largeOur life on earth is mainly based on the balance of certain biological cycles such as: the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the water cycle and some others. Due to human activities and our impacts on nature, these cycles are changing. Today we see how and to what extent we are disrupting the system with special attention to the water cycle, since a new alarm has arrived from theWMO, World Meteorological Organization
New World Meteorological Organization report provides in-depth insight into global water resources. To assess water resources, it uses various tools such as satellite remote sensing, field observations and numerical model simulations.
But how does the water cycle change?
The hydrologic cycle can be altered by agriculture, air pollution, dam building, rising average global temperatures, land management, and deforestation/reforestation.
As stated by the Secretary General of the WMO Petri Taalaswith the increase in average global temperature, floods and rainfall events are increasing because a warmer atmosphere holds more water, but drought and melting ice and snow are also increasing, depleting our fresh water supplies.
In other words, with rising temperatures we have accelerated, become irregular and disrupted the water cycle
So? So Long-term water security for much of the earth’s population is disappearing. Consider that to date, fresh water represents only 2.5% of available water more than one and a half billion people in the world do not have access to drinking water.
According to the United Nations, the scarcity of this resource will be a source of conflict in at least 300 regions of the world
Furthermore, we still know very little about freshwater availability due to poor monitoring, little investment in data sharing and water resource assessment. The WMO report “State of the World’s Water Resources 2022” says it again.
Only by investing in different management can we hope to avoid or limit the damage.
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Federica Gasbarro works with The Wom independently and is in no way associated with the advertisements that may appear in this content.