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    A new satellite-based study has revealed a worrying decline in groundwater reserves across High Mountain Asia, a vast region often called the “Asian Water Tower” because it supplies water to hundreds of millions of people downstream. Researchers estimate that the region is losing groundwater at an alarming rate of nearly 24.2 billion tonnes every year, raising concerns about long-term water security. High Mountain Asia stretches across the Himalayas, Karakoram, Hindu Kush and Tibetan Plateau, feeding major rivers such as the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra and Amu Darya. These rivers support agriculture, cities and ecosystems across more than a dozen countries in South and Central Asia. Two decades of data show widespread decline The study, led by Professor Wang Shu...

    Scientists studying ancient ocean sediments have uncovered an unexpected climate feedback involving the melting of Antarctica’s ice and the Southern Ocean’s role in absorbing carbon dioxide. Contrary to long-standing assumptions, the loss of ice from West Antarctica during warmer periods did not stimulate marine algae growth, despite delivering large amounts of iron into the ocean. The findings come from a new study published on February 2 in Nature Geoscience, led by researchers from the Columbia Climate School and international collaborators. The research focuses on how changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, or WAIS, influenced biological activity in the Southern Ocean during past ice ages. Ancient Sediments Reveal a Climate Surprise To understand how Antar...

    The Union Budget 2026-27 has once again underlined the government’s intent to clean and rejuvenate the Ganga, but a closer look at allocations shows that the approach remains firmly infrastructure-driven, with limited attention to restoring the river as a living ecological system. Despite repeated political commitments to revive the Ganga in its entirety, spending priorities continue to favour sewage treatment plants, wastewater networks and externally funded engineering projects over measures that address river flow, floodplains, biodiversity and livelihoods. The budget, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2026, allocates Rs 3,100 crore to the National Ganga Plan under Namami Gange Mission-2 for the coming financial year. While this marks...

On a cold winter morning in late January 2026, a young male tiger met a tragic end near Bihar’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve, raising serious concerns about a growing and largely unchecked threat to big cats in human-dominated landscapes. The two-and-a-half-year-old tiger was electrocuted after coming into contact with illegal electric fencing installed by farmers along the forest boundary in West Champaran district. This incident marks the first recorded case of a tiger dying due to electrocution inside Bihar’s only tiger reserve. Forest officials confirmed that the animal’s body was discovered in a sugarcane field close to Purainia village under the Manguraha forest range during a routine patrol on January 27. The fencing had been illegally connected to grid electricity to protect crops from...

    For decades, vast open landscapes across western India were labelled as degraded forests, assumed to be the result of centuries of human deforestation. A new study now challenges this long-held belief, using 750-year-old Indian poems, folk songs and sacred texts to show that these regions were always natural savannas and grasslands. The research, led by Ashish Nerlekar of Michigan State University, suggests that many conservation practices, especially large-scale tree-planting drives, may be misdirected and potentially harmful to ecosystems that were never forests to begin with. Medieval literature offers ecological clues Published in the journal *People and Nature*, the study takes an unconventional approach by combining ecology with historical and archaeologi...

    Community-led conservation efforts in Brazil’s western Amazon are delivering ecological benefits far beyond their immediate targets, but at a significant cost to the families who sustain them, a new study published in Nature Sustainability has found. Along the Juruá River, one of the most winding tributaries of the Amazon, fishing communities have taken responsibility for protecting pirarucu, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish species. By guarding oxbow lakes from illegal fishing, these communities are not only reviving a species once close to extinction but also safeguarding vast stretches of floodplain and upland forest ecosystems. Conservation footprint extends far beyond guarded lakes The study shows that community patrols covering 96 oxbow lakes ac...

    China has begun cultivating military-grade rubber trees in the harsh Gobi Desert, transforming barren land into a strategic resource as global supply chains face increasing pressure from geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainties. Far from the country’s traditional tropical rubber plantations, scientists are growing Duzhong (Eucommia ulmoides), a hardy tree long used in traditional medicine and now emerging as a key material for China’s industrial and defence needs. The initiative highlights Beijing’s push to cut dependence on foreign raw materials at a time when it remains the world’s largest consumer of natural rubber. China’s demand for natural rubber, driven by its massive automotive, manufacturing and defence sectors, is estimated to exceed seven million t...

    Community-driven efforts to protect the pirarucu, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, are delivering far-reaching conservation gains across Brazil’s western Amazon, but the financial burden of this success is being borne almost entirely by local families, a new study has found. Research published in *Nature Sustainability* shows that by guarding a network of oxbow lakes along the Juruá River, Indigenous and riverine communities are indirectly conserving floodplains and upland forests on a scale far larger than the areas they directly monitor making it the largest community-based conservation initiative documented in the Brazilian Amazon. Lake patrols protect forests far beyond their borders Along the winding Juruá River, fishing families take turns guar...

    What was once a routine question for holidaymakers when is the best time to travel is no longer easy to answer. From floods in the Himalayas to heatwaves in Europe, climate volatility is steadily dismantling the idea of fixed travel seasons, forcing travellers and tour operators alike to rethink how, when and why they travel. For Bengaluru-based industrial and product designer Vivek Saurabh, the shift became personal during a trip to Srinagar and Ladakh in September 2014. The month was considered ideal post-monsoon, pleasant weather and open roads. Instead, relentless rain greeted his group of eight, triggering one of the worst floods in Kashmir’s recorded history. Roads shut, networks collapsed and escape routes vanished as the Jhelum river swelled dangerously. W...