Current events help?

Question

Can any one think of a current event that can relate to:
1. Geography changing overtime as a result of natural, political, or economic sources (natural, political, social, economic)
2. Geography influenncing the way cultures develope
3. Humans modifying their environment to respond to geographic changes
or
4. Conflicts occuring between people fighting over resources

Answer 1

People messing with Geology resuling in a natural, economic and political disaster:

Lake Ponchatrain in Louisiana. The Lake has been held back by levees built by the US Army Corps of Engineers. They are regulated by a Regional Levee Board in Louisiana.

The purpose of the levee was to prevent flooding of the Lake and the Mississippi River (I think the river flooded in either 1927 or 1929 and killed several people).

The USCOE designed a levee system and used the low bidder to build it. Politicians got involved in the building process such that unqualified people built it.

And it all came to a head when the levees failed during Hurricane Katrina.

Other examples include Salton Lake in California, the Atchafaylaya Basin in Louisiana and the degradation of the Louisiana coastline (see the Mississippi River levees).

2-People build cities near bodies of water.

3. As people build out, the rivers are diverted

4. Conflicts over water rights and upstream pollution can cause battles over resources.