In the delta community of Miguel Alemán, situated along the Colorado River corridor that forms the border between Mexico and Arizona, we arrive at an unlikely enterprise in this parched environment: a tree nursery.
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A Water Bank Helps Revive Colorado Delta Willows and Wetlands
West Virginia Spill Reveals Threats to Drinking Water
Some 300,000 West Virginians have endured severe water restrictions thanks to a chemical spill in the Elk River, triggering an ongoing environmental investigation.
Although the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCMH) spilled into the river is not a typical environmental contaminant, the 5,000 gallons lost in the incident have lessons to teach, say experts, about our vulnerable and aging water infrastructure.
To find out more, National Geographic spoke with Tom Curtis, the deputy executive director of the American Water Works Association, a water industry trade group based in Washington, D.C. Read more
Drink More Water, Says FLOTUS—But How Much?
“I’ve come to realize that if we were going to take just one step to make ourselves and our families healthier, probably the single best thing we could do is to simply drink more water,” First Lady Michelle Obama said in a statement issued this week. She went on to recommend downing an additional glass a day.
Which raises the question: How many glasses of water a day should you drink?
It’s commonly believed that eight 8-ounce glasses of water should be guzzled each day. You sure won’t get any arguments about that from the bottled water industry. But hydration experts aren’t sure where the “8 x 8” rule came from—or whether it holds water. Read more
7 Surprising Facts About the Giant River Otter
Reddit users are going crazy about the giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis)—an Amazonian giant that can reach up to six feet (1.8 meters) long. That’s more than twice as long as a North American river otter—arguably with double the coolness.
1. The first ever giant river otter cub born in Asia arrived at Wildlife Reserves Singapore just this last August, UPI reports. Dr. Cheng Wen-Huar, WRS’s chief life sciences officer, was quoted as saying, “With increasing threats such as habitat destruction and poaching, captive breeding programs play a pivotal role in conserving threatened species for our future generations.” You can see a newborn member of the next generation looking impossibly cute here on ZooBorns. Read more
Water Flows Into Colorado River Delta in Historic First
Sunday March 23, 2014, at a little after 8 am, the gates at Morelos Dam on the Mexico-Arizona border were opened for the first time in history for the purpose of allowing the Colorado River to flow downstream into its delta to water the plants and animals that live there. A crowd of more than 100, many from the local community, plus a handful of reporters and water workers from afar, waited just downstream.
A cheer went up when the water began to pour down, first in a trickle, and then a steady gushing flow. It took a long time for the institutions that manage the Colorado River to make this happen. Now we have the chance to see how long it takes the river to move downstream, and how far it goes. (See “Historic ‘Pulse Flow’ Brings Water to Parched Colorado River Delta.”)