Researchers apply an economic model to trade-offs facing the UN’s ambitious Sustainable Development Goals agenda.

No abstract

Journal articleIFPRI3; ISIEPTDP

In face of meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for water-food-energy-ecosystems nexus, integrated assessments are great means to measure the impact of global change on natural resources. In this study, we evaluate the impact of future climate change scenarios (RCP8.5) and future sharedsocioeconomic Pathways (SSP2) on land use, water consumption and food trade under water regulation policy scenarios (INVEST-EXPLOIT-ENVIRONMENT). We have used the land use model GLOBIOM, and constrained it with water availability, environmental flow requirements (EFRs) and water use from agriculture and industry and households (simulated with LPJml, EPIC and WaterGap models). Here, we show that an increase in land use by 100Mha would be required to double food production by 2050, in order to meet projected food demand. International trade would need to nearly triple to meet future crop demand, with an additional 10-20% trade flow from waterabundant regions to water-scarce regions to sustain EFRs on a global scale.

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