The Stream, September 8: Data Needed to Track UN Sustainable Development Goals

The Global Rundown

Better data is necessary to achieve the new United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, according to experts. Researchers in Germany are creating biodegradable drugs to clean up waterways. California’s impressive water conservation performance is raising hopes about a new path to water sustainability. India’s Maharashtra state is considering a ban on sugarcane plantings due to a drought, while Papua New Guinea needs millions of dollars to feed communities that lost crops to floods and droughts.

“It blows my mind that we do all this policy making and planning based on guesstimates and extrapolations and interpolations behind the guise of empiricism.”–Elizabeth Stuart, a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, on the need for better data to set, track, and achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to improve water, food, poverty, and other standards of living around the world. (Reuters)

By The Numbers

$12 million Estimated cost of food aid over the next four months for communities in Papua New Guinea that are suffering crop losses due to floods and drought. Reuters

Science, Studies, And Reports

A new design for common drugs could help keep pharmaceuticals out of the world’s waterways, according to researchers at Germany’s Leuphana University of Lüneburg. The researchers are trying to create biodegradable forms of drugs, which currently can harm fish and other aquatic organisms when they are released into the environment. Medical News Today

On The Radar

California’s water conservation performance has given some experts hope that the state can achieve water sustainability without major infrastructure investments. In June and July, residents in the state saved nearly 415,000 acre-feet of water. The Los Angeles Times

The government of Maharashtra is considering a ban on sugarcane cultivation in the Indian state’s Marathwada region, which is experiencing a severe drought. Natural dry conditions are being compounded by the depletion of groundwater in the region. dna

Codi Kozacek

A news correspondent for Circle of Blue based out of Hawaii. She writes The Stream, Circle of Blue’s daily digest of international water news trends. Her interests include food security, ecology and the Great Lakes.
Contact Codi Kozacek