Impacts of Climate Change on Global Freshwater Quality and Availability: A Comprehensive Review

抄録

Climate change can disrupt the hydrological system and jeopardize the security of water resource management. Several issues influence the hydrological system, such as groundwater overexploitation, water table depletion, crop diversity, land-use patterns, and saltwater intrusion. The review considered over 400 related pieces of published literature to extract expressive information to understand the present scenarios of possible climate change impacts on water resources. The result showed that temperature rises and high-intensity rainfall events mobilize pollutants like nutrients and sediments into the freshwater, particularly the surface water. It also showed that water quality parameters like electrical conductivity, suspended solids, nitrate, sulfate, ammonium, magnesium, calcium, water acidity, organic carbons, pathogens, and micropollutants are steadily rising with climate change, especially in worldwide inland water bodies. Instead, reducing water flows will enhance residence time in upland rivers and lakes, which creates conditions for harmful algal blooms that decrease saturated oxygen levels. The probable impacts of climate change on sustainable water management have received much attention, but there is relatively little understanding of the concurrent changes in both surface and groundwater chemistry. Along with planning and management aspects, the study findings will help inform measures to improve water quality, health risk assessment, remediation, and adaptation actions.