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Water scarcity

About: Water scarcity is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 11579 publications have been published within this topic receiving 228756 citations. The topic is also known as: water shortage.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Grain VWF significantly increased water stress in grain export regions and alleviated waterstress in grain import regions, and water stress index of Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia has been increased by 138% and 129% due to grain export.

72 citations

Book
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: The Last Oasis as mentioned in this paper examines the economic, ecological and political factors affecting fresh water supply and confronts the issues of mismanagement and profligacy and analyses and dangers of confrontation, both between nations and between rural and urban users.
Abstract: For decades now we have wasted and mismanaged the world?s water supplies. Today, 27 countries are short of water, a quarter of the world?s population has no safe water, 46 per cent have no proper sanitation and each year four million children die of water-borne diseases. As most of the world?s major river systems cross several national boundaries, the scope disputes and the threat to international security is becoming more and more real. In The Last Oasis, Sandra Postel examines the economic, ecological and political factors affecting fresh water supply. She confronts the issues of mismanagement and profligacy and analyses and dangers of confrontation, both between nations and between rural and urban users. She also emphasises that the technology and know-how for effective water husbandry does exist. With methods already in use, farmers could cut their demand for water by 40-90 per cent, and cities by one-third, without sacrificing economic output or quality of life. Investing in water efficiency, recycling and conservation help meet rising demands and stave off disaster. But the priority is a common recognition of the gravity of the position, and with that a widespread push for institutions to manage sustainable use of water.

72 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an integrated approach to assess how cropping patterns and the spatial equity of canal flow changed with water supply shocks in the left canal command area 3,592 km 2 of Nagarjuna Sagar.
Abstract: In many river basins, upstream development and interannual variations in rainfall can cause both episodic and chronic shortages in water supplies downstream. Continued rapid development of surface and groundwater throughout the Krishna Basin in southern India resulted in historically low inflows to the main canals of the Nagarjuna Sagar irrigation project 8,955 km 2 during a recent drought 2002-2004. This paper presents an integrated approach to assess how cropping patterns and the spatial equity of canal flow changed with water supply shocks in the left canal command area 3,592 km 2 of Nagarjuna Sagar. We combined 3 years 2000-2003 of canal release data with census statistics and high temporal resolution 8-10 days moderate resolution imaging spectrometer MODIS 500-m resolution satellite imagery. The impact of water scarcity on land use pattern, delineated by MODIS images with moderate spatial resolution, was comparable with the census statistics, while the MODIS data also identified areas with changes and delays in the rice crop area, which is critical in assessing the impact of canal operations. A 60% reduction in water availability during the drought resulted in 40% land being fallowed in the left-bank canal command area. The results suggest that head reach areas receiving high supply rates during a normal year experienced the highest risks of fluctuations in water supply and cropped area during a water short year compared to downstream areas, which had chronically low water supply, and better adaptive responses by farmers. Contrary to expectations, the spatial distribution of canal flows among the three major zones of the command area was more equitable during low-flow years due to decreased flow at the head reach of the canal and relatively smaller decreases in tail-end areas. The findings suggested that equitable allocations could be achieved by improving the water distribution efficiency of the canal network during normal years and by crop diversification and introduction of alternative water sources during water shortage years. The study identified areas susceptible to decreases in water supplies by using modern techniques, which can help in decision-making processes for equitable water allocation and distribution and in devel- oping strategies to mitigate the effects of water supply shocks on cropping patterns and rural livelihoods.

72 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a model has been tailored to simulate the rather complex situation in the semi-arid north-eastern Brazil in a quantitative manner including the sensitivity to external forcing, such as climate change.

72 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: High levels of lead in the U.S. capital's water have exposed weak regulations and raised the specter of undiscovered problems elsewhere, according to the US Geological Survey.
Abstract: High levels of lead in the U.S. capital's water have exposed weak regulations and raised the specter of undiscovered problems elsewhere.

72 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023562
20221,098
2021951
2020879
2019814
2018735