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Archive for May 11th, 2015
Taiwan aims to rein in water use amid unusual drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 11th, 2015
LA Times: As a subtropical Pacific island, Taiwan normally gets a generous 98 inches of rain a year, keeping water prices so low that people seldom think twice about taking a long hot shower, let alone flushing the toilet.
But that relaxed relationship with water has dried up since February as Pacific Ocean temperatures have locked Taiwan into one of its most severe droughts in decades, prompting rationing last month in areas of the heavily populated west coast. In two cities and a county in northern Taiwan,...
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England’s water voles in desperate decline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 11th, 2015
Guardian: English waterways could lose one of their most charismatic and once widespread residents as water voles succumb to the invasive American mink, records released by the Canal and River Trust show.
Between 1970 and 1999, water voles were found on 269 of the 2,000 miles of waterways managed by the trust. But since the turn of the century, their range dropped by almost 50% to 141 miles.
Mark Robinson, national ecologist for the Canal and River Trust, said the numbers told of a species in desperate...