Projections of Water Stress Based on an Ensemble of Socioeconomic Growth and Climate Change Scenarios: A Case Study in Asia

PLoS One. 2016 Mar 30;11(3):e0150633. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150633. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

The sustainability of future water resources is of paramount importance and is affected by many factors, including population, wealth and climate. Inherent in current methods to estimate these factors in the future is the uncertainty of their prediction. In this study, we integrate a large ensemble of scenarios--internally consistent across economics, emissions, climate, and population--to develop a risk portfolio of water stress over a large portion of Asia that includes China, India, and Mainland Southeast Asia in a future with unconstrained emissions. We isolate the effects of socioeconomic growth from the effects of climate change in order to identify the primary drivers of stress on water resources. We find that water needs related to socioeconomic changes, which are currently small, are likely to increase considerably in the future, often overshadowing the effect of climate change on levels of water stress. As a result, there is a high risk of severe water stress in densely populated watersheds by 2050, compared to recent history. There is strong evidence to suggest that, in the absence of autonomous adaptation or societal response, a much larger portion of the region's population will live in water-stressed regions in the near future. Tools and studies such as these can effectively investigate large-scale system sensitivities and can be useful in engaging and informing decision makers.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Asia, Southeastern
  • Climate Change*
  • Drinking Water
  • Forecasting
  • Humans
  • Models, Statistical
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Normal Distribution
  • Water Resources
  • Water Supply*

Substances

  • Drinking Water

Grants and funding

The Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, and therefore all authors, is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science under grants DE-FG02-94ER61937, DE-FG02-93ER61677, DE-FG02-08ER64597, and DE-FG02-06ER64320; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under grants XA-83344601-0, XA-83240101, XA-83042801-0, PI-83412601-0, RD-83096001, and RD-83427901-0; the U.S. National Science Foundation under grants SES-0825915, EFRI-0835414, ATM-0120468, BCS-0410344, ATM-0329759, and DMS-0426845; the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grants NNX07AI49G, NNX08AY59A, NNX06AC30A, NNX09AK26G, NNX08AL73G, NNX09AI26G, NNG04GJ80G, NNG04GP30G, and NNA06CN09A; the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under grants DG1330-05-CN-1308, NA070AR4310050, and NA16GP2290; the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration under grant 06-C-NE-MIT; the Electric Power Research Institute under grant EP-P32616/C15124; and a consortium of 40 industrial and foundation sponsors (for the complete list see http://globalchange.mit.edu/sponsors/all). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.