Assessing Freshwater Provision and Consumption in the Alpine Space Applying the Ecosystem Service Concept

Claude Meisch, Uta Schirpke, Lisa Huber, Johannes Rüdisser and Ulrike Tappeiner
Additional contact information
Claude Meisch: Department of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Sternwartestrasse 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Uta Schirpke: Department of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Sternwartestrasse 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Lisa Huber: Department of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Sternwartestrasse 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Johannes Rüdisser: Department of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Sternwartestrasse 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Ulrike Tappeiner: Department of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Sternwartestrasse 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: A key challenge in the sustainable management of freshwater is related to non-stationary processes and transboundary requirements. The assessment of freshwater is often hampered due to small-scale analyses, lacking data and with the focus on only its provision. Based on the ecosystem service (ES) concept, this study aims at quantitatively comparing potential water supply with the demand for freshwater in the European Alps and their surrounding lowlands. We propose an easy-to-use combination of different mapping approaches, including a large-scale hydrologic model to estimate water supply and the downscaling of regional data to the local scale to map demand. Our results demonstrate spatial mismatches between supply and demand and a high dependency of the densely populated lowlands from water providing mountain areas. Under expected climate variations and future demographic changes, our results suggest increasing pressures on freshwater in the south of the Alps. Hence, sustainable water management strategies need to assure the supply of freshwater under changing environmental conditions to meet the increasing water demand of urbanized areas in the lowlands. Moreover, national water management strategies need to be optimally concerted at the international level, as transboundary policies and frameworks can strengthen future water provision.

Keywords: ecosystem services; InVEST; spatial modelling; water yield; water abstraction; water budget; climate change; demographic change; scenario analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1131/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1131/ (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:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:4:p:1131-:d:207893

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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