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Updated: Jun 16, 2025

Watershed Planning within a Quantitative Scenario Analysis Framework
Published on: July 24, 2016
Assessing future water scarcity in China under climate and socioeconomic change: Can inter-basin transfers mitigate
Muhammad Bilal Idrees1, Haixing Liu2, Siao Sun3
1Faculty of Infrastructure Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
Abstract:
Inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) projects have been globally implemented as a long-term means to mitigate water scarcity. However, the effectiveness of IBWT in mitigating future water scarcity under non-stationary climate conditions and socioeconomic changes remains unclear. This study presents the first sub-basin level assessment of future water scarcity in China under various climate change and socioeconomic scenarios (2025-2099). Based on a newly compiled database of 140 IBWT projects in China by 2050, here we present an assessment of their effect on future water scarcity at the sub-basin level. The results indicated that the water scarcity in China will aggravate in the future without IBWT under various climatic and socioeconomic scenarios. While IBWT will impact 60 sub-basins in China out of a total of 76 sub-basins, it will hardly change a sub-basin's water scarcity level (WSL). Around 696 million people will benefit from IBWT with alleviated water scarcity in the water-receiving sub-basins. The spatial disparity between water availability and demand in China will be reduced by IBWT, as the inequality coefficient will decrease from the historic value of 0.641 to 0.604. However, this study unravels the "IBWT-induced water scarcity" demonstrated by the negative impacts of IBWT on the water-exporting regions. Around 349 million people in China will be subjected to aggravated water scarcity in the future after IBWT, mainly in the southern sub-basins. The water scarcity analysis combined projected hydrological shifts and sectoral water demands in China, underscoring the challenges of securing water supply through interregional transfers.
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