Water & Oceans

"After their homeowner association ordered them to replace their wildlife-friendly plants with turf grass, a Maryland couple sued. They ended up changing state law."

"As California faces the prospect of a fourth consecutive dry year, officials with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have declared a regional drought emergency and called on water agencies to immediately reduce their use of all imported supplies."

"Nomad Tsering Angchuk vows to stay put in his remote village in India’s Ladakh region. His two sons and most of his fellow villagers have migrated to a nearby urban settlement but Angchuk is determined to herd his flock of fine cashmere-producing goats in the treeless Kharnak village, a hauntingly beautiful but unforgiving, cold mountainous desert."

"Dead and dying seabirds collected on the coasts of the northern Bering and southern Chukchi seas over the past six years reveal how the Arctic’s fast-changing climate is threatening the ecosystems and people who live there, according to a report released Tuesday by U.S. scientists."

"A NASA-led international satellite mission was set for blastoff from Southern California early on Thursday on a major Earth science project to conduct a comprehensive survey of the world's oceans, lakes and rivers for the first time."

"As humans warm the planet, the once reliably frigid and frozen Arctic is becoming wetter and stormier, with shifts in its climate and seasons that are forcing local communities, wildlife and ecosystems to adapt, scientists said Tuesday in an annual assessment of the region."

"On a mountainside high above Peru’s capital, Javier Obispo pauses from the backbreaking work of renovating an amuna. The abandoned irrigation dike distributed water before Europeans came to South America."

"Four Native American tribes have agreed with Michigan and federal officials on a revised fishing policy for parts of three of the Great Lakes, officials said Monday."

"Florida’s property insurance market is in free fall. Florida homeowners pay property insurance rates that are three times the national average. Six companies have become insolvent and left the state in the last year."

"A massive winter storm blew toward the center of the U.S. on Monday, threatening millions of people with heavy snow, freezing rain and flooding."