Global insights into water resources, climate change and governance

R. Quentin Grafton*, Jamie Pittock, Richard Davis, John Williams, Guobin Fu, Michele Warburton, Bradley Udall, Ronnie Mckenzie, Xiubo Yu, Nhu Che, Daniel Connell, Qiang Jiang, Tom Kompas, Amanda Lynch, Richard Norris, Hugh Possingham, John Quiggin

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

    283 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The threats of climate change and the trade-offs between extractions and flows are examined for the Colorado, the Murray, the Orange and the Yellow Rivers. In all four basins, and over a long period of time, outflows have greatly reduced as a direct result of increased water extractions. Although climate change will aggravate hydrological impacts on river systems, currently high levels of water extractions remain the principal contributor to reduced system flows. Changes in governance, including sharing the variability between the environment and consumers, are urgently required if the health of these rivers is to be maintained.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)315-321
    Number of pages7
    JournalNature Climate Change
    Volume3
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Apr 2013

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