Abstract
Water scarcity is a widespread problem in many parts of the world. Most previous methods of water scarcity assessment only considered water quantity, and ignored water quality. In addition, the environmental flow requirement (EFR) was commonly not explicitly considered in the assessment. In this study, we developed an approach to assess water scarcity by considering both water quantity and quality, while at the same time explicitly considering EFR. We applied this quantity–quality-EFR (QQE) approach for the Huangqihai River Basin in Inner Mongolia, China. We found that to keep the river ecosystem health at a “good” level (i.e., suitable for swimming, fishing, and aquaculture), 26% of the total blue water resources should be allocated to meet the EFR. When such a “good” level is maintained, the quantity- and quality-based water scarcity indicators were 1.3 and 14.2, respectively; both were above the threshold of 1.0. The QQE water scarcity indicator thus can be expressed as 1.3(26%)|14.2, indicating that the basin was suffering from scarcity problems related to both water quantity and water quality for a given rate of EFR. The current water consumption has resulted in degradation of the basin's river ecosystems, and the EFR cannot be met in 3 months of a year. To reverse this situation, future policies should aim to reduce water use and pollution discharge, meet the EFR for maintaining healthy river ecosystems, and substantially improve pollution treatment.
Highlights
Freshwater is a fundamental resource for human well-being and the natural environment; it is regarded as the most essential natural resource in the world (Gleick, 1993)
Our analysis showed that environmental flow requirement (EFR) in the basin ranged from 170 × 106 m3/yr to 8 × 106 m3/yr in association with the maximum to severely degraded habitat conditions defined in the Tennant method (Fig. 2)
We proposed an approach to assessing water scarcity by considering both water quantity and water quality, while explicitly accounting for the EFR
Summary
Freshwater is a fundamental resource for human well-being and the natural environment; it is regarded as the most essential natural resource in the world (Gleick, 1993). Over the past few decades, climate change and human socioeconomic development have greatly changed global hydrological cycles, threatening human water security, the health of aquatic environments and river biodiversity (Vörösmarty et al, 2010; Jacobsen et al, 2012; van Vliet et al, 2013). Given this situation, increasing attention has been paid to assessing the environmental flow requirement (EFR) of rivers and water scarcity (Vörösmarty et al, 2010; Kirby et al, 2014). The selection of an appropriate method is primarily constrained by the availability of data for a region, as well as by local limitations in terms of time, funding, expertise, and logistical support
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