WaterWired

Infographic: Will Your City Run Dry? Report: 'America's Water Risk: Water Stress & Climate Variability'

I just received a PR email from Veolia Water's publicity folks touting the release of a new report (although it is dated February 2013 - guess I am on the 'D-List' with Kathy Griffin) from the Columbia Water Center and Veolia, America's Water Risk: Water Stress and Climate Variability'.

Download GB_CWC_whitepaper_climate-water-stress_final

I think some of the material from this report was presented here.

Read a news release from Growing Blue.

Here is an infographic:

From the infographic page at Growing Blue:

According to Upmanu Lall, the director of Columbia’s Water Center, many of the tools which are currently developed to help businesses assess water risk “actually understate the risk of climate variations.” Lall noted that in addition to water scarcity projections, certain areas should also consider their exposure to drought, since droughts will magnify any problems created by water scarcity.

In developing this study, Columbia researchers first developed a new water research metric that they call the Normalized Deficit Cumulated (NDC) index. The index pulls from more than 60 years of precipitation data and the current water use pattern for the United States in order to better depict the discrepancy between water use and availability.

The study clearly shows that decision-makers need to be thinking beyond the problems of water scarcity, to the way drought will affect regions that are already facing problems. Said Lall, “Droughts will create an additional impact that needs to be understood, because drought magnifies the effects of scarcity.”

Explanation of the Normalized Deficit Index (NDC)
Two risk metrics were developed to capture the influence of within year dry periods (Normalized Deficit Index – NDI) and of drought across years (Normalized Deficit Cumulated – NDC). The NDI is computed as one number for each year using historical daily rainfall data for the area and current daily water needs. It measures the maximum cumulated water shortage each year during the dry period that needs to be provided for from ground water or from surface water storage or transfers from other areas.

The NDC is computed as one number over the historical climate record. It represents the largest cumulative deficit between renewable supply and water use over the entire period. Consequently, it reflects the stress associated with multi-year and within-year drought impacts at a location. Given that 60 years of historical climate data were used, the maximum of the NDI (i.e. the worst single year), and the NDC (i.e., the effect of a string of bad years) may have an average recurrence interval of approximately 60 years. The NDI data provides insights into other recurrence intervals as well.

I'm curious - from the above discussion it would appear that stationarity is tacitly assumed since the historical record is used.

This should be a good one - CWC and Upmanu Lall are top-shelf.
 

Enjoy!
 

“The needed focus for the study of climate change and variability is on the regional and local scales. “ - James Hansen(?)  - source: Roger Pielke, Sr.

Upmanu Lall @columbiawater: 'Managing Water Systems to Address Climate Risk'

I downloaded this useful presentation by Dr. Upmanu Lall of Columbia University's Water Center  from the Water Innovations Alliance website.

Lall presented this material at a WIA event in New York City in late February 2013.

Download Lall_WaterConference_February2013

Below is a graphic from the report showing the USA's ratio of average demand to renewable supply. 

In addition to Lall's presentation on the USA's water stress and climate variability, he and his co-authors have a case study from Ceará in northeastern Brazil.

You can learn more about the Center's climate risk projects, Northeast Urban Climate Risk and Climate Risk and Conflict in Central Asia.

Enjoy - good stuff!

"The near term situation for water is already grim in many places." - Upmanu Lall, from the USA presentation

Blast from the Blast: 'Paleohydrology of the Rio Grande - A First Approximation'

The following paper, Paleohydrology of the Rio Grande: A First Approximation, by Neal W. Ackerly, from the 44th New Mexico Water Conference (1999), The Rio Grande Compact: It's the Law!, made the rounds on the Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly e-mail lists.

Download Ackerly

What struck me was the last part of Ackerly's paper:

As an anthropologist, I have spent considerable time studying past civilizations in arid lands that relied on surface water. Most of these societies failed. Analyses suggest that they failed for three reasons:

Worth heeding. Amen!

"We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history." - Cicero

Video: Five Tools of Moral Reasoning for Climate Scientists (and Others)

Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson, authors of Moral Ground: Ethical Action for Planet in Peril, share insights about several moral reasoning methods that can help scientists whose work is critical to understanding and (perhaps) averting catastrophic climate change. 

View their video here. Read more about Moral Ground here.

Actually, as you will discover, there are only four tools. But that's no reason not to watch their excellent presentation.

You do not have to be a climate scientist to benefit from their collective insight.

Here is the link to the 'Exxon Hates Your Children' ad to which Moore alluded.

And here is a video about speaking up about climate change.

Enjoy, and think! I know I am.

“If we act on the side of justice, we have the power to turn tides.” - Desmond Tutu

Report: 'The Arab Spring and Climate Change' Yikes!

The Center for American Progress, the Stimson Center, and the Center for Climate and Security have just published a brief report, The Arab Spring and Climate Change. Here is the report's release.

Read it in your browser or download PDFs below.

Download Climate_Change_Arab_Spring_Intro

Download Climate_Change_Arab_Spring

The contributors include (from the preface by Anne-Marie Slaughter):

• Troy Sternberg of Oxford University begins by investigating the connections between climate events in other parts of the world and social unrest in the Arab world. More specifically, he looks at drought conditions in China, subsequent global wheat shortages, and how those shortages may have influenced the Egyptian uprisings. In his own words, he paints a picture of “how a localized hazard became globalized.”
• Sarah Johnstone and Jeffrey Mazo of the International Institute for Strategic Studies investigate the vulnerability of the Middle East and North Africa region to fluctuations of food supply and prices both globally and locally, and how current and projected climatic changes interact with those phenomena. They conclude that, “The Arab Spring would likely have come one way or another, but the context in which it did is not inconsequential. Global warming may not have caused the Arab Spring, but it may have made it come earlier.”
• Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell of the Center for Climate and Security address the influence of climate change before social and political unrest developed into large-scale conflict in Syria—a country many analysts initially deemed impervious to the Arab Spring, also known as the Arab Awakening—the projected influence of climate change after the Arab Awakening in Libya, and possible water-security solutions for building climate resilience that may simultaneously enhance cooperation and aid in resolving conflict.
• Michael Werz and Max Hoffman of the Center for American Progress investigate how “security in one place is irrevocably linked to stability in distant regions.” Werz and Hoffman use the Arab Awakening as a backdrop to explore how a 21st-century security strategy must account for “transcendent challenges,” including the nexus between climate change, human rights, and migration.
• David Michel and Mona Yacoubian of the Stimson Center explore how the Arab world could transform the risks posed by climate-change factors into sustainable economic growth and job-creating opportunities. Michel and Yacoubian look specifically at how “greening” Arab economies by adopting innovative technologies and forward-leaning government policies can simultaneously bolster employment and mitigate environmental risks, “turning two of the region’s pre-eminent challenges into a significant opportunity.” 

In the preface Slaughter makes the important point that the report does not argue that climate change has caused the changes in the Arab world over the past few years but that  "...the consequences of climate change are stressors that can ignite a volatile mix of underlying causes that erupt into revolution."

You'll read a lot about drought and food. When you menton those things, water's not far behind.

Related: see Thomas Friedman's New York Times Op-Ed, 'The Scary Hidden Stressor'. He was featured with Slaughter at the report's release.

I suspect we will be seeing more reports and journal articles with this theme in the coming years. Great dissertation fodder, too.

"...fledgling democracies with weak institutions might find it even harder to deal with the root problems than the regimes they replace, and they may be more vulnerable to further unrest as a result.” - Sarah Johnstone and Jeffrey Mazo, from their essay (via Friedman's Op-Ed).

"Yikes." - Tom Friedman's response to the above