Abstract
Integrated adaptation strategies are needed to achieve the highly interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for water, food- and energy security in the Indus basin. However, detailed quantitative scenarios for the plausible dimensions of future resource security requirements under socio-economic development are lacking. Here we define three quantitative and spatially downscaled scenarios for future water, food and energy requirements in the Indus basin and we assess the implications of socio-economic development for the integrated resource security challenge. High-resolution gridded scenarios for resource security requirements are developed by combining three regionalised and spatialised Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) with quantitative regional water, food and energy security thresholds. The results demonstrate that by 2080 basin level water- and energy security requirements are likely to at least double and potentially triple compared to the current situation. Food requirements could increase only marginally and double at most. Migration and urbanisation additionally drive the growing requirements to spatially converge around the largest cities of the basin. This demonstrates that socio-economic development increases the complexity of the water-food-energy security challenge by increasing its magnitude and spatial concentration. Future research and policymaking should anticipate for this heterogeneous growth of resource security challenges when developing adaptation strategies.
Highlights
The transboundary Indus basin is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world (De Souza et al, 2015; Immerzeel et al, 2020)
A spatial analysis of model performance demonstrates a positive bias towards the densely populated Indus plains and a negative bias in mountain and desert areas. Part of this may well be explained by discrepancies in natural population growth rates, since these are higher in the peripheral areas, but are not considered in the model
Socio-economic development is an important driver of water, food, and energy resource requirements in the Indus basin
Summary
The transboundary Indus basin is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world (De Souza et al, 2015; Immerzeel et al, 2020). Futures 133 (2021) 102831 is allocated to sustain one of the largest irrigation system in the world (Wijngaard et al, 2018), while water is required for hy dropower, on which the regional energy production depends considerably (Molden, Vaidya, Shrestha, Rasul, & Shrestha, 2014). The Indus basin is among the most water stressed in the world, relying significantly on the unsustainable over-extraction of groundwater (Cheema, Immerzeel, & Bastiaanssen, 2014; Richey et al, 2015; Wanders, Wada, & Van Lanen, 2015), while water, food and energy security requirements in the basin are currently not being met (Molden et al, 2014; Rasul, 2014; Yang, Ringler, Brown, & Mondal, 2016)
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