Global Water Crisis and Climate Change

Exceptional, and possibly historic, drought conditions in North Carolina and the rest of the Southeast were endured through part of 2007 and 2008 U.S. Drought Monitor 2007, 2008 . To gain perspective, a statistical analysis of the forty-five-year record of measured flows at a gauging station on the Eno River near Durham, N.C., reveals that the daily river flow averages 3.56 m3 /s 125.75 cfs , compared to 0.29 m3 /s 10.35 cfs from May 30, 2007, to January 30, 2008. During this drought, the minimum average flows were little more than 0.028 to 0.085 m3 /s 1 to 3 cfs at the same location. Although surface storage was replenished through the early months of 2009, groundwater levels remain below average. By contrast, during Hurricane Fran September 1996 the flow averaged 416.26 m3 /s 14,700 cfs , equivalent to at least a twenty-year flood. California has endured three years of drought since the fall of 2006 DWR 2009 and this past summer most of south and central Texas has been suffering from extreme to exceptional drought conditions U.S. Drought Monitor 2009 . An El Nino weather pattern may bring relief through February 2010 Reuters 2009 . Yet, as an annual average, only about 10 million people are exposed to droughts in the United States with zero annual deaths versus over 25 million exposed in China with well over 100 annual deaths as shown in Fig. 1 EM-DAT 2009 . Severe drought has recently prevailed in Northern and Western China 2008–2009 , in major winter wheat producing areas provinces of Henan, Anhai, Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu with precipitation levels at 70–90% below normal Branigan 2009 . It is considered the worst drought in 60 years in China, with about 9.5 million hectares of winter wheat 44% of total planted damaged. This extreme event was foreseen years earlier: Domroes and Schaefer 2003 studied the temperature and rainfall records of 165 World Meteorological Organization