Climate change and global water resources: SRES emissions and socio-economic scenarios

This paper assesses the relative impact of climate change and population growth on global and regional water resources stresses, using SRES socio-economic scenarios and climate projections from six models.

(Generated with the help of GPT-4)

The methodology involved constructing climate change scenarios from six climate models, applying these to a baseline climatology, running a hydrological model to simulate runoff, and calculating water resources stress indicators at the watershed scale. The study also downscaled SRES population projections to estimate watershed populations.

(Generated with the help of GPT-4)

The research evaluates how climate change and population growth influence water stress globally and regionally, using SRES scenarios and climate model projections. It simulates river runoff under current and future climates, aggregates this to watershed scale, and applies SRES population projections to estimate water resource availability. The study finds that climate change exacerbates water stress in some regions by reducing runoff, while in others, particularly Asia, increased runoff may not alleviate dry season shortages. The impact varies significantly with the climate model used and future population growth rates. The study concludes that climate change generally increases water stress in many parts of the world, but its actual impact will depend on future water resource management strategies.

(Generated with the help of GPT-4)

Categories: Africa geographic scope | Asia geographic scope | English publication language | Europe geographic scope | Global geographic scope | Mediterranean geographic scope | Middle East geographic scope | North America geographic scope | South America geographic scope | climate change | climate change impacts; global water resources; water resources stresses; sres emissions scenarios; macro-scale hydrological model; | climate models | global water resources | hydrological model | multi-decadal variability | population growth | runoff simulation | scenarios | socio-economic | socio-economic impact | sres emissions | sres scenarios | water | water management | water resources | water stress