Climate change threatens water supplies

SAN DIEGO, June 17 (UPI) -- Speakers at a water utilities convention in San Diego, Calif., say it's getting more difficult to manage water supplies amid global warming.

Bradley Udall, director of the University of Colorado's Western Water Assessment and author of a global warming report issued Tuesday by the Obama administration, told the American Water Works Association's annual conference the United States has entered a new era of water scarcity, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

"Everywhere you look, you have some kind of water problem," Udall said. "I don't think (the public) gets the idea that we are in a new era of limits with many natural resources, water being only one. We are going to learn what a gallon means."

The climate change assessment, researched by members of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, placed water supply issues at the top of the list because every region of the country faces major threats to their supplies, be it from population growth or aging pipes, the Union-Tribune said.

"We are on a road to far more serious impacts from climate change with far less preparation and management than we should be and could be doing," Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute said.