Part Two / How our Planet is Changing

2.14 Fresh Water

All online sources accessed on

  1. as much as 20 per cent … used for the water system Szinai, J., et al., Szinai, J., et al., The Future of California’s Water–Energy–Climate Nexus, Next 10 and the Pacific Institute, September 2021, https://pacinst.org/publication/the-future-of-californias-water-energy-climate-nexus/.

    Humans are already changing the climate Hoegh-Guldberg, O., et al., ‘Impacts of 1.5°C global warming on natural and human systems’, in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C above Pre-industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty, ed. V. Masson-Delmotte et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/.

    Warming and disappearing rivers are harming fisheries Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ‘Summary for policymakers’, in Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C above Pre-industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty, ed. V. Masson-Delmotte et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/.

    Violent conflicts over water are increasing Gleick, P. H., ‘Water as a weapon and casualty of armed conflict: a review of recent water‐related violence in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 6 (4), 2019: Article e1351, https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1351.

  2. at or approaching ‘peak water’ Gleick, P. H., and Palaniappan, M., ‘Peak water limits to freshwater withdrawal and use’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (25), 2010: 11155–62, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1004812107.

    a new approach is possible Gleick, P. H., ‘Global freshwater resources: soft-path solutions for the 21st century’, Science, 302 (5650), 2003: 1524–8, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1089967.

    safe water and sanitation for all Gleick, P. H., ‘Transitions to freshwater sustainability’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115 (36), 2018: 8863–71, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1808893115.