Abstract
Global water demand has increased at more than twice the rate of human population. The impacts resulting from increased water demands are now surpassing the effects of climate change. Across several regions of the world, much of the observed surface water depletion and groundwater loss are driven by human water withdrawals. For instance, even though the contraction of the Lake Chad’s surface area was primarily caused by strong declines in precipitation, water withdrawals from the Lake for irrigation purposes exacerbated the effects of these declines, resulting in about 90% decline of the Lake’s surface area. Increasing human population comes with additional pressure on existing water resources, and if freshwater is considered a finite resource, the rise in human population could be a major problem to its availability, especially in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. This chapter identifies some of these challenges, including complex hydrological processes caused by human water management efforts. Additionally, this chapter discusses some large reservoir systems where the impacts of human activities like dam constructions and climate change have negatively affected surface water hydrology and its variability. Specific examples of anthropogenic influence like, development of water infrastructures, water diversion projects, and groundwater extraction on terrestrial hydrology and hydro-ecological systems are discussed.
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Ndehedehe, C. (2022). Anthropogenic Influence on Terrestrial Hydrology. In: Satellite Remote Sensing of Terrestrial Hydrology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99577-5_12
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