Water & Oceans

"Indian officials signed an agreement with the World Bank on Tuesday to use a $1 billion loan to finance the first major new effort in more than 20 years to cleanse the revered Ganges, one of the world’s dirtiest rivers."

"This year's record Mississippi River floods are forecast to create the biggest Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' since systematic mapping began in 1985, U.S. scientists reported on Tuesday."

"The snowpack in the Rocky Mountains has been gradually thinning over much of the past century, and a new study attributes much of that to global warming."

"The spectrum of actions marking the UN's annual World Oceans Day ranges from the celebratory to the cautionary as ocean health is assaulted by challenges that include climate change, oil spills, pollution and overfishing."

"A 10-knot limit off the West Coast could prevent deaths, advocates tells the U.S. Department of Commerce. Shippers oppose the limits."

"Releases from six Missouri River reservoirs, already at historic levels, will be increased again this month, say water managers with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers."

"North China is dying. A chronic drought is ravaging farmland. The Gobi Desert is inching south. The Yellow River, the so-called birthplace of Chinese civilization, is so polluted it can no longer supply drinking water. The rapid growth of megacities — 22 million people in Beijing and 12 million in Tianjin alone — has drained underground aquifers that took millenniums to fill."

"Floodwaters around the South Dakota capital of Pierre are rising and they're about to get much higher. The dams along the Missouri River can't hold back a massive surge of water spurred by record rains in Montana."