Hot and dry conditions coupled with increasing population will reduce the amount of water available for human, agricultural and ecological uses along the Nile River, according to a study from Dartmouth College.
Hot and dry conditions coupled with increasing population will reduce the amount of water available for human, agricultural and ecological uses along the Nile River, according to a study from Dartmouth College. The study, published in the AGU journal Earth’s Future, shows that water scarcity is expected to worsen in coming decades even as climate models suggest more precipitation around the river’s source in the Upper Nile Basin.
An increase in the frequency of hot and dry years could impact the water and food supplies for as many as 250 million people in the Upper Nile region alone toward the end of the century.
“Climate extremes impact people,” said Ethan Coffel, a fellow at Dartmouth’s Neukom Institute for Computational Science and lead author of the study. “This study doesn’t only look at high-level changes in temperature or rainfall, it explains how those conditions will change life for real people.”
Read more at: Dartmouth College
An increase in precipitation in coming decades is counteracted by more hot and dry weather brought on by changes in the climate. On average, the result is a dramatic rise in unmet water demands for people in the region that rely on the Nile River. (Photo Credit: Richard Clark/Dartmouth College. Nile River map is credit: Jacques Descloitres, NASA/GSFC)
