Just as a credit crunch is reshaping the global economic landscape, an often-unheralded shortage of clean water is confronting business and industry with a range of profound new challenges and opportunities, according to an article scheduled for the October 6 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly news magazine.

Will there be another "dust bowl" in the Great Plains similar to the one that swept the region in the 1930s?

The plan to consolidate how we control and manage the nation's water resources, and treat the issues and associated problems as a national necessity, is long overdue and has been discussed over many years.

To meet the needs of a growing population and to provide it with a higher quality of life, increasing pressures are being placed on the environment through the development of agriculture, industry, and infrastructures.

Climate change is making a central assumption of water management obsolete: Water-resource risk assessment and planning are currently based on the notion that factors such as precipitation and streamflow fluctuate within an unchanging envelope of variability.

Zambian water authorities are integrating information based on satellite imagery to alleviate water shortages. With inadequate information causing many water-related problems, an ESA project has generated a variety of environmental maps to provide local policy makers with the necessary tools for effective water resource management.

Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued new guidance for the protection of wetlands and bodies of water protected under the Clean Water Act.