Research Examines Climate Impact on Water

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Research Examines Climate Impact on Water

$25 Million in Funding from USDA NIFA and the National Science Foundation Will Go to Research on How Earth's Water System is Linked with Climate Change

Almost 1.1 billion people worldwide live without access to fresh water; some 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation facilities.

One of the most urgent challenges facing the world today, scientists agree, is ensuring the adequate supply and quality of water in light of burgeoning human needs and climate variability and change.

Despite water's importance to life on Earth, there are major gaps in understanding water availability and quality, as well as the effects of a changing and variable climate, and of human activities, on the water system.

To help find new answers to one of the most pressing problems of the millennium, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) have made 26 awards totaling $25 million in their joint Water Sustainability and Climate (WSC) program. This year's awards are the third set in the program.

At NSF, WSC is supported by the Directorates for Geosciences; Engineering; and Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences.

"Water is the lifeblood of Earth's environment," says Tom Torgersen, lead NSF WSC program officer. "Knowledge of the flow and function of water is paramount to understanding how humankind's activities interact with and alter our environment. The mounting pressures of population increases, land use changes, and climate change underscore the need to understand the role of water."

The WSC program's goal is to understand and predict interactions among Earth's water system and climate change, land use (including agriculture, managed forests, and rangeland systems), our "built environment," and ecosystems around the world.

"Agriculture in the United States is dependent on the availability and quality of water; however, a number of factors, including climate and the environment, could have a significant effect on our nation's water resources, which in turn has consequences for farmers, livestock producers, forest and rangeland managers, and rural economies," says Sonny Ramaswamy, director of NIFA.

Source: NSF

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