GET WET!

By: Tim Stickings

Using too much water could wipe trillions of dollars off the world economy by 2050 and destabilise dry regions such as the Middle East, according to a report that says people should be charged more for using it.

A commission including the President of Singapore, the founder of Egypt‘s Bibliotheca Alexandrina and ministers and economists warned of a “crisis of water” fuelled by climate change and overconsumption. The panel’s executive director Henk Ovink told The National that “we are undermining our future”.

The Middle East is one region where water scarcity is “top of the agenda” because “nobody needs more instability”, said Mr Ovink, a former water envoy for the Dutch government. “In a fragile social and geopolitical context, any vectors of disaster – floods, drought, pollution, biodiversity loss – are literally trembling the foundations.”

The commission forecasts that water shortages could knock 8 per cent off the developed world’s GDP and 15 per cent off that of developing countries by 2050, amounting to a loss of trillions of dollars. By comparison, the world economy contracted by about 3.5 per cent in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Drawing on two years of work, the report warns that water shortages could put half the world’s food production at risk in the next 25 years. It says the average person needs 4,000 litres of water a day to live a dignified life, taking into account what is needed to produce food and energy.

Parts of the Middle East, Africa and Europe would already be living in water scarcity but for the “green water” stored in nature, the report says. It says that even in socially and economically stable parts of the Middle East, any water shortages could spill over into more vulnerable areas.

Shortages are driven not only by “profligate use” of water in settings such as data centres and coal-fired power plants, but also by damage to soils and forests that results in less rain being stored by nature and ultimately recycled back into lakes and rivers, the commission says.

“Water is not just a victim in this cycle,” Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam told a media briefing. “The degradation of the wetlands, the mismanagement of the soil, the deforestation, is all contributing to a loss of the world’s stores of carbon and is accelerating climate change.”

Price of water

A key recommendation of the report is that water should be priced at a level that “reflects the true opportunity cost and scarcity” of the Earth’s resources. It says the “widespread under-pricing of water today encourages its profligate use across the economy”.

The world must find ways to “ensure that rapidly growing digitalisation and the proliferation of AI do not consume an inordinate share of water” in water-hungry settings such as data centres, the report says. It says any policy could include subsidies for poor households and encourage the “prudent use” of water.

The report, entitled The Economics of Water, is billed as water’s equivalent of the influential 2006 Stern Report, which was one of the first to make the economic case for climate action. The author, the former UK Treasury official Lord Nicholas Stern, wrote that the benefits of going green “far outweigh the economic costs of not acting”.

Better water management “goes beyond ‘just put a cap on water use and we’ll fix the problem’. It’s way more complex,” Mr Ovink said. “You can say, ‘let’s use a little bit less water’. Who should use a little bit less water? The poor and the most vulnerable use hardly any water.

“You have to distinguish where usage matters. Perhaps more important is the source of water. It is our biodiversity, it is our environment and land use planning, and economic incentives and objectives that determine the vulnerability of that source of fresh water.

“The good thing is that with sustainable land use management, resource recovery, sustainable water use, reuse and recycling, making sure that biodiversity loss is curbed and starting to restore our biodiversity and maintaining it, we actually are ticking many boxes.”

Five missions

The report calls for five overarching “missions” to bring about “radical changes” in how water is managed. One of the commission’s co-chairs is the Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato, whose work similarly inspired the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmerto adopt five missions for his new Labour government.

The missions are to embark on a “revolution in food systems” that preserves soil and saves water; protect natural habitats; get more supplies from wastewater treatment; make sure modern tech does not “exacerbate global water stresses”; and prevent children dying because of unsafe water by 2030.

“We must move beyond a reactive market-fixing approach towards a proactive market-shaping one that catalyses mission-orientated innovation,” Ms Mazzucato said. “Only with a new economic mindset can governments value, govern and finance water in a way that drives the transformation we need.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://www.thenationalnews.com/climate/2024/10/16/using-too-much-water-thatll-cost-trillions-of-dollars/

By: Abbie VanSickle

The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared to side with the City of San Francisco in its unusual challenge of federal water regulations that it said were too vague and could be interpreted too strictly.

The outcome could have sweeping implications for curtailing water pollution offshore and would deal another blow to the Environmental Protection Agency, which has faced a string of losses at the court over its efforts to protect the environment.

The case has given rise to unusual alliances, with the city joining oil companies and business groups in siding against the E.P.A. In arguments on Wednesday, it was the conservative justices who seemed the most aligned with a city best known as a liberal bastion.

At its core, the case is about human waste and how San Francisco disposes of it — specifically, whether the Clean Water Act of 1972 allowed the E.P.A. to impose generic prohibitions on wastewater released into the Pacific Ocean and to penalize the city.

Almost from the start, the justices appeared to wrestle with what was actually at stake in over an hour of highly technical arguments that centered on sewage discharge permits issued by the agency.

Justice Clarence Thomas asked, “With this permit, what is at bottom the problem?”

Tara M. Steeley, a deputy San Francisco city attorney, replied, “What at bottom is the problem is that permit holders don’t know what they need to do to comply.”

She added that city officials do not have clear guidance about how to comply with a federal permit aimed at determining how much wastewater can be released without running afoul of the Clean Water Act.

Under the current E.P.A. requirements, she said, San Francisco is “exposed to crushing criminal and civil penalties even when it otherwise complies with its 300-page permit.”

She estimated that the city faced $10 billion in penalties from the federal government over the issue.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor appeared skeptical of the city’s arguments. She focused on the practical matter of how much feces should be permitted to be released into the ocean.

“I’m sorry, no one’s asking you to shift on a dime,” Justice Sotomayor said. “What they’re asking you to do is to become responsible for doing what’s necessary, not on a dime, but — nothing in the E.P.A. works on a dime — but to take the steps necessary to control situations that develop.”

But Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh appeared receptive to the city’s concerns, expressing skepticism toward the arguments raised by Frederick Liu, an assistant to the solicitor general, who contended that the E.P.A. does have the power to issue broad guidelines.

Justice Kavanaugh questioned whether the federal government was going after San Francisco “based on the past when they didn’t know what the relevant limitation on them was and seek retroactively, without fair notice, huge penalties, including criminal punishment” based on unclear standards.

Mr. Liu accused San Francisco of failing to provide the federal government with detailed information about its sewage system.

“Without that information, we’re basically flying blind as to how we’re going to tell exactly what San Francisco should do to protect water quality,” he said.

The case poses another test of federal agency power and will be the first chance for the court to address the effect of its landmark decision last term overruling the Chevron precedent.

For decades, courts had relied on the precedent, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which held that courts should defer to federal agencies and their expertise when interpreting ambiguous laws.

Still, the case heard Wednesday, San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 23-753, is a departure from more recent challenges to the E.P.A. brought by attorneys general in Republican-led states that directly seek to curtail the agency’s power.

Instead, San Francisco sued the E.P.A. during the Trump administration, and officials have pushed back on the idea that the case is a challenge to the federal government’s ability to regulate the environment. Its challenge, the city says, aims to clarify the provisions of the city’s wastewater permit so that San Francisco can comply with the Clean Water Act.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/us/politics/supreme-court-san-francisco-water-pollution.html

By: Laura Paddinson

CNN — 

Humanity has thrown the global water cycle off balance “for the first time in human history,” fueling a growing water disaster that will wreak havoc on economies, food production and lives, according to a landmark new report.

Decades of destructive land use and water mismanagement have collided with the human-caused climate crisis to put “unprecedented stress” on the global water cycle, said the report published Wednesday by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, a group of international leaders and experts.

The water cycle refers to the complex system by which water moves around the Earth. Water evaporates from the ground — including from lakes, rivers and plants — and rises into the atmosphere, forming large rivers of water vapor able to travel long distances, before cooling, condensing and eventually falling back to the ground as rain or snow.

Disruptions to the water cycle are already causing suffering. Nearly 3 billion people face water scarcity. Crops are shriveling and cities are sinking as the groundwater beneath them dries out.

The consequences will be even more catastrophic without urgent action. The water crisis threatens more than 50% of global food production and risks shaving an average of 8% off countries’ GDPs by 2050, with much higher losses of up to 15% projected in low-income countries, the report found.

“For the first time in human history, we are pushing the global water cycle out of balance,” said Johan Rockström, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water and a report author. “Precipitation, the source of all freshwater, can no longer be relied upon.”

The report differentiates between “blue water,” the liquid water in lakes, rivers and aquifers, and “green water,” the moisture stored in soils and plants.

While the supply of green water has long been overlooked, it is just as important to the water cycle, the report says, as it returns to the atmosphere when plants release water vapor, generating about half of all rainfall over land.

Disruptions to the water cycle are “deeply intertwined” with climate change, the report found.

A stable supply of green water is vital for supporting vegetation that can store planet-heating carbon. But the damage humans inflict, including destroying wetlands and tearing down forests, is depleting these carbon sinks and accelerating global warming. In turn, climate change-fueled heat is drying out landscapes, reducing moisture and increasing fire risk.

The crisis is made more urgent by the huge need for water. The report calculates that, on average, people need a minimum of about 4,000 liters (just over 1,000 gallons) a day to lead a “dignified life,” far above the 50 to 100 liters the United Nations says is needed for basic needs, and more than most regions will be able to provide from local sources.

Richard Allan, a climate science professor at Reading University, England, said the report “paints a grim picture of human-caused disruption to the global water cycle, the most precious natural resource that ultimately sustains our livelihoods.”

Human activities “are altering the fabric of our land and the air above which is warming the climate, intensifying both wet and dry extremes, and sending wind and rainfall patterns out of kilter,” added Allan, who was not involved in the report.

The crisis can only be addressed through better management of natural resources and massive cuts in planet-heating pollution, he told CNN.

The report’s authors say world governments must recognize the water cycle as a “common good” and address it collectively. Countries are dependent on each other, not only through lakes and rivers that span borders, but also because of water in the atmosphere, which can travel huge distances — meaning decisions made in one country can disrupt rainfall in another.

The report calls for a “fundamental regearing of where water sits in economies,” including better pricing to discourage wastefulness and the tendency to plant water-thirsty cropsand facilities, such as data centers, in water-stressed regions.

“The global water crisis is a tragedy but is also an opportunity to transform the economics of water,” said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization and a co-chair of the commission that published the report. Valuing water properly is essential, she added, “so as to recognize its scarcity and the many benefits it delivers.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/16/climate/global-water-cycle-off-balance-food-production/index.html

By: David Hodari

The world has a worsening water crisis, and half of all food production will be at risk of failure by the middle of this century.

That’s the worrying message from a major international study released Wednesday. 

Half of the world’s population already faces water scarcity, and that proportion is growing, too, according to the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, which is funded by the Dutch government and facilitated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — a group of the world’s richest economies.

While water scarcity will have a seismic effect on humans and the environment, it will also have an economic impact. The Global Commission on the Economics of Water estimates that a lack of clean water due to climate change and the chronic mismanagement of land could cut global economic growth by 8% on average, almost double the losses in lower-income countries.

“The global water crisis is a tragedy but is also an opportunity to transform the economics of water — and to start by valuing water properly so as to recognize its scarcity,” a co-chair of the commission, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization, said in a statement.

With nearly 3 billion people living in areas experiencing unstable water trends and several cities sinking because of the loss of belowground water, densely populated areas such as northwestern India, northeastern China, and southern and eastern Europe will bear the brunt of global water mismanagement, the report says. 

Part of the problem is a lack of collective will among governments and businesses, as well as market forces that treat water like a commodity, Mariana Mazzucato, a professor and founding director of the University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, told NBC News.

“We can do it. We’ve just chosen not to because we have inertia, because we have profits being made from not dealing with the crisis. Some 80% of wastewater isn’t recycled,” Mazzucato said. 

“Like many problems, including climate change, biodiversity and health pandemics, we can turn those problems into massive opportunities for investment,” she added.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the government of the Netherlands set up the water economics research body in 2022, with Dutch lawmakers giving it enough funding to operate for two years and deliver this week’s report, which will be its last. The OECD says it wants to explore continuing the commission’s work in collaboration with other organizations.

One glaring absence from the world’s response the release highlights is the lack of any coordinated approach to dealing with water crises. Last year, the United Nations held its first water conference in 50 years, and only last month did it appoint a special envoy on water. 

“The global water crisis is a ticking time bomb. If we do not tackle it now, the cost of inaction will be felt by us all,” Tim Wainwright, U.K. chief executive of the international nongovernmental organization WaterAid, said in a statement. “Tackling this crisis requires government leadership, finance and the coordination of donors, private sector and affected communities worldwide to drive the crucial action needed.”

Among the report’s recommendations are transforming how water is used in farming — improving efficiency and shifting from animal-based diets — as well as restoring natural habitats and treating and renewing more wastewater. 

Even so, a lack of public funds’ being devoted to water issues around the world will do little to solve the problem. Governments “can’t even react to the symptoms of the water problem, let alone solve the problems if they’re being fiscally strangled,” said Mazzucato, of University College London.

The impact of climate change appears frequently in the report, with water systems being the first to show the impact of changing weather patterns. In recent years, the Amazon has experienced more droughts, mountain glaciers have melted, and Europe has suffered more floods. 

Parts of the U.S. have felt increasing pressure on their water systems, with droughts, floods and aging infrastructure affecting farming and leaving some areas with a lack of clean drinking water. North Carolina experienced its own water crisis in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which washed away parts of its infrastructure. 

Last year, extreme precipitation — most likely made worse by climate change — hammered nearly every corner of the U.S. For every degree Fahrenheit of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 3% to 4% more moisture. With global temperatures 2.43 degrees higher last year than in preindustrial times, today’s storms can deliver a stronger punch.

In September last year, New York City got 7 inches of rain in 24 hours, submerging buses and shuttering rail travel.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK HERE: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/water-crisis-global-food-threatened-rcna175873

By Dylan Ortuno

CONWAY — A former textile mill contaminated the Waccamaw River and Intracoastal Waterway with “forever chemicals” that could pose a danger to the thousands of Horry County residents who rely on the Grand Strand Water and Sewer Authority for their drinking water, according to a recently filed lawsuit.   

The Conway-based authority, which filed the lawsuit Aug. 9, alleges Burlington Industries, Inc., released contaminated industrial wastewater from its Society Hill mill into the Pee Dee River watershed for decades. That water then flowed downstream to the Myrtle Beach area.

The filing states the leftover toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), otherwise known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, are unable to be filtered by the authority’s wastewater treatment processes and pose a threat to humans if consumed.

The court filings noted the dangers from drinking contaminated water include cancer and reproductive issues, among other things.

“Defendant’s PFAS contaminates Plaintiff’s water sources at concentrations exceeding what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) deems unsafe for consumption, and Plaintiff’s existing water treatment processes cannot remove them,” the lawsuit stated. “Instead, Plaintiff requires new water treatment technologies to remove, and provide water free from, Defendant’s PFAS.”

The lawsuit alleges the contamination has impacted two of the authority’s water treatment plants: one in Bucksport near Bull Creek, an arm of the Great Pee Dee River, and another in Myrtle Beach near the Intracoastal Waterway. 

The Bucksport plant alone provides water to about 115,000 customers, according to the lawsuit. The Myrtle Beach plant services the cities of Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach, which distribute the water to tens of thousands of residents. 

Pee Dee/Lynches River Project Coordinator Dylan Coleman of the Winyah Rivers Alliance said the alliance and Coastal Carolina University are studying the “forever chemical” contamination of the Great Pee Dee River. Coleman noted that it is not uncommon for rivers near such industries to encounter this issue.

“What I’ve learned is that textile mills typically are very much associated with PFAS contamination,” Coleman said. “That’s not saying every (textile mill) will be, but there’s a pretty strong correlation between what you find at a former textile mill or in (wastewater) lagoons that correlates to PFAS along with other contaminants.”

In court filings, the authority states that Burlington Industries, Inc., operated an industrial facility that spanned close to 234 acres near Cedar Creek and the Great Pee Dee River. 

Throughout Burlington’s ownership, 1966-1988, it used products that contained and degraded to a wide range of chemicals, according to the lawsuit. The facility operated under other names until it closed in 2016.

Following that shut down, the filing said, the site was not remediated and “wastewater lagoons and other storage basins” that had gathered the dangerous chemicals overflowed into the Great Pee Dee River toward Bull Creek, contaminating GSWSA’s water sources.

A representative for Burlington Industries could not be reached for comment.

Coleman noted that federal and state agencies tend to be the ones left behind to “clean up that mess” after textile mills shut down.

“And the longer (the wastewater) sits there, the more likely it is to leach into the groundwater or overflow and get into our surface water and therefore our drinking water,” Coleman said.

He added that “forever chemicals” and their exact effects are still being studied, likening this time period to “the big tobacco debacle” when people began learning about the health impacts that came from tobacco use.

“But the main difference in this case is people aren’t consciously making the decision to ingest this kind of stuff through drinking water like the way you would any other harmful product,” Coleman said.

Coleman added that across the country lawsuits have been filed against industries that released these chemicals into the environment.

“And the reason why more than anything is to have the money to upgrade their (wastewater) treatment systems,” he said. “For instance, I live in Marion County and the county could not afford to do that on their own. They would almost have to seek some sort of compensation from these industries in order to pay for it.”

The GSWSA makes a similar case in its lawsuit, asking the court to force Burlington to clear the controversial chemicals from the water systems “by funding the acquisition, installation, and operation of treatment technology capable of removing them.”

The GSWSA’s listed causes of action include private nuisance, public nuisance and negligence.

The authority’s attorney declined to comment beyond the statements in the complaint.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO: https://www.postandcourier.com/myrtle-beach/news/lawsuit-forever-chemicals-waccamaw-river-intracoastal-waterway-sc/article_288a5cfa-66da-11ef-b4c4-fb48c5fa4090.html

By JR Culpepper (EWG)

A recent study suggests the presence of microplastics may increase the risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular problems among people with heart disease. The tiny plastics were found to double the risk of stroke or heart attack.

Scientists are finding microplastics in almost every part of the body, including lungs and the stomach, prompting questions about how they may be harmful.

The study, published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, found heart disease patients with microplastics in the blood vessels on either side of their neck, which deliver blood from the heart to the brain and head, were twice as likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke. These patients were also more likely to die over the next three years than people who had no microplastics in their carotid arteries.

Microplastics have been found all over the world, from Antarctica to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, and even in clouds.

Depending on the source of the plastic, microplastics can be contaminated with toxic chemical additives during the manufacturing process. If a chemical additive hitches a ride on a microplastic particle and enters the body, it can leach out into the body and harm the hormone and reproductive systems. Similarly, pollutants or microorganisms can also jump on microplastic particles and pose health risks to humans.

Scientists have researched the impact of microplastics on animals. Studies on mice showed exposure to microplastics can disrupt the gut biome, lower sperm quality and testosterone, and impair learning and memory.

Research on these potentially problematic plastics continues. For now, it’s important to understand them and how changes to your daily routine may reduce your exposure – and health risk.

What are microplastics?

Plastic doesn’t decompose in the way food and paper do. Instead, it breaks down into tinier and tinier pieces. When these pieces shrink below five millimeters in size – about the width of a small paperclip – they become what’s known as microplastic.

Microplastics smaller than a micrometer are called nanoplastics, small enough to breach cell barriers.

As plastic is one of the most widely used materials in the world, microplastics have found their way into nearly everything, including animal products, water and even air.

Because of microplastics’ size, you may not be able to avoid exposure completely. But there are ways to reduce how many microplastics get into your body.

Tips to reduce exposure

• Dust and vacuum regularly. Removing excess dust from your house can help cut down on the amount of microplastic fibers in the dust you could be breathing or otherwise consuming. 
• Avoid drinking from disposable plastic water bottles. If you have no choice, try to keep them out of the sun, in a cool, dry environment. Disposable plastic water bottles degrade very easily in response to temperature change or friction.
• Filter your water. Due to widespread use and pollution of plastic, water can sometimes contain microplastic particles. Home water filters can be effective at reducing many contaminants, including microplastics. 
• Avoid plastic cutting boards. There are plenty of alternatives to use, like wood, glass and steel. 
• Microwave your food in glass containers, rather than plastic or takeaway containers, which can release millions of microplastic particles into your food.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE: https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2024/03/new-study-links-microplastics-serious-health-harms-humans

By: Sean Mowbray

Scientists say that nitrogen pollution from agriculture and human waste could dramatically worsen clean water scarcity by 2050, according to a groundbreaking study recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers from Germany and the Netherlands modeled the impact of nitrogen pollution on water quality in more than 10,000 river basins planetwide. They found that as of 2010, there were just 984 river basins thought to be facing water scarcity based on “classic” water quantity estimates. But factoring in the impact of nitrogen pollution saw this figure jump to more than 2,500 basins that year.

Projecting forward to 2050, a worst-case pollution scenario found more than 3,000 river subbasins facing clean water scarcity, covering an additional 40 million square kilometers (around 15.4 million square miles) of basin area and potentially impacting 3 billion more people than their estimate of 2.9 billion people impacted by water quantity scarcity alone in 2010, the researchers stated.

Using this pollution-inclusive scenario, the study identified nitrogen pollution hotspots in China, India, Europe, North America and Africa.

The wide divergence between estimates is attributable to the fact that water scarcity assessments often only track the quantity of water coming down a river, says Benjamin Bodirsky, study co-author and senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “What we added to this [analysis] is clean water scarcity. We were looking at which rivers have sufficient water quality to support biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.”

“Water pollution is becoming a very important cause of water scarcity,” notes Mengru Wang, lead author of the paper and a research associate at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “You may have enough water, but if the quality is poor, then it cannot be safely used by humans or nature.”

Implications for planetary health

Nitrogen is released into the environment via human waste and by fertilizers spread on agricultural lands. A boom in synthetic nitrogen fertilizer production (now heavily sourced from fossil fuels) began with the invention of the Haber-Bosch process in 1913. Though that industrial process phenomenally boosted crop yields, feeding much of the world, it also allowed for a massive influx of nitrogen into waterways, leading to toxic algae blooms, hypoxia, fish kills and fishery collapse and human health impacts.

The disruption of Earth’s natural nitrogen cycle by human activity is counted among the nine planetary boundaries — limits that when transgressed threaten the “safe operating space of the Earth system.” The nitrogen planetary boundary was transgressed in 1970. Since then, activation has increased 160%, though notable differences have been observed between countries and watersheds depending on intensity of fertilizer use.

In the future, nitrogen hotspot river basins identified by the study could be at much greater risk of eutrophication with potential consequences for the environment, economies and possibly even human health. Bodirsky states that such high levels of pollution could lower fish harvests, reduce water quality to the point that it is not suitable for recreation and “destabilize ecosystems more generally.”

Jan Semenza, a public health expert at Sweden’s Umeå University, who was not involved in the current study, calls the findings “pretty bad news. … It’s not just water quantity, it’s also quality that’s plummeting, and it’s devastating for not only human health but also for planetary health in general,” he says.

Nitrogen pollution “has huge ramifications for all kinds of ecosystems that we depend on. We need those ecosystem services, as do a lot of other living organisms,” Semenza says.

The research team stated that a multitude of other “newly emerging pollutants” — including microplastics, heavy metals, pathogens and pharmaceuticals — emitted into waterways via sources such as human wastewater will likely cause “severe water degradation in the future.” It is estimated that in some regions of the world, up to 80% of wastewater flows into the environment untreated, causing concern for fragile freshwater ecosystems and human health.

The team did not assess the impact of other pollutants on water quality but plans to conduct similar modeling to identify more future hotspots. “How those pollutants will change the [geographic] picture of water scarcity, we don’t know,” Wang says, adding that future research is needed to delve deeper into pollution’s potential economic and health implications at regional and local scales. “Maybe the hotspots will shift from one region to another, and it [also] depends on how these pollutants are used and treated.”

Emergent pollutants — counting in the hundreds of thousands of synthetic chemicals humanity has added to the environment — are included within the novel entities planetary boundary, which scientists found to be transgressed in 2022.

Climate change — another planetary boundary — is also expected to impact both water quantity and quality. Last year, researchers reviewed 965 case studies and found that river water quality “generally deteriorates” because of intensifying droughts, heat waves, rainstorms, floods and other long-term climate change consequences. Climate change can increase pollution impacts, with high temperatures worsening algal blooms and extreme droughts raising water pollutant concentrations.

“Because of the seasonality of water availability, and [climate] impacts … water quality has become more important,” says Katrina Charles, professor of environmental health risks and chair of the Oxford Water Network, who was not involved in the recent pollution study. “If you have a longer period of low flow in a river, you’ve got more concentration of those pollutants and a longer time that people are being exposed to them.”

Semenza says he worries that public health will worsen globally due to the interplay between climate change and pollution. “We do know that there is an increased risk for waterborne disease outbreaks under water scarcity scenarios,” he says, as this can limit access to clean water for other purposes such as hygiene. Both long-term drought and extreme precipitation events can lead to waterborne disease epidemics.

“It is concerning to see the convergence of pollution, climate change and inequities and how they exacerbate the situation when it comes to clean water resources for humans, but also for other living beings and nature in general,” Semenza says.

The paper offers some overarching solutions, noting that alongside measures to address water quantity, more action is needed to prevent and clean up pollution. Specifically, the authors suggest better management and more efficient use of fertilizers and improvements to wastewater treatment facilities. In many parts of the developing world, such facilities are nonexistent or lag behind the technology found in the industrialized world.

“Another very important opportunity is to look into how we can reduce the consumption of meat to improve the nutrient use efficiency of agriculture in general,” adds Wang.

Concerningly, the authors’ most optimistic modeling scenario, which assumes the realization of a raft of positive global changes (including sustainable socioeconomic development, ambitious nitrogen reduction policies, low-meat dietary shifts, improved sewage connection and treatment, sustainable water withdrawal and climate mitigation), still sees clean water scarcity hotpots in regions such as China, India and Europe.

“I think this paper is adding to this message that we need to take this issue more seriously,” says Charles, “and really think about the impact that pollution is having on our water systems and how we can protect them for ecosystem health and for our own health.”

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE: https://news.mongabay.com/2024/03/pollution-poses-big-risks-to-global-clean-water-supplies-study-shows/

Humans are increasing the rate at which organic matter decomposes in freshwater ecosystems around the world, speeding up natural processes that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and threaten biodiversity.

By John Wallace, VIMS

Humans are increasing the rate at which organic matter decomposes in freshwater ecosystems around the world, speeding up natural processes that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and threaten biodiversity. This is according to a first-of-its-kind study published recently in the journal Science that combines predictive modeling with field data from 550 rivers around the world.

The multi-year project was led by a team of five researchers from the University of Georgia, Oakland University, Kent State University and William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS). It also leveraged the work of the Celldex Consortium, a global network of 150 collaborators from 40 countries.

By taking advantage of the global consortium’s ability to collect field samples from around the world, including from underrepresented tropical regions, the team measured the rate of cellulose decomposition in each river using a standardized cotton assay. Then, using machine-learning algorithms that combined cellulose decomposition rates, satellite-derived environmental conditions, and observations of leaf litter decay, they were able to predict the decomposition rates of different types of leaves at the scale of individual streams under current or future conditions anywhere in the world.

“Leaves differ among individual plants, populations and species in terms of chemistry, such as nutrient content, and structure, such as cellulose and lignin content,” said Chris Patrick, associate professor at VIMS and one of the corresponding authors on the study. “To take our measurements of cellulose decomposition rates to the next level, we built a leaf trait library from all the published trait data we could find and then used that to link the baseline predictions to observations of real-world leaf breakdown in a model that works remarkably well.”

The data was clear: Humans are impacting decomposition rates in rivers on a global scale, with temperature and nutrients identified as some of the most important drivers of the patterns.

“Everyone in the world needs water,” said Krista Capps, co-principal investigator on the study and an associate professor at the University of Georgia. “When human activities change the fundamental ways rivers work, it’s concerning. Increases in decomposition rates may be problematic for the global carbon cycle and for animals, like insects and fish, that live in streams because the food resources they need to survive will disappear more quickly, lost to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.”

“This has huge management implications,” said Patrick. “It allows us to forecast from regional to global scales how decomposition rates and carbon cycling will respond to climate change, environmental alterations and species invasion.”

Nutrients and temperature act as catalysts in changing landscapes

When a leaf falls into a river, processes are set in motion that will either recycle the organic carbon through the food chain, store it in sediment deposits or release it into the atmosphere. Insects may find forage in the leaf litter, providing nutrients for growth and reproduction before themselves becoming a meal for fish or other animals.

However, the study found that decomposition rates were highest in densely populated, agricultural areas. In places such as the U.S., Europe and Southeast Asia, faster decomposition caused by rising temperatures and nutrients from runoff are increasing carbon dioxide emissions and altering the food chain.

“When we think of greenhouse gas emissions, we tend to think of tailpipes and factories, but a lot of carbon dioxide and methane can come from aquatic ecosystems,” said Scott Tiegs, co-principal investigator on the study and professor at Oakland University. “This is a natural occurrence, but when humans add nutrient pollution (like fertilizer) to fresh waters and elevate water temperatures, we increase the decomposition rates and direct more CO₂ into the atmosphere.”

Things get even more complex when species are considered in addition to environmental conditions. Humans are changing forest species composition, both directly by introducing invasive species and indirectly through environmental changes. These changes alter the dominant plant and animal species in the environment.

One of Patrick’s major contributions was developing a way to link the decomposition of the cotton strip, the baseline assay, to different species of leaves. On this work, he collaborated closely with co-principal investigator David Costello, associate professor at Kent State University. Costello developed a website that maps predicted leaf decomposition rates by species—users anywhere in the world can view decomposition rates in their local waterways.

“Our work demonstrates that changes in forest tree species due to climate change and species invasion can be just as important to decomposition rates as pure environmental change,” said Patrick.

Ultimately, the authors note that reducing human impacts on decomposition will prevent the release of organic carbon into the atmosphere as CO₂.

“We need to minimize human impacts on fresh waters to more effectively manage our global carbon cycle,” said Tiegs.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE: https://news.wm.edu/2024/06/11/humans-drive-climate-change-by-altering-freshwater-decomposition/

By Denise Chow and Evan Bush

 

The water cycle that shuttles Earth’s most vital resource around in an unending, life-giving loop is in trouble. Climate change has disrupted that cycle’s delicate balance, upsetting how water circulates between the ground, oceans and atmosphere.

The events of 2023 show how significant these disruptions have become. From extreme precipitation and flooding to drought and contaminated water supplies, almost every part of the U.S. faced some consequence of climate change and the shifting availability of water.

The water cycle controls every aspect of Earth’s climate system, which means that as the climate changes, so too does nearly every step of water’s movement on the planet. In some places, the availability of water is becoming increasingly scarce, while in others, climate change is intensifying rainfall, floods and other extreme weather events.

As the planet continues to warm, this cycle is expected to be increasingly stretched, warped and broken.

The water cycle — a staple of elementary school science classes — describes the constant movement of water in all its phases (solid, liquid and gas) on the ground, inside the ground and up in the air. Powered by the sun and fueled by changes in temperature, the water cycle forms the invisible link between Earth’s glaciers, snowpack, oceans, lakes, rivers, plants, trees, clouds and rain.

Liquid water flows across the land as runoff, with a portion seeping deep underground, where it’s stored as groundwater. Some water will flow into streams, rivers and other bodies of water. And in some parts of the world, water is also stored in its frozen form, as is the case with glaciers or snowpack. Water on the ground or in bodies of water turns back into water vapor through a process known as evaporation. Some water is also taken up by plants before evaporating into the atmosphere, a process known as transpiration.

Water vapor eventually condenses into clouds. Precipitation falls in the form of rain or snow, transporting water from the atmosphere back over land and starting the cycle over again.

Human activities have an enormous influence over the water cycle because water is needed for drinking, agriculture, industrial activities, electricity and more. Each of these uses affects the availability and supply of water, but climate change can add additional stress on the movement of water between land, the oceans and the atmosphere.

Below, we walk through these crucial steps — precipitation, evaporation, transpiration, runoff and storage — to illustrate how climate change is already changing our environment in ways that are affecting millions of people across the U.S.

In 2023, extreme precipitation, likely supercharged by climate change, hammered nearly every corner of the United States.

For every degree of warming in Fahrenheit, the atmosphere can hold about 3%-4% more moisture. Global temperatures in 2023 were 2.43 degrees higher than they were in preindustrial times, meaning today’s storms can deliver a stronger punch.

In Vermont, intense rainfall in July caused flash flooding that nearly breached a dam in Montpelier and left the streets flooded. In September, New York City saw a similar story play out, as 7 inches of rain fell in 24 hours in some locations, submerging cars and city buses and shuttering rail travel.

The consequences of storms are intensified in cities like New York, where storm drains and subway tunnels are in disrepair or were simply built for a more gentle climate.

Climate change is also changing the behavior of hurricanes to produce more extreme rainfall. Hurricanes today are more likely to intensify rapidly, meaning they quickly pick up wind speed because they feed on warming waters near the shore. And when these storms make landfall, climate change is increasing the probability that hurricanes will stall and dump incredible amounts of rain as they plod across the landscape.

When Hurricane Idalia approached the Florida shoreline in late August, its wind speeds rose by 55 mph in just 24 hours and it strengthened from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm. The storm dropped more than 13 inches of rain on Holly Hill, South Carolina, which was the location hit hardest by rainfall.

Hotter temperatures are increasing evaporation and transpiration in some areas, making drought more likely and stressing plants, which was evident during a summer of extreme heat in 2023.

Climate change makes droughts more frequent, more severe and longer-lasting.

Persistent drought dropped water levels in the Mississippi River to historic lows in 2023, which allowed saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico to push upstream and contaminate urban drinking water supplies.

Meanwhile, drought in Hawaii exacerbated wildfire risk by drying out vegetation and making the nonnative grasses on Maui a “ticking time bomb,” in the words of one researcher. A catastrophic wildfire, whipped up by hurricane-strength winds, tore through the historic town of Lahaina in August 2023, killing 101 people.

In the Midwest and South, drought hung over the region from spring to fall, making it the most costly natural disaster in 2023 — at $14.5 billion.

Climate change is shifting the pattern and timing of runoff, particularly in mountainous parts of the U.S., which can cause rivers to run at extreme highs — and lows.

In Alaska, where temperatures have warmed about twice the rate of the global average, a dam of glacial ice burst, allowing a massive pulse of floodwater to flow downstream, where it ripped out trees and flooded neighborhoods near Juneau.

The event would not have happened if not for climate change and glacial retreat, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Warm spring and summer temperatures in the Pacific Northwest hastened that region’s melt-out, leaving the water supply short in fall and straining the region’s capacity to generate hydropower.

Water supply is dwindling in Western states, on the Great Plains and in some parts of the Midwest.

Years of overuse — in part because of rising temperatures and drought — are leading farmers to consume unsustainable amounts of stored groundwater and pushing some aquifers to the brink.

California was hammered with extreme rainfall in 2023, as more than a dozen atmospheric-river storms battered the state. The storms, likely intensified by climate change, relieved a drought and blanketed the state in 2 to 3 times as much snow as usual.

But all that precipitation made only a dent in the state’s overall groundwater deficit after seasons of drought, and groundwater levels remained lower than they were after a previous, four-year drought ended in 2016, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

Last year, several states reached an agreement over cuts to their use of the Colorado River, where reservoirs were holding just 43% of what they could store at year’s end, even after a heavy snow year.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/climate-change-throwing-water-cycle-chaos-us-rcna137892

By: Pien Huang

The Environmental Protection Agency announced new drinking water standards Wednesday to limit exposure to a class of chemicals called PFAS.

“There’s no doubt that these chemicals have been important for certain industries and consumer uses, but there’s also no doubt that many of these chemicals can be harmful to our health and our environment,” said EPA administrator Michael Regan in a call with reporters.

This is the first time the agency has set enforceable limits on PFAS in drinking water.

PFAS stands for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances – a large group of man-made chemicals that have been used since the 1940s to waterproof and stainproof products from clothing, makeup and furniture to firefighting foam and semiconductors.

Manufactured by several large companies including Dupont and 3M, PFAS have strong molecular bonds that don’t break down for a long time, which is why they’re known as “forever chemicals.”

PFAS from the 1940s “are still in our environment today,” says Anna Reade, lead scientist on PFAS for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The levels of these chemicals keep building up in our water and our food and our air.”

Evidence for their harmful effects on human health have also accumulated. “Long term exposure to certain types of PFAS have been linked to serious illnesses, including cancer, liver damage and high cholesterol,” the EPA’s Regan said.

The EPA also noted PFAS exposure has been linked to immune and developmental damage to infants and children.

That’s why the EPA has finalized a rule restricting six PFAS chemicals in the water – individually, or in combination with each other or both – meaning water systems are required to monitor for these chemicals and remove them if they’re found above allowable levels. While some states have instituted their own PFAS limits, this is the first time it’s happening on the federal level.

Public water systems will have five years to address their PFAS problems – three years to sample their systems and establish the existing levels of PFAS, and an additional two years to install water treatment technologies if their levels are too high, senior government officials told reporters.

The EPA expects that excess PFAS levels will be found in around 6-10% of water systems, affecting some 100 million people in the U.S.

“This is historic and monumental,” says Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, an advocacy group working to protect communities from PFAS contamination. “I didn’t think [the EPA] would ever do it.” Donovan lives in an area of North Carolina which has been contaminated with PFAS from the Chemours chemical manufacturing plant.

She says seeing the EPA set limits is “validating.” Six years ago when her group first raised the issue of PFAS, she says they were told that the water met or exceeded state and federal guidelines. “And that’s because there weren’t any,” she says. “It really broke public trust for so many people in our community.”

“The final rule is a breakthrough for public health,” says Erik Olson, a senior director with NRDC. “We believe it’s going to save thousands of lives as a result of reduced exposure of tens of millions of people to these toxic chemicals in the tap water.”

There are more than 12,000 known PFAS chemicals. The six that the EPA is restricting “have had many animal and, in many cases, human studies, so [the EPA] feels confident that they have estimated the safe levels of these chemicals,” says Elizabeth Southerland, a former EPA official in the Office of Water, who left the agency in 2017.

Southerland says the new limits are a bold first step towards addressing the PFAS problem. And while the EPA has focused on only six chemicals, the treatments that water utilities use to remove these chemicals will also remove other chemicals of concern from drinking water.

In addition to other PFAS, “they will also be taking out all kinds of pesticides, pharmaceuticals and personal care products that are unregulated now under the Safe Drinking Water Act, but [which] we know have serious health effects,” Southerland says.

The agency estimates that it will cost $1.5 billion a year for water companies to comply with the regulation – for as long as PFAS continues to show up in the drinking water. “The costs are not just for a one time sampling and then putting in the treatment,” Southerland says. They include ongoing monitoring and maintaining equipment, for instance replacing carbon filters on a regular schedule.

The EPA says the benefits will equal, if not exceed the cost, in terms of less cancer, and fewer heart attacks, strokes and birth complications in the affected population.

The announcement comes with $1 billion in grants to help water systems and private well owners conduct initial testing and treatment. It’s part of a $9 billion funding package for PFAS removal in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Companies that made these chemicals are also on the hook for more than $10 billion from a class action lawsuit – money which will go to public water systems to remove PFAS.

If water systems can’t access those funds, or if the funds run out, some of those costs may eventually get passed on to consumers, says the NRDC’s Olson.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/04/10/1243775736/epa-pfas-forever-chemicals-drinking-water-limits