IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v12y2021i1d10.1038_s41467-021-25026-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Future global urban water scarcity and potential solutions

Author

Listed:
  • Chunyang He

    (Beijing Normal University
    Beijing Normal University)

  • Zhifeng Liu

    (Beijing Normal University
    Beijing Normal University)

  • Jianguo Wu

    (Beijing Normal University
    Beijing Normal University
    Arizona State University)

  • Xinhao Pan

    (Beijing Normal University
    Beijing Normal University)

  • Zihang Fang

    (Beijing Normal University
    Beijing Normal University)

  • Jingwei Li

    (Shanghai Normal University)

  • Brett A. Bryan

    (Deakin University)

Abstract

Urbanization and climate change are together exacerbating water scarcity—where water demand exceeds availability—for the world’s cities. We quantify global urban water scarcity in 2016 and 2050 under four socioeconomic and climate change scenarios, and explored potential solutions. Here we show the global urban population facing water scarcity is projected to increase from 933 million (one third of global urban population) in 2016 to 1.693–2.373 billion people (one third to nearly half of global urban population) in 2050, with India projected to be most severely affected in terms of growth in water-scarce urban population (increase of 153–422 million people). The number of large cities exposed to water scarcity is projected to increase from 193 to 193–284, including 10–20 megacities. More than two thirds of water-scarce cities can relieve water scarcity by infrastructure investment, but the potentially significant environmental trade-offs associated with large-scale water scarcity solutions must be guarded against.

Suggested Citation

  • Chunyang He & Zhifeng Liu & Jianguo Wu & Xinhao Pan & Zihang Fang & Jingwei Li & Brett A. Bryan, 2021. "Future global urban water scarcity and potential solutions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-25026-3
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25026-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25026-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-021-25026-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Duan & Yu, Nizhou & Wan, Hong, 2022. "Does water rights trading affect corporate investment? The role of resource allocation and risk mitigation channels," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    2. Puppala, Harish & Ahuja, Jaya & Tamvada, Jagannadha Pawan & Peddinti, Pranav R T, 2023. "New technology adoption in rural areas of emerging economies: The case of rainwater harvesting systems in India," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    3. Salas-Zapata, Walter & Hoyos-Medina, Lorena & Mejía-Durango, Diana, 2023. "Urban residential water and electricity consumption behavior: A systematic literature review," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    4. Gabriela Scheibel Cassol & Chii Shang & Alicia Kyoungjin An & Noman Khalid Khanzada & Francesco Ciucci & Alessandro Manzotti & Paul Westerhoff & Yinghao Song & Li Ling, 2024. "Ultra-fast green hydrogen production from municipal wastewater by an integrated forward osmosis-alkaline water electrolysis system," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    5. Deyou Yu & Licong Xu & Kaixing Fu & Xia Liu & Shanli Wang & Minghua Wu & Wangyang Lu & Chunyu Lv & Jinming Luo, 2024. "Electronic structure modulation of iron sites with fluorine coordination enables ultra-effective H2O2 activation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    6. Safiyeh Tayebi & Bakhtiar Feizizadeh & Saeed Esfandi & Banafsheh Aliabbasi & Seyed Ali Alavi & Aliakbar Shamsipour, 2022. "A Neighborhood-Based Urban Water Carrying Capacity Assessment: Analysis of the Relationship between Spatial-Demographic Factors and Water Consumption Patterns in Tehran, Iran," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-26, December.
    7. Tejasvi Chauhan & Anjana Devanand & Mathew Koll Roxy & Karumuri Ashok & Subimal Ghosh, 2023. "River interlinking alters land-atmosphere feedback and changes the Indian summer monsoon," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-13, December.
    8. Xiang Gao & Zhichao Yang & Wen Zhang & Bingcai Pan, 2024. "Carbon redirection via tunable Fenton-like reactions under nanoconfinement toward sustainable water treatment," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    9. Meireles, Inês & Sousa, Vitor & Matos, José Pedro & Cruz, Carlos Oliveira, 2023. "Determinants of water loss in Portuguese utilities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    10. Tudose, Nicu Constantin & Cheval, Sorin & Ungurean, Cezar & Broekman, Annelies & Sanchez-Plaza, Anabel & Cremades, Roger & Mitter, Hermine & Kropf, Bernadette & Davidescu, Serban Octavian & Dinca, Luc, 2022. "Climate services for sustainable resource management: The water—energy—land nexus in the Tărlung river basin (Romania)," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    11. Evans, Alicejane & Hardman, Michael, 2023. "Enhancing green infrastructure in cities: Urban car parks as an opportunity space," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    12. Shan, He & Poredoš, Primož & Zou, Hao & Lv, Haotian & Wang, Ruzhu, 2023. "Perspectives for urban microenvironment sustainability enabled by decentralized water-energy-food harvesting," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    13. Cengiz Koç & Yıldırım Bayazıt & Selami Yurdan Özgül, 2023. "Impact of tourists on urban water needs in Marmaris, Türkiye," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(8), pages 8837-8855, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-25026-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.