Human Interest

"The vast majority of fishing vessels follow the rules governing fishing – but many are not, and these bad actors can cause a lot of damage. Vessels may take too many fish ­– overfishing – which is causing our fisheries to collapse. Then there is the problem of illegal fishing, which can occur in protected areas, in another country’s waters or on the high seas. This threatens jobs and food security for millions of people, all around the world.

Marketplace® is your liaison between economics and life. Noted for timely, relevant and accessible coverage of business news across both audio and digital platforms, Marketplace programs are heard by more than 14 million weekly listeners. This makes the Marketplace portfolio the most widely heard business or economic programming in the country.

"Unchecked development remains a priority in the famously un-zoned city, creating short-term economic gains for some, but long term flood risk for everyone."

"The Last of the Free Seas is the title of this fantastic map of the Great Lakes made by Boris Artzbasheff.  It was published in Fortune Magazine in July 1940."

Overview of the importance of water systems and the challenges of providing enough safe water for the Earth's population

"It’s no secret that the Great Lakes are suffering tremendous ecological strain — Lake Erie was even pronounced “dead” for a time during the 1960s because of an overload of phosphorus from municipal waste. Back in 1615, though, when the entire region was pristine and explorers Samuel de Champlain and Étienne Brûlé gazed out together from Lake Huron’s shores, they dubbed it la mer douce, 'the sweet sea.' Today roughly one-quarter of Canada’s population and a 10th of America’s population drink from the Great Lakes basin; the beleaguered lakes alone hold more than a fifth of Earth’s freshwater."

About one on four child on the planet will die, have their growth stunted or otherwise suffer from a lack of water by 2040, Unicef has warned in a new report.

Today, to the southeast of Block Island, there are five new structures rising from the ocean. These are the towers of the Block Island Wind Farm (BIWF), the first offshore wind energy installation in the United States. The turbines will generate 30 megawatts of energy; providing electricity to 17,000 households on Block Island and coastal Rhode Island (McCann, 2016), and replacing the diesel generators that previously powered New Shoreham. The turbines are on schedule to begin turning in November 2016 once commissioning is complete.

A costly plan to build floating islands shows how climate change is pushing the search for innovative solutions, but some critics ask who will ultimately benefit.

One of the driest countries on Earth now makes more freshwater than it needs

Driven by necessity, Israel is learning to squeeze more out of a drop of water than any country on Earth; researchers have pioneered new techniques in drip irrigation, water treatment and desalination. “The Middle East is drying up,” says Osnat Gillor, a professor at the Zuckerberg Institute who studies the use of recycled wastewater on crops. “The only country that isn’t suffering acute water stress is Israel.” That water stress has been a major factor in the turmoil tearing apart the Middle East, but Bar-Zeev believes that Israel’s solutions can help its parched neighbors, too — and in the process, bring together old enemies in common cause.

Tags: drought, water, environment, Israel, technology, Middle East.

"Watch salmon race across the road on their way to spawn; for more footage, watch this extended version."

After barely surviving decades of pollution during the communist era, the Danube is facing new threats from microplastics, pesticides and pharma waste

"The Ballena Marine National Park is located in Puntarenas, at the South Pacific coast of Costa Rica." 

"The tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu – once thought to be under threat from rising sea levels – has grown the size of California's Disneyland over the past 40 years. It's mostly thanks to waves dumping extra sediment, sand and gravel on shore lines, according to research by Auckland University scientists. The study, published in the Nature Communications journal on Friday, was the first in-depth look at how much each of Tuvalu's 101 islands have changed over the decades."

Tags: Oceania, water,  coastal, environment, physical, geomorphology, erosion, geology, landforms.

Discover how much WATER we EAT every day

The world affairs series returns for a new run, starting in Indonesia, home to the planet's most polluted river and a textile industry supplying some of th

Henderson Island is isolated and uninhabited—but its beaches are still covered in garbage.  

Henderson Island (article or podcast) is about the most remote place you can visit without leaving the planet. It sits squarely in the middle of the South Pacific, 3,500 miles from New Zealand in one direction and another 3,500 miles from South America in the other.  Henderson should be pristine. It is uninhabited. Tourists don’t go there. There’s no one around to drop any litter. The whole place was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in 1988. The nearest settlement is 71 miles away, and has just 40 people on it. And yet, seafaring plastic has turned it into yet another of humanity’s scrapheaps.

Tags: pollution, Oceania, water, environment, sustainability, consumption.

How many people still drink dirty water, or go to the toilet in the open? We’ve used new data to track global progress on the millennium development goals. Hover or click on countries for more detailed information

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled South Sudan to escape the civil war. When they arrive in Uganda, water is what they need most. Without it, they will die.

The illegal dumping of waste mixed with mass untreated sewage in India’s Silicon Valley is creating a water crisis which threatens residents’ health – and is causing the city’s famous lakes to catch fire

Limited edition water, harvested from melting polar icebergs, is now on sale now at Harrods. It’s just another ugly indicator of our world’s many inequalities

Water bills are on the rise nationwide. And poor communities are being hit the hardest.

The island of Bermuda has no fresh-water springs, rivers or lakes so the design of its roofs is essential for collecting rainwater.

For almost a quarter of a century, UN deputy secretary general Jan Eliasson has been an indefatigable champion of the right to water and sanitation for all

An unprecedented second massive ice avalanche has rocked a remote region of Tibet.