Water Security in an Uncertain Future: Contrasting Realities from an Availability-Demand Perspective

Sone, Jullian Souza; Araujo, Thamiris F.; Gesualdo, Gabriela Chiquito; Ballarin, André S.; Carvalho, Glauber Altrão; Oliveira, Paulo Tarso Sanches de; Wendland, Edson

doi:10.1007/s11269-022-03160-x

Cited by 11 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…These changes in the seasonal cycle of climate variables, coupled with changes on vegetation spatial‐temporal dynamics, will certainly affect future water security and pose a significant challenge for water resources management (Liu et al., 2022). Furthermore, the long‐term perspective is unable to capture intra‐annual water insecurity situations that may arise from the heterogeneous distribution of water availability and water usage throughout the year (Sone et al., 2022).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although our study presents clear evidence of a worse scenario in Brazilian future water security, it is important to emphasize that the country has one of the largest amount of freshwater resources in the world and, even with a reduction in water security, many of the evaluated catchments are projected to be far away from a water stress condition, where long‐term average water availability equals long‐term human water use (see Figure S8 in Supporting Information ). Nevertheless, recent studies show that even those basins that exhibit a healthy water security condition can experience intra‐annual water scarcity conditions due to the uneven distribution of water availability and water usage throughout the year (Gesualdo et al., 2019; Sone et al., 2022). In view of this and the expected intensification of water scarcity in a climate change context (Figure 5), which is also expected to inflate the occurrence of extreme drought events and water crisis in the country (Ballarin et al., 2021), we recall that water security assessments remains urgently needed in the country, especially in view of its uneven distribution of water resources, which pose challenges for effective water management practices.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Brazilian Water Security Threatened by Climate Change and Human Behavior

Ballarin

Uchôa

Santos

et al. 2023

Water Resources Research

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Continental water availability is of paramount importance for ecological and human well-being (Greve & Seneviratne, 2015;Milly et al., 2005). Many of the global impacts on agriculture, ecosystem services, human health, and economic activities are related to changes in water fluxes (D'Odorico et al., 2020;Roderick et al., 2014). Global climate change is expected to alter the water cycle dynamics (Haddeland et al., 2014) and the frequency and magnitude of extreme events (Aghakouchak et al., 2020), which will likely increase water availability-related issues (Rockström et al., 2009;Zhou et al., 2022). Along with climate change, water resources are also threatened by the growing water demand required to support an ever-increasing population (Hanasaki et al., 2013a(Hanasaki et al., , 2013bLiu et al., 2017). The compound effect of climate change and rising water demand is likely to exacerbate water scarcity around the globe (He et al., 2021), negatively impacting terrestrial ecosystems and potentially hindering progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, which aims to ensure "clean and accessible water for all" (van Vliet et al., 2021;Vanham et al., 2018). This challenging scenario is also seen in Brazil, even though the country contains nearly 15% of the world's renewable water resources (Getirana et al., 2021). Given its continental dimensions and highly heterogeneous hydroclimatic conditions, Brazil faces water scarcity due to its highly uneven distribution of water resources and intensification of water uses (Gesualdo et al., 2021). Additionally, Brazil is strongly dependent on hydroelectricity: approximately 60% of power generation comes from this sector (Hunt. et al., 2018). Notwithstanding, the country is expected to expand its irrigated areas, which may aggravate water stress (Multsch et al., 2020). This concerning situation will not only affect Brazil but may take on global proportions. Brazil plays a key role in global food security, being one of the largest agricultural producers (Pereira et al., 2012) and having areas classified as a global biodiversity hotspot (Myers et al., 2000). Therefore, understanding the present and future context of Brazilian water availability is urgently needed to ensure the nexus of water-food-energy-ecosystems services and a sustainable future for an increasing global population (McDonald et al., 2014).At long-term temporal scales, water availability, also known as runoff (Q), may be quantified as the difference between precipitation (P) and evapotranspiration (E) (Jawitz et al., 2022). Hence, a precise understanding of P-partitioning into E and Q is fundamental to tackle water availability-related issues, since changes in the

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brazilian Water Security Threatened by Climate Change and Human Behavior

Ballarin

Uchôa

Santos

et al. 2023

Water Resources Research

Self Cite

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“…Here, we used the Quantile Delta Mapping (QDM) approach 20 since it explicitly preserves relative or absolute changes in quantiles between historical and future simulations 44 . This method is based on two widely used correction procedures: the quantile delta change and the detrend quantile mapping 45 , 46 . According to Cannon et al .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CLIMBra - Climate Change Dataset for Brazil

et al. 2023

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General Circulation and Earth System Models are the most advanced tools for investigating climate responses to future scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions, playing the role of projecting the climate throughout the century. Nevertheless, climate projections are model-dependent and may show systematic biases, requiring a bias correction for any further application. Here, we provide a dataset based on an ensemble of 19 bias-corrected CMIP6 climate models projections for the Brazilian territory based on the SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios. We used the Quantile Delta Mapping approach to bias-correct daily time-series of precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature, solar net radiation, near-surface wind speed, and relative humidity. The bias-corrected dataset is available for both historical (1980–2013) and future (2015–2100) simulations at a 0.25° × 0.25° spatial resolution. Besides the gridded product, we provide area-averaged projections for 735 catchments included in the Catchments Attributes for Brazil (CABra) dataset. The dataset provides important variables commonly used in environmental and hydroclimatological studies, paving the way for the development of high-quality research on climate change impacts in Brazil.

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“…The feedback we have received from the nature in terms of unexpected variations of water quantity and quality as the result of anthropogenic activities, clearly stresses the need to modify our planning frameworks. We need to develop new water planning and management strategies that more properly account for uncertainties (Liu et al 2019 ; Mirdashtvan et al 2021 ; Lee et al 2022 ; Sone et al 2022 ), ranging from the uncertainties we are used to and wrongly think that we can quantify (e.g. flooding risk and return periods) to the uncertainties that we are not even aware of (i.e., the unknown unknowns and black swans).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Water Management: On the Need for Using the Post-WWII Science in Water Governance

Hjorth

Madani

2023

Water Resour Manage

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Although the UN concluded, already in 1997, that water would be the most contentious issue of the 21st century, water governance is still confused, nearly everywhere. Even the severe impacts of escalating water bankruptcy and global warming have so far failed to incur a marked improvement in governance systems. The global community has adopted sustainable development as a common vision and guide for the future. Yet, the adoption of the underlying principles of sustainable development has been slow in the water sector and elsewhere. Despite the realization that water governance is a political issue, the near-universal neoliberal agenda tends to only employ technologic and economic solutions to address water problems. This paper presents a historical overview, from the end of the Second World War (WWII) and onwards, of events that could, or should, have had an impact on water management frameworks. It evidences some important consequences of the institutional rigidity exposed during that period. The paper also turns to the fields of science, policy, and management, to pinpoint failures in the translation of political rhetoric as well as new scientific findings into change at the operational level. It explores how an updated knowledge base could serve a quest for sustainable water governance strategies. It is argued that a persistent failure to learn is an important reason behind the dire state that we are now in. As a result, water management is still based on century-old, technocratic, and instrumental methodologies that fail to take advantage of important scientific advancements since WWII and remain unable to properly deal with real-world complexities and uncertainties. The paper concludes that when it is linked to a transformation of the institutional superstructure, adaptive water management (AWM), a framework rooted in systems thinking, emerges as a prominent way to embark on a needed, radical transformation of the water governance systems.

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Water Security in an Uncertain Future: Contrasting Realities from an Availability-Demand Perspective

Cited by 11 publications

References 39 publications

Brazilian Water Security Threatened by Climate Change and Human Behavior

Brazilian Water Security Threatened by Climate Change and Human Behavior

CLIMBra - Climate Change Dataset for Brazil

Adaptive Water Management: On the Need for Using the Post-WWII Science in Water Governance

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