ABSTRACT
The growing and competing demand for domestic, agricultural, industrial, and recreational water has made clean and safe drinking water a scarce natural resource in many regions of the world. Increasing populations, especially in urban areas, are not only stressing the capacity and sustainability of the existing water supplies, but they are also placing the supplies at a greater risk of contamination. Humans are also affecting the global water resources through climate change. Increases in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, as well as changes in land use due to deforestation and urbanization already have, and will continue to impact the Earth’s climate, and hence the terrestrial hydrologic cycle in the future (IPCC, 2001).
