Temperature rises of 2 degrees Celsius could result in 1 to 4 billion people experiencing growing water shortages, predominantly in Africa, the Middle East, Southern Europe, and parts of South and Central America.
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In the south Australian city of Adelaide, people shower while standing in buckets, using the collected water to feed their gardens. Adelaide is the first city in the industrialized world to live in a permanent state of water stress. If climate change continues on its current trajectory, and if water management does not improve, it will not be the last.
“The most threatened are communities and agriculture reliant on glacier ice melt, in South Asia and Latin America, because glaciers are retreating at a very fast rate,” explains Saleemul Huq, senior researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development.
One sixth of mankind relies on glaciers in the Himalayas and the Andes to supply water during the dry season. The predicted shrinking of tropical Andean glaciers could disrupt the water supply of about 40 million people in 2020, rising to 50 million in 2050. The cities of Quito, Lima, and La Paz are likely to be most affected.
On the other hand, in many mountain countries like Nepal and China people are concerned that rapid glacial melt might actually supply too much water, in the form of floods, as glacial lakes overflow, unleashing ‘mountain tsunamis’.
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Then there is the threat that climate change disrupts the monsoon, “India’s true finance minister,” according to Indian environmentalist Sunita Narain. When the monsoon rains failed in 2002, resulting in a seasonal rainfall deficit of 19 percent and large losses of agricultural production, India’s GDP fell by over 3 percent from the previous year.
Meanwhile in Africa around 250 million people already suffer from water shortages. Their situation will worsen as climate change dries up the continent.
No water, no power
The economic effects of water shortages can be devastating, and not just for agriculture. The La Niña drought in Kenya, for example, caused damage to the country amounting to 16 percent of GDP in the 1998–99 and 1999–2000 financial years. One quarter of these losses were due to hydropower shortages, more than half due to the corresponding shortfalls in industrial production.
During the 2003 heat wave in Europe, energy production in France’s nuclear power stations fell because the river water was too hot to cool the power stations adequately. Similarly, at the height of the 2002 drought in the Australian state of Queensland, power stations had to reduce output considerably. In California, hydropower generation is predicted to fall by 30 percent for a warming of 4 degrees Celsius globally as storage lakes deplete.
At the same time, 1 to 5 billion people, mostly in South and East Asia, may receive more water due to climate change. As the planet warms and rainfall becomes less reliable, dry areas will become drier and wet areas wetter. Although this extra rain could be a blessing, it could also be a curse if intense rainfall results in flooding, soil erosion and contamination of water supplies.
editor: James Tulloch
publishing date: June 9, 2009
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climate change in africa
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