7 COUNTRIES BATTLING WATER ISSUES, AS SEEN FROM SPACE

7 countries battling water issues
By Mother Nature Network, 31 August 2012.

From melting glaciers to rising sea levels

If you were to understand our planet only from the images that NASA and other space agencies snap from above, you might think we were a bucolic, peaceful species at home with our environment. But the planet has plenty of eco-problems - especially with water. Across the globe, permafrost and glaciers are melting, while sea levels are rising.

Here are seven images of countries from space and the water concern that each nation faces.(Text: Katherine Butler)

1. The Maldives: Endangered ocean jewels

The Maldives, an island nation located in the northern Indian Ocean southwest of India, is a string of small coral islands with an average elevation of about one meter above sea level. For this reason, National Geographic and others call the nation “ground zero” for climate change.

In 2009, President Mohamed Nasheed and his ministers held an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight the concerns for this “sinking” nation. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if water to were to rise a mere seven inches, the Maldives would be “unliveable.”

2. Ireland's freshwater crisis

Irish eyes would smile over the green and blues of this true-colour satellite image taken by NASA Aqua MODIS instrument on Aug. 7, 2003. One of the biggest issues facing this island nation is a struggle to maintain a clean supply of freshwater. The country is known worldwide for its green rolling hills made possible by abundant rainfall.

But it’s because of this rainfall that waterways are often polluted from insufficient wastewater treatment, as well as nitrogen and phosphorus-rich runoff from farms. National Geographic reports that officials are taking action in Ireland, including installing wireless pollution detectors in some rivers.

3. Glacier melt in New Zealand

The country known for its pastoral landscapes is not exempt from environmental degradation. Experts note that the Tasman Glacier on the South Island is currently in fast retreat. Dr. Martin Brook, a lecturer in physical geography at Massey University, says “It’s just too warm for a glacier to be sustained at such a low altitude, 730 meters above sea level. So it melts rapidly and it is going to disappear altogether.”

The glacier is forming a lake around itself, one which did not exist as recently as 1973, Brook said.

This image of New Zealand was taken on March 30, 2011, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite.

4. The Netherlands' rising sea

The red shades in this photo represent the more densely vegetated areas. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency is dedicated to addressing the country’s environmental difficulties, which include assessing the risks this sea-level nation faces against rising sea level due to climate change.

As the Agency writes, “the second half of the century may see serious problems arising from climate change, in particular in the low-lying areas of the country.” This false-colour image of the waterways of The Netherlands was taken on May 24, 2002, by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.

5. Chile’s retreating glaciers

On May 2, 2000, this false-colour image of a Patagonian glacier was taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). Vegetation is signified by red in this photo. A recent study of the ice fields in Patagonia reveals that ice fields are retreating because of climate change - but not entirely because of warming temperatures.

Sébastien Bertrand of Renard Centre of Marine Geology, Ghent University in Belgium led a study of the glaciers. As he told Science Daily, the retreat also “seems to be driven by a decrease in winter precipitation, snow, rather than by an increase in temperature.” Experts expect this revelation to improve scientific understand of how climate change is impacting these glaciers.

6. Greenland's ice sheet elevation

Information from NASA’s ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite) was used to illustrate the change in elevation on Greenland’s ice sheet between 2003 and 2006. As NASA describes the image, “white regions indicate a slight thickening, while the blue shades indicate a thinning of the ice sheet. Grey indicates areas where no change in elevation was measured.”

Experts note that the Greenland ice sheet is particularly imperilled. Science Daily reports on a recent study which shows that the Greenland ice sheet might completely disappear in the next two thousand years if there is just 1.6 degrees of global warming. Compared to other melts in our planet’s history, this is extremely fast.

7. The melting permafrost of Siberia, Russia

Pictured here is satellite image taken on June 15, 2005, of Chaunskaya Bay (noted as the blue half circle) in northeastern Siberia, as the Chaun and Palyavaam rivers flow into it. The waters ultimately empty into the Arctic Ocean.

Siberia is home to permafrost containing 1.5 trillion tons of carbon. As expert Sergey Zimov told the Huffington Post, “Here, total carbon storage is like all the rain forests of our planet put together.”

This is of concern to scientists, who note that the permafrost has started melting at a rapid pace in the past few decades. The faster it melts, the faster this carbon enters the atmosphere.

[Source: Mother Nature Network. Edited. Top image added.]