Most of the time when we hear about climate change it is in connection with the droughts and water shortages that various countries and regions are experiencing, which is a major problem as humans cannot survive without water, but there is another side to climate change – flooding!
The other side of the climate change coin is an intensifying water cycle which is expected to reach dramatic increases of up to 20% by 2100. More rain means more flooding and everything that comes with that such as rising waters, rising sea levels, eroding coastlines, loss of farmland, businesses, and homes, disease and death.
Another side-effect will be the dramatic increase of nitrogen runoff which will mix with rivers and estuaries and will ultimately profoundly affect water systems, spurring algal blooms that will have devastating negative impacts on aquatic ecosystems, human health and the economy.
In a recent research project, Eva Sinha and colleagues analysed anticipated changes in precipitation according to 21 different climate models, each of which was run for three climate scenarios (varying from aggressive efforts to mitigate climate change to a “business-as-usual” scenario), and two time periods (near future, 2031-2060; and far-future, 2071-2100).
Models consistently estimate that nitrogen loading will increase as a whole under all three scenarios, for both time periods. Under a far-future “business-as-usual” scenario, the mean projected increase in nitrogen loading within the continental United States is 19%.
Research into rising sea levels and flooding shows that in areas where the water level does not significantly change with the tides and the height of the waves remains relatively consistent, sea level rise will turn more typical floods into extreme ones.
Predictions are that the worse effects will be felt in the tropics which currently only experience extreme floods once every 50 or so years; they could be hit by a 25-fold increase in the frequency of these devastating events in the near future.
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