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Integrated model for Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The water compartments and water stress analysis

Analysis of global sustainability is incomplete without an examination of the FEW nexus. Here, we modify the Generalized Global Sustainability Model (GGSM) to incorporate the global water system and project water stress on the global and regional levels. Five key water-consuming sectors considered h...

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Autores principales: Hanumante, Neeraj, Shastri, Yogendra, Nisal, Apoorva, Diwekar, Urmila, Cabezas, Heriberto
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9106181/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35559955
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266554
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author Hanumante, Neeraj
Shastri, Yogendra
Nisal, Apoorva
Diwekar, Urmila
Cabezas, Heriberto
author_facet Hanumante, Neeraj
Shastri, Yogendra
Nisal, Apoorva
Diwekar, Urmila
Cabezas, Heriberto
author_sort Hanumante, Neeraj
collection PubMed
description Analysis of global sustainability is incomplete without an examination of the FEW nexus. Here, we modify the Generalized Global Sustainability Model (GGSM) to incorporate the global water system and project water stress on the global and regional levels. Five key water-consuming sectors considered here are agricultural, municipal, energy, industry, and livestock. The regions are created based on the continents, namely, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America. The sectoral water use intensities and geographical distribution of the water demand were parameterized using historical data. A more realistic and novel indicator is proposed to assess the water situation: net water stress. It considers the water whose utility can be harvested, within economic and technological considerations, rather than the total renewable water resources. Simulation results indicate that overall global water availability is adequate to support the rising water demand in the next century. However, regional heterogeneity of water availability leads to high water stress in Africa. Africa’s maximum net water stress is 140%, so the water demand is expected to be more than total exploitable water resources. Africa might soon cross the 100% threshold/breakeven in 2022. For a population explosion scenario, the intensity of the water crisis for Africa and Asia is expected to rise further, and the maximum net water stress would reach 149% and 97%, respectively. The water use efficiency improvement for the agricultural sector, which reduces the water demand by 30%, could help to delay this crisis significantly.
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spelling pubmed-91061812022-05-14 Integrated model for Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The water compartments and water stress analysis Hanumante, Neeraj Shastri, Yogendra Nisal, Apoorva Diwekar, Urmila Cabezas, Heriberto PLoS One Research Article Analysis of global sustainability is incomplete without an examination of the FEW nexus. Here, we modify the Generalized Global Sustainability Model (GGSM) to incorporate the global water system and project water stress on the global and regional levels. Five key water-consuming sectors considered here are agricultural, municipal, energy, industry, and livestock. The regions are created based on the continents, namely, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America. The sectoral water use intensities and geographical distribution of the water demand were parameterized using historical data. A more realistic and novel indicator is proposed to assess the water situation: net water stress. It considers the water whose utility can be harvested, within economic and technological considerations, rather than the total renewable water resources. Simulation results indicate that overall global water availability is adequate to support the rising water demand in the next century. However, regional heterogeneity of water availability leads to high water stress in Africa. Africa’s maximum net water stress is 140%, so the water demand is expected to be more than total exploitable water resources. Africa might soon cross the 100% threshold/breakeven in 2022. For a population explosion scenario, the intensity of the water crisis for Africa and Asia is expected to rise further, and the maximum net water stress would reach 149% and 97%, respectively. The water use efficiency improvement for the agricultural sector, which reduces the water demand by 30%, could help to delay this crisis significantly. Public Library of Science 2022-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC9106181/ /pubmed/35559955 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266554 Text en © 2022 Hanumante et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hanumante, Neeraj
Shastri, Yogendra
Nisal, Apoorva
Diwekar, Urmila
Cabezas, Heriberto
Integrated model for Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The water compartments and water stress analysis
title Integrated model for Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The water compartments and water stress analysis
title_full Integrated model for Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The water compartments and water stress analysis
title_fullStr Integrated model for Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The water compartments and water stress analysis
title_full_unstemmed Integrated model for Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The water compartments and water stress analysis
title_short Integrated model for Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The water compartments and water stress analysis
title_sort integrated model for food-energy-water (few) nexus to study global sustainability: the water compartments and water stress analysis
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9106181/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35559955
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266554
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