The warning is pretty stark.
“Unless we figure out what to do about reduced (water) supply and increased demand, I don’t think there’s any way to support Atlanta’s growth,” says Aris Georgakakos, director of the Georgia Water Resources Institute at Georgia Tech. “There’s no way.”
Georgakakos has studied Georgia’s water resources for 30 years, and over that time has seen significant changes. Between 1960 and 2009, he says, the amount of water flowing through the Appalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin, which provides most of the water for metro Atlanta, has fallen by more than 20 percent.
And the culprit is climate change.
“The Southeast is getting drier, that’s for sure,” Georgakakos says. “There will be more intensive droughts, more long-term droughts. It has very serious implications, because the flow in the rivers is going to decline and we’ve already seen a decline in all the river basins in Georgia.”
Georgakakos was a lead author of the water-resources chapter in the recently released National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated study of the current and projected impact of climate change on the United States. He is also involved in water issues in the Middle East, Africa, China and Europe. And he expresses little doubt that the changes documented here and around the globe are being driven by mankind.
“Change is happening,” he says. “Ask yourself questions: Why do you think the insurance companies left Miami? You think because they’re crazy people? They’re leaving Miami because the sea is rising.”
“Without the effect of carbon and other emissions, you cannot explain how the climate is changing at a high rate like this, a rate that has not been historically documented before,” he says. “The natural phenomenon of solar change and volcanic eruptions — the stuff that actually affect the climate — cannot explain the climate changes of the last 50 years.”
However, given the scale of change that he sees looming, Georgakakos also advocates setting aside the politically sticky issue of causality to concentrate on preparation and adaptation. For example, if climate change continues on its current path, flow in the ACF river basin is projected to drop by another 20 percent over the next 50 years. Part of that decline will be due to increased withdrawals, but climate change will have by far the bigger impact.
“The problem is that if you wait two or three decades to do something, it is too late. The 50 years that we’re talking about are now. The time to do something is now. The adaptation and mitigation have to begin now so we can reduce these kinds of impacts.”
“I wish I could get the water agencies and the state of Georgia to start looking at climate as part of the planning process,” he says, a tone of urgency rising in his voice. “Other states are far ahead of us. Florida, New York, California are far ahead of us, because they are already seeing its effects.”
“I just don’t know how this is going to work out with these folks in the end,” he says, his tone shifting from the urgent to the wistful.
A more in-depth version of this column can be found at Jay Bookman’s blog at http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman
