Global Water Resources: Vulnerability from Climate Change and Population Growth
Charles J Vörösmarty, Pamela Green, J. Salisbury, Richard B. Lammers
Abstract
The future adequacy of freshwater resources is difficult to assess, owing to a complex and rapidly changing geography of water supply and use. Numerical experiments combining climate model outputs, water budgets, and socioeconomic information along digitized river networks demonstrate that (i) a large proportion of the world's population is currently experiencing water stress and (ii) rising water demands greatly outweigh greenhouse warming in defining the state of global water systems to 2025. Consideration of direct human impacts on global water supply remains a poorly articulated but potentially important facet of the larger global change question.
Topics & Concepts
Climate changeVulnerability (computing)Water supplyEnvironmental scienceGlobal warmingPopulation growthPopulationWater resourcesGlobal changeNatural resource economicsWater resource managementEnvironmental resource managementWater supply networkGeographyEcologyEnvironmental engineeringComputer scienceEconomicsBiologyDemographyComputer securitySociologyTransboundary Water Resource ManagementWater resources management and optimizationHydrology and Watershed Management Studies