Billions Facing Clean Water Crisis By 2050, Scientists Warn — Here’s WhyTOPLINE Parts of North America are poised to become “hotspots of w...

Published on by

Billions Facing Clean Water Crisis By 2050, Scientists Warn — Here’s WhyTOPLINE Parts of North America are poised to become “hotspots of w...
Billions Facing Clean Water Crisis By 2050, Scientists Warn — Here’s Why
TOPLINE Parts of North America are poised to become “hotspots of water scarcity” within decades, partly because pollutants will make some water sources harder to use, scientists warned on Tuesday, urging governments to safeguard these vital resources and sustainably tackle pollution.
Rising Rivers And Tributaries Continue To Flood Southern Communities
Water pollution could make clean water even scarcer in the future, researchers claim. GETTY IMAGES
KEY FACTS
One third of global sub-basins—smaller working units of river basins, areas of land drained by a river or its tributaries—will have severe water scarcity by 2050, scientists from the Netherlands and Germany predicted in a peer reviewed paper published in Nature Communications.

Sub-basins are crucial sources of drinking water but are increasingly at risk from human activity and land use.

Projections of scarcity typically focus on the quantity of water being extracted from water systems, but the scientists said it is also important to consider low water quality through levels of pollutants like nitrogen, antibiotics, plastics and heavy metals as factors affecting scarcity.

PROMOTED


Considering levels of nitrogen alone—nitrogen is abundant in nature but can enter waterways through agricultural runoff and sewage and spark excessive growth of algae and aquatic plants that can clog rivers and deplete dissolved oxygen—drastically increased the number of sub-basins facing scarcity, the researchers found.

After factoring in nitrogen levels, the number of water-scarce sub-basins in 2010 tripled from fewer than 1,000 to more than 2,500, the researchers said, systems that respectively cover 45% and 80% of the world’s population.

By 2050, the researchers estimate some 3,061 sub-basins will be at risk of water scarcity from quantity or quality, covering an extra 3 billion people than quantity estimates alone, with nitrogen-driven water scarcity hotspots in China, South Asia, Europe, the United States and Brazil.

Attached link

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/06/billions-facing-clean-water-crisis-by-2050-scientists-warn---heres-why/?sh=6f403bab52f2&utm_campaign=Waterline%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8y1H007NHHc5sYvc3XEK1ncolAsDMrgnfZmDGnc_LVcXbruN40hhjpgK9Rj3pgLUQxJCv1waG8S-2R4ZYZhX3kdCM3Aw&_hsmi=293988761&utm_content=293989700&utm_source=hs_email&hsCtaTracking=b4e06733-d2ea-4dad-af55-acfcf0ffb863%7Cfad680a2-b88f-4275-9fb1-5d18fd842b93

Taxonomy