The Death of A Lake: Haramaya - International Water Journalism: 1h2o.org
source: http://www.1h2o.org/index.php/story/the_death_of_a_lake_nobody_took_care_of_it_a_cactus_rise...
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Lake Haramaya, set in terraced hills roughly 300 miles east of Addis Ababa, is an extreme case. Around the world, many lakes that people have relied upon for centuries are shrinking. But Lake Haramaya is no longer shrinking. It is gone. The old lake bed, now dry and cracked, is an empty, shallow crater, pocked with patches of dusty, sunburned grass.
The lake was a victim of converging forces that read like a nightmare laundry list of 21st century environmental ills: erosion, population increases, wasteful farming practices, government mismanagement and climate change.
In Central Asia, the freshwater Aral Sea was almost completely drained by Soviet mismanagement. Lake Chad in central Africa has been shrinking for decades because of overuse and continuous droughts. In the United States, the water level in Lake Superior in Michigan and Lake Okeechobee in Florida has reached record lows.
Now Harar gets by on water drawn from what remains of an underground pool beneath Lake Haramaya’s bone-dry basin as it awaits completion of a new system that will pipe water from 30 miles away.
But the new system will not provide water for the region’s farms. Some farmers have found water by drilling into Lake Haramaya’s dry basin. But they have had to buy pumps. Farmers without extra money have watched their crops suffer. Most of the fishermen have moved to another shrinking lake over the next range of rolling hills.
Climate Change is not only a future series of events. Climate Change is NOW!!!!! Faith is needed NOW!!! Action must be taken NOW!!!! Learn how to live off the land, how to use fewer resources, how to love one another and all others NOW!!!! New Orleans, Aceh, Haiti, Chile, are only the start of what is to come...
The lake was a victim of converging forces that read like a nightmare laundry list of 21st century environmental ills: erosion, population increases, wasteful farming practices, government mismanagement and climate change.
In Central Asia, the freshwater Aral Sea was almost completely drained by Soviet mismanagement. Lake Chad in central Africa has been shrinking for decades because of overuse and continuous droughts. In the United States, the water level in Lake Superior in Michigan and Lake Okeechobee in Florida has reached record lows.
Now Harar gets by on water drawn from what remains of an underground pool beneath Lake Haramaya’s bone-dry basin as it awaits completion of a new system that will pipe water from 30 miles away.
But the new system will not provide water for the region’s farms. Some farmers have found water by drilling into Lake Haramaya’s dry basin. But they have had to buy pumps. Farmers without extra money have watched their crops suffer. Most of the fishermen have moved to another shrinking lake over the next range of rolling hills.
Climate Change is not only a future series of events. Climate Change is NOW!!!!! Faith is needed NOW!!! Action must be taken NOW!!!! Learn how to live off the land, how to use fewer resources, how to love one another and all others NOW!!!! New Orleans, Aceh, Haiti, Chile, are only the start of what is to come...
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