Climate change has already dramatically altered the water cycle and these changes signal a looming water supply crisis, according to a prominent group of US and European hydrologists and climatologists [1]. Past trends can no longer be relied upon when planning future water management, they say.

While water availability will increase substantially in some tropical regions, it will decrease substantially in the Middle East and southern Africa. More frequent droughts can also be expected in drying areas. Aggressive mitigation measures are unlikely to stop warming immediately.

Therefore new interdisciplinary models need to be developed to prepare for floods or droughts, to design water reservoirs and to allocate water for residential, industrial and agricultural uses. These models need to be able to deal with complex changes and large uncertainties. There needs to be a rapid flow of climate-change information to water managers to keep up with the expected rapid advances in climate science. Climate models need to include more and better data on surface- and groundwater processes, water infrastructure, water use across the different sectors and changes in land use and land management.

[1] Milly, P.C.D. … [et al.] (2008). Stationarity is dead : whither water management? Science ; vol. 319. no. 5863 ; p. 573 – 574. PDF file

Related news: Climate change: access to water critical to developing countries, Source Weekly, 24 Jan 2008

Web site: USGS - Continental Water, Climate, and Earth-System Dynamics

Contact: P.C.D. Milly, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), c/o National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, USA, cmilly@usgs.gov.

Source: Mira Oberman, AFP / Yahoo! News, 31 Jan 2008

Tags: water resources management