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Benefits of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation on the Supply, Management, and Use of Water Resources in the United States

Journal Article · · Climatic Change
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [2];  [5];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [5];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [5]
  1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  2. Industrial Economics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
  3. Stratus Consulting, Boulder, CO (United States)
  4. US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Washington, DC (United States)
  5. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Climate change impacts on water resources in the U.S. are likely to be far-reaching and substantial, because the water sector spans many parts of the economy, from supply and demand for agriculture, industry, energy production, transportation and municipal use to damages from natural hazards. This paper provides impact and damage estimates from five water resource-related models in the CIRA frame work, addressing drought risk, flooding damages, water supply and demand, and global water scarcity. The four models differ in the water system assessed, their spatial scale, and the units of assessment, but together they provide a quantitative and descriptive richness in characterizing water resource sector effects of climate change that no single model can capture. The results also address the sensitivity of these estimates to greenhouse gas emission scenarios, climate sensitivity alternatives, and global climate model selection. While calculating the net impact of climate change on the water sector as a whole may be impractical, because each of the models applied here uses a consistent set of climate scenarios, broad conclusions can be drawn regarding the patterns of change and the benefits of GHG mitigation policies for the water sector. Two key findings emerge: 1) climate mitigation policy substantially reduces the impact of climate change on the water sector across multiple dimensions; and 2) the more managed the water resources system, the more tempered the climate change impacts and the resulting reduction of impacts from climate mitigation policies.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1208767
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA--93379; 400408000
Journal Information:
Climatic Change, Journal Name: Climatic Change Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 131; ISSN 0165-0009
Publisher:
SpringerCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (3)

Toward a consistent modeling framework to assess multi-sectoral climate impacts journal February 2018
Influence of Groundwater Extraction Costs and Resource Depletion Limits on Simulated Global Nonrenewable Water Withdrawals Over the Twenty‐First Century journal February 2019
Divergent trends of open-surface water body area in the contiguous United States from 1984 to 2016 journal March 2018

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29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES