You are here : Home » EcoNews » Eco Worldwide » Stressors threaten rivers serving 80% of population

Stressors threaten rivers serving 80% of population

1 Comment
Posted on October 8, 2010 by ecoadmin 

World’s river habitats and biodiversity are endangered

CUNY

Multiple environmental stressors threaten the rivers that serve 80% of the world’s population, around 5bn people according to an international group of researchers led by Prof Charles Vörösmarty from The City College (CCNY) of The City University of New York (CUNY) and Dr Peter McIntyre from the University of Wisconsin.

These same stressors endanger the biodiversity of 65% of the world’s river habitats and put at risk the survival of thousands of aquatic wildlife species.

These findings, reported in “Nature,” come from the first global-scale initiative to quantify the impact of these stressors on humans and riverine biodiversity through maps generated by a computer-based framework developed by these researchers.

“We can no longer look at human water security and biodiversity threats independently,” said the corresponding author, Prof. Charles Vörösmarty, director of the CUNY CrossRoads Initiative and professor of civil engineering in The Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York.

“We need to link the two. The systematic framework we’ve created allows us to look at the human and biodiversity domains on an equal playing field.”

The framework, which incorporates and analyses the effects of multiple threats to water quality and supply, offers a tool for prioritising policy and management responses to a global water crisis that is expressed as a multitude of local-scale problems. The study team found that many stressors threaten human water security and biodiversity through similar pathways, but also influence water systems in distinct ways.

For example, reservoirs convey few negative effects on human water supply but they significantly challenge aquatic biodiversity by impeding migration routes and changing water flow regimes needed by riverine species.

Understanding and responding to the myriad threats to water security requires new methods to make diagnoses and to act on these findings. “As is the case with preventive medicine, our study demonstrates that diagnosing and then limiting threats at their local source, rather than through costly remedies and rehabilitation, is a more effective and sensible approach to assure global water security for both humans and aquatic biodiversity, ” notes Vörösmarty.

“We’ve integrated maps of 23 different stressors and merged them into a single index,” said study co-leader Dr Peter McIntyre, Assistant Professor of zoology, University of Wisconsin. “In the past, policymakers and researchers have been plagued by dealing with one problem at a time. A richer and more meaningful picture emerges when all threats are considered simultaneously.”

Similarly high incident threat levels to human water security were found in both developed and developing nations around the world. Affected areas include much of the United States, virtually all of Europe and large portions of Central Asia, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and eastern China.

More information: www.cuny.edu

Rating 3.00 out of 5

This entry was posted in Eco Worldwide, EcoNews and tagged , , , ,


One Response to “Stressors threaten rivers serving 80% of population”

  1. ecoadmin says:

    October 8th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
     

    The CUNY Crossroads Initiative is a core component of the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC), which facilitates high-end research by CUNY faculty in five key and emerging scientific disciplines. It will be based in a 200,000 square-foot facility now under construction on CCNY’s South Campus.

Reply