Climate Change and Water Planning: New Challenges on Islands Environments

Abstract

Climate change has become a hot topic both in the scientific community and the population in general. Despite the climate pattern has been changing continuously during the Earth's history due to changes in the atmosphere, topography, volcanic activity, and other natural factors, this change seems to have been exacerbated recently due to the alteration of the greenhouse gases content in the atmosphere by the humanity. It is easy to understand why the water cycle is one of the most environmental drivers affected by climate change. Global warming, leaded last century by the climate change, has involved alterations in the temperature, precipitation and evaporation patters. From the point of view of the water resources, these changes include an increase in the freshwater losses from terrestrial sources (glaciers, ice and snow, lakes, soil moisture, swamps, groundwater, marches and rivers) by evaporation and sublimation from fresh water deposits and transpiration from the vegetation, but also change in the rainfall quantity and patterns. As a result, climate change has leaded short- and long-term alterations in the frequency of extreme water-related events such as floods of droughts, which directly impact, on the quantity but also water resources quality, especially in islands environments.