Water Pollution: Impact of Climate Change to

Agricultural Sustainability and Agroecosystems

MARC JODEN VICENTE

Climate change is adversely impacting water quality and aquatic life in our lakes, rivers, streams,
and estuaries in many ways. More powerful storms that cause changes in the patterns and amount of
rainfall are degrading water quality through runoff of pollutants such as nitrogen. Warming
temperatures provide conditions for harmful algal blooms to form in water, which can be toxic to
aquatic life and humans. In the aftermath of wildfires, the loss of vegetation is causing more runoff of
hazardous metals and other toxins into waterways when it rains. And wastewater treatment facilities
can overflow during heavy rainfall events causing water pollution.

As part of EPA’s larger water quality research efforts, the Agency is studying the impacts of climate
change on water quality to protect our vital water resources. The research is providing new information,
tools and strategies for water quality managers to better prevent or reduce contamination.

Areas of research related to the impacts of climate change on water quality include:

Nutrient pollution

Nutrient pollution is a significant and widespread water quality problem in the United States that is
being made worse with climate change. Runoff of nitrogen and other pollutants during high
precipitation storms is leading to more pollution in water bodies. Research is advancing the science to
help EPA, states and tribes make water quality management decisions related to nutrients and other
pollutants impacting water quality. The results from the research will help others effectively conduct
restoration and recovery of the nation’s water resources.

Harmful Algal Blooms

Climate change has been linked to an increased risk of the formation of harmful algal blooms in water.
These toxic blooms are causing environmental degradation in our lakes, rivers, streams, and coasts.
These toxic blooms develop when nitrogen and other nutrients are washed off land surfaces into
waterways from storms. Warming temperatures from climate change can promote the growth of HABs
in waters. Research is underway to provide better monitoring and assessment capabilities for HABs and
to develop potential early indicators that can be used to identify and forecast water bodies that are
vulnerable.

In addition to the research focused on the underlying processes of HABs and the short-term prediction
of them, researchers are also focusing on the longer-term (e.g., multi-decadal) effects of climate change
on the risk of HABs in different geographic and bio-physical settings. The research consists of a national-
scale, qualitative evidence synthesis of potential future changes in cyanobacterial HAB risk for inland
lakes in the conterminous U.S.

Stormwater Management

Stormwater management has been made more challenging as extreme rainfall events from storms and
hurricanes have increased and caused more water pollution. EPA has a comprehensive research effort to
support stormwater management, which is including considerations for a changing climate. Research is
being conducted to synthesize existing models, methods, assessment data, and approaches such as flow
control to aid communities in stormwater management planning, including evaluation of costs and
benefits, operation, and maintenance issues. The research will help communities develop and
implement stormwater management strategies.

Objective of the Study:

“The aim of this study, Water Pollution; Impact of Climate Change to Agricultural Sustainability and
Agroecosystems is to explore the impact of water pollution as the impact of climate change on crop
productivity.”

Impact of the Study:

The water pollution impact of climate change on Agricultural Sustainability and agroecosystems
from a global to a gene scale to better highlight the negative impacts in terms of the provisioning of
ecosystem services for food security. This has been a useful exercise involving different disciplines that
helped to find the main adaptation strategies, giving a more complete approach to the problem. Hence,
there is no one best strategy but a synergy of strategies to be applied to preserve the integrity and
health of agroecosystems, such as biodiversity conservation and crop management. However, it is also
important to strengthen the morphological, physiological, and biochemical processes on single plants
that support provisioning ecosystem services that sustain food security and human well-being. There is a
need to develop new innovative base solutions to adapt natural capital to climate change, including new
technologies in agroecosystems such as Climate-Smart Agriculture and new emerging breeding
technologies. Indeed, these strategies also need a cultural, social, and institutional approach to adapt
human-derived capital to improve innovation-based solutions able to sustain natural capital flow and
food security. This leads to the involvement of all stakeholders, where knowledge dissemination has a
crucial role in informing and forming a new generation of decision-makers, manufacturers, and
consumers.

Agricultural Sustainability (e.g., soil and water toxicity):

Sustainable agriculture is farming in sustainable ways meeting society's present food and textile
needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs. It can be
based on an understanding of ecosystem services. There are many methods to increase the
sustainability of agriculture. When developing agriculture within sustainable food systems, it is
important to develop flexible business process and farming practices. Agriculture has an enormous
environmental footprint, playing a significant role in causing climate change (food systems are
responsible for one third of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions), water scarcity, water
pollution, land degradation, deforestation and other processes; it is simultaneously causing
environmental changes and being impacted by these changes. Agriculture production is highly
dependent on water and increasingly subject to water risks. It is also the largest using sector and a major
polluter of water. Improving agriculture’s water management is therefore essential to a sustainable and
productive agro-food sector. Sustainable agriculture consists of environment friendly methods of
farming that allow the production of crops or livestock without damage to human or natural systems. It
involves preventing adverse effects to soil, water, biodiversity, surrounding or downstream resources—
as well as to those working or living on the farm or in neighboring areas. Elements of sustainable
agriculture can include permaculture, agroforestry, mixed farming, multiple cropping, and crop rotation.

Developing sustainable food systems contributes to the sustainability of the human population. For
example, one of the best ways to mitigate climate change is to create sustainable food systems based on
sustainable agriculture. Sustainable agriculture provides a potential solution to enable agricultural
systems to feed a growing population within the changing environmental conditions.

Economic and Yield Impact:

Early research on agricultural impacts led to some rather dire predictions of adverse impacts of
climate change on food production, and the public perception that climate change may lead to global
food shortages continues today. Although state-of-the-art at the time, the early predictions involved
relatively simple data and methods, typically estimating the effects of increases in average annual
temperature on yields of a limited number of crops at a limited number of locations, and extrapolating
the typically negative effects to large regions.

With advances in data and models, most assessments of the impacts of climate change on agriculture
predict that the world’s ability to feed itself is not threatened by climate change. The most recent IPCC
report on Impacts and Adaptation finds that climate change is likely to have both positive and negative
impacts on agriculture, depending on the region and the type of agriculture. Overall, the report predicts
that during the present century there will be a “marginal increase in the number of people at risk of
hunger due to climate change.” (Easterling et al. 2007, p. 275). However, research also shows that this
finding should not lead to complacency, as analysis also suggests that some of the poorest and most
vulnerable regions of the world are likely to be impacted negatively, and in some cases, severely.

Impacts at the farm level include changes in crop and livestock productivity, which in turn will
lead to changes in the most profitable production systems at a given location. Research suggests that in
highly productive regions, such as the U.S. Corn Belt, the most profitable production system may not
change much, but in transitional areas such as the “ecotone” between the Corn Belt and the Wheat Belt,
substantial shifts in crop and livestock mix, in productivity, and in profitability may occur. Such changes
may be positive, for example if higher temperatures in the northern Great Plains were to be associated
with increased precipitation, so that corn and soybeans could replace the wheat and pasture that
presently predominate. Such changes also could be negative, e.g., if already marginal crop and
pastureland in the southern Great Plains became warmer and drier. In addition to changes in
temperature and precipitation, another key factor in agricultural productivity is the effect of elevated
levels of atmospheric CO2 on crop yields. Some estimates suggest that higher CO2 levels could increase
crop productivity substantially, by 50% or more, although these effects are likely to be constrained by
other factors such as water and soil nutrients, particularly in the developing countries.
Solutions:

In the developing countries, there are many reasons why farmers and institutions supporting the
agricultural sector will be less able to adapt to climate change than farmers and the food industry in the
industrialized world, particularly in the poorest and most vulnerable areas. On the research side, the
existence of climate change reinforces the already compelling case that can be made for public sector
investment in agricultural research and outreach, for investment in physical infrastructure and human
capital, and for strengthening both private and public institutions that support agriculture and rural
development. General economic development will also play an important role by providing farmers and
rural households with sources of income that are less dependent on climate than agricultural sources of
income.

Conclusions:

While it is clear that climate change can cause water pollution and will affect agriculture in important
ways, the evidence from the past several decades of research suggests that the aggregate impacts will
be relatively small, but there will be important regional impacts, particularly in the poorest, most
vulnerable parts of the tropics. Given the growing evidence that climate changes are taking place and
that there will be substantial impacts on agriculture, there is a clear and compelling need for agriculture
to adapt as discussed in the companion paper by Rose and McCarl in this issue of Choices. In addition,
evidence suggests that agriculture could play an important role in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions
as discussed by Schneider and Kumar. Thus, two key policy questions are related to the roles the public
sector should play in facilitating adaptation and mitigation as discussed in Metcalf and Reilly.

To the extent that change is relatively gradual, all indications are that farmers in the
industrialized countries such as the United States will be able to adapt through farm-level changes in
crop selection, crop management, and appropriate capital investments. Likewise, the private sector
technology supply industry should be able to effectively anticipate and plan for needed adaptations of
crops, livestock, machinery and related capital equipment. One area where there is a clear need for
public sector involvement is in public infrastructure, particularly ports and related transport facilities
that may be adversely impacted by sea-level rise and changes in the geographic distribution of
production. The more rapid climate change is, however, the more likely that there will be a need for
public investment in adaptation research to complement private sector investments.
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