The importance of population, climate change and CO2 plant physiological forcing in determining future global water stress
2013
Wiltshire, Andrew | Gornall, Jemma | Booth, Ben | Dennis, Emily | Falloon, Pete | Kay, Gillian | McNeall, Doug | McSweeney, Carol | Bėtts, Richard
Future levels of water stress depend on changes in several key factors including population, climate-change driven water availability, and a carbon dioxide physiological-forcing effect on evaporation and run-off. In this study we use an ensemble of the HadCM3 climate model forced with a range of future emissions scenarios combined with a simple water scarcity index to assess the contribution of each of these factors to the projected population living in water stress over the 21st century.Population change only scenarios increase the number of people living in water stress such that at peak global population 65% of people experience some level of water stress. Globally, the climate model ensemble projects an increase in water availability which partially offsets some of the impacts of population growth. The result is 1 billion fewer people living in water stress by the 2080s under the high end emissions scenarios than if population increased in the absence of climate change.This study highlights the important role plant-physiological forcing has on future water resources. The effect of rising CO2 is to increase available water and to reduce the number of people living in high water stress by around 200 million compared to climate only projections. This effect is of a similar order of magnitude to climate change.
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