Rethinking water security in a warming climate: rainfall enhancement as an innovative augmentation technique

Abstract

Rainfall enhancement has historically been overlooked as a key component of sustainability and climate change adaptation strategies. In this comment, we argue that rainfall enhancement is emerging as a viable contributor to addressing growing water security concerns in a warming climate. We specifically consider current progress and future directions for rainfall enhancement applications based on the experience of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with its national decade-long operational cloud seeding program and its grant-based international research and development program.