Human water use involves changes to natural patterns of runoff and river discharge, through water withdrawals, consumption and return flows, land use change, irrigation, and inter-basin water transfers.
When local water sources can’t satisfy needs, a common solution is to look elsewhere. A region becomes dependent on upstream water inflows or on imports of “virtual water”. Water allocation decides who gets what.
What should you do? There are a broad range of actions that can alleviate water scarcity. There is no such thing as a free lunch, there will always be flow-on consequences. When everything is changing, it’s important to think about what lines you should avoid crossing.
Explore the effect of a range of actions on scarcity in future!
Publication list: Analyses in the atlas are based on published research. Brief comments are given for each water scarcity related publication describing how it connects with the themes presented in the atlas
Data: all data and analyses in the atlas are open access and open source. All data and code are listed here. Alternatively, data can be downloaded from each page.
Keys, P.W., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Gordon, L.J. PLoS ONE
Wang-Erlandsson, L., Bastiaanssen, W.G.M., Gao, H., Jägermeyr, J., Senay, G.B., Van Dijk, A.I.J.M., Guerschman, J.P., Keys, P.W., Gordon, L.J., Savenije, H.H.G. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
Wang-Erlandsson, L., Fetzer, I., Keys, P.W., Van Der Ent, R.J., Savenije, H.H.G., Gordon, L.J. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences