Economic impacts of climate change on water resources in the coterminous United States

Abstract

A national-scale simulation-optimization model was created to generate estimates of economic impacts associated with changes in water supply and demand as influenced by climate change. Water balances were modeled for the 99 assessment sub-regions, and are presented for 18 water resource regions in the United States. Benefit functions are developed for irrigated agriculture, municipal and domestic water use, commercial and industrial water use, and hydroelectric power generation. Environmental flows below minimal levels required for environmental needs are assessed a penalty. As a demonstration of concept for the model, future climate is projected using a climate model ensemble for two greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenarios: a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario in which no new GHG controls are implemented, and an exemplary mitigation policy (POL) scenario in which future GHG emissions are mitigated. Damages are projected to grow less during the 21st century under the POL scenario than the BAU scenario. The largest impacts from climate change are projected to be on non-consumptive uses (e.g., environmental flows and hydropower) and relatively lower-valued consumptive uses (e.g., agriculture), as water is reallocated during reduced water availability conditions to supply domestic, commercial, and industrial uses with higher marginal values. Lower GHG concentrations associated with a mitigation policy will result in a smaller rise in temperature and thus less extensive damage to some water resource uses. However, hydropower, environmental flow penalty, and agriculture were shown to be sensitive to the change in runoff as well.

Benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation on the supply, management, and use of water resources in the United States

“…5 Assessing water resources welfare impacts using an basin scale hydro-economic supply demand model A national-scale optimization model (Henderson et al 2013) was used to generate estimates of the economic impacts associated with changes in both supply and demand of water (see Online Resource 3 for full methodological details). The model is a spatial-equilibrium simulation of Blue colors indicate increases in runoff relative to the historic baseline, red colors indicate decreases in runoff relative to the historic baseline the water balance for each water use region using a representative reservoir.…”

A Climatic Perspective on the Impacts of Global Warming on Water Cycle of Cold Mountainous Catchments in the Tibetan Plateau: A Case Study in Yarlung Zangbo River Basin

“…Steady rising global temperature has already altered regional water cycles in many places around the world and has posed great challenges to local water resources management [1][2][3]. This issue is relatively more alarming for cold mountainous catchments because of faster warming rates [4], especially in the Asian water tower that is the Tibetan Plateau (hereafter denoted as the TP) [5,6], from where meltwater feeds several large rivers of Asia (e.g., Indus River, Brahmaputra River, Ganges River, Yellow River and Yangtze River) and supports almost half of the world's population [7].…”

Scotland's industrial water use: Understanding recent changes and examining the future

“…Collectively, the impacts of climate change will be most pronounced at the regional level, whereby changes to precipitation patterns, alterations to stream discharge and groundwater recharge, increasing rates of evaporation from lakes and reservoirs, and changes to the thermal gradients in snowpack-reliant regions will all manifest in changes to local water security (Henderson et al, 2015).…”