Annotated Bibliography Part II

"Water Resources | Climate Change - Health and Environmental Effects | U.S. EPA." U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. .

This was an introduction to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) water resources articles and it touched on water, climate change and how it could affect people. This article also had references to other places from the cite that would have more detailed information, I think this was beneficial because it was an overview of the information making it easy to determine if some of it would be helpful for further research for senior project. It also discussed how evaluating information is extremely difficult due to the challenge of water availability, quality and stream flow are sensitive to temperature changes. It also stated that water resources are heavily managed in the U.S. but there are still areas where it is scarce.

Quotes:

“All regions of the world show an overall net negative impact of climate change on water resources and freshwater ecosystems…”

“The future effects of climate change on water resources in the U.S. and other parts of the world will depend on trends in both climatic and non-climatic factors.”

Adams, Richard M., and Dannele E. Peck. "Choices Article - Effects of Climate Change on Water Resources." Welcome to Choices Magazine Online! Web. 11 Feb. 2010. .

Overall, this article was about climate change and the effects it will have on water. Water is very important to life which means that there are many things that it affects as illustrated in the article when it talked about: agriculture, economy, affect the cost of energy, biosphere and politics all over the world. This article discusses that the heat increases will most likely cause lots of problems especially on agriculture causing many droughts and wildfires could become even more devastating. At the end, there are strategies that are briefly discussed that could be used to help with the issues that were highlighted in the article; a few of the ideas were: “… revising water storage and relwase programs for resercoirs, adopting crops and cropping practices that are robust over a wider spectrum of water availability…”

Quotes:

“Climate change will affect water resources through its impact on the quantity, variability, timing, form, and intensity of precipitation.”

“Models of climate change (GCMs) predict the U.S. annual-mean temperatures to generally rise by 2degrees Celsius to 3 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years, with greater increases in the northern regions (5 degrees Celsius), and northern Alaska (10 degrees Celsius).”

“Despite predictions of increased precipitation in most regions, net decreases in water availability are expected in those areas, due to offsetting increases in evaporation.”

“Water shortages will cause the price of water to rise…”

“… important effect of the water resource impacts discussed… is the potential for more frequent and intense interstate and international water allocation conflicts.”

Ludi, Eva. "Climate change, water and food security." ODI: Overseas Development Institute(2009): 1-8.

Overall, this article discussed the affects of climate change on food and water. It also discussed many facts and statistics about Africa and their problems now and projected estimates of the future. There are also graphs that could come in handy when talking about and finding more about which areas of the world are being affected with water deficiencies and which are suffering severely. This article also discusses strategies to combat limited water situation, as well as conclusions about what should be done.

Quotes:

“The impacts of climate change- sea level rise, droughts, heat waves, floods and rainfall variation- could, by 2080, push another 600 million people into malnutrition and increase the number of people facing water scarcity by 1.8 billion.”

“Food security is defined as a ‘situation […] when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to insuffiecent, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.’ ”

“In addition to farming areas, many of the world’s rangelands are in semi-arid areas and susceptible to water deficits; any further in water resources will greatly impact carrying capacity.”

“Modification of irrigation techniques, including amount, time or technology (e.g. drip irrigation systems)”

“Climate change and increased water demand for agriculture in future decades is anticipated to be an added challenge to trans-boundary framework agreements, increasing the potential for conflict.”