Sustainable surface water is an important ingredient for maintaining a resilient built and natural environment. Society requires it for drinking water and irrigation purposes. Protection of surface water quality and quantity is essential to maintain precious natural ecosystems that benefit all. For an example, about 77 percent of the freshwater used in the United States in 2005 came from surface-water sources. Water quality in natural surface water systems (e.g., streams, rivers, lakes, estuaries, bays, and coastal wetlands) is an important factor to aquatic ecosystems. Climate change could affect surface water systems in a variety of ways: including sea level rise, changes in the frequency and intensity of storms, increases in precipitation and sediment loads from watershed, and increase in water temperatures. The impacts of climate change are likely to worsen many coastal problems, such as shoreline erosion and wetland degradation, and will cause the increase of floods and droughts....

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