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Towards a Global Water Scarcity Risk Assessment Framework: Incorporation of Probability Distributions and Hydro-Climatic VariabilityChanging hydro-climatic and socioeconomic conditions increasingly put pressure on fresh water resources and are expected to aggravate water scarcity conditions towards the future. Despite numerous calls for risk-based water scarcity assessments, a global-scale framework that includes UNISDR's definition of risk does not yet exist. This study provides a first step towards such a risk based assessment, applying a Gamma distribution to estimate water scarcity conditions at the global scale under historic and future conditions, using multiple climate change and population growth scenarios. Our study highlights that water scarcity risk, expressed in terms of expected annual exposed population, increases given all future scenarios, up to greater than 56.2% of the global population in 2080. Looking at the drivers of risk, we find that population growth outweigh the impacts of climate change at global and regional scales. Using a risk-based method to assess water scarcity, we show the results to be less sensitive than traditional water scarcity assessments to the use of fixed threshold to represent different levels of water scarcity. This becomes especially important when moving from global to local scales, whereby deviations increase up to 50% of estimated risk levels.
Document ID
20160002956
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Veldkamp, T. I. E.
(Vrije Univ. Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Wada, Y.
(Columbia Univ. New York, NY, United States)
Aerts, J. C. J. H.
(Vrije Univ. Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Ward, P. J.
(Vrije Univ. Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Date Acquired
March 3, 2016
Publication Date
February 2, 2016
Publication Information
Publication: Environmental Research Letters
Publisher: IOP
Volume: 11
Issue: 2
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN29972
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
Populations
Climate change
Risk
Water

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