Abstract
Study regionthe Turkwel river basin, Kenya experiences a high level of water scarcity due to its arid climate, high rainfall variability and rapidly growing water demand. Study focusClimate change, variability and rapid growth in water demand pose significant challenges to current and future water resources planning and allocation worldwide. In this paper a novel decision-scaling approach was applied to model the response of the Turkwel river basin’s water resources system to growing demand and climate stressors. A climate response surface was constructed by combining a water resource system model, climate data, and a range of water demand scenarios. New hydrological insightsThe results show that climate variability and increased water demand are each important drivers of water scarcity in the basin. Increases in water demand due to expanded irrigation strongly influences on the resilience of the basin’s water resource system to droughts caused by the global climate variability. The climate response surface offers a visual and flexible tool for decision-makers to understand the ways in which the system responds to climate variability and development scenarios. Policy decisions to accelerate water-dependent development and poverty reduction in arid and semi-arid lands that are characterised by rapid demographic, political and economic change in the short- to medium term have to promote low-regrets approaches that incorporate longer-term climate uncertainty.
Highlights
Sustainability of global freshwater is under increasing threats due to changing hydroclimate and abstraction to satisfy rapidly growing water demand (Hall et al, 2014; Wada et al, 2014)
The results reveal that climate variability and rapidly growing water demand are the main drivers of water scarcity in the basin
The scenario-based analysis reveals that a potential increase in crop irrigation from 18 km2 to 250 km2 in the Turkwel river basin will increase the unmet water demand from 0.1% to 8.9% of the total demand and the loss in groundwater storage from 27% to 61% over the study period (1984–2013)
Summary
Sustainability of global freshwater is under increasing threats due to changing hydroclimate and abstraction to satisfy rapidly growing water demand (Hall et al, 2014; Wada et al, 2014). Understanding how socio-economic change put additional stress on water resources and translating the scientific evidence into policy decisions are critical steps towards ensuring sustainable water use and allocation (Sadoff and Hall, 2015; Dadson et al, 2017). Regions where development is most acutely needed are often those where data to inform long-term investment decisions is most severely lacking. This paper analyses the drivers of water scarcity in a datasparse river basin and offers insights that can inform and challenge approaches to water resources planning in data-sparse regions in other basins worldwide. In East Africa, severe droughts often cause water and food crises affecting millions of people and livelihoods (FEWS NET, 2017).
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