Menu Close

Climate change could contaminate NYC’s drinking water

Climate change is good news for the wine growing regions of New York State but could wipe out fir and spruce trees, devastate apple crops, and lead to the contamination of New York City’s back up drinking water supply as seawater advances up the Hudson River.

These are the findings of a comprehensive report commissioned by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. The report is the result of three years of work by scientists at Columbia and Cornell Universities and the City University of New York.

According to Cynthia Rosenzweig, a senior research scientist at Columbia’s Earth Institute, unlike earlier more succinct undertakings this report looks not just at how climate change will affect critical structures like bridges and sewage systems but also at “public health, agriculture, transportation and economics.”

The report found that the effects of climate change would be worst felt by the state’s poor and the disabled.

Read more at New York State Energy Research and Development Authority

Want to write?

Write an article and join a growing community of more than 180,900 academics and researchers from 4,919 institutions.

Register now