The snow melts, unsafe water for two billion people – International Business Times Italy

The snowmelt triggered by global warming could threaten water supplies for about 2 billion people who live in the northern hemisphere: this is the alarm raised by a study conducted by scientists of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York and published on Environmental Research Letters.

“The snow is important because it forms its specific reservation,” says Justin Mankin , first author of the study. “But the consequences of a reduced amount of snow are not the same for all places: depend on where and when people require water. In many places, those who manage water may need to prepare for a world in which reserves of snow no longer exist . “

The scientists involved in the research have identified a number of river basins in the Northern Hemisphere that currently serve about two billion people and they will mainly depend on snow for their supply. These basins are located in North America, Southern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Normally, the snow settles on the great mountain ranges melts gradually from spring and Throughout the summer, that is when the demand for water “downstream” is at its highest. However, the researchers said global warming has led to a new scenario that has changed this mechanism: in many areas the rainfall now present themselves as rain , while snow falls in smaller amount, at higher elevations and melts earlier than it did in the past.

Among the basins at greatest risk due to low snow include the Shatt al-Arab, Iraq-Syria the basins in central and northern California, the Ebro-Duero (which supplies water to large areas of Portugal and Spain and southern France), the basin in Morocco, as well as a number of areas in eastern Italy , the southern Balkans, various nations of the Caucasus and northern Turkey.

In these cases, according to the study, there is a risk of 67% of water scarcity by 2060 ; however, the researchers assessed the situation considering the constant demand for water in the coming decades, that eventuality is considered highly unlikely because of population growth and migration.

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