IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v134y2016i3p371-385.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A global assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Gosling
  • Nigel Arnell

Abstract

This paper presents a global scale assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity. Patterns of climate change from 21 Global Climate Models (GCMs) under four SRES scenarios are applied to a global hydrological model to estimate water resources across 1339 watersheds. The Water Crowding Index (WCI) and the Water Stress Index (WSI) are used to calculate exposure to increases and decreases in global water scarcity due to climate change. 1.6 (WCI) and 2.4 (WSI) billion people are estimated to be currently living within watersheds exposed to water scarcity. Using the WCI, by 2050 under the A1B scenario, 0.5 to 3.1 billion people are exposed to an increase in water scarcity due to climate change (range across 21 GCMs). This represents a higher upper-estimate than previous assessments because scenarios are constructed from a wider range of GCMs. A substantial proportion of the uncertainty in the global-scale effect of climate change on water scarcity is due to uncertainty in the estimates for South Asia and East Asia. Sensitivity to the WCI and WSI thresholds that define water scarcity can be comparable to the sensitivity to climate change pattern. More of the world will see an increase in exposure to water scarcity than a decrease due to climate change but this is not consistent across all climate change patterns. Additionally, investigation of the effects of a set of prescribed global mean temperature change scenarios show rapid increases in water scarcity due to climate change across many regions of the globe, up to 2 °C, followed by stabilisation to 4 °C. Copyright The Author(s) 2016

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Gosling & Nigel Arnell, 2016. "A global assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 371-385, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:134:y:2016:i:3:p:371-385
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-013-0853-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-013-0853-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-013-0853-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. W. Arnell & J. A. Lowe & S. Brown & S. N. Gosling & P. Gottschalk & J. Hinkel & B. Lloyd-Hughes & R. J. Nicholls & T. J. Osborn & T. M. Osborne & G. A. Rose & P. Smith & R. F. Warren, 2013. "A global assessment of the effects of climate policy on the impacts of climate change," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 3(5), pages 512-519, May.
    2. P. C. D. Milly & K. A. Dunne & A. V. Vecchia, 2005. "Global pattern of trends in streamflow and water availability in a changing climate," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7066), pages 347-350, November.
    3. Simon Gosling & Glenn McGregor & Jason Lowe, 2012. "The benefits of quantifying climate model uncertainty in climate change impacts assessment: an example with heat-related mortality change estimates," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 112(2), pages 217-231, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew John & Avril Horne & Rory Nathan & Michael Stewardson & J. Angus Webb & Jun Wang & N. LeRoy Poff, 2021. "Climate change and freshwater ecology: Hydrological and ecological methods of comparable complexity are needed to predict risk," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(2), March.
    2. Quiggin, John & Adamson, David & Chambers, Sarah & Schrobback, Peggy, 2009. "Climate change, mitigation and adaptation: the case of the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 149878, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    3. Sigit Perdana & Rod Tyers, 2020. "Global Climate Change Mitigation: Strategic Incentives," The Energy Journal, , vol. 41(3), pages 183-206, May.
    4. Jianzhuang Pang & Huilan Zhang, 2023. "Global map of a comprehensive drought/flood index and analysis of controlling environmental factors," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 116(1), pages 267-293, March.
    5. Alvaro Calzadilla & Katrin Rehdanz & Richard Betts & Pete Falloon & Andy Wiltshire & Richard Tol, 2013. "Climate change impacts on global agriculture," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 120(1), pages 357-374, September.
    6. Nicolas Misailidis Stríkis & Plácido Fabrício Silva Melo Buarque & Francisco William Cruz & Juan Pablo Bernal & Mathias Vuille & Ernesto Tejedor & Matheus Simões Santos & Marília Harumi Shimizu & Ange, 2024. "Modern anthropogenic drought in Central Brazil unprecedented during last 700 years," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    7. Wenxin Xu & Jie Chen & Xunchang J. Zhang, 2022. "Scale Effects of the Monthly Streamflow Prediction Using a State-of-the-art Deep Learning Model," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 36(10), pages 3609-3625, August.
    8. Kukal, M.S. & Irmak, S., 2020. "Characterization of water use and productivity dynamics across four C3 and C4 row crops under optimal growth conditions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    9. Timothy Osborn & Craig Wallace & Ian Harris & Thomas Melvin, 2016. "Pattern scaling using ClimGen: monthly-resolution future climate scenarios including changes in the variability of precipitation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 353-369, February.
    10. Moldir Rakhimova & Tie Liu & Sanim Bissenbayeva & Yerbolat Mukanov & Khusen Sh. Gafforov & Zhuldyzay Bekpergenova & Aminjon Gulakhmadov, 2020. "Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Change and Human Activities on Runoff Using Climate Elasticity Method and General Circulation Model (GCM) in the Buqtyrma River Basin, Kazakhstan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-22, June.
    11. Jinfei Hu & Guangju Zhao & Pengfei Li & Xingmin Mu, 2022. "Variations of pan evaporation and its attribution from 1961 to 2015 on the Loess Plateau, China," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 111(2), pages 1199-1217, March.
    12. Xiaowen Zhuang & Yurui Fan & Yongping Li & Chuanbao Wu, 2023. "Evaluation Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources Over the Upper Reach of the Yellow River Basin," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 37(6), pages 2875-2889, May.
    13. Wang, Sicong & Wang, Shifeng, 2017. "Implications of improving energy efficiency for water resources," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(P1), pages 922-928.
    14. Peng Qi & Guangxin Zhang & Yi Jun Xu & Zhikun Xia & Ming Wang, 2019. "Response of Water Resources to Future Climate Change in a High-Latitude River Basin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-21, October.
    15. Marianne Fay & Rachel I. Block & Jane Ebinger, 2010. "Adapting to Climate Change in Eastern Europe and Central Asia," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2407.
    16. Yan Ma & Arvid Bring & Zahra Kalantari & Georgia Destouni, 2019. "Potential for Hydroclimatically Driven Shifts in Infectious Disease Outbreaks: The Case of Tularemia in High-Latitude Regions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-11, October.
    17. Lihua Xiong & Tao Du & Chong-Yu Xu & Shenglian Guo & Cong Jiang & Christopher Gippel, 2015. "Non-Stationary Annual Maximum Flood Frequency Analysis Using the Norming Constants Method to Consider Non-Stationarity in the Annual Daily Flow Series," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 29(10), pages 3615-3633, August.
    18. Zhenliang Yin & Qi Feng & Linshan Yang & Xiaohu Wen & Jianhua Si & Songbing Zou, 2017. "Long Term Quantification of Climate and Land Cover Change Impacts on Streamflow in an Alpine River Catchment, Northwestern China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-17, July.
    19. Luc Feyen & Rutger Dankers & Katalin Bódis & Peter Salamon & José Barredo, 2012. "Fluvial flood risk in Europe in present and future climates," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 112(1), pages 47-62, May.
    20. John Quiggin, 2010. "Agriculture and global climate stabilization: a public good analysis," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(s1), pages 121-132, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:134:y:2016:i:3:p:371-385. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.