Circle of Blue

By Annie MacKeigan, The Water Desk Western wildfires start and spread because of a whole host of factors—wind, temperature, drought, forest health. But scientists are finding that the most important indicator of where the next big fire might ignite isn’t held in the trees themselves, but in the soil their roots are buried in. Recent studies demonstrate how soil moisture data can help wildfire experts predict a potential fire’s location and severity.

KEY POINTS - The process began a year ago to delete a 25-year-old safeguard for wild forests. - Allowing new roads could open tens of millions of acres of forest – most of it untouched by industrial society – to development. - President Trump is intent on ruining what has been a stellar American record of wildlands protection. Dawn is most memorable, the awakening hour in Bear Swamp, a 3,915-acre expanse of the Huron-Manistee National Forest in northern Michigan.

A child sits next to an undocumented water well in Delhi. Children are among the most vulnerable to illness and disease related to climate change. Photo J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue The “Flamingo Revolution,” a mass protest against a planned hotel resort in the Vjosë River Delta, a protected biosphere, has taken Tirana, Albania by storm. Half of the world’s children are vulnerable to at least three climate risks including heatwaves, flooding, storms, and drought.

Decades ago, before it was much of a concern, water moved through the average U.S. home in enormous quantities. Toilets pulled 3.5 gallons per flush or more. Washing machines filled like tiny swimming pools. Water flowed and flowed. Things have tightened considerably since then. New data shows that U.S. homes are becoming ever more efficient in their water use.

KEYPOINTS: Wildfire risk is elevated through the Upper Midwest, posing threats to remote lakes. Advocates look to controlled burns to mitigate wildfire risk. Indigenous people have used this tool for centuries in Minnesota’s northeast region. Early research suggests that watersheds can quickly recover from small fires. Wildfire risk is predicted to stay elevated through June in the Upper Midwest from drought and high winds.

KEYPOINTS: Wildfires are blazing across Minnesota because of dry conditions. Elevated fire risk is becoming the new norm for the Upper Midwest. Hot fires have dire consequences for the water quality of remote lakes. Wildfire risk is high in the upper Great Lakes, and research shows that large, scorching wildfires spell trouble for lakes in the region’s remote watersheds. The reason: Vegetation burns in the fire.

Just like his presidential predecessors – George Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden – Donald Trump has a thing for ethanol. But why? Inordinately expensive to taxpayers, monstrously polluting, and now linked to mounting cancer incidence in Midwest Corn Belt states, fermenting ethanol from a third of America’s corn crop would appear to sane people as an insane pursuit. Not to corn growers, ethanol refiners and their allies in farm industries, the White House, Congress, and farm state legislatures.

Overburdened sewage treatment plants pour raw wastes into canals and rivers in Tamil Nadu, filling them with sludge that reduce their drainage capacity. Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra / Circle of Blue A factory in India that makes iPhone parts is facing a shutdown order after authorities discovered it was discharging polluted effluent into farmers’ water.

The Colorado River A River Running Dry For the 40 million people across seven states and two countries who depend on the Colorado River, 2026 is a turning point. Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1963, was not designed to be operated at the extremely low water levels that Lake Powell is now approaching. As of late April 2026, Lake Powell was just 25 percent full and projected to drop to a record low in the next 12 months.

KEY POINTS Wild rice, North America’s only native grain, bears incalculable significance for tribes across the Great Lakes basin. Pollution, development, broken treaties, and climate change have contributed to the superfood’s disappearance from the lakes on which it grows. The Menominee tribe is trying a new technique to bring wild rice back to the waters of northern Wisconsin. MENOMINEE, Wisc.