Virtual water scarcity risk in China

Virtual scarce water in China.

Water footprints and virtual water flows have been promoted as important indicators to characterize human-induced water consumption. However, environmental impacts associated with water consumption are largely neglected in these analyses. Incorporating water scarcity into water consumption allows better understanding of what is causing water scarcity and which regions are suffering from it. In ...

Water access, water scarcity, and climate change.

This article investigates the approaches of the various discourses operating in the water sector and how they address the issues of scarcity and equitable access under projected climate change impacts. Little synergy exists between the different approaches dealing with these issues. Whilst being a sustainable development and water resources management issue, a holistic view of access, scarcity ...

Water Scarcity , Water Quality , Risk , and Uncertainty : Things We Wish We Knew

A global water scarcity assessment under Shared Socio-economic Pathways – Part 2: Water availability and scarcity

A global water scarcity assessment for the 21st century was conducted under the latest socio-economic scenario for global change studies, namely Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). SSPs depict five global situations with substantially different socio-economic conditions. In the accompanying paper, a water use scenario compatible with the SSPs was developed. This scenario considers not only qu...

Four billion people facing severe water scarcity.

Freshwater scarcity is increasingly perceived as a global systemic risk. Previous global water scarcity assessments, measuring water scarcity annually, have underestimated experienced water scarcity by failing to capture the seasonal fluctuations in water consumption and availability. We assess blue water scarcity globally at a high spatial resolution on a monthly basis. We find that two-thirds...