Dr. Marek Stastna, Department of Applied Mathematics
Climate variability, and in particular changes in hurricane activity, may have played a role in the decline of local city states during the late Classical Period of the Mayan civilization. Extreme weather events may have caused the mixing of sea water into subterranean freshwater resources.
Dr. Nandita Basu, Departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Civil and Environmental Engineering
News of eutrophication and harmful algal blooms has become commonplace each summer, from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Baltic Sea to China’s Lake Taihu. These blooms, which disrupt aquatic ecosystems and can in some cases produce toxins that pose a threat to drinking water quality, are a result of an overabundance of nutrients.
Dr. Susan Elliott, Department of Geography and Environmental Management
Women and children are spending countless hours fetching water for their households, and there remain approximately 663 million people in the world that still go without. Furthermore, 2.6 billion people continue to lack access to adequate sanitation, with almost one million people practicing open defecation.
Dr. Roy Brouwer, Department of Economics
Climate change has important consequences for the world’s freshwater resources, in particular their availability in time and space. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events resulting in floods and droughts are expected to increase. Practitioners and researchers are supplementing traditional climate change adaptation solutions with demand management policy tools and instruments, aiming to change human behaviour with respect to water use.
