New WWA publication finds worst watershed stresses may now become the new normal

WWA's Kristen Averyt and James Meldrum, along with co-authors from USDA, Tufts University and the Union of Concerned Scientists, recently completed an analysis of surface water in the United States. Their paper, published in Environmental Research Letters, evaluated supplies and demands on freshwater resources for each of the 2,103 watersheds in the continental United States, using a large suite of existing data sets. They identified times of extreme water stress between 1999 and 2007, and they estimated future surface water stress—using existing climate projections—for every watershed. In the paper, Averyt et al. also diagnosed the reasons contributing to stress.