Leaving humans out of the picture, the researchers argue, contributes to a basic lack of awareness of how humans relate to water on Earth – and a false sense of security about future availability of this essential and scarce resource.
Leaving humans out of the picture, the researchers argue, contributes to a basic lack of awareness of how humans relate to water on Earth – and a false sense of security about future availability of this essential and scarce resource.
The team has drawn up a new set of diagrams to promote better understanding of how our water cycle works in the 21st century. These new diagrams show human interference in nearly all parts of the cycle.
The study, published in Nature Geosciences, with an additional comment in Nature, was carried out by a large team of experts from Brigham Young University and Michigan State University in the US and the University of Birmingham in the UK, along with partners in the US, France, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden.
It showed that, in a sample of more than 450 water cycle diagrams in textbooks, scientific literature and online, 85 per cent showed no human interaction at all with the water cycle, and only 2 per cent of the images made any attempt to connect the cycle with climate change or water pollution.
Read more at: University of Birmingham
Consequences of human interference in the water cycle. (Credit: University of Birmingham)
