Dataset Information

Capping Human Water Footprints in the World's River Basins.

ABSTRACT: Increased water demand and overexploitation of limited freshwater resources lead to water scarcity, economic downturn, and conflicts over water in many places around the world. A sensible policy measure to bridle humanity's water footprint, then, is to set local and time-specific water footprint caps, to ensure that water appropriation for human uses remains within ecological boundaries. This study estimates-for all river basins in the world-monthly blue water flows that can be allocated to human uses, while explicitly earmarking water for nature. Addressing some implications of temporal variability, we quantify trade-offs between potentially violating environmental flow requirements versus underutilizing available flow-a trade-off that is particularly pronounced in basins with a high seasonal and interannual variability. We discuss several limitations and challenges that need to be overcome if setting water footprint caps is to become a practically applicable policy instrument, including the need (for policy makers) to reach agreement on which specific capping procedure to follow. We conclude by relating local and time-specific water footprint caps to the planetary boundary for freshwater use.

SUBMITTER: Hogeboom RJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7375134 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Capping Human Water Footprints in the World's River Basins.

Hogeboom Rick J RJ de Bruin Davey D Schyns Joep F JF Krol Maarten S MS Hoekstra Arjen Y AY

Earth's future 20200217 2

Increased water demand and overexploitation of limited freshwater resources lead to water scarcity, economic downturn, and conflicts over water in many places around the world. A sensible policy measure to bridle humanity's water footprint, then, is to set local and time-specific water footprint caps, to ensure that water appropriation for human uses remains within ecological boundaries. This study estimates-for all river basins in the world-monthly blue water flows that can be allocated to huma ...[more]

PMID: 32715009

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Dataset Information

Capping Human Water Footprints in the World's River Basins.

Publications

Capping Human Water Footprints in the World's River Basins.

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