A triple increase in global river basins with water scarcity due to future pollution

Mengru Wang (), Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, Rhodé Rijneveld, Felicitas Beier, Mirjam P. Bak, Masooma Batool, Bram Droppers, Alexander Popp, Michelle T. H. Vliet and Maryna Strokal
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Mengru Wang: Wageningen University & Research
Benjamin Leon Bodirsky: Leibniz Association
Rhodé Rijneveld: Wageningen University & Research
Felicitas Beier: Leibniz Association
Mirjam P. Bak: Wageningen University & Research
Masooma Batool: UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Computational Hydrosystems
Bram Droppers: Utrecht University
Alexander Popp: Leibniz Association
Michelle T. H. Vliet: Utrecht University
Maryna Strokal: Wageningen University & Research

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Water security is at stake today. While climate changes influence water availability, urbanization and agricultural activities have led to increasing water demand as well as pollution, limiting safe water use. We conducted a global assessment of future clean-water scarcity for 2050s by adding the water pollution aspect to the classical water quantity-induced scarcity assessments. This was done for >10,000 sub-basins focusing on nitrogen pollution in rivers by integrating land-system, hydrological and water quality models. We found that water pollution aggravates water scarcity in >2000 sub-basins worldwide. The number of sub-basins with water scarcity triples due to future nitrogen pollution worldwide. In 2010, 984 sub-basins are classified as water scarce when considering only quantity-induced scarcity, while 2517 sub-basins are affected by quantity & quality-induced scarcity. This number even increases to 3061 sub-basins in the worst case scenario in 2050. This aggravation means an extra 40 million km2 of basin area and 3 billion more people that may potentially face water scarcity in 2050. Our results stress the urgent need to address water quality in future water management policies for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-44947-3

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