#water-scarcity

#water-scarcity

Growing up near Bolivia's Uyuni salt flats, Franz Ali Ramos remembers playing in the high-altitude wetlands near his home during the rainy season. It was a beautiful recreation area for us and for animals, he says. Now, the wetlands have given way to cracked, sunbaked earth a change that Ali Ramos blames on nearby operations by Bolivia's state lithium corporation, Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB).

"All rivers and water sources within a 100-kilometer radius of Tehran have been depleted," according to Nasser Karami, who researches sustainable development, climate change and water management.

As I started to photograph the well, Mustapha stepped forward, instinctively leaning in to look inside. That spontaneous gesture transformed the scene completely.

The community was initially approved for construction on 29,000 acres in the early 1990s and was dreamed up as a massive project featuring thousands of homes, half a dozen golf courses and even a hotel.

"We have lived forever without enough water," said Thomas Bajada, a marine biologist and recently elected member of the European Parliament.

"AI data centers, built for companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and xAI, have been criticized for their huge energy demands, but their eye-popping water usage hasn't been as publicized."