Improving Water Resources Management on Global and Region Scales – Evaluating Strategies for Water Futures with the IIASA’s Community Water Model

Burek, P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6390-8487, Satoh, Y., Greve, P., Kahil, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7812-5271, Byers, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0349-5742, Langan, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0742-3658, & Wada, Y. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4770-2539 (2018). Improving Water Resources Management on Global and Region Scales – Evaluating Strategies for Water Futures with the IIASA’s Community Water Model. In: American Geo-Sciences Union Fall Meeting, 11-15 December, New Orleans, USA.

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Abstract

Half of the planet’s population is severely impacted by severe water issues including absent or unreliable water supply, sanitation, poor water quality, unmitigated floods and droughts, and degraded water environments. In recent years, global water security has been highlighted not only by the science community but also by business leaders as one of the greatest threats to sustainable human development for different generations.

How can we ensure the well-being of people and ecosystems with limited water, technology and financial resources? To evaluate this, IIASA’s Water Futures and Solutions Initiative (WFaS) is identifying a portfolios of robust and cost-effective options across different economic sectors including agriculture, energy, manufacturing, households, and environment and ecosystems. Options to increase water supply and accessibility are evaluated together with water demand management and water governance options.

To test these solution-portfolios in order to obtain a clear picture of the opportunities but also of the risks and the trade-offs we have developed the Community Water Model (CWATM) which joins IIASA’s integrated assessment modeling framework, coupling hydrology with hydro-economics (ECHO model), energy (MESSAGE model) and land use (GLOBIOM model). CWATM has been developed to work flexibly with varying spatial resolutions from global to regional levels. The model is open source and community-driven to promote our work amongst the wider water and other science community worldwide, with flexibility to link to other models and integrate newly developed modules such as water quality.

In order to identify the solution portfolios, we present a global hotspots assessment of water-related risks with the ability to zoom in at regional scale using the example of the Lake Victoria basin in E. Africa. We show how socio-economic and climate change will alter spatial patterns of the hydrological cycle and have regional impacts on water availability. At the same time, we assess water needs for humans and environment to identify the population and regions that are vulnerable to changes linked to extremes such as water scarcity, droughts and floods. Different solution-portfolios to facilitate regional water management planning will be further discussed.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Other)
Research Programs:	Water (WAT)
Depositing User:	Michaela Rossini
Date Deposited:	28 Sep 2018 06:56
Last Modified:	27 Aug 2021 17:30
URI:	https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/15486

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