Climate variability affects water-energy-food infrastructure performance in East Africa

The need to assess major infrastructure performance under a changing climate is widely recognized yet rarely practiced, particularly in rapidly growing African economies. Here, we consider high-stakes investments across the water, energy, and food sectors for two major river basins in a climate transition zone in Africa. We integrate detailed interpretation of observed and modeled climate-system behavior with hydrological modeling and decision-relevant performance metrics. For the Rufiji River in Tanzania, projected risks for the mid-21st century are similar to those of the present day, but for the Lake Malawi-Shire River, future risk exceeds that experienced during the 20th century. In both basins a repeat of an early-20th century multi-year drought would challenge the viability of proposed infrastructure. A long view, which emphasizes past and future changes in variability, set within a broader context of climate-information interpretation and decision making, is crucial for screening the risk to infrastructure

Global water resources and the role of groundwater in a resilient water future

Water is a critical resource, but ensuring its availability faces challenges from climate extremes and human intervention. In this Review, we evaluate the current and historical evolution of water resources, considering surface water and groundwater as a single, interconnected resource. Total water storage trends have varied across regions over the past century. Satellite data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) show declining, stable and rising trends in total water storage over the past two decades in various regions globally. Groundwater monitoring provides longer-term context over the past century, showing rising water storage in northwest India, central Pakistan and the northwest United States, and declining water storage in the US High Plains and Central Valley. Climate variability causes some changes in water storage, but human intervention, particularly irrigation, is a major driver. Water-resource resilience can be increased by diversifying management strategies. These approaches include green solutions, such as forest and wetland preservation, and grey solutions, such as increasing supplies (desalination, wastewater reuse), enhancing storage in surface reservoirs and depleted aquifers, and transporting water. A diverse portfolio of these solutions, in tandem with managing groundwater and surface water as a single resource, can address human and ecosystem needs while building a resilient water system

Author Correction: Global water resources and the role of groundwater in a resilient water future

In the version of this article originally published, reference 9 was incorrectly cited in the last sentence of the second paragraph under ‘Introduction’ and in the first sentence of the second paragraph under the ‘Water scarcity’ subsection. Scanlon et al. (Environ. Res. Lett. https://doi.org/ 10.1088/1748-9326/ac3bfc, 2022) was incorrectly cited in the last sentence under ‘Drivers of water-resource variability’ but is now replaced with reference 38, and Figure 3 was wrongly stated to be adapted from reference 19 instead of reference 36. Reference 40 was mistakenly cited in the last sentence of the second paragraph under the ‘Increasing water access and supplies’ subsection, and reference 37 was inadvertently duplicated in the reference list. References 28 (now reading ‘Winter, T. C., Harvey, J. W., Franke, O. L. and Alley, W. M. Ground Water and Surface Water: A Single Resource. Circular 1139 (United States Geological Survey, 1998)’) and 94 (now reading ‘Scanlon, B. R., Reedy, R. C., Faunt, C. C., Pool, D. and Uhlman, K. Enhancing drought resilience with conjunctive use and managed aquifer recharge in California and Arizona. Environ. Res. Lett. 11, 035013 (2016)’) initially referred to incorrect sources. Lastly, the name of author Hannes Müller Schmied was incorrectly spelled Hannes Mueller Schmied, and an affiliation for him was missing: Senckenberg Leibniz Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F), Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article

Global water resources and the role of groundwater in a resilient water future

Water is a critical resource, but ensuring its availability faces challenges from climate extremes and human intervention. In this Review, we evaluate the current and historical evolution of water resources, considering surface water and groundwater as a single, interconnected resource. Total water storage trends have varied across regions over the past century. Satellite data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) show declining, stable and rising trends in total water storage over the past two decades in various regions globally. Groundwater monitoring provides longer-term context over the past century, showing rising water storage in northwest India, central Pakistan and the northwest United States, and declining water storage in the US High Plains and Central Valley. Climate variability causes some changes in water storage, but human intervention, particularly irrigation, is a major driver. Water-resource resilience can be increased by diversifying management strategies. These approaches include green solutions, such as forest and wetland preservation, and grey solutions, such as increasing supplies (desalination, wastewater reuse), enhancing storage in surface reservoirs and depleted aquifers, and transporting water. A diverse portfolio of these solutions, in tandem with managing groundwater and surface water as a single resource, can address human and ecosystem needs while building a resilient water system

Author Correction: Global water resources and the role of groundwater in a resilient water future

In the version of this article originally published, reference 9 was incorrectly cited in the last sentence of the second paragraph under ‘Introduction’ and in the first sentence of the second paragraph under the ‘Water scarcity’ subsection. Scanlon et al. (Environ. Res. Lett. https://doi.org/ 10.1088/1748-9326/ac3bfc, 2022) was incorrectly cited in the last sentence under ‘Drivers of water-resource variability’ but is now replaced with reference 38, and Figure 3 was wrongly stated to be adapted from reference 19 instead of reference 36. Reference 40 was mistakenly cited in the last sentence of the second paragraph under the ‘Increasing water access and supplies’ subsection, and reference 37 was inadvertently duplicated in the reference list. References 28 (now reading ‘Winter, T. C., Harvey, J. W., Franke, O. L. and Alley, W. M. Ground Water and Surface Water: A Single Resource. Circular 1139 (United States Geological Survey, 1998)’) and 94 (now reading ‘Scanlon, B. R., Reedy, R. C., Faunt, C. C., Pool, D. and Uhlman, K. Enhancing drought resilience with conjunctive use and managed aquifer recharge in California and Arizona. Environ. Res. Lett. 11, 035013 (2016)’) initially referred to incorrect sources. Lastly, the name of author Hannes Müller Schmied was incorrectly spelled Hannes Mueller Schmied, and an affiliation for him was missing: Senckenberg Leibniz Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F), Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article