Climate change impacts, adaptation, and the technology interface - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 119

Climate change impacts on water resources and
the boreal forest
Climate change is expected to further intensify the pressure brought to
bear on worldwide water resources by agriculture through the depletion
of underground aquifers by intensive and wasteful irrigation practices
(Brown 2003). Although one impact of climate change in Canada's North
is expected to be increased precipitation, the increase in evaporative effect
due to rising temperatures is expected to bring drier conditions. Water
is emerging as one of the most valuable commodities of the twenty-first
century.
The boreal forest regions of circumpolar countries are home to indigenous
peoples in large numbers, and sustainability of northern indigenous com-
munities in boreal regions is threatened by climate change (Malcolm 2010).
Therefore, it is vitally important to examine the impacts of climate change
on the boreal regions. Widespread changes in lake environments due to cli-
mate change have been documented in the boreal region of northern Canada
(Schindler et al . 1997; Smol and Cumming 2000).
The northern boreal forests comprise approximately one-third of the area of
all forest systems on the planet (Hassol 2004:50). In the Hassol 2004 report
we read:
Many impacts of climate change are already becoming apparent in the
boreal forest: reduced rates of tree growth in some species and at some
sites; increased growth rates in others; larger and more extensive fires
and insect outbreaks; and a range of effects due to thawing permafrost,
including new wetland development and collapsing of the ground surface
and the associated loss of trees.
(Hassol 2004:50)
Climate change impacts of methane hydrate
dissociation
Gas hydrates have come to the forefront of the climate change debate. Methane
hydrates form under certain ranges of temperature and pressure when a meth-
ane molecule is surrounded by a cage of water molecules. One volume of
methane hydrate is equivalent to approximately 164 volumes of methane gas.
Methane is many times as potent as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. This
becomes of considerable importance, since it is generally believed that the
energy content of gas hydrates in permafrost and ocean floor sediments is
very large, perhaps twice the total energy content of all known conventional
hydrocarbon reserves on the planet today (Kerr 2004).
Canada's permafrost has significant reserves of methane hydrates, especially
in the Mackenzie Delta region in the Arctic (Collett and Dallimore 2000;