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In the southern reaches of Egypt, the city of Aswan is one of the hottest and sunniest in the world. Temperatures reach 41C in the summer and less than a millimetre of rain falls each year. Some years it doesn’t rain at all.

Aswan may be one of the world’s least rainy places, but it’s not even close to being the most water-stressed city. It nestles on the east bank of the Nile, close to the Aswan High Dam and the vast Lake Nasser, one of the largest manmade lakes in the world. With a capacity of 132 cubic km, the dam serves the irrigations needs not just of Aswan, but Egypt and neighbouring Sudan as well.

The drought that has caused profound impacts on California’s residents and businesses has similarly taken a toll on the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem. In a world increasingly sensitive to the warning signs of ecological crisis — including climate change — the effect of the drought on species in the Bay-Delta requires careful attention.

Biologists warn Delta smelt, once the Delta’s most abundant fish, is on the brink of extinction.

 

Tribes are apprehensive, cities are more upbeat and farmers stand somewhere in between over a proposed plan to cut CAP water deliveries to keep Lake Mead from falling to dangerously low levels.

At separate meetings here this week, tribal officials, attorneys and irrigation officials grilled Central Arizona Project officials about the proposal. It would require a 33 percent cut in water deliveries once the lake dropped another 4 or 5 feet below where it’s expected to be at the end of this year, and cuts of up to 40 percent later.

The leaves atop giant sequoias in the Sierra Nevada are better at storing water than those closer to the ground, an adaptation that may explain how their treetops are able to survive 300 feet in the air, researchers at American River College and Humboldt State University have found.

“It can take over a week for water to get from the ground to the top of the tree,” says Alana Chin, who led the study and is an instructor at American River College. “When you’re that tall of a tree, you’re under tremendous water stress.”