures is key to making them work.

    Kasengela village is in Machakos County, which, alongside other counties of Makueni and Kitui in southeastern Kenya, is classified as arid and semi-arid. For many communities here, sand dams built on seasonal rivers have grown in popularity.

    That’s true for Kyalika village in Makueni County, where Rhoda Peter and her welfare group have built three sand dams along a nearby river. When The Associated Press met her, she was fetching water from one of the dams to clean utensils and wash clothes.

    Peter put a yellow container on the shallow well platform and walked to the pump, pulling it up and pushing it down until it was full. Nearby, a donkey stood with two containers hanging on its back.

    “When I think about sand dams, I feel happy,” said Peter, a farmer. “Our shallow well does not dry. It goes all through the dry seasons.”

    Before the sand dams were built, she and her children would walk many miles to fetch water in springs in the faraway Mbooni Hills. It took them three hours, and many times they’d fall because of the rocky terrain.

    Many people in Kenya’s dry southeastern region rely on boreholes and rivers for water, but many boreholes produce saline water and permanent rivers are few and far for most people. Earth dams are another source, but they’re also few and require regular desilting.

    At the site in Kasengela, Mwanzia Mutua, the leader of the group constructing the dam, said that he used to trek seven kilometers (4.3 miles) from his home to Athi River to fetch water for his household and livestock, spending an entire day on the road. Later, a borehole was constructed, shortening the distance, but it was still far. The sand dam will reduce the walk to get water to 10 minutes, he said.

    “When water is far, you spend all your time looking for it and are unable to do any other work,” said the farmer. “Cattle die because the water is far.”

    The sand dam in Kasengela was completed on March 14 after two and a half months of construction, and should be ready to use by December 2025, after it fills with sand.

    Only 5% of Makueni’s nearly 245,000 households had access to clean piped water by 2022. The county produces about 30,000 cubic meters per day against a demand of 60,000 cubic meters.

    “The water situation in Makueni is dire,” said Mutula Kilonzo Junior, the county’s governor. “We have a huge deficit that we are not supplying.”

    Shortages of water lead to problems for agriculture and health implications as people are forced to use unclean sources, taking the time and energy of children to fetch water, affecting their education, he said.

    The Makueni County government has been building sand dams with partner organizations and residents, and by 2022, it had built 71, according to county government data.

    “Seasonal rivers run dry barely after a week of raining. So for us, we have to store their water, and this is the best way for us to do it,” said Sonnia Musyoka, county minister for environment and climate change. “With such dams, we will enable children to stay at school, and parents to concentrate on other economic activities.”

    The construction of sand dams in the region is community-driven. Africa Sand Dam Foundation — which helped build the dams in Kyalika and Kasengela — is one nonprofit supporting communities in Makueni, Machakos and Kitui to build sand dams. Residents approach the nonprofit with a request to build a dam and provide sand, rocks and other locally available material plus labor. Meanwhile, the nonprofit, through partners, provides hardware material such as cement and skilled expertise. After construction, the community manages the sand dam.

    Since it started in 2010, the nonprofit has constructed 680 sand dams in the three counties.

    “We’ve used this model for years, and we’ve seen its success,” said Andrew Musila, development director at Africa Sand Dam Foundation, at the Kasengela site. “To us, sand dams are the best solution for water provision in arid regions and the best solution for providing communities with water throughout the year.”

    The usefulness of the structures has gained the attention of governments of other local counties, as well as other countries. ASDF has worked with governments and nonprofits in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Madagascar, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Somalia and India to site, design and build sand dams as well as train people in the processes.

    Scientists warn that proper siting of sand dams is key to making them work. A study carried out in Kitui County found that about half of 116 sand dams surveyed were not functional because they were built in locations with unfavorable factors for enabling sand dams to supply water. Factors to consider, the study says, include the rainfall amount, the percentage of clay in the soil and the presence of visible rock formations.

    “You cannot put a sand dam anywhere,” said Keziah Ngugi, lead author of the study and a hydrologist with interest in dryland areas. “The most important thing to observe is the siting.”

    And as climate change makes drought more likely, scientists say the structures minimize water loss through evaporation because they store water within sand, and that helps with water supply during dry seasons. Additionally, they say the structures rejuvenate surrounding vegetation and recharge groundwater, raising the water table.

    “There are good things that happen when the water table is raised,” said Dorcas Benard, an environmental and biosystems engineer. She gave examples of the emergence of alternative water sources or resources like springs and boreholes. “These are very important sources, especially within the arid and semi-arid lands.”

    And for residents like Mutua, the builder in Kasengela, they offer hope for improved livelihoods. Spending weeks building the dam with fellow residents may be arduous work, but the reward of having reliable water near his home will be fulfilling in immeasurable ways.

    “Water is life,” he said.

    __

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Thousands of Spanish farmers stage a second day of tractor protests over EU policies and prices

    Thousands of Spanish farmers stage a second day of tractor protests over EU policies and prices

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    MADRID — Mirroring protests across Europe, thousands of farmers in Spain staged a second day of tractor demonstrations on Wednesday across the country, blocking highways to demand changes in European Union farming policies and measures to combat production cost hikes and severe drought.

    The protests led to several main national highways being blocked. Access to the eastern port of Castellon and the southeastern Jerez airport were temporarily cut off. State news agency Efe said that 1,000 tractors were heading slowly towards Barcelona’s city center, causing major traffic jams on roads into the northeastern port capital of Spain’s Catalonia region.

    The protests, involving several thousand people on tractors and in other vehicles, haven’t been backed by Spain´s three main farming organizations, which have called for separate protests in the coming days.

    Several media reports have linked many of the protests Tuesday and Wednesday to conservative groups. So far there have been no serious incidents. The demonstrations are expected to continue over the coming weeks with a major protest in Madrid on Feb. 21.

    Speaking in Spain’s parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pledged to help farmers and take their case to Europe.

    The Agriculture Ministry on Tuesday announced about 270 million euros ($290 million) in aid to 140,000 farmers to compensate for Spain’s severe drought and problems caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine. Agriculture Minister Luis Planas Puchades met with farmers’ unions on Friday, but failed to persuade them to halt the protests.

    There have been other protests in countries such as France, Poland and Greece in recent days.

    The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has already made concessions to farmers over the last few weeks on environmental and aid rules, and this week decided to shelve plans to halve the use of pesticides and other dangerous products.

    Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib of Belgium, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said Wednesday that the rules governing farming “need to be reassessed in the light of current realities.”

    European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič said that “resource scarcity, price shocks and an increasingly competitive global market is having a huge impact on the farming sector and rural communities.

    “We have seen from the farmers protesting on the streets of Europe that many of them feel trapped, that their needs are not being met. So, we must act,” he added.

    Inaction, though, would likely please many of the protesting farmers as it might delay current EU plans that call for costly bureaucratic changes and the approval of international free trade deals that would bring cheap farm produce onto European markets.

    ___

    Raf Casert reported from Brussels.

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  • How climate change contributes to wildfires like Chile’s

    How climate change contributes to wildfires like Chile’s

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    At least 123 people have been killed by wildfires in central Chile, leading its president to declare two days of national mourning. The devastation comes soon after Colombia declared a disaster over wildfires. Scientists say climate change makes the heat waves and drought now hitting South America more likely — and both contribute to wildfires by drying out the plants that feed the blazes.

    WHAT’S HAPPENING IN CHILE?

    The fires in Chile came amid a heat wave that pushed temperatures in the capital city of Santiago to about 37 degrees Celsius (nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit). Extreme heat bakes moisture from wood, turning it into ideal fuel. Fires take hold more rapidly, and also burn with more intensity. Just a few extra degrees can be a tipping point that makes the difference between a mild fire season and a severe one.

    Edward Mitchard, a forests expert at the University of Edinburgh School of Geosciences in Scotland, said climate change “makes the world hotter, which means that plants evaporate more water through them and soils get drier.”

    It only takes a few days of very dry, hot weather for leaves to feel crisp and dry, he said. “That’s fuel that burns very well,” he said, adding: “Drier soil means fires are hotter and last longer.”

    A Nature study showed that fire seasons are an average of 18.7% longer in length due to climate change. That means an increased window for disastrous fires to start.

    WHAT ROLE DO GLOBAL WEATHER CYCLES PLAY?

    The increased number of droughts as global rain cycles are interrupted means whole regions can be left unusually parched and more vulnerable to ignition.

    “Climate change has made droughts more common,” said Mitchard. “And that’s especially happened in South America this year.

    “We’ve had the most extreme drought ever recorded in the Amazon basin, and if you have droughts in the Amazon basin, you also get less rainfall in the south of South America.”

    In Chile’s case, some unusually heavy rains last year are thought to have increased the growth of brush that makes perfect kindling for fires.

    On top of this has come the El Niño weather pattern, the natural and periodic warming of surface waters in the Pacific that affects weather around the globe. In South America, it’s meant increased temperatures and drought this year.

    Climate change makes stronger El Niños more likely, said Mitchard, and droughts caused by it are likelier to be more intense. Last month, Colombia’s government declared a disaster over dozens of wildfires associated with the weather phenomenon.

    And the huge amount of carbon released by forest fires itself increases global warming.

    ARE FOREST FIRES GETTING WORSE?

    The World Resources Institute used satellite data to calculate that wildfires now destroy about 11,500 square miles of forest annually (30,000 square kilometers), an area about the size of Belgium and about twice as much as 20 years ago.

    And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found that globally, extreme heat waves happen five times more often because of human-caused global warming. Fire seasons are thus drier with higher temperatures. These are ideal conditions for forest fires to take hold.

    ————————————-

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Spring a leak? Google will find it through a new partnership aimed at saving water in New Mexico

    Spring a leak? Google will find it through a new partnership aimed at saving water in New Mexico

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    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico is teaming up with Google to hunt for leaky water pipes using satellite imagery as the drought-stricken state prepares for a future in which growing demand puts more pressure on already dwindling drinking water supplies.

    State officials made the announcement Tuesday as they rolled out a 50-year plan that includes nearly a dozen action items for tackling a problem faced by many communities in the western U.S., where climate change has resulted in warmer temperatures and widespread drought.

    New Mexico is the first state to partner with Google for such an endeavor, state officials said, noting that the payoff could be significant in terms of curbing losses and saving municipalities and ratepayers money over the long term.

    The water plan notes that some systems in New Mexico are losing anywhere from 40% to 70% of all treated drinking water because of breaks and leaks in old infrastructure.

    The plan calls for using new technology and remote sensing techniques to conduct an inventory of water loss across more than 1,000 public water systems in the state this year. Aside from being able to detect leaks in real time, the information will help to prioritize repair and replacement projects, officials said.

    Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Native American leaders and other experts gathered at the state Capitol to provide an overview of the plan, which has been years in the making. Lujan Grisham, who had campaigned more than four years ago on creating a long-term plan to guide management of the finite resource, warned that New Mexico will likely have 25% less water available in five decades.

    Lujan Grisham, who is entering her second term, praised residents for existing conservation efforts but said New Mexico has to do better and be more creative about tapping what she called “an ocean of brackish water.” That water, she said, can be used for industrial purposes so that businesses can continue to contribute to the state’s economy while limiting impacts on drinking water supplies.

    She pointed to computer chip manufacturer Intel, which for years has been recycling the water it uses at its factory near Albuquerque.

    “We don’t need to make that choice between safe drinking water and your business,” the governor said. “We have the chance here to do both and that’s exactly the path we’re on.”

    Some environmental groups have raised concerns about Lujan Grisham’s plan to underwrite development of a strategic new source of water by buying treated water that originates from the used, salty byproducts of oil and natural gas drilling. They contend that it will help to encourage more fossil fuel development in what is already the No. 2 producing state in the U.S.

    Water from oil and gas drilling can be viable for certain applications, and all industries — including oil and gas — have to reduce their overall use and protect current supplies, the governor said Tuesday.

    State lawmakers who attended the governor’s news conference vowed that the budget being hashed out during the current legislative session will include more money for water infrastructure projects. One proposal calls for funneling another $100 million to the state water board to disperse for shovel-ready projects.

    In 2018, New Mexico rolled out a water plan that included details about policies at the time, historical legal cases and regional water plans. While it offered an inventory of the state’s needs, critics said it fell short of laying out a concrete path for how to solve New Mexico’s water problems.

    Aside from addressing antiquated infrastructure, New Mexico’s new plan calls for cleaning up contaminated groundwater, spurring investments in desalination and wastewater treatment, and improving mapping and monitoring of surface and groundwater sources.

    Rebecca Roose, the governor’s senior infrastructure adviser, described the plan as a set of guideposts that can help the state keep moving forward on water policy and infrastructure investments.

    “We see a path forward around our water conservation, around making sure we have the water availability that we need — driven by science — cleaning up and protecting our water and watersheds,” she said. “I think this is going to live and evolve and grow.”

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  • Egypt’s leader el-Sissi slams Ethiopia-Somaliland coastline deal and vows support for Somalia

    Egypt’s leader el-Sissi slams Ethiopia-Somaliland coastline deal and vows support for Somalia

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    CAIRO — Egypt’s leader said Sunday his country stands shoulder to shoulder with Somalia in its dispute with landlocked Ethiopia, which struck a deal with Somaliland to obtain access to the sea and establish a marine force base.

    President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi slammed Ethiopia’s agreement with the breakaway region. He called on Ethiopia to seek benefits from seaports in Somalia and Djibouti “through transitional means,” rather than through attempts to “control another (country’s) territory.”

    “We will not allow anyone to threaten Somalia or infringe upon its territory,” el-Sissi told a joint news conference in Cairo with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud. “No one should attempt to threaten Egypt’s brothers, especially if our brothers asked us to stand with them.”

    Somaliland, a region strategically located by the Gulf of Aden, broke away from Somalia in 1991 as the country collapsed into a warlord-led conflict. The region has maintained its own government despite its lack of international recognition.

    Somaliland leader Muse Bihi Abdi signed a memorandum of understanding with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed earlier this month to allow Ethiopia to lease a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) stretch of coastline to establish a marine force base.

    Sheikh Mohamud, the Somali president, rejected the deal as a violation of international law, saying: “We will not stand idly by and watch our sovereignty being compromised.”

    He arrived in Egypt this weekend to rally support for his government. He met with the Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Al-Azhar mosque’s Grand Imam, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb.

    Egypt is at odds with Ethiopia over a controversial hydroelectric dam Ethiopia has built on the Nile river’s main tributary. The two countries — along with Sudan — have been trying for over a decade to reach a negotiated agreement on the filling and operation of the $4 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam.

    The latest round of talks last month ended without a deal and Cairo and Addis Ababa traded blame for the failure.

    Negotiators have said key questions remain about how much water Ethiopia will release downstream if a multi-year drought occurs, and how the countries will resolve any future disputes. Ethiopia rejects binding arbitration at the final stage.

    The dam is on the Blue Nile near the Sudan border and Egypt fears it will have a devastating effect on its water and irrigation supply downstream unless Ethiopia takes its needs into account.

    The dam began producing power last year and Ethiopia said it had completed the final phase of filling the dam’s reservoir in September.

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  • Traffic through the Panama Canal is being slashed because of drought, disrupting global trade

    Traffic through the Panama Canal is being slashed because of drought, disrupting global trade

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    PANAMA CITY — A severe drought that began last year has forced authorities to slash ship crossings by 36% in the Panama Canal, one of the world’s most important trade routes.

    The new cuts announced Wednesday by authorities in Panama are set to deal an even greater economic blow than previously expected.

    Canal administrators now estimate that dipping water levels could cost them between $500 million and $700 million in 2024, compared to previous estimates of $200 million.

    One of the most severe droughts to ever hit the Central American nation has stirred chaos in the 50-mile maritime route, causing a traffic jam of boats, casting doubts on the canal’s reliability for international shipping and raising concerns about its affect on global trade.

    On Wednesday, Panama Canal Administrator Ricaurte Vásquez said they would cut daily ship crossings to 24, after already gradually slashing crossings last year from 38 a day in normal times.

    “It’s vital that the country sends a message that we’re going to take this on and find a solution to this water problem,” Vásquez said.

    Vásquez added that in the first quarter of the fiscal year the passageway saw 20% less cargo and 791 fewer ships than the same period the year before.

    It was a “significant reduction” for the country, Vásquez said. But the official said that more “efficient” water management and a jump in rainfall in November has at least enabled them to ensure that water levels are high enough for 24 ships to pass daily until the end of April, the start of the next rainy season.

    Canal authorities attributed the drought to the El Niño weather phenomenon and climate change, and warned it was urgent for Panama to seek new water sources for both the canal’s operations and human consumption. The same lakes that fill the canal also provide water for more than 50% of the country of more than 4 million people.

    “The water problem is a national problem, not just of the Canal,” Vásquez said. “We have to address this issue across the entire country.”

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