English
 
Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT
Add to Basket
  Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released
Journal Article

A triple increase in global river basins with water scarcity due to future pollution

Authors

Wang,  Mengru
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Bodirsky

Bodirsky,  Benjamin Leon
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Rijneveld,  Rhodé
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/felicitas.beier

Beier,  Felicitas
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Bak,  Mirjam P.
External Organizations;

Batool,  Masooma
External Organizations;

Droppers,  Bram
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Alexander.Popp

Popp,  Alexander
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

van Vliet,  Michelle T. H.
External Organizations;

Strokal,  Maryna
External Organizations;

External Ressource
Fulltext (public)

s41467-024-44947-3.pdf
(Publisher version), 3MB

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

Wang, M., Bodirsky, B. L., Rijneveld, R., Beier, F., Bak, M. P., Batool, M., Droppers, B., Popp, A., van Vliet, M. T. H., Strokal, M. (2024): A triple increase in global river basins with water scarcity due to future pollution. - Nature Communications, 15, 880.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44947-3


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_30296
Abstract
Water security is at stake today. While climate changes influence water availability, urbanization and agricultural activities have led to increasing water demand as well as pollution, limiting safe water use. We conducted a global assessment of future clean-water scarcity for 2050s by adding the water pollution aspect to the classical water quantity-induced scarcity assessments. This was done for >10,000 sub-basins focusing on nitrogen pollution in rivers by integrating land-system, hydrological and water quality models. We found that water pollution aggravates water scarcity in >2000 sub-basins worldwide. The number of sub-basins with water scarcity triples due to future nitrogen pollution worldwide. In 2010, 984 sub-basins are classified as water scarce when considering only quantity-induced scarcity, while 2517 sub-basins are affected by quantity & quality-induced scarcity. This number even increases to 3061 sub-basins in the worst case scenario in 2050. This aggravation means an extra 40 million km2 of basin area and 3 billion more people that may potentially face water scarcity in 2050. Our results stress the urgent need to address water quality in future water management policies for the Sustainable Development Goals.