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.

The South-to-North Water Transfer Project of China: Environmental Implications and Monitoring Strategy

Abstract: In 2002, China launched the South-to-North Water Transfer Project after completing a 50-year feasibility study. By 2050, the three-route (i.e., East, Middle, and West) project will be capable of transferring 44.8 billion m3/year of water from the water rich Yangtze River to the arid north to alleviate water shortage and help secure a balanced social and economic development across the nation. However, diversion of such a large quantity of water could profoundly change the riverine environment of the upper Yellow River and the lower reach of the Han River, a tributary of the Yangtze River and the water supplying area of the project’s Middle Route, because of changes in the annual discharge. Secondary salinization seems inevitable in the water receiving areas of the North China Plain, and decrease in the discharge of the Yangtze River will result in seawater intrusion into the Yangtze Delta. This paper describes the project and discusses its environmental implications. Additionally, a long-term monitoring strategy under the umbrella of the Chinese Ecological Research Network is proposed for environmental monitoring.

Renewable energy integrated desalination: A sustainable solution to overcome future fresh-water scarcity in India

Abstract: Fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas have been used as the major sources of energy in the recent past. However, the negative environmental impacts associated with the emission of the greenhouse gases from these conventional energy sources forced to realize the importance of renewable energy resources. At the same time, the average annual exponential rate of population growth in India needs increasing amounts of fresh-water for the basic necessities. This might result in water scarcity as the overall population in India is expected to increase to 1.60 billion by 2050. It has been forecasted that, by the year 2040, India will rank 40th in the world in terms of water scarcity. To meet the rising fresh-water demand, desalination is an intelligent and sustainable option for India, which has a very long coastline measuring 7517 km. In this paper, an attempt has been made to provide a comprehensive review of water scarcity in India and suggest a possible solution, which is implementing desalination technologies coupled with renewable resources. The paper reviews the ground water scenario in India and the global desalination market. We summarize the energy consumption in various desalination processes and provide a brief outlook of the desalination techniques in India. Apart from this, desalination using non-conventional sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal energy is discussed. In addition, factors affecting the environment due to desalination and the potential counter measures are presented. This review aims to provide an awareness of the projected water crisis in India, in the coming decades, and is also aimed to help the policy makers for selecting an appropriate desalination technology.

Water productivity in rainfed systems: overview of challenges and analysis of opportunities in water scarcity prone savannahs

Abstract: Addressing the Millennium Development Goals on food and poverty over the coming decade puts enormous pressure on the world’s finite freshwater resources. Without water productivity (WP) gains, the additional freshwater in agriculture will amount to 5,600 km3 year−1 in 2050. This is three times the current global irrigation use. This paper focuses on the underlying processes and future opportunities of WP gains in water scarcity prone and poverty stricken savannah regions of the world. The paper studies the consumptive (green) WP dynamics rainfed farming systems, and shows that the often assumed linear relationship between evapotranspiration (ET) and yield (Y) does not translate into constant WP over a wide range of yields. Similarly, crop transpiration (T) and Y show non-linearity under on-farm and low yield conditions. This non-linearity is validated against several on-farm research experiments in semi-arid rainfed farming systems. With integrated soil and water management, focusing on dry spell mitigation and soil fertility can potentially more than double on-farm yields, while simultaneously improve green (ET) WP and productive green (T) WP. Through the adoption of appropriate soil and water management in semi-arid smallholder farming systems, crop yields improve and result in improved livelihoods and WP gains.

Mapping water provisioning services to support the ecosystem-water-food-energy nexus in the Danube river basin

Abstract: Water, food and energy are at the core of human needs and there is a boundless complex cycle among these three basic human needs. Ecosystems are in the center of this nexus, since they contribute to the provision of each component, making it imperative to understand the role of ecosystems in securing food, water and energy for human well-being. In this study we aimed to map and assess water provisioning services and associated benefits to support the ecosystem–water–food–energy nexus by taking into account environmental flow requirements for riverine ecosystems using the hydrological model Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). We developed a framework that includes indicators of renewable water (capacity of ecosystem to provide water) and water use (service flow) and we applied it in the Danube river basin over the period 1995–2004. Water scarcity indicators were used to map the possible water scarcity in the subbasins, and analyze the spatial match of water availability and water use. The results show that modelling is instrumental to perform the integrated analysis of the ecosystem–water–food–energy nexus; and that spatial mapping is a powerful tool to display environmental availability of water provisioning and regulatory services delivered by ecosystems, and can support the nexus analysis.