That also means less water for people and communities to drink, says another report co-author, Mary Ruckelshaus, managing director of the Natural Capital Project.

“By most projections, climate change is going to triple the fraction of countries that are at high, or at very high, risk of running out of water," Ruckelshaus says. "People’s source of water is going to be increasingly imperiled due to climate change.”

High stakes

The report’s authors call for improved monitoring and better coordination among federal and state agencies to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Bruce Stein, with the National Wildlife Federation, says the need is urgent and the stakes are high.

“I think the bottom line is that these impacts are not just going to happen in 50 or 100 years, many of them already are here and are only projected to get worse over time," Stein says. "The good news though, is that climate adaptation finally is being taken seriously, and many state and federal land management agencies, as well as cities and towns, are beginning to put that in practice.”

For example, according to Stein, efforts are being made to prevent a recurrence of what happened during Super storm Sandy: salty ocean water driven by the storm surge breached the freshwater marsh systems on the Atlantic coast, contaminating critical shore bird habitats.

“Because just this type of breach was anticipated given rising sea levels, National Wildlife Federation and the State of Delaware are already working to create comparable marsh further inland and up slope that is better protected from heightened sea levels and storm surges," he says.