“The traditional way of handling extreme events such as floods and droughts, with engineering works should be complemented with the ecosystems approach which integrates the management of land and water that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way”, says Dr. Max Campos, Review Editor for the Latin American Chapter for IPCC Impacts and Adaptation Report .
“Climate change is indeed an important issue, but it needs to be seen in context of the many other global challenges affecting water resources such as population growth, urbanization and land use change. Adaptation is vital – but we need to adapt to the full range of factors that are stressing water resources, and not focus on human-forced climate change to the exclusion of everything else”, says Oliver Brown from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
“It should be a must for vulnerable communities whether in the developed or developing world to ensure that their development ambitions are prepared for climate change. Adaptation should not be limited to the rich”, said Dr. Henk Van Schaik, Deputy Programme Coordinator UNESCO-IHE. He argued that vulnerable communities in the developed world are preparing and investing to protect their societies, economies and environments to the impacts of climate change. This is not so in transition economies nor in developing countries.
Going beyond the issue of investment in pressing development issues or adaptation measures, is the question of looking at natural versus engineered solutions.
“Conventional approaches to climate change adaptation range from water conservation and efficient use to new operational techonologies”, says Dr Mark Smith, Head of the IUCN Water Programme. “Dams and reservoirs are still considered as the most effective structural means of risk management. But we need to start thinking of the environment as infrastructure for adaptation as well. Health and intact river basins, wetlands and floodplains make us less vulnerable to climate change. Lowering risk is a good reason for investing in watersheds and the environment.”
Water is all bound up in climate change. Here are a number of aspects of it:
1. There are 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of liquid water lying around in the oceans of the world, so, there will always be as much water vapor in the atmosphere as other factors can induce.
2. The Clausius-Clapeyron relation: warmer air can hold more water vapour: the amount is about 7% more per degree Celsius of warming. Water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, so, warming induced by CO2 is amplified by the increased humidity it induces. Water vapour acts as a positive feedback for the warming induced by CO2.
3. Rain water is a key component in chemical weathering. Chemical weathering is chemical reactions induced in rocks. Some of these chemical reactions have the effect of removing CO2 from the atmosphere and putting it into the lithosphere. In the long run (millions of years) chemical weathering will reduce atmospheric CO2 back to pre-industrial levels. Increased precipitation from an amplified hydrologic cycle will tend to accelerate this.
4. Evidence has been found that the increase in humidity induced by climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme precipitation events.
It washes Co2 out of the atmosphere into the oceans where phytoplankton convert it into limestone or chalk and sequester it for millions of years, the hydrologic cycle also erodes mountains and rocks and sends calcium carbonate into the oceans to act as a buffer against acidification.
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How are they related and how is water affected?
