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NASA Reveals Shocking Human Impact on Earth’s Water Cycle Scitech By Erica McNamee, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center February 1, 2025 NASA scientists have uncovered significant changes in the global water cycle over the past two decades, largely driven by human activities such as agriculture. Their findings reveal that common water management assumptions may no longer hold true in certain regions, which could have profound consequences for drought planning and flood management.
Global Water Cycle Undergoing Major Shifts......NASA scientists have analyzed nearly 20 years of data and found that the global water cycle is changing in ways never seen before. These changes, largely driven by human activities such as agriculture, could significantly affect ecosystems and how water resources are managed, particularly in certain regions. “We established with data assimilation that human intervention in the global water cycle is more significant than we thought,” said Sujay Kumar, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and co-author of the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Impacts on Water Management Strategies.......These changes have worldwide implications. Many current water management strategies — such as building flood-resistant infrastructure or developing drought warning systems — are based on the assumption that the water cycle remains within predictable limits, explained Wanshu Nie, lead author of the study and a research scientist at NASA Goddard. “This may no longer hold true for some regions,” Nie noted. “We hope that this research will serve as a guide map for improving how we assess water resources variability and plan for sustainable resource management, especially in areas where these changes are most significant.” One example of the human impacts on the water cycle is in North China, which is experiencing an ongoing drought. But vegetation in many areas continues to thrive, partially because producers continue to irrigate their land by pumping more water from groundwater storage, Kumar said. Such interrelated human interventions often lead to complex effects on other water cycle variables, such as evapotranspiration and runoff.
Three Key Types of Water Cycle Changes.......Nie and her colleagues focused on three different kinds of shifts or changes in the cycle: first, a trend, such as a decrease in water in a groundwater reservoir; second, a shift in seasonality, like the typical growing season starting earlier in the year, or an earlier snowmelt; and third a change in extreme events, like “100-year floods” happening more frequently......read on https://scitechdaily.com/
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What our study involved......Our study used data from a Western Sydney University experiment known as “Eucalyptus Free Air CO₂ Enrichment”, or EucFACE. The experiment is located in a century-old Cumberland plain woodland in Sydney’s Hawkesbury district.CO₂ is released into the woodland through a computer‐controlled system. Scientists then monitor the effects on trees, soils and the broader ecosystem. Over six years, CO₂ was raised to the levels expected around the year 2050 (according to the current business-as-usual emissions trajectory).
Our previous studies found the woodland trees did not show any extra growth at high CO₂ levels. We suspected the low availability of soil phosphorus was the cause, and set out to test this. Phosphorus is crucial to the process of photosynthesis that makes trees grow. Phosphorus in soil is provided by bugs known as microbes. These micro-organisms break down dead and decaying matter, and in the process change phosphorus into a form that plants can take up with their roots. Most Australian soils are naturally low in phosphorus, because they are derived from ancient, nutrient-depleted rocks. The same is true for most soils in tropical and subtropical regions. That makes the phosphorus service provided by microbes even more important.,,,,,read on https://theconversation.com/
Soil isn’t dirt: it’s the foundation of life and needs real care. The Observer Healthy soil is critical for life on earth. It can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, food and nutrition security. It is central to achieving sustainable development goals. It is the foundation of life on land. It provides many ecosystem services and helps achieve ecosystem restoration.
The biggest challenge when it comes to soil is getting people to stop treating soil like dirt and start treating it with the respect it deserves. And this comes from soil stewardship, really caring for the land. But to do that, it’s important to understand the soil ecosystem that needs restoring. Land degradation is a serious problem when it comes to soil. Degraded landscapes are more vulnerable to the stresses of droughts, floods and erratic rainfall. Education about good soil practices is key, and people like farmers who use the soil need the tools to practise good soil management. https://theconversation.com/soil-isnt-dirt-its-the-foundation-of-life-and-needs-real-care-173162 In today’s Podcast episode of Pasha, Leigh Ann Winowiecki, a soil systems scientist at the World Agroforestry, and Rattan Lal, a distinguished professor of soil science at Ohio State University, discuss why soil needs to be front and centre of global policies. https://worldagroforestry.org/blog/2021/12/06/podcast-soil-isnt-dirt
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Saudi Arabia is turning arid desert sand into lush blooming soil Earth.com Rodielon Putol Earth.com staff writer 12-10-2024 Amid a vast landscape of sun-scorched sand and earth, where deserts reign supreme and water remains scarce, lies a kingdom taking bold strides towards a greener future. This is Saudi Arabia, a nation synonymous with boundless deserts and rich oil reserves, that is now investing heavily in green technology to breathe life into its arid lands. Restoring degraded desert land......... The capital city, Riyadh, recently hosted the United Nations COP16 conference that focused on drought and desertification. This is Saudi Arabia, a nation synonymous with boundless deserts and rich oil reserves, that is now investing heavily in green technology to breathe life into its arid lands........Because this scenario is all too familiar in the Kingdom, its officials have committed to restoring an impressive 40 million hectares of degraded desert land. This audacious goal demonstrates Saudi Arabia’s movement towards environmental sustainability, but it remains intertwined with its history as a defender and producer of oil. The country’s green initiatives are discordantly set against its continued investment in fossil fuels, which raises the question of whether these green efforts hold sufficient climate solution merit. According to a 2023 report issued by PwC, Saudi Arabia contributes a staggering 75% of the Middle East’s investment in global climate technology startups. However, this green investment leans heavily towards energy, with a plan to inject $363 million into climate-friendly energy solutions.
Harnessing microorganisms: A solution in the sand. In a sprawling complex, nestled in the desert north of Jeddah, a promising new project is u nderway.The focus is on utilizing microorganisms to lessen the energy expense of treating wastewater. At the helm of this innovative endeavor is Peiying Hong, an environmental science an methane gas, which powers the facility while purifying wastewater. The end result is nutrient-rich water that can nurture life in a desert, supporting the production of livestock feed and combating desertification.
Turning desert sand into soil....... Access to a sustainable water source could be a game-changer for Saudi Arabia, a nation that grapples with severe water scarcity......read on https://www.earth.com/news/
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George Monbiot- Dry Run George Monbiot,Guardian 4th March 2024 The mega-droughts in Spain and the US are a portent of a gathering global water crisis. There’s a flaw in the plan. It’s not a small one: it is an Earth-sized hole in our calculations. To keep pace with the global demand for food, crop production needs to grow by at least 50% by 2050. In principle, if nothing else changes, this is feasible, thanks mostly to improvements in crop breeding and farming techniques. But everything else is going to change. Even if we set aside all other issues – heat impacts, soil degradation, epidemic plant diseases accelerated by the loss of genetic diversity – there is one which, without help from any other cause, could prevent the world’s people from being fed. Water. A paper published in 2017 estimated that to match crop production to expected demand, water use for irrigation would have to increase by 146% by the middle of this century. One minor problem. Water is already maxed out.
In general, the dry parts of the world are becoming drier, partly through reduced rainfall; partly through declining river flow as mountain ice and snow retreats; and partly through rising temperatures causing increased evaporation and increased transpiration by plants. Many of the world’s major growing regions are now threatened by “flash droughts”, in which hot and dry weather sucks moisture from the soil at frightening speed. Some places, such as the southwest of the US, now in its 24th year of drought, may have switched permanently to a drier state. Rivers fail to reach the sea, lakes and aquifers are shrinking, species living in freshwater are becoming extinct at roughly five times the rate of species that live on land and major cities are threatened by extreme water stress. Already, agriculture accounts for 90% of the world’s freshwater use. We have pumped so much out of the ground that we’ve changed the Earth’s spin. The water required to meet growing food demand simply does not exist.That 2017 paper should have sent everyone scrambling. But as usual, it was ignored by policymakers and the media. https://www.monbiot.com/2024/
More Articles …
- How Asia's 5,000-year-old Rice Terraces are Inspiring Modern Flood Control.
- George Monbiot- The Banks Collapsed in 2008 – and our Food System is about to do the Same.
- Devastation as World’s Biggest Wetland Burns: ‘those that Cannot Run don’t Stand a Chance’. Blackened Trees, Dead Animals and Scorched Earth
- SO VERY SAD- THE MOUNTAINS ARE MELTING!
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