Water scarcity, a critical environmental issue worldwide, has primarily been driven by a significant increase in water extractions during the last century. In the coming decades, climate and societal changes are projected to further exacerbate water scarcity in many regions worldwide. Today, a major issue for the ongoing policy debate is to identify interventions able to address water scarcity challenges in the presence of large uncertainties. Here, we take a probabilistic approach to assess global water scarcity projections following feasible combinations of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) for the first half of the 21st century. We identify-alongside trends in median water scarcity-changes in the uncertainty range of anticipated water scarcity conditions. Our results show that median water scarcity and the associated range of uncertainty are generally on the increase worldwide, including many major river basins. Based on these results, we develop a general decision-making framework to enhance policymaking by identifying four representative clusters of specific water-policy challenges and needs.
This study presents the development of a new bottom‐up large‐scale hydroeconomic model, Extended Continental‐scale Hydroeconomic Optimization (ECHO), that works at a subbasin scale over a continent. The strength of ECHO stems from the integration of a detailed representation of local hydrological and technological constraints with regional and global policies, while accounting for the feedbacks between water, energy, and agricultural sectors. In this study, ECHO has been applied over Africa as a case study with the aim of demonstrating the benefits of this integrated hydroeconomic modeling framework. Results of this framework are overall consistent with previous findings evaluating the cost of water supply and adaptation to global changes in Africa. Moreover, results provide critical assessments of future investment needs in both supply‐ and demand‐side water management options, economic implications of contrasting future socioeconomic and climate change scenarios, and the potential trade‐offs among economic and environmental objectives. Overall, this study demonstrates the capacity of ECHO to address challenging research questions examining the sustainability of water supply and the impacts of water management on energy and food sectors and vice versa. As such, we propose ECHO as useful tool for water‐related scenario analysis and management options evaluation.
Water scarcity has become a critical environmental issue worldwide. It has increased substantially in the last decades in many parts of the world, and it is expected to further exacerbate in the future driven by socioeconomic and climatic changes. Several solution options could be implemented to address this growing water scarcity, including supply and demand-side management options that span the water, energy, and agricultural sectors. However, these options involve tradeoffs among various societal objectives, especially when the interactions between these objectives are not properly considered. This paper provides a review of the impending water scarcity challenges and suggests assessing water scarcity solution options using a nexus modeling framework that links well-established sectoral-oriented models. Highlights-Water scarcity is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades-A nexus thinking approach is required for assessing water scarcity solutions-A nexus modeling framework linking well-established models is presented
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