Thursday, April 12, 2012

Latin America must improve water management in face of climate change

Water World via Business News Americas: Latin America is in need of better water management to cope with the new global climate reality, as well as an improved legal framework to guarantee water access for agriculture, according to Benjamin Kiersch, natural resources and land tenure officer at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

"Water management is a necessity that can be generalized to all countries in the region, to be able to cope with droughts in the future, [but] also the legal framework, to guarantee access to different users such as agriculture," Kiersch told BNamericas.

While Latin America has the highest annual rainfall and the greatest freshwater reserves the world, climate change is still a cause for concern in all countries, and recommendations must be made on a case-by-case basis.

"Latin America is very well endowed when it comes to water resources. However, we have large regional differences, and with more extreme climatic events, it puts additional pressure on governments to better regulate the allocation of resources," the official said....

A reservoir in Peru, shot by Elbuenminero (I think), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

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