A global assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity

This paper presents a global scale assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity. Patterns of climate change from 21 Global Climate Models (GCMs) under four SRES scenarios are applied to a global hydrological model to estimate water resources across 1339 watersheds. The Water Crowding Index (WCI) and the Water Stress Index (WSI) are used to calculate exposure to increases and decreases in global water scarcity due to climate change. 1.6 (WCI) and 2.4 (WSI) billion people are estimated to be currently living within watersheds exposed to water scarcity. Using the WCI, by 2050 under the A1B scenario, 0.5 to 3.1 billion people are exposed to an increase in water scarcity due to climate change (range…

• SR
  Sight Research UK

  Awards: NE/E00184X/1, NE/E001866/1, NE/E001858/1, NE/E001831/1, NE/E001890/1, NE/E001874/1, NE/E001823/1, NE/E001904/1, NE/E001815/1, NE/E001858/2, NE/E001882/1
• NE
  Natural Environment Research Council

  Awards: NE/E001866/1, NE/E001904/1, NE/E001815/1, NE/E001823/1, NE/E001882/1, NE/E001890/1, NE/E001831/1, NE/E001858/2, NE/E001874/1, NE/E00184X/1, NE/E001858/1