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Oceans, Coral Reefs

World Water Week: Healthy ecosystems essential to human health: from coronavirus to malnutrition Online session Wednesday 24 August 17:00-18:20

Our session will explore “Seeing the unseen: The value of water,” including climate change, ecosystems, sociocultural and economic factors along with how water scarcity, poor water quality and inadequate sanitation negatively impact food security, livelihood choices and educational opportunities for poor families across the world and, in fact, everyone.


Mangrove Action Project Collaborates to Restore and Preserve Mangrove Ecosystems

Two successful MAP projects ...are Nai Nang Village in Thailand, and the Bay of Jiquilisco in El Salvador. In both, after the initial Community-based Ecological Mangrove Restoration (CBEMR) training and restoration, the projects and conservation have been locally driven and shaped as a result of working together. 

 


Coral Research in Palau offers a “Glimmer of Hope”

A team of scientists went to the Western Pacific Island chain of the Republic of Palau to unlock the mysteries of species that may contain a secret of adaptation for survival. The film “Coral: Glimmer of Hope” summarizes their journey and findings to date. The Republic of Palau is a country comprised of hundreds of islands.

 


"Water and Sanitation-Related Diseases and the Changing Environment: Challenges, Interventions, and Preventive Measures" Volume 2 Is Now Available

The Authoritative Guide to Water and Sanitation Related Diseases, with Many Revised, Updated and New Chapters, Accompanies the First Edition

Augmenting authoritative interdisciplinary coverage in the first edition, this new edition of Water and Sanitation-Related Diseases and the Changing Environment expands upon the significance of the changing environment to disease vectors, food systems and nutrition, and population, and the importance of ecosystem health to human health. Many chapters stand as they are in first edition to which readers are referred, and which are not included in this volume.


NASA Finds Drought in Eastern Mediterranean Worst of Past 900 Years

A new NASA study finds that the recent drought that began in 1998 in the eastern Mediterranean Levant region, which comprises Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey, is likely the worst drought of the past nine centuries.

Scientists reconstructed the Mediterranean’s drought history by studying tree rings as part of an effort to understand the region’s climate and what shifts water to or from the area. Thin rings indicate dry years while thick rings show years when water was plentiful.


NASA 25-Year Study Finds Sea Level Rise Accelerating

Global sea level rise has been accelerating in recent decades, rather than increasing steadily, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data.

 


NASA Satellites Reveal Major Shifts in Global Freshwater Updated June 2020

In June 2020, NASA provides an updated report on fresh water availability: "Of all of the water on Earth, 97% is saltwater, leaving a mere 3% as freshwater, approximately 1% of which is readily available for our use. The world’s population is becoming more and more reliant on this precious resource for power, irrigation, industrial practices, and daily consumption."  The report is available at: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/toolkits/freshwater-availability

In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists have combined an array of NASA satellite observations of Earth with data on human activities to map locations where freshwater is changing around the globe and to determine why.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, finds that Earth’s wet land areas are getting wetter and dry areas are getting drier due to a variety of factors, including human water management, climate change and natural cycles.

A team led by Matt Rodell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, used 14 years of observations from the U.S./German-led Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spacecraft mission to track global trends in freshwater in 34 regions around the world.


U. S. Land and Sea Now Protected by President Obama Increased to 265 million acres

Efforts on every scale from international to local, cooperatively and individually, are increasingly responding to this stark reality by setting aside land and regions of the seas as preservation areas which are now being protected to various extents. President Obama has taken again this past week action to invest and conserve America's natural treasures. President Barack Obama commented on the 12th of February 2016 upon designation of millions of acres in three new national monuments in the California desert to bring the land and sea he has protected to 265 million acres.


Assumptions About Fish Populations' Fluctuations Challenged by New NSF Research

According a National Science Foundation (NSF), scientific literature and fisheries management and conservation efforts have for years assumed that the survival of adult fish is relatively constant through time. They further held that most fluctuations in the numbers of adults come from variation in the number of young fish that are produced and survive to maturity. Those assumptions have been challenged by new research by the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network. 

 

 

 

 

 


Sixth Largest Marine Protected Area In The World Created By Palau

On October 28, 2015, Tommy E. Remengesua, Jr., President of the Republic of Palau signed into law the “Palau National Marine Sanctuary Act,” creating “the sixth largest marine protected area in the world, while setting aside a zone for domestic fishing.” According to Nature Conservancy Palau supports more than 400 species of coral species and nearly 1,300 varieties of reef fish.


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