Climate Change and Water Security: Impacts,Future Scenarios,Adaptations and Mitigations

The book is an attempt to address the important facts and figures relating to climate change impacts on water security: a. Climate change impacts on water resources; b. Climate change impacts on water related diseases; c. Climate change impacts on water dependent biodiversity and ecosystems; d. Climate change adaptation and mitigation measures for water security; and e. Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions from water sector. Climate change is an additional stress on water security in addition to other chemical and biological stressors. Rivers depending on the Himalayan glaciers (the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra) could face water shortages or reduced river run-off due to retreat of glaciers, and this would cause dramatic impact on drinking water supplies, biodiversity, hydropower generation, industry, agriculture, ecosystems on which about 2.4 billion people in Asia depends. As a consequence of drought, the annual stream flow in the Murray-Darling basin (Australia) is projected to fall by 10-25% by 2050 and 16-48% by 2100 which would have severe consequences on irrigated agriculture in the region.