Managing the impacts of climate change on water governance

摘要

The sustainable governance of water resources in times of global change is one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century. Although globally, freshwater resources are not yet scarce, their unequal distribution at different scales can provide multiple sources of tension. In addition, global warming and related climatic changes are likely to considerably affect the amount, timing, and frequency of precipitations, and hence the hydrological cycle, thus impinging on the quantity and quality of water sources and evidently impacting on economic growth, land use, and urbanization.