Water availability change in central Belgium for the late 21st century

Abstract There are concerns about the impact of climate change on Olympic Games, especially endurance events, such as marathons. In recent competitions, many marathon runners dropped out of their races due to extreme heat, and it is expected that more areas will be unable to host the Olympic Games due to climate change. Here, we show the feasibility of the Olympic marathon considering the variations in climate factors, socioeconomic conditions, and adaptation measures. The number of current possible host cities will decline by up to 24% worldwide by the late 21st century. Dozens of emerging cities, especially in Asia, will not be capable of hosting the marathon under the highest emission scenario. Moving the marathon from August to October and holding the games in multiple cities in the country are effective measures, and they should be considered if we are to maintain the regional diversity of the games.

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Arctic Freshwater in CMIP6: Declining Sea Ice, Increasing Ocean Storage and Export

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6391 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hannah Zanowski ◽

Alexandra Jahn ◽

Marika Holland

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

21St Century ◽

Barents Sea ◽

The Arctic ◽

Historical Period ◽

Freshwater Flux ◽

Bering Strait ◽

The Barents Sea ◽

Late 21St Century ◽

Freshwater Export

<p>Recently, the Arctic has undergone substantial changes in sea ice cover and the hydrologic cycle, both of which strongly impact the freshwater storage in, and export from, the Arctic Ocean. Here we analyze Arctic freshwater storage and fluxes in 7 climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) and assess their agreement over the historical period (1980-2000) and in two future emissions scenarios, SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5. In the historical simulation, few models agree closely with observations over 1980-2000. In both future scenarios the models show an increase in liquid (ocean) freshwater storage in conjunction with a reduction in solid storage and fluxes through the major Arctic gateways (Bering Strait, Fram Strait, Davis Strait, and the Barents Sea Opening) that is typically larger for SSP5-8.5 than SSP1-2.6. The liquid fluxes through the gateways exhibit a more complex pattern, with models exhibiting a change in sign of the freshwater flux through the Barents Sea Opening and little change in the flux through the Bering Strait in addition to increased export from the remaining straits by the end of the 21st century. A decomposition of the liquid fluxes into their salinity and volume contributions shows that the Barents Sea flux changes are driven by salinity changes, while the Bering Strait flux changes are driven by compensating salinity and volume changes. In the straits west of Greenland (Nares, Barrow, and Davis straits), the models disagree on whether there will be a decrease, increase, or steady liquid freshwater export in the early to mid 21st century, although they mostly show increased liquid freshwater export in the late 21st century. The underlying cause of this is a difference in the magnitude and timing of a simulated decrease in the volume flux through these straits. Although the models broadly agree on the sign of late 21st century storage and flux changes, substantial differences exist between the magnitude of these changes and the models&#8217; Arctic mean states, which shows no fundamental improvement in the models compared to CMIP5.</p>

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Integrated assessment of global water scarcity over the 21st century under multiple climate change mitigation policies

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-18-2859-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 18 (8) ◽

pp. 2859-2883 ◽

Cited By ~ 61

Author(s):

M. I. Hejazi ◽

J. Edmonds ◽

L. Clarke ◽

P. Kyle ◽

E. Davies ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

21St Century ◽

Water Availability ◽

Water Scarcity ◽

Carbon Tax ◽

Assessment Model ◽

Baseline Scenario ◽

Water Demands ◽

Global Water ◽

Mitigation Policies

Abstract. Water scarcity conditions over the 21st century both globally and regionally are assessed in the context of climate change and climate mitigation policies, by estimating both water availability and water demand within the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), a leading community-integrated assessment model of energy, agriculture, climate, and water. To quantify changes in future water availability, a new gridded water-balance global hydrologic model – namely, the Global Water Availability Model (GWAM) – is developed and evaluated. Global water demands for six major demand sectors (irrigation, livestock, domestic, electricity generation, primary energy production, and manufacturing) are modeled in GCAM at the regional scale (14 geopolitical regions, 151 sub-regions) and then spatially downscaled to 0.5° × 0.5° resolution to match the scale of GWAM. Using a baseline scenario (i.e., no climate change mitigation policy) with radiative forcing reaching 8.8 W m−2 (equivalent to the SRES A1Fi emission scenario) and three climate policy scenarios with increasing mitigation stringency of 7.7, 5.5, and 4.2 W m−2 (equivalent to the SRES A2, B2, and B1 emission scenarios, respectively), we investigate the effects of emission mitigation policies on water scarcity. Two carbon tax regimes (a universal carbon tax (UCT) which includes land use change emissions, and a fossil fuel and industrial emissions carbon tax (FFICT) which excludes land use change emissions) are analyzed. The baseline scenario results in more than half of the world population living under extreme water scarcity by the end of the 21st century. Additionally, in years 2050 and 2095, 36% (28%) and 44% (39%) of the global population, respectively, is projected to live in grid cells (in basins) that will experience greater water demands than the amount of available water in a year (i.e., the water scarcity index (WSI) > 1.0). When comparing the climate policy scenarios to the baseline scenario while maintaining the same baseline socioeconomic assumptions, water scarcity declines under a UCT mitigation policy but increases with a FFICT mitigation scenario by the year 2095, particularly with more stringent climate mitigation targets. Under the FFICT scenario, water scarcity is projected to increase, driven by higher water demands for bio-energy crops.

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Intensification of the Pre‐Meiyu Rainband in the Late 21st Century

Geophysical Research Letters ◽

10.1029/2019gl083383 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 46 (13) ◽

pp. 7536-7545 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

John C. H. Chiang ◽

Johannes Fischer ◽

Wenwen Kong ◽

Michael J. Herman

Keyword(s):

21St Century ◽

Late 21St Century

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Integrated assessment of global water scarcity over the 21st century – Part 1: Global water supply and demand under extreme radiative forcing

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-10-3327-2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 3327-3381 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

M. I. Hejazi ◽

J. Edmonds ◽

L. Clarke ◽

P. Kyle ◽

E. Davies ◽

...

Keyword(s):

21St Century ◽

Water Availability ◽

Water Scarcity ◽

Water Demand ◽

Integrated Assessment ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Assessment Model ◽

Water Demands ◽

Global Population ◽

Global Water

Abstract. Water scarcity conditions over the 21st century both globally and regionally are assessed in the context of climate change, by estimating both water availability and water demand within the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), a leading community integrated assessment model of energy, agriculture, climate, and water. To quantify changes in future water availability, a new gridded water-balance global hydrologic model – namely, the Global Water Availability Model (GWAM) – is developed and evaluated. Global water demands for six major demand sectors (irrigation, livestock, domestic, electricity generation, primary energy production, and manufacturing) are modeled in GCAM at the regional scale (14 geopolitical regions, 151 sub-regions) and then spatially downscaled to 0.5° × 0.5° resolution to match the scale of GWAM. Using a baseline scenario (i.e., no climate change mitigation policy) with radiative forcing reaching 8.8 W m−2 (equivalent to the SRES A1Fi emission scenario) and a global population of 14 billion by 2095, global annual water demand grows from about 9–10% of total annual renewable freshwater in 2005 to about 32–37% by 2095. This results in more than half of the world population living under extreme water scarcity by the end of the 21st century. Regionally, the demand for water exceeds the amount of water availability in two GCAM regions, the Middle East and India. Additionally, in years 2050 and 2095 36% (28%) and 44% (39%) of the global population, respectively is projected to live in grid cells (in basins) that will experience greater water demands than the amount of available water in a year (i.e., the water scarcity index (WSI) > 1.0). This study implies an increasingly prominent role for water in future human decisions, and highlights the importance of including water in integrated assessment of global change.

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Climate change vs. socio-economic development: Understanding the future South-Asian water gap

10.5194/hess-2018-16 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

René R. Wijngaard ◽

Hester Biemans ◽

Arthur F. Lutz ◽

Arun B. Shrestha ◽

Philippus Wester ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Economic Development ◽

South Asian ◽

21St Century ◽

Water Availability ◽

Water Demand ◽

River Basins ◽

Socio Economic Development ◽

The Future ◽

Asian Water

Abstract. The Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra (IGB) river basins provide about 900 million people with water resources used for agricultural, domestic, and industrial purposes. These river basins are marked as climate change hotspot, where climate change is expected to affect monsoon dynamics and the amount of meltwater from snow and ice, and thus the amount of water available. Simultaneously, rapid and continuous population growth, and strong economic development will likely result in a rapid increase in water demand. Since quantification of these future trends is missing, it is rather uncertain how the future South Asian water gap will develop. To this end, we assess the combined impacts of climate change and socio-economic development on future blue water scarcity for the IGB until the end of the 21st century. We apply a coupled modelling approach consisting of the distributed cryospheric-hydrological model SPHY, which simulates current and future upstream water supply, and the hydrology and crop production model LPJmL, which simulates current and future downstream water supply and demand. We force the models with an ensemble of eight representative downscaled General Circulation Models (GCMs) that are selected from the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, and a set of land use and socio-economic scenarios that are consistent with the Shared Socio-economic Pathway (SSP) marker scenarios 1 and 3. The simulation outputs are used to analyse changes in water availability, supply, demand, and scarcity. The outcomes show an increase in surface water availability towards the end of the 21st century, which can mainly be attributed to increases in monsoon precipitation. However, despite the increase surface water availability, the strong socio-economic development and associated increase in water demand will likely lead to an increase in the water gap during the 21st century. This indicates that socio-economic development is the key driver in the evolution of the future South Asian water gap.

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Human Reemerging Arboviral Diseases of the Late 21st Century: From Ecological-Epidemiology to Control Strategies

Emerging and Reemerging Viral Pathogens ◽

10.1016/b978-0-12-819400-3.00002-8 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 9-33

Author(s):

Idris Abdullahi Nasir ◽

Amos Dangana ◽

Abdurrahman Elfulaty Ahmad ◽

Iduda Ojeamiren ◽

Anthony Uchenna Emeribe

Keyword(s):

21St Century ◽

Control Strategies ◽

Late 21St Century ◽

Arboviral Diseases

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Climate change vs. socio-economic development: understanding the future South Asian water gap

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-22-6297-2018 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 22 (12) ◽

pp. 6297-6321 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

René Reijer Wijngaard ◽

Hester Biemans ◽

Arthur Friedrich Lutz ◽

Arun Bhakta Shrestha ◽

Philippus Wester ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Economic Development ◽

South Asian ◽

21St Century ◽

Water Availability ◽

River Basins ◽

Environmental Flow ◽

Socio Economic Development ◽

The Future ◽

Asian Water

Abstract. The Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra (IGB) river basins provide about 900 million people with water resources used for agricultural, domestic, and industrial purposes. These river basins are marked as “climate change hotspots”, where climate change is expected to affect monsoon dynamics and the amount of meltwater from snow and ice, and thus the amount of water available. Simultaneously, rapid and continuous population growth as well as strong economic development will likely result in a rapid increase in water demand. Since quantification of these future trends is missing, it is rather uncertain how the future South Asian water gap will develop. To this end, we assess the combined impacts of climate change and socio-economic development on the future “blue” water gap in the IGB until the end of the 21st century. We apply a coupled modelling approach consisting of the distributed cryospheric–hydrological model SPHY, which simulates current and future upstream water supply, and the hydrology and crop production model LPJmL, which simulates current and future downstream water supply and demand. We force the coupled models with an ensemble of eight representative downscaled general circulation models (GCMs) that are selected from the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, and a set of land use and socio-economic scenarios that are consistent with the shared socio-economic pathway (SSP) marker scenarios 1 and 3. The simulation outputs are used to analyse changes in the water availability, supply, demand, and gap. The outcomes show an increase in surface water availability towards the end of the 21st century, which can mainly be attributed to increases in monsoon precipitation. However, despite the increase in surface water availability, the strong socio-economic development and associated increase in water demand will likely lead to an increase in the water gap during the 21st century. This indicates that socio-economic development is the key driver in the evolution of the future South Asian water gap. The transgression of future environmental flows will likely be limited, with sustained environmental flow requirements during the monsoon season and unmet environmental flow requirements during the low-flow season in the Indus and Ganges river basins.

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New Zealand River Hydrology under Late 21st Century Climate Change

Water ◽

10.3390/w12082175 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (8) ◽

pp. 2175

Author(s):

Daniel B. G. Collins

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

New Zealand ◽

21St Century ◽

Climate Model ◽

Water Cycle ◽

Well Being ◽

Cultural Economic ◽

Low Flows ◽

Late 21St Century ◽

The Mean

Climate change is increasingly affecting the water cycle and as freshwater plays a vital role in countries’ societal and environmental well-being it is important to develop national assessments of potential climate change impacts. Focussing on New Zealand, a climate-hydrology model cascade is used to project hydrological impacts of late 21st century climate change at 43,862 river locations across the country for seven hydrological metrics. Mean annual and seasonal river flows validate well across the whole model cascade, and the mean annual floods to a lesser extent, while low flows exhibit a large positive bias. Model projections show large swathes of non-significant effects across the country due to interannual variability and climate model uncertainty. Where changes are significant, mean annual, autumn, and spring flows increase along the west and south and decrease in the north and east. The largest and most extensive increases occur during winter, while during summer decreasing flows outnumber increasing. The mean annual flood increases more in the south, while mean annual low flows show both increases and decreases. These hydrological changes are likely to have important long-term implications for New Zealand’s societal, cultural, economic, and environmental well-being.

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