Water Cycle and Climate Change
Water is essential to life on Earth; it comprises more than seventy percent of our planet. Earth's oceans provide us with abundant fish, seaweed and other natural resources. Human activities have led to an increasing volume of water in the atmosphere, causing global warming and climate change. We need to reduce our use of water to help our planet recover from human activities.
The water cycle includes surface water, groundwater and snowfall. Each part of the cycle helps to keep the planet habitable. Even small changes in any part of this cycle can have significant effects on global climate. Oceans contain a lot of water, but they're very spread out. This makes it difficult for the water in the oceans to affect global temperatures. However, when water condenses on oceanic surfaces, it creates clouds that provide both, regularity and precipitation. Harsh weather can cause severe damage if too much precipitation accumulates in one place.
Global warming causes more water to be expelled from the oceans. As temperatures rise, more moisture travels into the atmosphere as water vapor reducing availability of resources. In addition, increased air humidity promotes condensation on objects such as buildings and vehicles, creating additional ocean expulsion. Furthermore, evaporation from oceans increases their saltiness as saltier water evaporates from them faster. Thus, rising sea levels inundate previously dry land areas while also increasing oceanic evaporation and global warming's effects on oceanic moisture levels.
To reduce global warming, we need to control our use of water globally- especially freshwater resources like rivers and lakes. Humans use a lot of water for agriculture and domestic uses like cleaning products and showers. Furthermore, climate change causes natural disasters such as landslides or drought that reduce available water resources even further. To avoid this issue, we need to prepare for natural disasters and ensure adequate storage space for stored resources. In addition, we should promote conservation measures such as recycling programs that conserve limited resources for use by humans only when necessary- such programs are effective in reducing resource consumption by half or more when properly implemented locally.
We need to conserve our available water supply to support global human life. The water cycle plays an important role in controlling the climates on Earth and in creating new sources of water for use by humans and nature itself. Expelling too much moisture creates problems similar to those caused by increasing temperatures in various parts of the world. We need to conserve our available water supply to support global human life- otherwise things will get worse if we don't change our ways first!
The climate change phenomenon has been acknowledged by the scientific and engineering societies around the world. Impacts of this change on the environment are already being experienced and are only likely to increase if no prompt action taken. As part of this process our climate becomes drier and warmer with less rainfall in the catchments and reduced runoff reaching streams, rivers with fewer opportunities for the recharge of groundwater. Our Water Cycle system has been historically reliant on climate-dependent sources of water found in reservoirs, rivers, lakes and groundwater for the collection, storage, treatment, delivery and supply of water, and as such are affected by the impacts of climate change.
There are also other mounting pressures on water resources such as population growth and changing economic conditions. If we do not adequately prepare for the effects of the climate change, the likely consequences will be:
- fall in water available for the environment, community and businesses
- rising prices for water services
- increased need for expensive infrastructure to support essential water and wastewater services
- introduction of restrictions on the water for recreation and private gardens
- increased stormwater flows causing drainage being overwhelmed, increasing flood damage and sewer spills
- more peaks in water demand during heatwaves that could exceed the capacity of available water
Sustainable water management offers multiple opportunities to address the effects of the population increase and climate change onto the Water Cycle such as:
- conversion of wastewater sludge to energy
- effluent reuse
- sewer mining
- industrial recycling
- adaptation of nature-based treatment solutions like wetlands and biofiltration
Apart from the reduction in demand for high quality drinking these solutions will provide many environmental and social benefits benefit like reduced flooding, improved waterways water quality and reduction in the heat island effect.
Adaptation Strategy
To best address these challenges, we need to concentrate on integrating climate change adaptation across all aspects of the Water Cycle system.
- Find new ways to diversify and augment water supplies, including by enabling greater use of stormwater and recycled water.
- Explore co-investment opportunities to deliver water infrastructure with the community, private investors and government partners.
- Build technical knowledge and risk assessment capabilities to support water infrastructure planning, design and investment decisions.
- Identify opportunities for resource sharing.
- Secure greater Traditional Owner participation in water cycle adaptation.
- Develop improved water efficiency standards for homes and review existing building and plumbing requirements for rainwater tanks and water efficiency.
- Promote and encourage innovation to reduce water-related emissions across households and businesses, build climate resilience and transition to a circular economy, including by trialling measures to reduce water-related energy use.