Experts Urge Governments to Act on Global Water Security

One of the most severe byproducts of global warming and climate change is increasing and widespread drought, which will affect a large number of nations in the future, especially those in regions already prone to experiencing such phenomena. Paradoxically, increased droughts will be joined by massive flooding, but basic sources of water will soon be depleted. The situation is most severe in Asia and Africa, although causes for concern exist on the western coast of the US as well. The main issue is that glaciers, which provide drinking water for most of he world's population, are constantly receding, and have been doing so for at least a few decades.

In addition, the everlasting layers of snow that adorn mountaintops across the world are also slowly diminishing, and now cover only their peaks, rather than a larger surface. Monsoon rains are additionally diminishing in intensity, which means that countries such as India could soon have their agriculture exposed to extreme damage from relentless sunlight and droughts. A panel of researchers, who met at a three-day conference in the United States, at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD), concluded that authorities worldwide needed to step up their efforts of preventing this situation.

That is to say, if measures are not employed early on, it could become very difficult to deal with the problems once they start manifesting themselves strongly. For instance, building a large-scale irrigation system may take at least half a decade, during which time the agriculture and the economy of affected areas can easily collapse a few times over.

This is just one of the perils that were covered at the “Ice, Snow, and Water: Impacts of Climate Change on California and Himalayan Asia” workshop, which was attended by representatives of the United Nations World Climate Research Program, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Indian Space Research Organization, the British Antarctic Survey, the California Department of Water Resources, and also by several American universities.

China is another country that is drastically affected by water shortages even now. It's estimated that its woes will become increasingly hard to deal with over the next couple of decades, on account of the large population growth, which will place increasing strain on already-insufficient water sources. For the Asian nations, building massive water dams and channels to reroute water is the only solution for the foreseeable future.