Today's Top 5 - Spotlight On World Water Day

One In Four Children Will Live With Water Scarcity By 2050

Within two decades, 600 million children will be in regions enduring extreme water stress, with a great deal of competition for the available supply. The poorest and most disadvantaged will suffer most, according to research published by the children’s agency, Unicef, to mark World Water Day on Wednesday. - The Guardian

Five Water Warriors Defending Rights From North Dakota to Chile

Activists and environmentalists lead the struggle to protect water sources across the planet, from the top of the continents of the Americas in Alaska all the way down to Argentina. Often, their activism is dangerous work. Resistance movements against unwanted hydroelectric dam projects, in particular, have seen a violent crackdown, with more than 40 activists killed in recent years in Mexico, Central America and Colombia, according to GeoComunes. - TeleSur

The Business of Wastewater

On this year's World Water Day, the UN has called for much more wastewater to be treated and recycled. The organization also emphasized that wastewater is an "essential component of a circular economy." - Deutsche Welle

Water Wars? Experts Urge Rethink of Our Relationship With Water

The United Nations has already warned that water shortages will hit a record high in 2030, while some experts caution that water — arguably human beings' most valuable resource after air — could become the next commodity over which communities and nations will wage bitter fights, and even start wars. While climate change and global warming are some of the main causes behind deepening water problems, other less discussed factors are also playing a major part in the crisis, with the main issue being mismanagement and extraction of underground water sources. - TeleSur

Farm Policy In Age of Climate Change Creating Another Dust Bowl

Over the past decade, farmers in the Great Southern Plains have suffered the worst drought conditions since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. They've battled heat, dust storms and in recent weeks, fires that devoured more than 900,000 acres and killed thousands of cattle.These extreme conditions are being fueled by climate change. But a new report from an environmental advocacy group says they're also being driven by federal crop insurance policy that encourages farmers to continue planting crops on compromised land, year after year. - InsideClimate News

Today's Top 5

Somalia says 110 Dead In Past 48 Hours Due to Drought

Some 110 people have died in southern Somalia in the last two days from famine and diarrhea resulting from a drought, the prime minister said on Saturday, as the area braces itself for widespread shortages of food. In February, United Nations children's agency UNICEF said the drought in Somalia could lead to up to 270,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition this year. - Reuters

Extreme Heat Wave Days Already Hitting Poor Countries More Than Rich

Using World Bank wealth definitions and targeting the number of days and nights that fell in the top 10 per cent of temperatures for any date, researchers found extreme heat readings have increased much faster in low-income nations than richer ones since at least the 1980s. "We expected it to be a lot worse since the [low-income] countries are near the equator but the difference of more than double is quite shocking." - Sydney Morning Herald

How Disappearing Sea Ice Has Put Arctic Ecosystems Under Threat

In a few days the Arctic’s beleaguered sea ice cover is likely to set another grim record. Its coverage is on course to be the lowest winter maximum extent ever observed since satellite records began. These show that more than 2 million square kilometres of midwinter sea ice have disappeared from the Arctic in less than 40 years. The ice’s disappearance – triggered by global warming caused by rising carbon emissions from cars and factories – is likely to have profound implications for the planet. A loss of sea ice means a loss of reflectivity of solar rays and further rises in global temperatures, warn researchers. But there are other pressing concerns, they add. - The Guardian

Food Waste: The Simplest Way to Improve The World's Food Systems Requires No New Science

It is quite depressing to learn that, currently, a third of our food goes to loss and waste, but upon closer inspection there are considerable grounds for hope. Unlike the case with raising crop yields, there is plenty of room to reduce food loss and waste through the broader dissemination and employment of existing technology. - Quartz

Honduran Environmental Activist Berta Cáceres' Suspected Killers Received U.S. Military Training

Eight men have been arrested as suspects in Cáceres’s killing one year ago — including one active army major and two retired military members. Two of these suspects reportedly received military training in the United States. - Democracy Now!