The Harsh Truth About Water Security and Climate Change
Having caused severe changes in the hydrological cycle and water availability and quality, climate change can no longer be ignored. The changing rainfall patterns and altered water supply have a drastic impact on several aspects of our ecosystem and daily requirements. Understanding the combination of factors that affect our water resources and the cascade of events that occur as a result is the foundation we need to move forward with climate change research and planning.
Over the past 50 years, the effects of climate change have grown increasingly worse. Billions across the globe are severely affected by its effects, especially when it comes to reliability and availability of water resources. Over the last two decades, several big initiatives were launched to respond to and research climate change. This includes the UN Environment Programme, that publishes periodic reports on the current state and future predictions of climate-change induced environmental issues. Many individuals have also taken initiative and launched smaller scale endeavors to deal with the effects of climate change. Even though climate change has positive and negative effects, the fact remains that nobody on the planet can ignore it any longer. Social innovation has been fueled and motivated by climate change, giving us several ways to continue enjoying the resources we enjoy. However, there are still several unanswered questions and unpredictable outcomes of climate change that we need to watch out for. In light of this, identifying the outcomes of climate change and their domino effect on our resources and applying this knowledge to further research on climate change and our ecosystem is the only way to come closer to finding a solution.
Climate change has caused a steady increase in temperature since 1992. In fact, 2015 was declared the hottest year in the history of the world by NASA. It is not surprising, then, that this rise in temperatures is affecting our water reserves that are trapped in glaciers and polar ice. The UN Environmental Programme identified one of the main and most severe effects of climate change to be faster melting of glaciers, which, at the rapid rate that it is occurring at, has led to glacial reduction. Glaciers melt into rivers and streams and polar ice melts into the sea. While the immediate effects are increased water supply to rivers, seas and the water bodies they lead into, the long-term effect of this is depletion of glacial ice and complete melting of glaciers. This has a long list of domino effects. First, reduced water supply affects water availability in regions that depend on water from glaciers. With less water in the system, rainfall patterns will also reduce severely in sub-tropical areas. At the same time, rainfall would increase in other regions, such as Southwest America, causing unexpected flooding and damage to infrastructure.
South East Asia, a region already affected by inequality and inadequate access to water, is home to the Himalayan glaciers. Many rivers, like the Indus and the Ganges, find their source in the Himalayan glaciers. Researchers are now concerned that inadequate ice and the resulting lack of meltwater will cause drying up of rivers and riverbeds. These are the same rivers that provide for water needs in the region and replenish the groundwater reserves. Rainfall is also dependent on precipitation from these water bodies. Changes in access to water could cause this agriculture-dominated economy to collapse. With millions already deprived of food, hunger conditions would just become far more extreme. One cannot forget about the exponentially growing population of South East Asia either. Water scarcity will leave the rural and the poor desperate and deprived of this vital day-to-day necessity. So, environmental factors flow into socioeconomic outcomes, and threaten life as we know it.
A topic that seems to continue to re-emerge while discussing climate change is changing rainfall patterns. Our ecosystem is a delicate one. It survives on the basis of balance, interaction, and several natural cycles. The water cycle is extremely delicate and sensitive. It relies on a balance between evaporation and transpiration, precipitation, and all the intermediate stages that water goes through. This water cycle determines rainfall patterns and rainfall magnitude. Every outcome of climate change discussed so far — melting glaciers, drying up streams, and rising temperatures — bring imbalance and disturbance to the water cycle. Rainfall patterns are thus bound to change drastically as a result. The results of these changing patterns have already become harshly visible even within the United States. California is getting ready for its fourth consecutive year of drought, and Texas, on the other hand, is battling heavy rains and flooding. While scanty rain destroys crops and causes water shortage, too much rainfall affects water infrastructure and sewer systems that weren’t designed to manage such overwhelming volumes of water. No matter the effects of the change, there is always a severe down side, and there doesn’t seem to be any simple escape.
In working towards developing infrastructure, living sustainably, and conserving the limited amount of freshwater on our planet, contamination of water reserves has to be accounted for. This is not just contamination from industrial pollutants, agricultural run off and acid rain; it also includes compromised quality of our freshwater reserves by our salt water reserves. It is known the salt water is more expensive and inconvenient to purify. 50% of our water needs come from groundwater alone, which happens to be only 1% of global water reserves (freshwater comprises a total of 2% of the total). Rising sea levels are expected to result in movement of saltwater into freshwater areas. As freshwater in rivers becomes more scarce, saltwater is predicted to find its way into these rivers as well. Higher risk of storm surges from rising sea levels puts coastal cities, coastal infrastructure, and coastal aquifers at risks of destruction and contamination. Purifying water for public use is already an expensive and energy-demanding process that is dipping into our coal, fossil fuel and natural gas reserves. Once again, climate change has displayed its domino effect by making its effects felt in the energy and infrastructural sectors via its effects on water resources.
Between frequent water shortages, unpredictable and sporadic rainfall, inadequate water reserves for daily need and agriculture, and depletion of energy reserves, climate change has reached a point of no-return. The damage done already requires centuries to be entirely fixed, while the effects are getting worse at a rapid enough rate to be amplified significantly in just a matter of 10 years. Social innovation may have taken off, but social outcomes and inequality have too. Many are already in need of, or close to being in need of, water sharing agreements and cooperation. This sounds ideal and peaceful, but threatens to create conflict, tension and disruption. For the human race, it seems to be one damage-control solution after the other, but continued investment, research, education and activism could provide the masses with the necessary skills, knowledge, technology and motivation to fight the growing issue of water scarcity and climate change.
