Mar. 13, 2023 9:00am – 10:30am ET

More information and free registration

As the world struggles to feed itself – using more land and more water – nutrient runoff from agricultural production has triggered a systemic ecological threat. Toxic algae erupt annually around the globe, fouling public drinking water systems and affecting the health of millions of people. While warmer temperatures are exacerbating the blooms, recent reporting reveals little regulation or effective responses to solving this growing threat.

Speakers at this panel will discuss the causes, consequences, and solutions to this escalating challenge in the United States and China.

Tax Incentives Find New Purpose for Conserving Water in American West

Conservation easements protect the region’s depleted groundwater.

The San Luis Valley, a high desert farming region in southern Colorado, is a land of daunting natural constraints, especially its scarce water reserves. Pragmatic ingenuity is being applied here to overcome them, including a new easement program that uses federal and state tax benefits to conserve groundwater.

U.S. Food Trade Increasingly Leans On Unsustainable Groundwater

Biggest reliance on unsustainable groundwater is in the western states, study finds.

American agriculture is a behemoth, a world-leading industry that, while meeting extensive domestic demands, still exports around $140 billion in farm products each year. Soybeans go to China. Cherries to Japan. Baskets of goods to Canada.

Some of that production rests on a risky and unstable foundation, a new study finds. It takes water to grow those crops, and an increasing portion of the country’s irrigation water is unsustainably mined from groundwater sources that are being depleted.

Groundwater use is unsustainable in the long term when the amount of water that is extracted from an aquifer is greater than the amount that enters, via rainfall or artificial means.

Circle of Blue brings our readers to the front lines of the biggest stories around the most important issue on the planet: The world’s water.

Just as water is central to life, your support is vital to what we do.

Please support our nonprofit journalism today.