An article on wunderground reports how many of the world’s biggest cities are taxing their water supplies, making them vulnerable to weather events such as droughts:
Desalination (pictured) could be a potential method of gaining drinking water for many places facing water stress, though water stress as a whole looks set to increase due to the effects of climate change.
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The researchers, led by hydrologist Rob McDonald, used computer models to show that about 25 percent of cities use at least 40 percent of their available water, meaning they are under water stress. Previous estimates had the number of water-stressed cities as high as 40 percent.
Some large cities depend on water underground, known as groundwater, and a select few turn the ocean’s salty water into drinkable water, a process called desalination. But the majority of the cities studied, almost 80 percent, largely use surface water — reservoirs, lakes and other water sources on the Earth’s surface, which are more susceptible to immediate changes in weather, like droughts, McDonald said.
To read more about the changing world and what you can do to prepare, visit: www.greatwavesofchange.org
