English
 
Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT
Add to Basket
  Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released
Journal Article

Irrigation of biomass plantations may globally increase water stress more than climate change

Authors
/persons/resource/stenzel

Stenzel,  Fabian
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Greve,  Peter
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Wolfgang.Lucht

Lucht,  Wolfgang
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Tramberend,  Sylvia
External Organizations;

Wada,  Yoshihide
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Dieter.Gerten

Gerten,  Dieter
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

External Ressource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (public)

25297oa.pdf
(Publisher version), 5MB

Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Stenzel, F., Greve, P., Lucht, W., Tramberend, S., Wada, Y., Gerten, D. (2021): Irrigation of biomass plantations may globally increase water stress more than climate change. - Nature Communications, 12, 1512.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21640-3


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_25297
Abstract
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is considered an important negative emissions (NEs) technology, but might involve substantial irrigation on biomass plantations. Potential water stress resulting from the additional withdrawals warrants evaluation against the avoided climate change impact. Here we quantitatively assess potential side effects of BECCS with respect to water stress by disentangling the associated drivers (irrigated biomass plantations, climate, land use patterns) using comprehensive global model simulations. By considering a widespread use of irrigated biomass plantations, global warming by the end of the 21st century could be limited to 1.5 °C compared to a climate change scenario with 3 °C. However, our results suggest that both the global area and population living under severe water stress in the BECCS scenario would double compared to today and even exceed the impact of climate change. Such side effects of achieving substantial NEs would come as an extra pressure in an already water-stressed world and could only be avoided if sustainable water management were implemented globally.