The Number One Victim of Climate Change is Water
/“The number one victim of Climate Change is water. Either there is too much or too little and at the wrong time”.
- Johan Rockström, “Water Matters”, Nobel Week Dialogue 2018
If climate can be likened to a person’s personality, then weather is their mood … And moodiness is the new norm. The UN confirms that “higher temperatures and more extreme, less predictable, weather conditions are projected to affect availability and distribution of rainfall, snow melt, river flows and groundwater, and further deteriorate water quality.”
Water is the bloodstream of our biosphere and without it, we cannot maintain a stable eco-system and with a rising demand and a dwindling supply, all eyes are on the agricultural sector, as, according to the OECD, it is the largest and most inefficient user of freshwater (70% of global extraction).
Where does viticulture fit into this picture?
- Only 3 percent of the world’s water is fresh, 75 percent of which is stored in glaciers
- Contemporary global water demand has been estimated at about 4600 km3 per year and projected to increase by 20%-30% to between 5,500 and 6,000 km3 per year by 2050 . (Burek et al 2016), (Almar Water Solutions)
- With the existing climate change scenario, by 2030, water scarcity in some arid and semi-arid places will displace between 24 million and 700 million people. (UNCCD)
- A third of the world’s biggest groundwater systems are already in distress. (Richey et al., 2015)
- Only about 15 percent of the world’s crops are irrigated, but this tiny group is responsible for 70 percent of the world’s blue water (freshwater) withdrawals”. (Waterwise 2007) (FAO)
- But global irrigated area has increased more than six fold over the last century, from approximately 40 million hectares in 1900 to more than 260 million hectares (Postel, 1999; FAO, 1999) and irrigated areas increase almost 1% per year (Jensen, 1993)
- 80% of the world’s vineyards are irrigated
