Abstract
Climate change and socio-economic development increase variations in water availability and water use in the Pearl River Basin (PRB), China. This can potentially result in conflicts over water resources between water users, and cause water shortage in the dry season. To assess and manage water shortage in the PRB, we first explored two water availability and three water use scenarios. Next, four different strategies to allocate water were defined. These water allocation strategies prioritized upstream water use, Pearl River Delta water use, irrigation water use, and manufacturing water use, respectively. The impact of the four strategies on water use and related economic output was assessed under different water availability and water use scenarios. Results show that almost all the regions in the PRB are likely to face water shortage under the four strategies. The increasing water demand contributes twice as much as the decreasing water availability to water shortage. All four water allocation strategies are insufficient to solve the water scarcity in the PRB. The economic losses differ greatly under the four water allocation strategies. Prioritizing the delta region or manufacturing production would result in lower economic losses than the other two strategies. However, all of them are rather extreme strategies. Development of water resources management strategies requires a compromise between different water users.
Highlights
Water is essential for human survival and all activities (Oki and Kanae 2006)
It is clear that competition for water will increase in future, the extent of the problems, the economic impacts and possible strategies to reduce competition are still unclear. To address this knowledge gap, we focus on three different research questions: 1. How severe are water shortages during the dry season in the Pearl River Basin (PRB) under future climate change and socio-economic development?
By 2050, the average total water use of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) increases by 10% to 22 billion m3 from 20 billion m3 in 2010.The upstream basin exhibits a steep increase of total water use in all three paths
Summary
Fresh water resources are unevenly distributed in time and space, which causes serious water shortage in many parts of the world (Piao et al 2010). Population growth and socio-economic development have exponentially increased global water use during the last few centuries. This intensified the competition over water resources between different regions and sectors (Liu et al 2017). Solutions to water stress problems depend on water availability, and on water management and allocation (Biswas 2004). Water management and allocation faces major challenges due to climate change and socio-economic development (Alcamo et al 2007)
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