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Climate change impacts global water resources
We all need water every day.
The average Finn consumes roughly 150 litres of water every day, mostly for bathing and sanitation.
Indirectly, however, we consume thousands of litres of water every day because every product and service includes water.
There are already several countries that struggle with water scarcity, -
and climate change is expected to significantly impact the global water resources, -
both negatively and positively. This is something we should definitely be aware of.
How are the state and the future of water resources studied?
My research typically involves using publications about water resources and climate change.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of publications in this field.
The key to my research is finding the most relevant articles and publications, -
which, in my case, is not really difficult at all because, -
even though different researchers use different models, -
the results are still very similar:
The water resources in regions struggling with water scarcity are expected to further diminish.
A textbook example of this would be the Mediterranean region, including Spain, Morocco, Arabic countries among others.
Jordan, for example, has extremely limited water resources, and they are further diminishing.
Other such regions include California, or regions with Mediterranean climate in general, and Central Asia, to name a few.
This situation is very unfortunate, especially since many of these regions also experience strong population growth, -
which naturally exacerbates the issues with water shortage.
People of these regions really need to think about how they are going to survive in the future.
This book has numerous photographs about water scarcity that I have taken abroad.
I took this picture of a rice paddy in China.
Rice, as we know, is an extremely water-intensive crop.
This is a picture I took in Canada, in the Columbia Icefield, which is an example of the diminishing glaciers.
Glaciers provide water for 1,5 billion people in the world, mostly in Asia.
Many large rivers in Asia begin at the Himalayan glaciers.
The next picture was taken in Egypt where they try to grow forests in the desert.
These are Eucalyptus saplings, and hoses irrigate the roots of each individual tree.
This picture was taken 30 years ago, so it would be interesting to see if there is a forest today.
How should these results be taken into account in the future?
Every country and region needs to carefully consider their water consumption.
Issues concerning water scarcity that need to be considered are -
for example the cultivation of crops with disproportionate water demand, -
in which case it would make more sense to import such crops, -
and use the water for example to improve the water supply and sanitation in the human settlements.
These are some of the issues that have to be solved.
Some regions may even have to resort to desalination processes; the earth has an abundance of saline water, -
like here in the Gulf of Finland.
Especially in coastal regions, there is no shortage of saline water, -
and consequently the number of desalination plants has exploded for example in Spain and the Canary Islands.