Word: basin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Progressives? Although Republicans of the day cast the Progressives as radicals, in truth they were teachers and lawyers, farmers and small-town folk, urban reformers of every ilk, crusaders for peace and women's suffrage, champions of the little guy. They were less a movement than a catch basin for civic-minded men and women impatient with politics as usual but a bit frightened of Eugene V. Debs and his Socialist Party. While many Progressives could not see past their pet causes, T.R. managed to bring them together in a big tent held aloft by the idea that the government...
...cannot stop the countries of the Upper Nile from developing the water," Egyptian Minister for Water Resources and Irrigation Mahmoud Abu-Zeid told Time. "We understand each other now. We realize the need for the development of each country." The new sense of cooperation is enshrined in the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). The grouping of nine nations (Eritrea is still only an observer) was founded in 1999 with the aim of coordinating development along the Nile, boosting local economies, and helping to feed the millions of people in the region who regularly face starvation. Patrick Kahangire, executive director...
...recent IRN report says half the dramatic drop in Lake Victoria's water level is caused by Uganda taking more water than it agreed to. Kenya and Tanzania claim the drop has reduced hydropower generation, causing outages. Mohammed Kassas, a Nile expert at Cairo University, questions whether the Nile Basin countries can be trusted to protect the environment in their quest for rapid development. "If it is done in the framework of sustainable development, then it would be O.K.," he says. "But if every country goes ahead, doing as it likes, natural systems tend to kick back." The World Bank...
...this area get slammed so hard? At least part of the answer lies in the loosely consolidated sediment that sits below the surface. Seismic waves pass quickly through bedrock, but they become trapped in sediment-filled basins. "It's sort of like being in a bathtub filled with water," says USGS seismologist Thomas Brocher. "When you start splashing, the waves keep bouncing up and down and from side to side." The basin effect amplifies not only the intensity of the shaking but also its duration, which is no doubt why buildings collapsed in Santa Rosa in 1906, killing some...
...biggest basin lies well east of the Bay, in the broad delta formed by the convergence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. Among the most catastrophic consequences of a big earthquake in the Bay Area, says University of California at Davis geologist Jeffrey Mount, would be the failure of the delta's aging levee system, which protects not just farmland and residential areas but also the water supply for some 23 million people. Shaken hard enough, the foundations of the levees would crumple, and in a kind of hydrological chain reaction, brackish water from the Bay would surge inland...