U.S. OFFICIAL'S REMARKS AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WATER COOPERATION

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
High-Level International Conference on Water Cooperation
Remarks
Daniel A. Reifsnyder
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs
Dushanbe, Tajikistan
August 21, 2013

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like others, we wish to thank President Rahmon and the Government and people of Tajikistan for their leadership on these important issues and for their warm hospitality.

The message of this conference should be simple: There is no alternative to cooperation on water.

We have heard repeatedly of the incredible challenges that nearly every one of us now faces and will continue to face. I don’t think there is one among us who does not appreciate – at a personal level – the importance of water. Our economies depend on it, our environment depends on it, and our lives depend on it. We know this is true for ourselves and for our neighbors.

As demands rise and supplies decline – as variability increases – there will be conflicts among competing uses and among competing users. There will be legitimate disputes over who has access, and over when and how water is used. There will also be less room for mistakes and a greater need to get the most value out of every drop.

This can be done. In the United States, we have more than 20 large river basins and more than 20,000 small watersheds. We share several rivers with our neighbors. The availability of water and the demand for water varies greatly across these basins, as do the interests of the public in how these resources should be managed.

We have a range of institutional arrangements that support joint research, data sharing and cooperative decision-making. We are working with Canada, jointly managing our shared river systems to optimize power production, protect the environment, and minimize the risks from floods. With Mexico, we recently put in place a provisional agreement that enables Mexico to store water.

I am pleased that this conference is so strongly focused on positive examples of cooperation. There seem to be common strands that run through each of these examples -- among them: (1) a thorough understanding of the problems each participant faces; (2) an appreciation of the concerns that arise from these problems; (3) a willingness to share data and information, which increases trust and confidence; (4) a willingness to work together in various arrangements and mechanisms to address shared problems jointly; and (5) a strong belief that cooperation produces better, more durable results.

I am also pleased to be here discussing some of the mechanisms that support cooperation on shared waters -- such as the Shared Waters Program (SWP) at the United Nations Development Program. The SWP is a multi-donor platform for establishing new, or strengthening existing, regional mechanisms for advancing cooperation on shared waters. Initial U.S. funding is currently supporting SWP activities in several basins. The focus of this initiative will be on laying the ground work -- for example, through meetings, workshops, legal/technical/facilitation expertise that establish a foundation -- for cooperative work between and among countries on shared waters. Once that ground work is laid, we expect that long-term capacity building and institutional reform will be supported through traditional bilateral and regional development assistance efforts. The SWP thus complements these development activities.

Mr. Chairman, in closing, let me say that there really is no choice. The history here is clear – without cooperation economic growth is slower and insecurity grows. Through cooperation, communities and countries can fully realize the multiple benefits of shared water resources, and work toward a more secure water future.

I thank you.

WATERSHEDS AFFECTED BY BARK BEETLES

 

Lodgepole Pines.  Credit:  Widimedia.

FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Ghosts of Forests Past: Bark Beetles Kill Lodgepole Pines, Affecting Entire Watersheds

In mountains across the Western United States, scientists are racing against time--against a tiny beetle--to save the last lodgepole pines.


Forests are bleeding out from the effects of the beetles, their conifers' needles turning crimson before the trees die.

Now, researchers are also hurrying to preserve the region's water quality, affected by the deaths of the pines.

"When these trees die," says hydrologist Reed Maxwell of the Colorado School of Mines, "the loss of the forest canopy affects hydrology and the cycling of essential nutrients."

Maxwell and other scientists recently published results of their study in the journal Biogeochemistry.

Co-authors, in addition to Maxwell, are Kristin Mikkelson, Lindsay Bearup, John McCray and Jonathan Sharp of the Colorado School of Mines, and John Stednick of Colorado State University. Mikkelson is the paper's first author.


Bark beetle numbers: heating up
"The mountain pine beetle outbreak in Western states has reached epidemic proportions," says Maxwell.

Bark beetles, as they're known, are native to the United States. They're so-named as the beetles reproduce in the inner bark of trees. Some species, such as the mountain pine beetle, attack and kill live trees. Others live in dead, weakened or dying hosts.

Massive outbreaks of mountain pine beetles in western North America since the mid-2000s have felled millions of acres of forests from New Mexico to British Columbia, threatening increases in mudslides and wildfires.

Climate change could be to blame. The beetles' numbers were once kept in check by cold winter temperatures and trees that had plenty of water to use as a defense.

But winters have become warmer, and droughts have left trees water-stressed and less able to withstand an onslaught of winged invaders.

"A small change in temperature leads to a large change in the number of beetles--and now to a large change in water quality," says Tom Torgersen, director of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Water, Sustainability and Climate (WSC) Program, which funded the research.

WSC is part of NSF's Science, Engineering and Education portfolio of investments.

"Bark beetles have killed 95 percent of mature lodgepole pines," says Maxwell.

Death of a lodgepole pine

But the trees don't die immediately.

When beetles invade, a blue fungus spreads inside a tree's trunk, choking off transpiration and killing the tree in about two years.

The trees turn blood-red, then the ashen gray of death, dropping their needles to the forest floor.

"Some of the most important effects of bark beetles may be changes in the hydrologic cycle," says Maxwell, "via snow accumulation under trees and water transpiration from trees and other plants."

Biogeochemical changes may be even more important, he says, with carbon and nitrogen cycles interrupted.

"We're studying these hydrologic and geochemical processes through a combination of field work, lab research and computer modeling," says Maxwell.


Whither the beetles, so the trees, forests...and waters
Changes in tree canopies affect snowpack development and snowmelt.

For example, a lack of needles on branches lets more snow fall through the canopy--snow that would otherwise be caught on branches. A tree without needles also has less shade beneath it.

The result is a shallower snowpack, earlier snowmelt and less water in spring.

"The real question," Maxwell says, "is how these processes translate from individual trees to hillslopes to large watersheds."

Dead trees don't transpire water. Once a forest has died, this important flow of moisture from the ground to the atmosphere ceases.

That can mean a loss of as much as 60 percent of the water budget, although increases in ground evaporation or transpiration from understory shrubs and bushes may compensate for some of the lack.

"Combined with what's happening to snowpack depth," says Maxwell, "it becomes a complicated relationship that can change the timing and magnitude of spring runoff from snowmelt--and an entire year's water resources."

Tree mortality also appears to affect forest carbon and nitrogen cycles through increases in dissolved organic carbon.

"We've seen changes in drinking water quality in beetle-affected watersheds that are almost certainly related to high dissolved organic carbon levels," says Maxwell.

As Maxwell, Mikkelson, Bearup and colleagues discovered, there's a lag time between beetle infestation and water quality declines, "so tree and forest water transport processes are very likely involved," says Maxwell.


All watersheds great and small
The observations prompted the researchers to study processes at the individual tree and hillslope scale to better understand what's happening in watersheds large and small.

"Watersheds are complex, interrelated systems," says Maxwell, "which makes understanding them more challenging.

"We're developing complex, numerical models of bark beetle-infested watersheds that include our best understanding of how and where water flows. The models are allowing us to isolate individual processes by turning them on and off in 'what-if' scenarios."

Along with on-the-ground observations, he says, "they're showing us more of the complex story of pine beetle effects on Western watersheds.

"We now know that healthy watersheds ultimately depend on healthy forests."

Western streams and rivers soon may be part of dead and dying forests, surrounded only by the ghosts of lodgepole pines past.

THE ACID RAIN PROBLEM AND LEGACY

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Has acid rain washed out of forests and streams? Or is a new threat on the way?
Credit: NSF Hubbard Brook LTER Site

Acid Rain: Scourge of the Past or Trend of the Present?New connection between climate change and acidification of Northeast's forests and streams
July 25, 2012
Acid rain. It was a problem that largely affected U.S. eastern states. It began in the 1950s when Midwest coal plants spewed sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the air, turning clouds--and rainfall--acidic.

As acid rain fell, it affected everything it touched, leaching calcium from soils and robbing plants of important nutrients. New England's sugar maples were among the trees left high and dry.

Acid rain also poisoned lakes in places like New York's Adirondack Mountains, turning them into a witches' brew of low pH waters that killed fish and brought numbers of fish-eating birds like loons to the brink.

Then in 1970 the U.S. Congress imposed acid emission regulations through the Clean Air Act, strengthened two decades later in 1990. By the 2000s, sulfate and nitrate in precipitation had decreased by some 40 percent.

Has acid rain now blown over? Or is there a new dark cloud on the horizon?

In findings recently published in the journal Water Resources Research, Charles Driscoll of Syracuse University and the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Hubbard Brook Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in New Hampshire reports that the reign of acid rain is far from over.

It's simply "shape-shifted" into a different form.

Hubbard Brook is one of 26 NSF LTER sites across the nation and around the world in ecosystems from deserts to coral reefs to coastal estuaries.

Co-authors of the paper are Afshin Pourmokhtarian of Syracuse University, John Campbell of the U.S. Forest Service in Durham, N.H., and Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University. Pourmokhtarian is the lead author.

Acid rain was first identified in North America at Hubbard Brook in the mid-1960s, and later shown to result from long-range transport of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plants.

Hubbard Brook research influenced national and international acid rain policies, including the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments.

Researchers at Hubbard Brook have continued to study the effects of acid rain on forest growth and on soil and stream chemistry.

Long-term biogeochemical measurements, for example, have documented a decline in calcium levels in soils and plants over the past 40 years. Calcium is leaching from soils that nourish trees such as maples. The loss is primarily related to the effects of acid rain (and acid snow).

Now Hubbard Brook LTER scientists have discovered that a combination of today's higher atmospheric carbon dioxide level and its atmospheric fallout is altering the hydrology and water quality of forested watersheds--in much the same way as acid rain.

"It's taken years for New England forests, lakes and streams to recover from the acidification caused by atmospheric pollution," says Saran Twombly, NSF program director for long-term ecological research.

"It appears that these forests and streams are under threat again. Climate change will likely return them to an acidified state. The implications for these environments, and for humans depending on them, are severe."

Climate projections indicate that over the 21st century, average air temperature will increase at the Hubbard Brook site by 1.7 to 6.5 degrees C, with increases in annual precipitation ranging from 4 to 32 centimeters above the average from 1970-2000.

Hubbard Brook scientists turned to a biogeochemical model known as PnET-BGC to look at the effects of changes in temperature, precipitation, solar radiation and atmospheric carbon dioxide on major elements such as nitrogen in forests.

The model is used to evaluate the effects of climate change, atmospheric deposition, and land disturbance on soil and surface waters in northern forest ecosystems.

It was created by linking the forest-soil-water model PnET-CN with a biogeochemical sub-model, enabling the incorporation of major elements like calcium, nitrogen, potassium and others.

The results show that under a scenario of future climate change, snowfall at Hubbard Brook will begin later in winter, snowmelt will happen earlier in spring, and soil and stream waters will become acidified, altering the quality of water draining from forested watersheds.

"The combination of all these factors makes it difficult to assess the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems," says Driscoll.

"The issue is especially challenging in small mountain watersheds because they're strongly influenced by local weather patterns."

The Hubbard Brook LTER site has short, cool summers and long, cold winters. Its forests are made up of northern hardwood trees like sugar maples, American beeches and yellow birches. Conifers--mostly balsam firs and red spruces--are more abundant at higher elevations.

The model was run for Watershed 6 at Hubbard Brook. "This area has one of the longest continuous records of meteorology, hydrology and biogeochemistry research in the U.S.," says Pourmokhtarian.

The watershed was logged extensively from 1910 to 1917; it survived a hurricane in 1938 and an ice storm in 1998.

It may have more to weather in the decades ahead.

The model showed that in forest watersheds, the legacy of an accumulation of nitrogen, a result of acid rain, could have long-term effects on soil and on surface waters like streams.

Changes in climate may also alter the composition of forests, says Driscoll. "That might be very pronounced in places like Hubbard Brook. They're in a transition forest zone between northern hardwoods and coniferous red spruces and balsam firs."

The model is sensitive to climate that is changing now--and climate changes expected to occur in the future.

In scenarios that result in water stress, such as decreases in summer soil moisture due to shifts in hydrology, the end result is further acidification of soil and water.