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Ronny Berndtsson

Professor, Dep Director, MECW Dep Scientific Coordinator

Profile photo of Ronny Berndtsson

Towards an integrated system modeling of water scarcity with projected changes in climate and socioeconomic conditions

Author

  • S. Dehghani
  • A. R. Massah Bavani
  • A. Roozbahani
  • A. Gohari
  • R. Berndtsson

Summary, in English

Water scarcity is one of the major challenges in semi-arid and arid areas. Drivers for water scarcity include climate change, population growth, economic, and agricultural development. This paper presents a framework for assessing water scarcity under the impact of climate, industry, and socio-economic changes in the Qazvin Plain, Iran. A system dynamics model is developed and calibrated using historical data to evaluate the effects of the projected drivers on water scarcity in 2025–2054. A Bayesian averaging model was used to manage the uncertainty in the GFDL, INM, IPSL, MPI-ESM1-2, and MRI.MRI-ESM2-0 climate projections under the two future SSP126 and SSP585 (shared socioeconomic pathways) scenarios. The results demonstrate that the water scarcity index (with a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 1) is about 0.4 and 0.7 in SSP126 and SSP585, respectively, which may severely affect agricultural development. On the other hand, the industry, domestic, and service sectors are more resilient to these variations with no probable major effects on water scarcity. However, the stress on the agricultural sector may cause migration of the workforce to industry. Policymakers must focus on implementing appropriate adaptation strategies for the agricultural sector to prepare for unpredictable shocks to the system.

Department/s

  • Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES)
  • MECW: The Middle East in the Contemporary World
  • Division of Water Resources Engineering
  • LTH Profile Area: Water

Publishing year

2022

Language

English

Pages

543-556

Publication/Series

Sustainable Production and Consumption

Volume

33

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Oceanography, Hydrology, Water Resources

Keywords

  • Agriculture
  • Hydrology
  • Industry
  • System dynamic modeling
  • Water scarcity

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2352-5509