Rivers around the world have been drying up recently. The Loire in France broke records in mid-August for its low water levels, while photos circulating online show the mighty Danube, Rhine, Yangtze and Colorado rivers all but reduced to trickles.
It is not just rivers that are running low but the reservoirs they replenish, leading to water shortages in many parts of the world including the UK. Yet floods have wreaked havoc in many of these rivers in the last decade, in some cases only a few months before the recent drought. So what is happening to them?
Climate change has many guises. The Earth system is interdependent, so when something changes, it cascades to affect lots of other things. When atmospheric temperatures rise, weather patterns affect where, when, and how much rain will fall. Therefore, water distribution changes across regions, and the rivers adapt accordingly, which affects how much freshwater is available for people to drink.
