Urbanization Impact on Annual Runoff and Water Quality in the World and on Continents

The growing urbanization impact on the average annual river runoff of Russia, continents (world parts), and the world, as well as on water quality is considered. The impact of two urbanization aspects is assessed. One of them is the influence of urbanized landscapes, a significant part of which are settlements and roads. On the area they occupy, more often being polluted, there is a sharp decrease in water permeability and an increase in the surface and total runoff. Another aspect is municipal and industrial water consumption associated with water withdrawals, partly irrecoverable, and with the discharge of polluted wastewater into rivers and water bodies. It is shown that for the most of considered regions and the world, both the current increase in runoff from urbanized landscapes and its decrease because of water consumption are tens and even hundreds of cubic kilometers per year, although both of the effects are relatively small in relation to the available water resources. In the most inhabited part of the territory, the total urbanization impact on runoff is more pronounced, and, as a rule, a general increase in runoff prevails. Urbanization has a much greater impact on water quality since the dilution of wastewater and polluted water coming from urbanized areas is clearly insufficient.

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