Global estimates of water withdrawals and availability under current and future "business-as-usual" conditions

New global models provide the opportunity to generate quantitative information about the world water situation. Here the WaterGAP 2 model is used to compute globally comprehensive estimates about water availability, water withdrawals, and other indicators on the river-basin scale. In applying the mo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hydrological sciences journal 2003-06, Vol.48 (3), p.339-348
Main Authors: ALCAMO, JOSEPH, DÖLL, PETRA, HENRICHS, THOMAS, KASPAR, FRANK, LEHNER, BERNHARD, RÖSCH, THOMAS, SIEBERT, STEFAN
Format: Article
Language:eng ; fre
Subjects:
analyse de scénario
disponibilité en eau
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
global water resources
hydrological model
Hydrology. Hydrogeology
integrated assessment
manque d'eau
modèle hydrologique
prélèvements d'eau
ressources en eau globales
scenario analysis
stress hydrique
utilisation de l'eau
water availability
Water resources
water scarcity
water stress
water use
water withdrawals
évaluation intégrée
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Summary:New global models provide the opportunity to generate quantitative information about the world water situation. Here the WaterGAP 2 model is used to compute globally comprehensive estimates about water availability, water withdrawals, and other indicators on the river-basin scale. In applying the model to the current global water situation, it was found that about 24% of world river basin area has a withdrawal to availability ratio greater than 0.4, which some experts consider to be a rough indication of "severe water stress"; the impacts of this stress are expected to be stronger in developing countries than in industrialized ones. Under a "business-as-usual" scenario of continuing demographic, economic and technological trends up to 2025, water withdrawals are expected to stabilize or decrease in 41% of world river basin areas because of the saturation of water needs and improvement in water-use efficiency. Withdrawals grow elsewhere because population and economic growth will lead to rising demand for water, and this outweighs the assumed improvements in water-use efficiency. An uncertainty analysis showed that the uncertainty of these estimates is likely to have a strong geographic variability.
ISSN:0262-6667
2150-3435
DOI:10.1623/hysj.48.3.339.45278