Shenzhen sits in subtropical south China, where four-fifths of the country’s water resources flow. The monsoon brings heavy rains from April to September; at its peak, Shenzhen’s more than 7 million residents see pouring rain almost every day. So why is this city facing a serious water shortage?

Given that there have been three major peace processes in Sudan’s troubled western province of Darfur, the current escalation of violence indicates that perhaps something about existing approaches is failing to hit the mark. Identifying what is missing is vital – not just for Darfur, but for other areas with similar challenges of state fragility, poverty, and competition over natural resources.

Ten years ago this month one of the United States’ deadliest and most costly storms, Hurricane Katrina, struck the Gulf Coast. In Louisiana, the storied city of New Orleans was dealt a particularly devastating blow. Hundreds died and the city suffered extensive damage as 80 percent of its neighborhoods flooded, prompting an exodus it is still recovering from.

The World Economic Forum recently named water crisis the world’s number one risk for the next 10 years for its potential impact on people and industry. Indeed, as the global community grapples with climate change – and environmental change of all kinds – understanding the fundamental nature if water to human society is crucial. The input report for this year’s World Water Week, released yesterday by the Stockholm International Water Institute, in fact argues that getting water management right is a prerequisite for sustainable development.

Earlier this month, the United Nations released a final report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the framework that has guided global development efforts for the last 15 years. The document examines each of the eight MDGs and finds that “despite many successes, the poorest and most vulnerable people are being left behind.” As one of the first global poverty reduction movements nears its end, the report calls for better data collection practices to create a post-2015 development agenda that can overcome the MDG’s shortcomings.

In 2007, the world crossed a threshold:  for the first time in human history, the majority of people lived in urban areas. Today, Africa and Asia are the only remaining continents where the rural population outnumbers urban, but they are urbanizing at unprecedented rates. This rapid growth is a double-edged sword. While urbanization spurs economic opportunity and often increases access to infrastructure, it is also widening disparities in health and development, according to a new data sheet by the Population Reference Bureau.

“With current neglect of family planning, the UN’s recent projection of a 2100 world population of up to 12.3 billion is a possibility,” says a report from the University of California, San Francisco’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Increased voluntary family planning efforts are needed, the authors contend, to meet existing demand for contraceptives, stabilize the threat of global food insecurity, and reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.