The implications of projected climate change for freshwater resources and their management

The Fourth Assessment Report of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) critically assessed thousands of recent publications on different aspects of climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerabilities. The multi-disciplinary and multi-national authorship of the report, and a large pool of experts involved in a three-stage review process, ensured that a wide variety of available information, opinions and hypotheses was assessed. It also enabled the prioritisation of the findings with respect to their importance, likelihood and confidence. This paper, prepared by lead authors of the freshwater chapter in the recent IPCC Report summarises the key findings concerning projections of climate change impacts on freshwater resources and their management, adaptation and vulnerabilities.