I've recently heard about a study on plants, global warming, and rising water levels. It seems that because there is more carbon dioxide in the air, plants don't need to leave their stomata (think air wholes) open for as long to get the CO2 neccessary for photosynthesis. This causes plants to lose less water to evaporation. So, to summarize plants need less water and don't drink up as much from the soil and this extra water causes rivers and streams water level to increase.


However, I think that it is interesting to not that the process of water evaporation is how plants suck up water. So if they can produce more photosynthates (products of photosynthesis) then they will need more water because plants get electrons for the electron transport chain from water. If this were the case, then water levels wouldn't increase. This of course assumes that plants are going to want to grow bigger or store more energy (and why wouldn't they, it gives a competetive advantage). If plants grow really big (I'm not saying this will happen anytime soon), then they will take carbon dioxide out of the air, give off more oxygen, and suck up water. Maybe this will eventually (I'm thinking centuries) lead to Earth recovering from our pollution.