Water quality-driven water scarcity for energy and food production under climate variability and change
Abstract
The energy and food sectors both strongly rely on sufficient water availability but also on suitable water quality. High water temperatures can critically constrain cooling water use for thermoelectric power generation and high salinity levels can limit irrigation water uses. Climate change is overall expected to increase river water temperatures and potential increases in drought intensity and frequency may also increase salinity levels of several river basins worldwide. These water quality changes may have important impacts on water uses for energy and food production.
This presentation focuses on links between water quality and the energy and food sectors under climate variability and change. A new concept and model framework will be presented to quantify energy and irrigation water scarcity including water temperature and salinity as main critical water quality indicators (Jones & van Vliet 2018; van Vliet et al., 2017). In addition, impacts of increasing water temperatures on cooling water scarcity and thermoelectric power usable capacity will be presented (van Vliet et al., 2016a,b,c, Behrens et al., 2017). Our results highlight that water quality is, in addition to water availability of major importance for both energy and food production, and this should be included in water-food-energy nexus assessments. References - Behrens P, van Vliet MTH, Nanninga T, Walsh B, Rodrigues JFD (2017) Climate change and the vulnerability of electricity generation to water stress in the European Union. Nature Energy 2: 17114 - Jones E, van Vliet MTH (2018) Drought impacts on river salinity in the southern US: implications for water scarcity, Science of the Total Environment 644: 844 - 853 - van Vliet MTH, Flörke M, Wada Y (2017) Quality matters for water scarcity Nature Geoscience 10: 800 - 802. - van Vliet MTH, Sheffield J, Wiberg D, Wood EF (2016a) Impacts of recent drought and warm years on water resources and electricity supply worldwide. Environmental Research Letters 11: 124021. - van Vliet MTH, van Beek LPH, Eisner S, Flörke M, Wada Y, Bierkens MFP (2016b) Multi-model assessment of global hydropower and cooling water discharge potential under climate change. Global Environmental Change 40: 156-170. - van Vliet MTH, Wiberg D, Leduc S, Riahi K (2016c) Power-generation system vulnerability and adaptation to changes in climate and water resources. Nature Climate Change 6: 375-380.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMGC53C..04V
- Keywords:
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- 1616 Climate variability;
- GLOBAL CHANGE