The Impact of Upstream Sub-Basins’ Water Use on Middle Stream and Downstream Sub-Basins’ Water Security at Country-Basin Unit Spatial Scale and Monthly Temporal Resolution

Dagmawi Mulugeta Degefu, Zaiyi Liao, Weijun He, Liang Yuan, Min An, Zhaofang Zhang and Wu Xia
Additional contact information
Dagmawi Mulugeta Degefu: College of Economics and Management, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China
Zaiyi Liao: Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada
Weijun He: College of Economics and Management, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China
Liang Yuan: College of Economics and Management, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China
Min An: College of Economics and Management, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China
Zhaofang Zhang: School of business, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Wu Xia: School of Law and Public Administration, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-12

Abstract: Water, in most of the transboundary river basins, is a bone of contention among their riparian states. Taking this into account, this article assessed the monthly impact of upstream water withdrawal on the water security of middle stream and downstream sub-basins at a country-basin mesh spatial resolution. Roughly 2.18 billion people in 442 sub-basin areas experience water stress intensification by less than 1% throughout the year. In addition, 2.12 billion people in 336 sub-basin areas experience water stress level change, from no water stress to one of the water stress categories, for at least one month as the result of upstream withdrawal. Even though there is a clear upstream impact in many of the basins, water disputes with severe social, economic, political, and environmental consequences are nonexistent. This might be an indication that grave water disputes are the result of complex socio-economic and political interactions, not merely because of water deficits due to upstream water withdrawal. Therefore, understanding this relationship is crucial in identifying inflection points for water conflicts within transboundary river basins.

Keywords: Transboundary river basin; Water stress; River discharge; Water footprint; Water dispute (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/450/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/450/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:3:p:450-:d:203382

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().