Human-Water Dynamics and their Role for Seasonal Water Scarcity – a Case Study

Andreas Nicolaidis Lindqvist (), Rickard Fornell, Thomas Prade, Linda Tufvesson, Sammar Khalil and Birgit Kopainsky
Additional contact information
Andreas Nicolaidis Lindqvist: RISE Research Institutes of Sweden
Rickard Fornell: RISE Research Institutes of Sweden
Thomas Prade: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Linda Tufvesson: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Sammar Khalil: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Birgit Kopainsky: University of Bergen

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2021, vol. 35, issue 10, No 1, 3043-3061

Abstract: Abstract Ensuring sustainable management and an adequate supply of freshwater resources is a growing challenge around the world. Even in historically water abundant regions climate change together with population growth and economic development are processes that are expected to contribute to an increase in permanent and seasonal water scarcity in the coming decades. Previous studies have shown how policies to address water scarcity often fail to deliver lasting improvements because they do not account for how these processes influence, and are influenced by, human-water interactions shaping water supply and demand. Despite significant progress in recent years, place-specific understanding of the mechanisms behind human-water feedbacks remain limited, particularly in historically water abundant regions. To this end, we here present a Swedish case study where we, by use of a qualitative system dynamics approach, explore how human-water interactions have contributed to seasonal water scarcity at the local-to-regional scale. Our results suggest that the current approach to address water scarcity by inter-basin water transports contributes to increasing demand by creating a gap between the perceived and actual state of water resources among consumers. This has resulted in escalating water use and put the region in a state of systemic lock-in where demand-regulating policies are mitigated by increases in water use enabled by water transports. We discuss a combination of information and economic policy instruments to combat water scarcity, and we propose the use of quantitative simulation methods to further assess these strategies in future studies.

Keywords: Water; Resource management; Socio-hydrology; Systems thinking; System dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-021-02819-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:35:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1007_s11269-021-02819-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-021-02819-1

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().