The world's road to water scarcity: shortage and stress in the 20th century and pathways towards sustainability.

ABSTRACT: Water scarcity is a rapidly growing concern around the globe, but little is known about how it has developed over time. This study provides a first assessment of continuous sub-national trajectories of blue water consumption, renewable freshwater availability, and water scarcity for the entire 20^th century. Water scarcity is analysed using the fundamental concepts of shortage (impacts due to low availability per capita) and stress (impacts due to high consumption relative to availability) which indicate difficulties in satisfying the needs of a population and overuse of resources respectively. While water consumption increased fourfold within the study period, the population under water scarcity increased from 0.24 billion (14% of global population) in the 1900s to 3.8 billion (

SUBMITTER: Kummu M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5146931 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature