The backup of boats and barges on a low-water section of the MIssissippi River increased Tuesday even as the 11-mile stretch reopened on a limited basis, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
An 11-mile stretch of the Mississippi River near Greenville, Mississippi, was closed Monday to most vessel traffic because of low water levels, idling nearly a hundred boats and barges in the stream, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
China and India need to reach agreement on how they will manage water from one of the world's great rivers -- the Yarlung-Zangbo-Brahmaputra -- before it becomes another serious impediment to relations between the two Asian heavyweights.
The pool is closed in Warrenton, Missouri. Cattle ponds are drying up in Arkansas. Illinois is in danger of losing its corn crop.
My grandfather Jacques Yves Cousteau shared with me many stories about the United Nations Earth Summit in 1992 and the sense of hope that surrounded it. I have kept a copy of the speech he made there on June 5th outlining his concerns for the future of humankind. The insight it provides now, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of that historic event, is particularly poignant.
About every two weeks, Rick Allen gets a series of thermal snapshots from high above Earth that show how water gets used across the western United States, a perennial source of friction in the largely arid region.
Reiterating his deep concern about the safety of members of his family, the Chinese activist at the center of a recent diplomatic storm on Tuesday dismissed personal attacks against him in state media as "utter nonsense."
The battle over hydraulic fracturing in the state of New York pits farmers against environmentalists, neighbor vs. neighbor, as gas companies wait to find out if they'll be able to unlock the natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation thousands of feet below the earth's surface.
Wind turbines have long produced renewable energy but a French engineering firm has discovered another eco-purpose for the towering structures.
Governors of several Venezuelan states have warned that recent oil spills and other contamination could be polluting local drinking water.
Hugo Chavez leaves Cuba for Venezuela to run for reelection and fight cancer. CNN's Patrick Oppmann reports.
I own a property in Fort Pierre, South Dakota, called the Bad River Ranch. It is a beautiful place, where we have worked very hard to restore the landscape, reintroduce native wildlife species and raise bison sustainably. But it sits about 15 miles downstream of the point where TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline would cross the Bad River, and being that close has led me to examine more closely the potential risks and benefits of a project about which I have been highly skeptical from the beginning. After careful scrutiny, I believe it is not in our national interest to pursue it.
CNNMoney breaks down the bitter debate between over the proposed 1,700-mile pipeline.
During the summer months, in the arid, subtropical coastal plains of the United Arab Emirates, temperatures rise to 40 Celsius plus -- while average rainfall is a desolate four inches a year.
CNN's Nick Glass looks at the environmental effect of desalinating water in the UAE and green alternatives.
Ohio hasn't been an oil powerhouse for nearly 100 years.
It's not as futuristic as greenhouses on Mars, but farmers on terra firma are using space-based technology to certify organic crops.
Alice Waters, US Organic pioneer, says she has high hopes for an organic revolution in China.
The Texas town of Groesbeck is on the verge of running dry.
CNN's Sara Sidner rode with the U.S. military on a helicopter over Bangkok to survey the extent of the flooding.
CNN's Guillermo Arduino reports on the dire drought conditions on two South Pacific islands.
Two idyllic South Pacific islands are facing a water crisis; they're running out of it, and fast.
As the Horn of Africa suffers its worst drought for 60 years, there are reports of growing conflict between people and wildlife over the region's limited resources.
At first glance, it's pretty easy to say Las Vegas has an unhealthy water fetish. There's the 22-million-gallon Bellagio fountain, which rockets dancing cylinders of well water 500 feet into the air to the tune of "God Bless the USA." There's the liquid volcano at The Mirage, where water seems to bubble like lava. And, finally, the blue canals inside (inside!) the Venetian hotel, where water buoys gondolas for the amusement of gamblers and tourists.
CNN's Ed Lavandera looks at a controversial plan to bring more drinking water to parts of Texas.
Texas and Oklahoma suffered through their warmest months on record as persistent heat scorched central and eastern states from May to July.
In normal times, Lake E.V. Spence is a teeming 14,600-acre reservoir with a maximum depth of 108 feet, just west of the town of Robert Lee, Texas.
Water is flowing from Canada to North Dakota faster than ever as the Souris River crests, surpassing an 1881 record.
When Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley issued an executive order banning fracking earlier this month, the state joined the ranks of New York, Quebec, Germany, France and South Africa to halt the controversial technique for extracting natural gas from shale rock.
Hong Yulan has fished the shallow waters of Dongting Lake for nearly 30 years, but this summer she is doing something she never fathomed possible: walking across the bottom of her lake.
Federal authorities began closing portions of central Louisiana's Morganza Spillway as the swollen Mississippi River receded Wednesday, reducing the need to divert water down another waterway.
A new study from Duke University found potentially explosive levels of methane in drinking water supplies located close to natural gas wells.
Bright skies over Memphis, Tennessee, belied a potential disaster Sunday as a surge of fast-moving water threatened the city and many other communities along the Mississippi River.
Residents of areas around Memphis, Tennessee, prepare for near-record Mississippi flooding. Barbara Hall reports
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began explosions Monday night at the Birds Point-New Madrid levee at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
Nearly a billion people worldwide have limited access to clean water, the State Department says, and the crisis disproportionately affects women and girls.
It's been said so many times, it has become cliché: water is our most precious resource.
It may be one of the most developed nations in Southeast Asia, but on the densely packed urban island of Singapore, a simple glass of water doesn't come cheap, or easy.
CNN's Liz Neisloss reports on how Singapore is making sure it doesn't run out of clean water.
Some Atlanta residents are shocked to see their monthly water bills increase to rival their mortgages.
South Korean animal rights groups allege that pigs infected with foot and mouth disease are being buried alive.
A South Korean farmer for 15 years, Sa Taek-hwan, lost his livelihood overnight.
When "GasLand," a documentary which details the environmental impact of a process called "fracking," came out, it created a public relations nightmare for the natural gas industry.
Long before I was dispelling eco-advice, I worked as a dog walker while in graduate school, and one of my charges was a Great Dane -- so I know how big a task cleaning up after your pooch can be. Pooches produce an average of 274 pounds of waste a year. (I'm guessing that amount is doubled for bigger dogs like Great Danes.)
A water main breaks in the U.S. every two minutes. Alison Kosik looks at what is -- and isn't -- being done about it.
Anita Kramer had no idea that a 72-inch water main in her Maryland neighborhood was a ticking time bomb that was about to flood her home and ruin many of her most cherished possessions.
Authorities in Maryland are investigating the deaths of about 2 million fish in Chesapeake Bay.
CNN's Brian Todd reports on another massive fish kill, this one in the Chesapeake Bay. Linked to others?
Several hundred households in Northern Ireland are still without water, and thousands of homes face restrictions, more than a week after shortages began, Northern Ireland Water said Monday.
The number of properties lacking running water in Northern Ireland has dwindled to fewer than 1,000, state-funded water company Northern Ireland Water said Sunday.
Northern Ireland was getting a handle on its water shortage Saturday, getting more customers back online after several major water pipes burst in a rapid thaw that followed record low temperatures last week.
Northern Ireland's water supply is in a "precarious position" after several major water pipes burst, allowing 10 million liters of water to drain from Belfast reservoirs each day, the Northern Ireland Water interim chairman said Friday.
Someone must be held responsible for a "shambolic" response to a water crisis that has left thousands without running water, one of Northern Ireland's top politicians said Thursday.
The Northern Ireland power-sharing government said Wednesday it will hold an emergency meeting to discuss a crisis that has left an estimated 40,000 people without water for as long as 10 days.
CNN's Mohammed Jamjoom reports from Yemen, where qat crops are exacerbating a water crisis.
A plan to bring the first oil sands development to the United States is drawing stiff opposition from environmentalists concerned about global warming and water use, but backers of the project insist their new process is safe.
A 2009 CNN Hero provides clean water to Haiti residents after a massive earthquake.
Humanity is facing a war right now with an enemy that appears to be winning.
Small land owners in Egypt look for new ways to conserve water. Shahira Amin contributed to this report.
In Egypt, water is so scarce some farmers are forced to use untreated sewage to irrigate their crops. Now, the government is trying to tackle problem by modernizing irrigation and teaching farmers to conserve water.
At least 18 prisoners were killed during a long prison riot and a second, shorter riot in northeast Brazil, officials said Tuesday.
(This article is part of Fortune's series on fracking .)
While nations debate what to do about long-term problems such as climate change and dwindling water supplies, two words send immediate shivers down the spines of government officials across the world: Food security.
President Obama urges the U.N. to make a greater commitment to reducing global poverty.
Cyprus is an island of one million people in the Mediterranean Sea and it's facing a water crisis.
China can't dam or divert water quickly enough to keep up with its thirsty population, and the shortage has reached crisis levels in Beijing and other areas.
Hundreds of people are expected to pack an upstate New York auditorium Monday as the federal government enters the fray over a controversial technique for natural gas production.
More rain is expected Friday in northwest China's Gansu province, where the death toll from a massive mudslide continues to climb.
Floods in northeast China's Jilin Province have killed 29 people, left seven missing, cut utility services and raised fears of tainted water, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported Friday, citing provincial authorities.
The death toll has risen to 34 as a result of floods and landslides in two provinces in central China, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Monday.
Six months after an earthquake devastated Haiti, a United Nations representative on the ground there says many challenges still lie ahead in the aftermath of the "worst living disaster."
A U.S. conservation group released a list Wednesday of what it says are America's 10 most endangered rivers, which face man-made threats from gas drilling and new dams to outdated flood management.
Amongst the slums, the sand and the incessant heat, it is an unexpected vision of paradise: lush, copiously watered greens peppered with pristinely kept bunkers and a freshly built clubhouse.
In Qingdao city on the eastern coast of China, Tsingtao beer is the pride of the people.
CNN's Emily Chang visits the Tsingtao brewery and looks at the likelihood that Chinese consumers will go green.
CNN's Emily Chang gives a first-person account of covering pollution problems plaguing the denim industry.
A water shortage in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka is so acute that troops have been called in to guard water pumps in parts of the city.
Oppressed by war and poverty for generations, the Sudanese have struggled with terrible hardships. But the people of this vast country have a narrow window of hope to achieve progress by ridding both their nation and the world of a horrible disease forever.
Dams have dried up in southwest China, Thai fishermen have almost completely stopped their fishery activities on the Mekong River, and nearly half of northern Vietnam's farmland is under threat because of a regional drought.
A look at of the dirtiest rivers in the world, from which millions of people get drinking water. CNN's Anna Coren reports
March 22 is World Water Day, marking awareness for the need of safe drinking water for all.
"We are all in this together," says Biel of the group's mission to raise awareness about the need for clean water
Every eight seconds, somewhere in the world a child dies from waterborne diseases because the parents cannot afford clean water, according to Maude Barlow, founder of the Blue Planet Project.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour talks to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about one of the world hottest hottest commodities: water.
Exxon Mobil may be getting more than it bargained for with its recent plan to purchase natural gas giant XTO Energy.
A small town in Maryland is setting a precedent in eco-friendly road construction, breaking ground this week on one of the greenest streets in the nation.
CNN's Paula Hancocks reports on the lack of water in Gaza refugee camps.
Israel is denying Palestinians access to adequate water supplies by controlling shared water resources, the human rights group Amnesty International said in a report released Tuesday.
The farmland around the college town of Oneonta, N.Y., is punctuated by barns and cows. But the quiet setting belies a battle that is raging over the Marcellus Shale, a largely untapped deposit of natural gas that runs from West Virginia to New York.
Some call him the River Maker, others the Rainman of Rajasthan. His real name is Rajendra Singh. His nicknames come from his self-imposed mission to solve his state's water problems, one raindrop at a time.
The glaciers in the Himalayas are receding quicker than those in other parts of the world and could disappear altogether by 2035 according to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
Bartender Doc Hendley is helping provide clean water to communities worldwide.
Behind the bar at a local restaurant, Doc Hendley leans in to hear his customer over the band. "You like the pinot? Cool," he says.
Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian ministers met in Ankara on Thursday to discuss water shortages in the major Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which run through all three countries.
An environmental group thinks rainwater can help ease the water crisis. CNN Photojournalist Gabe Ramirez has the story.
Andy Lipkis was 15 years old on the first Earth Day in 1970 -- the year he says he realized what his calling in life would be.
The United Nations Children's Fund is reopening its office in Baghdad six years after leaving because of the conflict in Iraq, the agency announced Tuesday.
The cup of coffee I drank this morning required 37 gallons of water to produce. In the United States, 35 out of 50 U.S. states will face water shortages in the near future. Even as drought and desertification inflict international misery, the world's five largest beverage companies collectively use enough water to satisfy the needs of the entire planet.
Rivers are the arteries of our infrastructure. Flowing from highlands to the sea, they breathe life into ecosystems and communities.
Marjorye Heeney knew something was wrong when she saw a bulging cloud of black dust darken the sky.
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