Global water supplies shrinking due to climate change: Study

Climate change will drive our water supplies to shrink due to drying soils, while generating more intense rain, according to a study which warns that drought-like conditions will soon become the new normal in our world.

The study, by researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, relied on actual data from 43,000 rainfall stations and 5,300 river monitoring sites in 160 countries, instead of basing its findings on model simulations of a future climate, which can be uncertain and at times questionable.

"We expected rainfall to increase, since warmer air stores more moisture -- and that is what climate models predicted too. What we did not expect is that, despite all the extra rain everywhere in the world, the large rivers are drying out," said Ashish Sharma at