Report Finds More Than Third U.S. Counties Face Water Shortages Due To Climate Change
The following notice from the Water Environment Federation’s (WEF), This Week In Washington from WEF, provides a good example of why recycled water is an increasingly critical water resource in the North Bay Region and throughout the country.
According to a report (www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/watersustainability) released on July 20 by the Natural Resources Defense Council (www.nrdc.org), more than 1,100 U.S. counties, a full one-third of all counties in the lower 48 states, now face higher risks of water shortages by mid-century as the result of global warming, and more than 400 of these counties will be at extremely high risk for water shortages. The report uses publicly available water use data across the United States and climate projections from a set of models used in recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) work to evaluate withdrawals related to renewable water
supply. The report finds that 14 states face an extreme or high risk to water sustainability, or are likely to see limitations on water availability as demand exceeds supply by 2050. These areas include parts of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. In particular, in the Great Plains and Southwest United States, water sustainability is at extreme risk.
The report estimates that water withdrawal will grow by 25 percent in many areas of the U.S. including the arid Arizona/New Mexico area, the populated areas in the South Atlantic region, Florida, the Mississippi River basin, and Washington, D.C. and surrounding regions. Estimated water withdrawal as a percentage of available precipitation is generally less than 5 percent for
the majority of the Eastern United States, and less than 30 percent for the majority of the Western United States. In some arid regions (such as Texas, the Southwest, and California) and agricultural areas, water withdrawal is greater than 100 percent of the available precipitation. County- and state-specific maps detailing the report findings (http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/watersustainability/).
