Preparing water supplies for climate change

摘要

Climate change will transform water supplies and water quality, so the U.S. EPA is preparing for the hard times to come. In a draft report released in March, the agency documents the predicted changes and outlines how it intends to respond. Among the many challenges that water managers must face, the report lists changes in ocean and fresh water chemistry, rain and snowfall amounts, and groundwa-ter availability. Regional forecasts show various and extreme impacts for Alaska and U.S. islands-for example, loss of ice shelves and mangroves-with repercussions for local communities.