Impact of climate change on renewable groundwater resources

Assessing the benefits of avoided greenhouse gas emissions using selected CMIP5 climate projections

Bibliographic Data

ID15550516
AuthorsFelix T Portmann, Peter Doll (0000-0003-2238-4546, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre), Stephanie Eisner (0000-0002-0157-1636, University of Kassel), Martina Flörke (0000-0003-2943-5289, University of Kassel)
Year2013
Volume8
Issue2
Pages024023-024023
Publication date2013-05-15
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
PublisherIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024023
OpenAlexW2123626997
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited29

Reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to minimize climate change requires very significant societal effort. To motivate this effort, it is important to clarify the benefits of avoided emissions. To this end, we analysed the impact of four emissions scenarios on future renewable groundwater resources, which range from 1600 GtCO2 during the 21st century (RCP2.6) to 7300 GtCO2 (RCP8.5). Climate modelling uncertainty was taken into account by applying the bias-corrected output of a small ensemble of five CMIP5 global climate models (GCM) as provided by the ISI-MIP effort to the global hydrological model WaterGAP. Despite significant climate model uncertainty, the benefits of avoided emissions with respect to renewable groundwater resources (i.e. groundwater recharge (GWR)) are obvious. The percentage of projected global population (SSP2 population scenario) suffering from a significant decrease of GWR of more than 10% by the 2080s as compared to 1971–2000 decreases from 38% (GCM range 27–50%) for RCP8.5 to 24% (11–39%) for RCP2.6. The population fraction that is spared from any significant GWR change would increase from 29% to 47% if emissions were restricted to RCP2.6. Increases of GWR are more likely to occur in areas with below average population density, while GWR decreases of more than 30% affect especially (semi)arid regions, across all GCMs. Considering change of renewable groundwater resources as a function of mean global temperature (GMT) rise, the land area that is affected by GWR decreases of more than 30% and 70% increases linearly with global warming from 0 to 3 ° C. For each degree of GMT rise, an additional 4% of the global land area (except Greenland and Antarctica) is affected by a GWR decrease of more than 30%, and an additional 1% is affected by a decrease of more than 70

Aquifer · Atmospheric sciences · Climate change · Climate model · Climatology · Global warming · Greenhouse gas · Groundwater · Groundwater recharge · Population · Renewable energy · Renewable resource · Representative Concentration Pathways · Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics · Climate variability and models · Environmental Science · Groundwater and Isotope Geochemistry · Ecology · Geology

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