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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Water
Sec. Water and Climate
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frwa.2024.1501483
This article is part of the Research Topic Advances in Socio-hydrology for Building Resilience to a Changing Climate View all articles

Water is the Vessel Through Which We Ride the Waves of Changing Climates

Provisionally accepted
Karl Zimmermann Karl Zimmermann 1*Camila Sancho Camila Sancho 1Varshaa Kumaran Varshaa Kumaran 2Sifat Kalam Sifat Kalam 2
  • 1 Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, School of Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  • 2 Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Acting through water, climate change may affect livelihoods, societal structures, and political conflicts, hindering progress towards poverty reduction. Expanding on themes from the WEST Water Conference, this perspective paper considers how water insecurity from changing climates has unequal impacts within societies, water and gender roles, changing livelihoods, and shifting cultural norms. Opportunities are shared to build resilience into our future water systems. First, technologies are considered for tracking water availability, quality, and usage. Second, collaborating with nature to manage water builds into the idea of blue-green cities. And third, the route to community participation in managing resilient water systems is with an empowered population, made possible through a three-step process of Awareness, Education, and Resources.

    Keywords: Water Insecurity, Public Health, Climate Change, Environmental Policy, Social Participation, Drinking Water, Sanitation

    Received: 25 Sep 2024; Accepted: 28 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zimmermann, Sancho, Kumaran and Kalam. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Karl Zimmermann, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, School of Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z3, British Columbia, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.