Water Conservation in the Era of Global Climate Change - Chapter 5 - An overview of the potential impacts of global climate change on water resources

The ongoing years have brought an increase in worldwide average air and ocean temperatures, as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Water resources are essential to support biodiversity and provide social and economic benefits to humans. The increase in temperature is viewed as a certain proof of environmental alteration, and this has started leading to significant ramifications for water resources and will have substantially increasing critical results later on. Compounding these consequences is increasing demands for water and energy, changing economic activities, increasing industrial activities, and increased pollution. All these will apparently affect water resources. More scientific understanding is hence required to address the physical, chemical, biological, and socioeconomic impacts of present and expected scenario of global climate change on the nature of the world’s freshwater resources. This chapter briefly discusses climate change and its causes and effects on water resources and implications for adaptation.