VALENTON, Jan Cesar D.

ENV021 – B16

The world is getting wetter, yet water may become less available for North America and
Eurasia
Plants will demand more water in the future making less water available for people
Date:
November 4, 2019
Summary:
With climate change, plants of the future will consume more water than in the present day,
leading to less water available for people living in North America and Eurasia, according to a
new study. The research suggests a drier future despite anticipated precipitation increases for
places like the United States and Europe, populous regions already facing water stresses.

It was observed in the study that there will be an expectation regarding the climate science
that plants will make the world wetter in the future. However, it would be hard to have/ unavailable
water in the living area of North America and some parts of Europe and Asia due to the
overpopulation over consumption and the climate change itself. There would be so many
consequences to face if this matter will not be stopped and nurse at the right time which is now.
One of the major consequences based on the article would be of course water shortage which is
very hard and dangerous to face. Another thing is that has this domino effect if there will be a
water scarcity, it would affect the following: health, hunger, education, poverty and such.
In accordance to that, scientists have long thought that as carbon dioxide concentrations
increase in the atmosphere, plants will reduce their water consumption, leaving more freshwater
available in our soils and streams. This is because as more carbon dioxide accumulates in our
atmosphere plants can photosynthesize the same amount while partly closing the pores (stomata)
on their leaves. Closed stomata mean less plant water loss to the atmosphere, increasing water
in the land. The new findings reveal that this story of plants making the land wetter is limited to
the tropics and the extremely high latitudes, where freshwater availability is already high and
competing demands on it are low. For much of the mid-latitudes, the study finds, projected plant
responses to climate change will not make the land wetter but drier, which has massive
implications for millions of people. Using climate models, the study examines how freshwater
availability may be affected by projected changes in the way precipitation is divided among plants,
rivers and soils. From the article, for the study, the research team used a novel accounting of this
precipitation partitioning, developed earlier by Mankin and colleagues to calculate the future runoff
loss to future vegetation in a warmer, carbon dioxide-enriched climate.
People need to be more realistic from life and from everything from now on. It is a very
serious problem to face. As per the article, it would be great if people not just from the affected
are but for as the whole world that they need to be untied for these changes and for this climate
change.
Source:
Dartmouth College. "The world is getting wetter, yet water may become less available for North
America and Eurasia: Plants will demand more water in the future making less water available for
people." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 4 November 2019.
<www.sciencedaily.com/reoleases/2019/11/191104112828.htm>.