Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3010, Victoria, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2017 Jul 24;7(1):6282. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-06765-0.
The terrestrial phase of the water cycle can be seriously impacted by water management and human water use behavior (e.g., reservoir operation, and irrigation withdrawals). Here we outline a method for assessing water availability in a changing climate, while explicitly considering anthropogenic water demand scenarios and water supply infrastructure designed to cope with climatic extremes. The framework brings a top-down and bottom-up approach to provide localized water assessment based on local water supply infrastructure and projected water demands. When our framework is applied to southeastern Australia we find that, for some combinations of climatic change and water demand, the region could experience water stress similar or worse than the epic Millennium Drought. We show considering only the influence of future climate on water supply, and neglecting future changes in water demand and water storage augmentation might lead to opposing perspectives on future water availability. While human water use can significantly exacerbate climate change impacts on water availability, if managed well, it allows societies to react and adapt to a changing climate. The methodology we present offers a unique avenue for linking climatic and hydrologic processes to water resource supply and demand management and other human interactions.
陆地水循环会受到水资源管理和人类用水行为（如水库运行和灌溉抽取）的严重影响。在这里，我们概述了一种在气候变化下评估水资源可利用性的方法，同时明确考虑了人为需水情景和旨在应对极端气候的供水基础设施。该框架采用自上而下和自下而上的方法，根据当地供水基础设施和预计用水需求提供本地化的水资源评估。当我们将该框架应用于澳大利亚东南部时发现，在气候变化和需水的某些组合下，该地区可能会经历类似于甚至比千年干旱更严重的水资源短缺。我们表明，仅考虑未来气候对水资源供应的影响，而忽略未来需水变化和蓄水增加，可能会导致对未来水资源可利用性的看法相左。虽然人类用水会显著加剧气候变化对水资源可利用性的影响，但如果管理得当，它可以使社会对气候变化做出反应并适应。我们提出的方法为将气候和水文过程与水资源供应和需求管理以及其他人类活动联系起来提供了独特的途径。
