Exploration of Global Groundwater Overuse Wins 2016 Knight-Risser Prize

The Desert Sun/USA Today

A sobering exploration of groundwater overuse in the United States and around the world has won the 2016 Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism. The series "Pumped Dry: The Global Crisis of Vanishing Groundwater" was written by Ian James of the Desert Sun, with photographs, a documentary film and information graphics by Steve Elfers and Steve Reilly of USA Today. The winners will share in a $5,000 prize and will be invited to Stanford to take part in an environmental journalism symposium this fall.

This year's competition also gave a special recognition to "Killing the Colorado," a series by the investigative website ProPublica and Matter magazine. 

Established in 2005 and co-administered by the Bill Lane Center and the John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford, the Knight-Risser Prize celebrates the best western environmental journalism each year.

Read more about the winners, and see the complete series on the Knight-Risser Prize website »