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-- a _kt75 | double reprint: EN/DE Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . The environmental resources situation is shaped by changes in climatic conditions, coupled with pressures exerted by a rapidly growing global population, its increasing demands and the subsequent impacts on the environment. Current practices across the economy sectors are still not sufficiently ambitious in terms of sustainability ; they fail to ameliorate the stress conditions of vital resources like water. In recent years, the need has been highlighted for governance and management schemes that allocate resources appropriately among users (including the environment) and that promote the efficient use of such resources. The very nature of these needs calls for adequate policy responses. One of these policy responses — applied either separately or in combination with other economic or regulatory instruments — is water pricing . The use of such instruments brings a...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . A severe drought affecting Brazil’s biggest city has led to a “water war” that could cause the water supply to collapse in parts of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Authorities in São Paulo have been battling a water crisis for months as reservoirs run dry for lack of rainfall.Earlier this month, the state energy company in São Paulo (Cesp) asked the national operator of the electric system (ONS) to reduce the water flow at the Jaguari hydro-electric dam on the Rio Paraíba do Sul from 40,000 litres per second to 10,000 litres per second.The measure was intended to prioritise water supply to residents in São Paulo state over energy generation.But according to the ONS, which reduced the flow over several days to just 30,000 litres per second, a unilateral reduction would empty reserves and leave millions in 41 municipalities without water by the end of October. ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . IRAQ depends on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for drinking water, supplying industry and irrigating massive swathes of farmland. The two rivers account for 98% of the country’s surface water. Until recently the government’s greatest concern has been the fact that the source of neither river is in the country. In the past few decades dams and diversions across Turkey and Syria have steadily reduced the quantity of water reaching Iraq. Now Iraq has a greater concern. Both waterways flow through areas of northern Iraq controlled by the Islamic State (IS), an extremist group that grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq and today claims an area the size of Jordan straddling Syria and Iraq. On August 8th America began air strikes against the group, after IS carried out a series of attacks that targeted minorities including Christians and Yazidis and threatened the semi-autonomous nort...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . On a bitter cold day in Inner Mongolia, the grasslands here hold an unexpected sight: a shallow lake so warm the surface is shrouded in steam. This lake is a recent addition, formed by water discharged from a new plant that converts coal into methane gas . When operating at full capacity, the Datang International plant will require more than 7 billion gallons of water each year. And this is just a side stream of the vast flows of water demanded by plants turning coal into gas, chemicals and electricity in Inner Mongolia and other regions of China's north and west. These coal complexes rank among the planet's largest industrial emitters of carbon dioxide , which in the decades ahead will escalate climate change and acidification of the oceans. But right now, the coal industry's massive thirst may be both its biggest liability and the biggest constraint ...