HR: 0800h
AN: H11C-0670    [Abstracts]
TI: Global Sea Level Variation Due to Water Impoundment in Artificial Reservoirs
AU: * Chao, B F
EM: bfchao@ncu.edu.tw
AF: National Central University, College of Earth Sciences, Chung-Li, 300, Taiwan
AU: Wu, Y
EM: bfchao@ncu.edu.tw
AF: National Central University, College of Earth Sciences, Chung-Li, 300, Taiwan
AB: The causes for the modern global sea level (GSL) rise are investigated and debated in the era of global warming. A negative contribution, namely that due to water impoundment in artificial reservoirs, has long been suspected to be a significant budget item. This water impoundment constitute by far the largest anthropogenic hydrological change in terms of the water volume involved, but ironically only very incomplete information exists in compiled form, hence exactly how much of this water is stored behind dams on land has been shrouded in uncertainty. This has become a critical missing piece in the effort to understand and close the budget ¡§puzzle¡¨ of the observed GSL rise. Here we report an in-depth compilation of artificial reservoirs and their accumulation scenario; we assert that to date there is about 10,000 km3 of water impounded on land. This is equivalent to the total atmospheric moisture, or 10 times the world¡¦s biological water. In terms of GSL, it corresponds to a drop of about 3 cm. This happened in the last half century, giving a mean GSL drop rate of about 0.5 mm/year, comparable in magnitude to the significant natural contributions such as melting of land ice.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects (4802, 4902)
DE: 1857 Reservoirs (surface)
DE: 1876 Water budgets
DE: 4556 Sea level: variations and mean (1222, 1225, 1641)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting