The Nations That Will Be Hardest Hit By Water Shortages By 2040

merbs writes: Water access is going to be one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century. As climate change dries out the already dry areas and makes the wet ones wetter, we're poised to see some radical civilizational shifts. For one, a number of densely populated areas will come under serious water stress—which analysts fear will lead to strife, thirst, and even violent conflict. With that in mind, the World Resource Institute has assembled a new report projecting which nations are most likely to be hardest hit by water stress in coming decades—nations like Bahrain, Israel, Palestine, and Spain lead the pack.

Comments

Re:That's messed up

[kenwd0elq]

Any major change in rain patterns will likely cause water shortages in SOME places and water surpluses in others.The desert Southwest of the United States was probably fertile and green 700 years ago; after all, the Anasazi had a civilization of SOME sort then, and there hasn't been any water around in the last few hundred. Everything goes in cycles; don't expect that every change will be a bad one.

Re:That's messed up

[MightyMartian]

And what if that rainfall change leads to greater rainfall on one side of a national border and far leads arable conditions on the other? Imagine of large swathes of the Midwest are rendered unsuitable for large scale agriculture, because rainbelts have moved into Canada. Suddenly the United States' food security is in a foreign country's hands.

There are serious geopolitical ramifications of male changes in rainfall patterns.