Water security and climate change: how science can help

Policymakers need better information about the regional impact of climate change on water supplies, and on ways of adapting to it.
For centuries, food production — and thus social development — has depended heavily on access to the water needed to grow crops or rear livestock. Having enough water is only part of the issue, however: it must also be available when and where it is most needed.

In the past few decades, the balance between water supplies and human need has come under increasing threat from growing populations, urbanisation and, most recently, climate change.

One of the biggest impacts of the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is expected to be a significant increase in rainfall variability and in the frequency and intensity of extreme events, such as droughts and floods. Climate change is being widely blamed as a significant contributor to the devastating floods in Pakistan, for example, as well as recent mudslides in China and fires in Russia.