Managing Water for a Changing Planet

The Challenge:

Society faces multiple water quantity and quality challenges that threaten economic, resource, and ecosystem security. Adapting to these challenges includes:

• Building more water resilient communities and economies in the face of disturbances (e.g., drought, flood, and fire)

• Adapting management practices to handle water quantity and quality impacts (e.g., harmful algal blooms, groundwater salinization)

• Harnessing the soil and subsurface ability to hold and clean water to sustain food production while protecting water quality (e.g., fertilizer and pesticide runoff)

• Ensuring environmental justice in water resources issues (e.g., safe water for all)

Understanding and responding to water challenges requires an integrated-systems approach that acknowledges the complex and coupled interaction in the natural-human world. Knowledge coming from critical zone science, a field that embraces the diversity of research disciplines that examines how water moves, from the top of the canopy (e.g., trees, grass, crops) to the depths of groundwater, offers information on how Earth is responding to changes in climate, disturbance, and land cover. By pairing this research with the knowledge and needs of the public, private, and civic-sectors, we can co-develop adaptive, actionable solutions.