Climate change is intensifying rainfall and floods, deepening droughts and shifting weather patterns across the globe and threatening terrestrial freshwater supplies and water quality, according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), released recently. These impacts are unequal, disproportionately affecting the most frontline populations in the United States.
“Climate change will manifest through profound changes to the movement, amounts and timing of water,” says CU Boulder’s Liz Payton, a water resources specialist in the CIRES-based Western Water Assessment, and lead author of the water chapter. “The water chapter offers a big-picture understanding of the magnitude of these changes and the challenges ahead.”Payton worked
