Is physical water scarcity a new phenomenon? Global assessment of water shortage over the last two millennia

By Matti Kummu, Philip J. Ward, H. de Moel, Olli Varis. 2010

444 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this letter we analyse the temporal development of physical population-driven water scarcity, i.e. water shortage, over the period 0 AD to 2005 AD. This was done using population data derived from the HYDE dataset, and water resource availability based on the WaterGAP model results for the period 1961–90. Changes in historical water resources availability were simulated with the STREAM model, forced by climate output data of the ECBilt–CLIO–VECODE climate model. The water crowding index, i.e. Falkenmark water stress indicator, was used to identify water shortage in 284 sub-basins. Although our results show a few areas with moderate water shortage (1000–1700 m3/capita/yr) around the year 1800, water shortage began in earnest at around 1900, when 2% of the world population was under chronic water shortage (<1000 m3/capita/yr). By 1960, this percentage had risen to 9%. From then on, the number of people under water shortage increased rapidly to the year 2005, by which time 35% of the world population lived in areas with chronic water shortage. In this study, the effects of changes in population on water shortage are roughly four times more important than changes in water availability as a result of long-term climatic change. Global trends in adaptation measures to cope with reduced water resources per capita, such as irrigated area, reservoir storage, groundwater abstraction, and global trade of agricultural products, closely follow the recent increase in global water shortage.

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Citations in the corpus

Water stress in global transboundary river basins: significance of upstream water use on downstream stress (2016, unknown): “…to examine upstream water use on downstream water availability, especially as uneven distribution of renewable fresh water resource and population mean that 2 – 3 billion people live in highly water stressed areas ( Oki and Kanae 2006, Kummu et al 2010, Wada et al 2011a, van Beek et al 2011 ) .”
The world’s road to water scarcity: shortage and stress in the 20th century and pathways towards sustainability (2016, background): “= – – Stress at shortage threshold per capita consumption/1700 m cap yr (7) 3 1 1”
Partial costs of global climate change adaptation for the supply of raw industrial and municipal water: a methodology and application (2010, background): “…in the assessment of 4 Address for correspondence: Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. those impacts on water supply and shortage (e.g., Bates et al 2008, Kummu et al 2010).”
Multimodel assessment of water scarcity under climate change (2013, background): “Much larger quantities of water are required for many other purposes, most importantly irrigated agriculture, but also for industrial use, in particular for hydropower and the cooling of thermoelectric power plants (2, 3).”
Sustainability of global water use: past reconstruction and future projections (2014, background): “…and groundwater resources worldwide (Falkenmark 1989, Postel et al 1996, Gleick 2003, 2010, Oki and Kanae 2006, Döll et al 2009, Rodell et al 2009, Kummu et al 2010, 2014, MacDonald 2010, Vörösmarty et al 2010, Wada et al 2010, Famiglietti et al 2011, Konikow 2011, Wisser et al 2010, Gleeson et…”
Lost food, wasted resources: global food supply chain losses and their impacts on freshwater, cropland, and fertiliser use. (2012, background): “Water is scarce in many regions (Alcamo et al., 2003; Kummu et al., 2010; Oki and Kanae, 2006; Vörösmarty et al., 2000; Wada et al., 2011) and water scarcity is one of the most pressing challenges faced by human populations (Rockström et al., 2009).”
Gridded global datasets for Gross Domestic Product and Human Development Index over 1990–2015 (2018, methodology): “We used 12 regions based on UN classi ﬁ cation 42 , and modi ﬁ ed by Kummu, et al. 43 .”
High‐resolution modeling of human and climate impacts on global water resources (2016, background): “…development have driven an everincreasing demand for water worldwide [Falkenmark et al., 1997; Oki and Kanae, 2006; Hanasaki et al., 2008a, 2008b; Kummu et al., 2010; V€or€osmarty et al., 2010; Wisser et al., 2010; Wada et al., 2011a, 2011b; Pokhrel et al., 2012; Elliott et al., 2014; Haddeland…”