The system that moves #water around the #Earth is off balance for the first time in human history

The #WaterCycle refers to the complex system by which water moves around the Earth.

By Laura Paddison, CNN
Published Oct 17, 2024

"Humanity has thrown the global water cycle off balance 'for the first time in human history,' fueling a growing water disaster that will wreak havoc on economies, #FoodProduction and lives, according to a landmark new report.

"Decades of destructive #LandUse and #WaterMismanagement have collided with the human-caused #ClimateCrisis to put 'unprecedented stress' on the global water cycle, said the report published Wednesday by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, a group of international leaders and experts.

"The water cycle refers to the complex system by which water moves around the Earth. Water evaporates from the ground — including from lakes, rivers and plants — and rises into the atmosphere, forming large rivers of water vapor able to travel long distances, before cooling, condensing and eventually falling back to the ground as rain or snow.

"Disruptions to the water cycle are already causing suffering. Nearly 3 billion people face #WaterScarcity. #Crops are shriveling and cities are sinking as the groundwater beneath them dries out.

"The consequences will be even more catastrophic without urgent action. The water crisis threatens more than 50% of global food production and risks shaving an average of 8% off countries’ GDPs by 2050, with much higher losses of up to 15% projected in low-income countries, the report found.

'“For the first time in human history, we are pushing the global water cycle out of balance,' said Johan Rockström, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water and a report author. '#Precipitation, the source of all #freshwater, can no longer be relied upon.'

"The report differentiates between '#BlueWater,' the liquid water in #lakes, #rivers and #aquifers, and '#GreenWater,' the moisture stored in #soils and #plants.

"While the supply of green water has long been overlooked, it is just as important to the water cycle, the report says, as it returns to the atmosphere when plants release water vapor, generating about half of all rainfall over land.

"Disruptions to the water cycle are 'deeply intertwined' with climate change, the report found.

"A stable supply of green water is vital for supporting vegetation that can store planet-heating #carbon. But the damage humans inflict, including destroying #wetlands and tearing down #forests, is depleting these carbon sinks and accelerating #GlobalWarming. In turn, climate change-fueled heat is drying out landscapes, reducing moisture and increasing [#wildfire] risk.

"The crisis is made more urgent by the huge need for water. The report calculates that, on average, people need a minimum of about 4,000 liters (just over 1,000 gallons) a day to lead a 'dignified life,' far above the 50 to 100 liters the United Nations says is needed for basic needs, and more than most regions will be able to provide from local sources.

"Richard Allan, a climate science professor at Reading University, England, said the report 'paints a grim picture of human-caused disruption to the global water cycle, the most precious natural resource that ultimately sustains our livelihoods.'

"Human activities 'are altering the fabric of our land and the air above which is warming the climate, intensifying both wet and dry extremes, and sending wind and rainfall patterns out of kilter,' added Allan, who was not involved in the report.

"The crisis can only be addressed through better management of natural resources and massive cuts in planet-heating pollution, he told CNN.
"The report’s authors say world governments must recognize the water cycle as a '#CommonGood' and address it collectively. Countries are dependent on each other, not only through lakes and rivers that span borders, but also because of water in the atmosphere, which can travel huge distances — meaning decisions made in one country can disrupt rainfall in another.

"The report calls for a 'fundamental regearing of where water sits in economies,' including better pricing to discourage wastefulness and the tendency to plant water-thirsty crops and facilities, such as #DataCenters, in water-stressed regions."

Read more:
https://www.accuweather.com/en/climate/the-system-that-moves-water-around-the-earth-is-off-balance-for-the-first-time-in-human-history/1704688

#AmazonForests poisoned by #mercury from #GoldMining

Study finds unprecedented levels of #MercuryPollution

January 28, 2022
by Cheryl Walker

"Wake Forest faculty in the University’s Center for Energy, Environment and Sustainability, and its Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation (CINCIA) are part of an international team of researchers who have discovered that gold mining in the Amazon rainforest is causing exceptionally high levels of mercury pollution in the old-growth rainforest near the mining sites.

"The total mercury concentrations in a forested area in #Peru’s #LosAmigosConservationConcession were the highest ever recorded.

"The study, 'Amazon Forests Capture High Levels of Atmospheric Mercury Pollution From #ArtisanalGoldMining,' appears Jan. 28 in the journal Nature Communications. The research team was led by Jacqueline R. Gerson, as a Ph.D. student at Duke University.

“What this study found was that the wildest forests left on earth are capturing mercury released by artisanal mining, and at superfund-site levels,” said Miles Silman, Andrew Sabin Presidential Chair of Conservation Biology and Director of Wake Forest’s Center for Energy, Environment and Sustainability. 'The wildlife and humans that live within these wild forests are poisoned as well, with effects that we are just beginning to understand.'

"''This study reveals, for the first time, the mechanism of how mercury released into the air by gold mining contaminates #TropicalForests and forest #soils,' Fernandez said. “This atmospheric mercury, which is either deposited on to leaves or absorbed by leaves, eventually falls to the ground and gets incorporated into forest soils.'

"The region of #MadreDeDios is considered a global #biodiversity hotspot, but in recent decades has suffered an unprecedented #GoldRush. mining is doing irreversible damage to one of the world’s largest remaining pieces of #TropicalRainforest and threatening its survival. In the Madre de Dios region of Peru, east of the Andes Mountains, nearly 250,000 acres of rainforest, roughly the size of Dallas, Texas, have been razed and transformed into somewhere that looks like a desert pockmarked by tens of thousands of mercury contaminated mining ponds by illegal #GoldMining.

"Gold miners use toxic mercury to pull flakes of gold out of the river sediment. Then, they separate the gold from the mercury using open fire ovens. The heat melts the gold and turns the mercury to a toxic vapor.

"'People had a lot of ideas about where mercury might be going in these tropical landscapes, and they turned out to be wrong,' Silman said. 'The paper shows that mercury isn’t staying in the mining zone, but rather that trees are scrubbing mercury from the air and transferring it into forest #ecosystems, and into forest wildlife and peoples, where it moves up the food chain with unknown effects.'

"The study also reveals how these contaminated soils serve as a repository for this deposited mercury, preventing. or at least slowing, its transfer into rivers and lakes where it is transformed into a more toxic form of mercury, #Methylmercury, and contaminate aquatic food webs."

https://news.wfu.edu/2022/01/28/amazon-forests-poisoned-by-mercury-from-gold-mining/

#WaterIsLife #GoldMine
#GoldMining #Cyanide