You live in a coastal region where impacts from sea level rise are already evident. Your life or the life of someone you know has already been disrupted due to extreme water stressors — either flood, fires, or droughts. Your access to clean drinking water is threatened or non-existent. The place you call home has increasingly been victimized by extreme water-related weather events.
Already, we are colliding with “The Shape of Water.”
A recent article Climate Change May Force Millions Of Americans To Move Inland cites University of Georgia research predicting that by 2100 more than 13 million people in all 50 US states could be effected by sea levels anticipated to rise by 6 feet. NOAA recently issued even more dire predictions:
Earlier this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration upped its worst-case scenario for global sea-level rise to 8.2 feet by the year 2100 — an increase of about 1.5 feet from its last worst-case estimate issued in 2012. In a technical report published in January, the NOAA warned that the U.S. would be especially hard-hit in this extreme projection. Sea-level rise could actually reach up to 10 to 12 feet for all coastal U.S. states except Alaska.
Many major cities, including Boston, Miami, New York and Seattle, would be almost completely submerged in this scenario. Cape Canaveral and the Jefferson Memorial would be underwater, as would the San Francisco International Airport and President Donald Trump’s home away from home, Mar-a-Lago.
On a global scale, the World Bank recently reported that by 2050, 140 million people will be forced to migrate within their country’s borders due to climate change; specifically, “droughts, failing crops, rising sea levels, and storm surges.”
Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America – the report warns that unless urgent climate and development action is taken, these three regions could be dealing with a combined total of over 140 million internal climate migrants by 2050.These people will be pushed out by droughts, failing crops, rising sea levels, and storm surges.
Device produces drinkable water from desert air
Technology developed by @mitmeche's Evelyn Wang and colleagues could save lives in harsh climates by producing drinkable #water from desert air.
The new product was tested in Tempe, Arizona, and the testing confirmed that it has the potential to help people stay hydrated in deserts.The analysis said: “The system, based on relatively new high-surface-area materials called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), can extract potable water from even the driest of desert air with relative humidities as low as 10 percent.
Peter GleickVerified account @PeterGleick Apr 1
There are two important dates for California
#water: Oct 1 (the beginning of the "water year" & April 1 (the benchmark metric for the end of the snow/rain season). By all April 1 data, the 2018 water year is a very dry one.
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overall, the statewide snow #water content is 57% of normal, reflecting the almost complete absence of precipitation in January and February, despite a few good storms in March. We may get a couple more storms, but are unlikely to see much more water until next winter.
Celebrate 2018 with 12 Cartoons on Water and Sanitation
Water is at the center of economic and social development: it is vital to maintain health, grow food, generate energy, manage the environment, and create jobs. However, 2.1 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services and 4.5 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services. And water-related hazards, including floods, storms, and droughts, are responsible for 9 out of 10 natural disasters. Climate change is expected to increase this risk, in addition to placing greater stress on water supplies.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call upon us to go further and faster in providing safe and sustainable water and sanitation for all, while bringing our focus to other critical dimensions of the broad water sector.
H20 Miscellany
- For at least 263 million people across the world, it takes over 30 minutes per round trip to collect water.
- Water shortages could affect 5 billion people by 2050!
- Water has an intrinsic memory, which can be influenced by something as subtle as our thoughts and emotions. A Glass of Water
- Just $100 a day was all it would have taken to avoid Flint’s toxic water crisis