News, Articles and Interviews

Who Owns Groundwater? Lawsuit Seeks to Answer the Question

June 27, 2019

A group of agricultural business owners is pushing back on restrictions to their water use from the Las Posas Groundwater Basin. The Ventura County, California case is challenging the amount of water farm owners can pump from a groundwater basin that sits below Moorpark, California. The suit claims that the entity that oversees groundwater basins […]

India’s Sixth Largest City — Chennai — Has Run Out of Water

June 26, 2019

For all intents and purposes, the city of Chennai, India has run out of water. As scarcity hits India’s sixth largest city with its population of about 4.5 million, residents no longer have access to piped municipal water and now queue up to receive drinking water from tankers on which they rely. Sanitation, let alone […]

Many Water Cycle Diagrams Promote Misconceptions

June 21, 2019

As school kids, we all learned about how the water cycle works – water falls from the sky as rain where it either runs into surface water bodies or infiltrates into groundwater. Wash rinse, repeat. New research has shown that the majority of water cycle diagrams are flawed, which is bad news for students, educators […]

Virtual Water Export Virtually Dries Pakistan

May 17, 2019

Pakistan is faced with increasingly limited access to water. The country is already categorized as “extremely highly-water-stressed country” by the Water Resources Institute because it withdraws nearly 80% of its available water supply each year. This unsustainable water use, coupled with predicted declines in water flows in the Indus river system, make for an uncertain […]

Students Create Virtual Pop-up Thrift Shop on Instagram

May 2, 2019

Two juniors at Ithaca College – Emma Zarabet and Samantha Marks – have turned their love of thrift store shopping into a temporary online business. The sartorial students took their favorite past time – they go thrifting every Thursday – and their lack of closet space to the online world and opened up a pop-up […]

New Data Tool Maps US Food, Energy and Water Resources

April 30, 2019

A new tool maps the journey of food, energy an water resources in every region throughout the United States in an effort to help to make the systems that deliver these goods and services more accessible and resilient. The tool, called FEW-View, is part of the larger FEWSION nexus system research project based in Northern […]

Are Your Jeans Creating an Eco Disaster?

April 26, 2019

The fashion industry has a high water footprint, especially denim manufacturers. Creating that nice distressed blue jeans look everybody wants is water intensive and poisonous. First, there is heavy water use to irrigate cotton, which is also one of the most pesticide-heavy crops. Then, to get that lived-in look, the fabric is put through several […]

The Beauty Industry Generates a lot of Plastic Waste

April 23, 2019

Most beauty and personal care products come in plastic, are typically sealed in plastic and are often wrapped in plastic packaging. Much of that plastic is unrecyclable, which is significant because, globally, the personal care products is a $500 billion industry. In the US, it’s a whopping $90 billion behemoth that encourages us all to […]