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Climate change may be contributing to this depletion, although it is difficult to definitively link the drop in freshwater to global warming, as there are uncertainties in climate projections.
Freshwater lakes such as the Aral Sea in central Asia have also suffered. It was once the fourth largest freshwater lake in the world. But it has lost more than 58,000 square km of area and vastly increased in salt concentration over the span of three decades. [10] Subsidence is another result of water scarcity.
It supports understanding the freshwater situation across the world's river basins during the 20th and the 21st centuries, and is applied to assess water scarcity, droughts and floods and to quantify the impact of human actions on e.g. groundwater, wetlands, streamflow and sea-level rise.
Loss of freshwater biodiversity and depletion of groundwater are examples of negative environmental outcomes. [32] [33] Equity or social outcomes: Inclusive services so that consumers, industry and agriculture can access safe, reliable, sufficient and affordable water. These also mean they can dispose of wastewater safely.
Overdrafting in coastal regions can lead to the reduction of water pressure in an aquifer, allowing saltwater intrusion. If saltwater contaminates a freshwater aquifer, that aquifer can no longer be used as a reliable source of freshwater for settlements and cities. Artificial recharge may return fresh water pressure to halt saltwater intrusion.
Freshwater constitutes only 3% of all water on Earth, and of that, slightly over two thirds is stored frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. [27] The remaining unfrozen freshwater is mainly found as groundwater, with only a small fraction present in the air, or on the ground surface. [28]
The region is site of the once-massive Tulare Lake, which was the largest freshwater lake in the western United States before farming diverted its waters and the area was developed for agriculture.
Water treatment technologies can convert non-freshwater to freshwater by removing pollutants. [41] Much of water's physical pollution includes organisms, metals, acids, sediment, chemicals, waste, and nutrients. Water can be treated and purified into freshwater with limited or no constituents through certain processes. [7]