From narratives to numbers: Spatial downscaling and quantification of future water, food & energy security requirements in the Indus basin

Integrated adaptation strategies are needed to achieve the highly interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for water, food- and energy security in Indus basin. However, detailed quantitative scenarios plausible dimensions of future resource requirements under socio-economic development lacking. Here we define three spatially downscaled food basin assess implications integrated challenge. High-resolution gridded developed by combining regionalised spatialised Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) with regional thresholds. The results demonstrate that 2080 level water- likely at least double potentially triple compared current situation. Food could increase only marginally most. Migration urbanisation additionally drive growing converge around largest cities This demonstrates increases complexity water-food-energy challenge increasing its magnitude spatial concentration. Future research policymaking should anticipate this heterogeneous growth challenges when developing strategies.