In Drought-Stricken Southwest,
A War Against an Invasive Tree

In an e360 video, journalist Jon Brand reports on the controversy over the tamarisk tree, or salt cedar, which has been a fixture in West Texas since the late 1800s, when settlers imported it from the Mediterranean. As salt cedar has spread throughout the southwestern U.S., it has been vilified as a water-sucking menace in an already arid region.

States in the Southwest spend millions of dollars each year on pesticides and herbivorous beetles to control salt cedar. Now, however, studies suggest that salt cedar uses up no more water than native species and that the spread of salt cedar is largely due to changes in hydrology caused by building dams and irrigation canals. This video explores both sides of the debate over salt cedar and examines whether the battle against it is a misguided use of public funds.

23 Nov 2011

COMMENTS

CONNECT WITH YALE e360

Subscribe to Newsletter

Follow us on Twitter

Become a Facebook Fan

RELATED ARTICLES FROM YALE E360

The Ethical Dimension of
Tackling Climate Change
The global challenge of climate change poses a perfect moral storm, Stephen Gardiner writes. By failing to take action to rein in carbon emissions, the current generation is spreading the costs of its behavior far into the future. Why should people in the future pay to clean up our mess?
READ MORE

Science Targets Human Role
In Extreme Weather Events
Employing increasingly sophisticated methods of studying weather extremes, climate scientists say they are closer to determining whether human-induced climate change is leading to more heat waves, floods, and other extreme events.
READ MORE

Forum: Is Extreme Weather
Linked to Global Warming?
In the past year, the world has seen a large number of extreme weather events, from the Russian heat wave last summer, to the severe flooding in Pakistan, to the recent tornadoes in the U.S. In an e360 forum, a panel of experts weighs in on whether the wild weather may be tied to increasing global temperatures.
READ MORE

YALE E360 VIDEO

Colorado River: Running Near Empty
Photographer Pete McBride traveled along the Colorado River from its source high in the Rockies to its historic mouth at the Sea of Cortez. In a Yale Environment 360 video, he documents how increasing water demands have transformed the river that is the lifeblood for an arid Southwest.
WATCH THE VIDEO

When The Water Ends:
Africa’s Climate Conflicts
As temperatures rise and water supplies dry up, semi-nomadic tribes along the Kenyan-Ethiopian border increasingly are coming into conflict with each other. A Yale Environment 360 video report from East Africa focuses on a phenomenon that climate scientists say will become more and more common: how worsening drought will pit groups — and nations — against one another.
WATCH THE VIDEO

Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy
of Mountaintop Removal Mining
During the last two decades, mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia has destroyed or severely damaged more than a million acres of forest and buried nearly 2,000 miles of streams. This video, produced by Yale Environment 360 and MediaStorm, offers a first-hand look at mountaintop removal and what is at stake for Appalachia’s environment and its people.
WATCH THE VIDEO