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--></style><title>The future of mountain water, circa
2002</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Verdana Bold" size="+1">Besieged mountain ecosystems
start to turn off the tap</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana Bold">Reduced water flow threatens
agriculture and food security around the globe</font></div>
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<div><font face="Verdana Bold">1st 4 paragraphs:</font></div>
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ROME</font><font face="Verdana">, 14 October 2002 -- The supply of
freshwater, recognized on this World Food Day as the source of food
security, is threatened by the increasing degradation of mountain
ecosystems.<br>
<br>
Mountains are often called nature's water towers. They intercept air
circulating around the globe and force it upwards where it condenses
into clouds, which provide rain and snow. All the major rivers in the
world - from the Rio Grande to the Nile - have their headwaters in
mountains.<br>
<br>
As a consequence, one of every two people drinks water that originates
in mountains. One billion Chinese, Indians and Bangladeshis, 250
million people in Africa, and the entire population of California,
United States, are among the 3 billion people who rely on the
continuous flow of mountain water. Each day, water from mountains
turns hydro-electric turbines, aids industrial processes, irrigates
farmers' fields and quenches thirst.</font><br>
<font face="Verdana"></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana">Yet, despite all who depend on it, the
future of mountain water has never been more uncertain. The magnitude
of this threat is one of the reasons the United Nations declared 2002
the International Year of Mountains.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Verdana"
color="#000000"
>http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/9881-en.html</font></div
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<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1"
color="#000000">--------------------------------- Other coupled
redistributions -----------------------------------------</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#1A1A1A"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">"The rate of
movement that occurs in response to changes in climate, whether fast
or slow, will shape the distribution of natural ecosystems in the
decades to come. .... We demonstrate that the
effectiveness of plant migration strongly influences carbon storage,
evapotranspiration, and the absorption of solar radiation by the land
surface. As a result, plant migration affects the magnitude, and in
some cases the sign, of feedbacks from the land surface to the climate
system."</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">PAUL A. T. HIGGINS
AND JOHN HARTE.</font><font face="Verdana Bold" size="-1"
color="#000000"> Biophysical and Biogeochemical Responses to Climate
Change Depend on Dispersal and Migration</font><font
face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">. BioScience May 2006 /
Vol. 56 No. 5 * © 2006 American Institute of Biological
Sciences.</font></div>
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