Review and classification of indicators of green water availability and scarcity

By J. F. Schyns, Arjen Y. Hoekstra, Martijn J. Booij. 2015

156 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Research on water scarcity has mainly focussed on blue water (ground- and surface water), but green water (soil moisture returning to the atmosphere through evaporation) is also scarce, because its availability is limited and there are competing demands for green water. Crop production, grazing lands, forestry and terrestrial ecosystems are all sustained by green water. The implicit distribution or explicit allocation of limited green water resources over competitive demands determines which economic and environmental goods and services will be produced and may affect food security and nature conservation. We need to better understand green water scarcity to be able to measure, model, predict and handle it. This paper reviews and classifies around 80 indicators of green water availability and scarcity, and discusses the way forward to develop operational green water scarcity indicators that can broaden the scope of water scarcity assessments.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Ocean Engineering, Water Science and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4d8ea691741ba3611cd3a39c5603a22e7ea22468

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Global and Planetary Change

1. Paolo D'Odorico
2. L. Rosa
3. Francesco Laio
4. Luca Ridolfi
5. J. Bare
6. Taikan Oki
7. David E. Robertson
8. Quan J. Wang

In Ocean Engineering

1. L. Rosa
2. Paolo D'Odorico
3. J. Dell’Angelo
4. J. Carr
5. Samir Suweis
6. S. Pfister
7. Other

In Water Science and Technology

1. L. Rosa
2. Paolo D'Odorico
3. J. Dell’Angelo
4. J. Carr
5. Samir Suweis
6. M. Konar
7. Francesco Laio
8. Luca Ridolfi

Citations in the corpus

• The WULCA consensus characterization model for water scarcity footprints: assessing impacts of water consumption based on available water remaining (AWARE) (2018, background): “The term scarcity is retained here for compatibility with ISO 14046, although no difference with the term B stress ^ has been found in this context and other definitions of scarcity exist (Schyns et al. 2015).”
• Global virtual water trade and the hydrological cycle: patterns, drivers, and socio-environmental impacts (2019, background): “A handful of studies have partitioned blue water into surface and groundwater, since the implications of using each is different (Aldaya and Llamas 2008, Aldaya et al 2010, Schyns and Hoekstra 2014 Marston et al 2015, Schyns et al 2015, Yano et al 2015).”