Water & Development Research Group, Department of Built Environment, Aalto University, Espoo 15200, Finland.
School of Water Conservancy, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Zhengzhou 450046, China; School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Sci Bull (Beijing). 2024 Aug 30;69(16):2632-2646. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.03.049. Epub 2024 Mar 25.
Given that it was a once-in-a-century emergency event, the confinement measures related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused diverse disruptions and changes in life and work patterns. These changes significantly affected water consumption both during and after the pandemic, with direct and indirect consequences on biodiversity. However, there has been a lack of holistic evaluation of these responses. Here, we propose a novel framework to study the impacts of this unique global emergency event by embedding an environmentally extended supply-constrained global multi-regional input-output model (MRIO) into the drivers-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework. This framework allowed us to develop scenarios related to COVID-19 confinement measures to quantify country-sector-specific changes in freshwater consumption and the associated changes in biodiversity for the period of 2020-2025. The results suggest progressively diminishing impacts due to the implementation of COVID-19 vaccines and the socio-economic system's self-adjustment to the new normal. In 2020, the confinement measures were estimated to decrease global water consumption by about 5.7% on average across all scenarios when compared with the baseline level with no confinement measures. Further, such a decrease is estimated to lead to a reduction of around 5% in the related pressure on biodiversity. Given the interdependencies and interactions across global supply chains, even those countries and sectors that were not directly affected by the COVID-19 shocks experienced significant impacts: Our results indicate that the supply chain propagations contributed to 79% of the total estimated decrease in water consumption and 84% of the reduction in biodiversity loss on average. Our study demonstrates that the MRIO-enhanced DSPIR framework can help quantify resource pressures and the resultant environmental impacts across supply chains when facing a global emergency event. Further, we recommend the development of more locally based water conservation measures-to mitigate the effects of trade disruptions-and the explicit inclusion of water resources in post-pandemic recovery schemes. In addition, innovations that help conserve natural resources are essential for maintaining environmental gains in the post-pandemic world.
鉴于这是一次百年一遇的紧急事件，与 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行相关的禁闭措施导致生活和工作模式发生了各种中断和变化。这些变化对大流行期间和之后的用水量产生了直接和间接的影响，对生物多样性产生了影响。然而，人们缺乏对这些反应的全面评估。在这里，我们提出了一个新的框架，通过将一个环境扩展的受供应约束的全球多区域投入产出模型（MRIO）嵌入到驱动-压力-状态-影响-响应（DPSIR）框架中，来研究这一独特的全球紧急事件的影响。该框架使我们能够制定与 COVID-19 禁闭措施相关的情景，以量化 2020-2025 年期间淡水消费的国家-部门特定变化以及由此产生的生物多样性变化。结果表明，由于 COVID-19 疫苗的实施以及社会经济系统对新常态的自我调整，影响逐渐减弱。2020 年，与没有禁闭措施的基线水平相比，所有情景下的禁闭措施估计使全球用水量平均减少了约 5.7%。此外，这种减少估计会导致与生物多样性相关的压力减少约 5%。考虑到全球供应链之间的相互依存和相互作用，即使那些没有直接受到 COVID-19 冲击影响的国家和部门也受到了重大影响：我们的结果表明，供应链传播平均贡献了总估计用水量减少的 79%和生物多样性损失减少的 84%。我们的研究表明，当面临全球紧急事件时，MRIO 增强的 DSPIR 框架可以帮助量化供应链中的资源压力和由此产生的环境影响。此外，我们建议制定更多基于本地的节约用水措施，以减轻贸易中断的影响，并在大流行后恢复计划中明确纳入水资源。此外，有助于保护自然资源的创新对于维持大流行后世界的环境收益至关重要。
