I am sure many of you would have wondered why the newspapers are suddenly talking about the environment -- global warming, rivers drying up, Olive Ridley turtles, coming water wars of the future -- and so on, and that too in the midst of the heat and dust of the election campaigns. Well, it took me a few minutes to realise that today -- April 22 -- happens to be the Earth Day.

Sections of coral reef in Australia's Great Barrier Reef have made a "spectacular" recovery from a devastating bleaching event three years ago, marine scientists say.

In 2006, high sea temperatures caused severe coral bleaching in the Keppell Islands, in the southern part of the reef — the largest coral reef system in the world. The damaged reefs were then covered by a single species of seaweed which threatened to suffocate the coral and cause further loss.

A "lucky combination" of rare circumstances has meant the reef has been able to make a recovery. Abundant corals have reestablished themselves in a single year, say the researchers from the University of Queensland's Centre for Marine Studies and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS).

WASHINGTON – The flow of water in the world's largest rivers has declined over the past half-century, with significant changes found in about a third of the big rivers. An analysis of 925 major rivers from 1948 to 2004 showed an overall decline in total discharge.

The reduction in inflow to the Pacific Ocean alone was about equal to shutting off the Mississippi River, according to the new study appearing in the May 15 edition of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.

The only area showing a significant increase in flow was the Arctic, where warming conditions are increasing the snow and ice melt, said researchers led by Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.