Global Water Resources: Vulnerability from Climate Change and

Population Growth
Charles J. Vrsmarty et al.
Science 289, 284 (2000);
DOI: 10.1126/science.289.5477.284

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.

If you wish to distribute this article to others, you can order high-quality copies for your
colleagues, clients, or customers by clicking here.

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

Permission to republish or repurpose articles or portions of articles can be obtained by
following the guidelines here.

The following resources related to this article are available online at

www.sciencemag.org (this information is current as of June 7, 2013 ):

Updated information and services, including high-resolution figures, can be found in the online
version of this article at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/289/5477/284.full.html
This article cites 9 articles, 1 of which can be accessed free:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/289/5477/284.full.html#ref-list-1
This article has been cited by 296 article(s) on the ISI Web of Science
This article has been cited by 26 articles hosted by HighWire Press; see:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/289/5477/284.full.html#related-urls

Science (print ISSN 0036-8075; online ISSN 1095-9203) is published weekly, except the last week in December, by the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005. Copyright
2000 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science; all rights reserved. The title Science is a
registered trademark of AAAS.
 REPORTS
differences were then applied to a baseline (13)
Global Water Resources: to generate the future patterns of runoff (16).
Mean global runoff varied in response to climate

Vulnerability from Climate change from an increase of 1 mm year1

(HadCM2/WBM) to a decrease of 17 mm
year1 (CGCM1/WBM) (17). With each runoff
Change and Population Growth field, more substantial changes could be found
at local and regional scales. CGCM1/WBM
Charles J. Vorosmarty,1,2,4,5* Pamela Green,1,2,4 gave the strongest climate change signal, and we
Joseph Salisbury,1,3,4 Richard B. Lammers1,2,4 use it to exemplify key findings derived from
both models.
The future adequacy of freshwater resources is difficult to assess, owing to a Domestic and industrial water demand was
complex and rapidly changing geography of water supply and use. Numerical determined by population and per capita use
experiments combining climate model outputs, water budgets, and socioeco- statistics. The geography of contemporary ur-
nomic information along digitized river networks demonstrate that (i) a large ban and rural population was developed from a
proportion of the worlds population is currently experiencing water stress and 1-km data set (18). Future population distribu-
(ii) rising water demands greatly outweigh greenhouse warming in defining the tion was determined from projections of the
state of global water systems to 2025. Consideration of direct human impacts percent change in total, rural, and urban popu-
on global water supply remains a poorly articulated but potentially important lation from 1985 to 2025 (19) applied to the
facet of the larger global change question.

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

1-km urban and rural population maps. Coun-
try-level water withdrawal statistics (19) were
Greenhouse warming continues to dominate the water demand (RWD) defined as the ratio of used to estimate contemporary water demands,
worlds science and policy agenda on global water withdrawal or water use to discharge. We but they first required standardization and spa-
change. One fundamental concern is the impact consider the domestic and industrial sectors tial disaggregation (20). The geography of ag-
of this climate change on water supply (1, 2). (DI/Q), irrigated agriculture (A/Q), and their ricultural water demand was computed from
The question of how human society directly combination (DIA/Q) on a mean annual basis. irrigated land area and national use statistics
influences the state of the terrestrial water cycle Each ratio determines the degree to which hu- (21). Future demands for all sectors were based
has received much less attention, despite the mans interact with sustainable water supply and on population growth, economic development,
presence of the socioeconomic equivalent of provides a local index of water stress. Values on and projected changes in water use efficiency
the Mauna Loa curve, namely, rapid population the order of 0.2 to 0.4 indicate medium to high (22). Water withdrawals at 30 resolution were
growth and economic development. Our goal in stress, whereas those greater than 0.4 reflect geographically linked to digital river networks
this report is to identify the contributions of conditions of severe water limitation (10). We and corresponding discharge estimates.
climate change, human development, and their also constructed a water reuse index (DIA/Q), The contemporary condition is represent-
combination to the future state of global water defined as the ratio of aggregate upstream water ed by 1985, the year that is most compatible
resources. use relative to discharge. We consider vulnera- with the time span represented by the runoff
Assessments of water vulnerability tradi- bility with respect to sustainable water resources climatology and historical water use statis-
tionally have been cast at the country or region- only. We make no explicit tabulation of nonsus- tics. Against this benchmark we formulated
al scale (25). Although recent work has fo- tainable supplies or withdrawals, such as the three scenarios to quantify the contributions
cused on individual drainage basins and subba- mining of groundwater, although we can draw of climate change and development pressure
sins (1, 6, 7), to the best of our knowledge, no inferences about such activities by analyzing to the degree of relative water demand in
global-scale study has articulated the geograph- RWD. We do not explicitly model human ad- 2025. The first scenario (Sc1) varied climate
ic linkage of water supply to water demand aptation to climate change or development pres- but fixed the magnitude and spatial distribu-
defined by runoff and its passage through river sure, but we do incorporate estimates of future tion of human population and water with-
networks. We present a high-resolution geogra- water use efficiency offered in other studies. drawals at 1985 levels. Sc2 applied projected
phy of water use and availability, analyzing the A recent version of the Water Balance Mod- water demands for 2025 but used runoff and
vulnerability of water resource infrastructure el (WBM) (11) was used to compute contem- discharge based on contemporary climate.
(8) to future climate change, population growth porary and future runoff at 30 grid resolution Sc3 changed both climate and water demand.
and migration, and industrial development be- (latitude by longitude). Runoff fields were con- Total water use per capita is projected to
tween 1985 and 2025. We consider explicitly strained by monitoring data, and converted to decrease from 640 to 580 m3 year1 between
how the topology of river systems determines discharge by integrating along digitized rivers 1985 and 2025. The impacts of human devel-
the character of sustainable water supply and its (12, 13). Climate change fields were from the opment under Sc2 and Sc3 will therefore
use by humans. Canadian Climate Center general circulation generally reflect population growth and mi-
Mean annual surface and subsurface (shal- model CGCM1 and Hadley Center circulation gration as opposed to intensification of water
low aquifer) runoff, accumulated as river dis- model HadCM2 used in the current Intergovern- use, though results will be location specific.
charge (Q), is assumed to constitute the sustain- mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assess- In relation to (5), our calculation of global
able water supply to which local human popu- ment (14). Global means for contemporary water use in 2025 is conservative, 4700 km3
lations have access (9). We mapped the distri- (196190) runoff and river discharge were com- year1 compared to 5200 km3 year1.
bution of population with respect to relative puted by the WBM using off-line atmospheric We compared our calculations to country-
forcings from HadCM2 and CGCM1. Predic- level data typically applied in global water as-
tions were in substantial agreement with runoff sessments. Our national-scale aggregates of
1
Water Systems Analysis Group, 2Complex Systems
Research Center, 3Ocean Processes Analytical Labo-
fields based on observed discharge (13, 15). gridded DIA/Q and a recent global assessment
ratory, 4Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Results from HadCM2/WBM and CGCM1/ by the United Nations (10) place almost the
Space, 5Earth Sciences Department, University of WBM were used to predict incremental differ- same fraction of the worlds 1995 population
New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA. ences between contemporary and future runoff under similar levels of water stress (Table 1). In
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. and discharge for individual grid cells. These both studies, one-third of the total population of

284 14 JULY 2000 VOL 289 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

 REPORTS

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

Fig. 1. The global distribution of population in 1985 with respect to the relative which reflect a degree of uncertainty. Recent reviews (5, 36) show year 2000
water stress threshold of DIA/Q 0.4 indicating severe water scarcity (10). A global water withdrawals from assessments made even as late as 1987 to vary
30 spatial resolution is used. This mapping reflects a mean global runoff of by 1300 km3 year1. National-level water use statistics (18) for some coun-
40,000 km3 year1 and aggregate water withdrawals of 3100 km3 year1. tries are decades old. Runoff estimates for some regions may also be biased
These estimates are highly dependent on contemporary water use statistics, (9,13). Results should be viewed with appropriate caution.

Table 1. Contemporary world population living under progressive levels of relative total water demand Table 2. Cumulative distribution of worldwide
(DIA/Q). The thresholds and definitions of water stress are as defined by the United Nations (UN) (10). population with respect to ranked values of rela-
Results shown here contrast national-level summaries (102 entries) against grid-based tabulations tive water demand for domestic and industrial
(104 to 105 entries). Indices given are for 1995. sectors (DI/Q) generated by the CGCM1/WBM
model. Each entry represents the population at or
exceeding the indicated DIA/Q level from 30 res-
Total population (billions)
olution data.
DIA/Q
Water stress Country-level Grid-based
(unitless) Cumulative population (billions)
UN This study* This study DI/Q
(unitless) Con-
Sc1 Sc2 Sc3
Low 0.1 1.72 1.95 3.16 temporary
Moderate 0.1 to 0.2 2.08 1.73 0.38
Medium-high 0.2 to 0.4 1.44 1.54 0.37 1.0 0.9 0.8 1.9 1.6
High 0.4 0.46 0.45 1.76 0.4 1.2 1.0 2.4 2.2
0.2 1.4 1.3 2.8 2.7
*Total water demand, runoff, and population at 30 grid spatial resolution were each summed to the national scale, and 0.1 1.7 1.6 3.2 3.2
corresponding aggregates were then computed. 0.01 2.9 2.9 5.4 5.4
0.001 4.1 4.1 7.0 7.0
0.000 4.8 4.8 8.0 8.0
5.7 billion lives under conditions of relative of this century will be the growth and eco-
water scarcity (DIA/Q 0.2), and 450 mil- nomic development of human population.
lion people are under severe water stress (DIA/ We base this conclusion on contrasts between Sc3 the highly vulnerable population with
Q 0.4). A summary based on individual grid the cumulative distributions of global popu- DI/Q 0.4 increases to 2 billion, an 85%
cells (Table 1) shows that a much larger pop- lation, ranked by DI/Q and A/Q, for each of increase in relation to the vulnerable popula-
ulation (an additional 1.3 billion) now lives the scenarios tested (Table 2). Under tion in 1985. This condition is determined
under a high degree of water stress that nation- CGCM1/WBM, we see almost no difference almost exclusively by population and devel-
al-level totals, especially for large countries, fail between cumulative population distributions opment pressure.
to articulate. Use of 30 grids (n 59,132) represented by the contemporary baseline and For agriculture, overall results are similar
captures much more of the spatial heterogeneity by climate change scenario Sc1. In contrast, (Table 3). The population distribution here re-
in water use, discharge, and RWD (Fig. 1). Sc2 shows a large effect from human devel- fers to the number of people dependent on
Water stress transcends national boundaries and opment with substantial increases over 1985 irrigated water withdrawals (21), and changes
is apparent today across arid and semiarid re- in accumulated population for all levels of in either remote demand or local available dis-
gions as well as in many densely populated DI/Q. The additional climatic effects repre- charge influence A/Q under contrasting scenar-
parts of the humid tropics and temperate zone. sented by Sc3 fail to elicit a substantial de- ios. The effect of Sc1 produces little change
We find that the primary determinants of parture from the Sc2 distribution. Although from 1985, and the aggregate impact of increas-
changing levels of RWD, and hence vulner- more people are predicted in 2025 to be ing water demands under Sc2 and Sc3 is appar-
ability to water stress, through the early part living in relatively water-rich areas, under ent. For 1985, we estimate that almost 2 billion

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 289 14 JULY 2000 285

 REPORTS
people are dependent on irrigated lands with aggregate imprint of water use intensity and lowering values of DIA/Q over the entire
A/Q values of 0.4. For 2025, under Sc3 this competition across watersheds. Even rivers in main stem, thereby counteracting the increases
number rises to 3 billion. Irrigation thus sup- close proximity show distinct patterns of associated with future population growth. As a
ports 40% of the population in 1985 (and will DIA/Q and of sensitivity to future changes in result, future DIA/Q values are lowered sub-
potentially support the same percentage in climate and water demand (Fig. 2). The Chang stantially. Despite the projected improvement,
2025) on cropland with A/Q values of 0.4, Jiang River (China) follows a pattern of sensi- there is likely to be a sustained and severe
suggesting a substantial nonsustainable water tivity under which both climate change and pressure on water supplies in this basin. Con-
use and major global vulnerability, even under population pressures increase the water reuse temporary conditions along this river are al-
present-day conditions. index along virtually the entire main stem. Un- ready more severe than indicated, because of
Our findings are further supported by cal- der Sc3, we see a severalfold increase in rapid increases in water use and decreases in
culations expressed as continental- and glo- DIA/Q over contemporary conditions, an im- discharge into the 1990s (23), which are not
bal-scale totals (Table 4). For the globe, cli- pact determined in large measure by climate reflected by the 1985 benchmark.
mate change under Sc1 increased DIA/Q val- change. The neighboring Yellow River also When results are examined at the grid-cell
ues by 5%. In contrast, rising water de- displays a progressive intensification of level, an even richer set of responses emerges.
mands alone (Sc2) increased DIA/Q by 50%, DIA/Q in the downstream direction but with The increase or decrease in DIA/Q for each
whereas Sc3 combining both climate and de- an aggregate use of water well in excess of the scenario in relation to conditions in 1985 was
velopment effects produced relative increases entire basins discharge, even for the baseline used to develop a geography of changing rela-
of 60%. Over individual continents, climate- condition. Future development pressure (Sc2) tive water demand (Fig. 3). Climate change
induced changes in DIA/Q varied from a 4% exacerbates the situation, whereas climate alone (Sc1) produces a mixture of responses,

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

decrease to a 12% increase, which were in all change has an apparent beneficial effect by both positive and negative, that is highly region
cases much smaller than changes correspond-
ing to population and economic growth.
Continental- and global-scale summaries Fig. 2. The imprint of
accumulated relative
mask potentially important regional patterns of water demand from all
water abundance and scarcity. We accumulated sectors (DIA/Q) plot-
water demand and water supply and calculated ted as a function of
DIA/Q along main-stem rivers to establish an downstream distance
along two major rivers
in eastern Asia. The con-
Table 3. Same as Table 2, except showing the temporary setting is
cumulative distribution of worldwide population contrasted against the
that is dependent on contemporary water use three scenarios of po-
for irrigated agriculture at different levels of tential conditions in
relative demand (A/Q). Dependent populations 2025 simulated by
were linked to irrigation water demands within CGCM1/WBM. Trajec-
individual countries; table entries are derived tories are unique for in-
from gridded 30 data. dividual main-stem riv-
ers and involve a com-
Cumulative dependent plex interplay between
population (billions) the geography of river
A/Q discharge and water
(unitless) use. An increase in this
Con-
Sc1 Sc2 Sc3 index along the down-
temporary
stream direction ac-
1.0 1.5 1.4 2.7 2.7 companies an increase
0.4 1.9 1.8 3.4 3.3 in accumulated water
0.2 2.2 2.1 4.0 3.9 demand, a decrease in
0.1 2.6 2.5 4.7 4.7 discharge, or both,
0.01 3.8 3.8 6.7 6.6 whereas a lowering of
0.001 4.5 4.5 7.6 7.6 the curve reflects dilu-
0.000 4.8 4.8 8.0 8.0 tion from local runoff or less impacted tributaries. DIA/Q is an index of water competition and
reuse as well as a surrogate for potential water quality problems.

Table 4. Continental and global summaries for population, irrigable land, simulated by CGCM1/WBM. Percentages assigned to the change in DIA/Q
sustainable water supply defined as discharge (Q), and relative all-sector (DIA/Q) are relative to the 1985 contemporary baseline.
water demand (DIA/Q) tabulated for the contemporary condition and

Population
Irrigated Observed Contemporary 2025 Predicted DIA/Q (%)
(millions)
Area cropland Q DIA/Q Q
(1000 km2) (km3 year1) (unitless) (km3 year1)
1985 2025 Sc1 Sc2 Sc3

Africa 543 1440 118 4,520 0.032 4,100 10 73 92

Asia 2930 4800 1690 13,700 0.129 13,300 2.3 60 66
Australia/Oceania 22 33 26 714 0.025 692 2.0 30 44
Europe 667 682 273 2,770 0.154 2,790 1.9 30 31
North America 395 601 317 5,890 0.105 5,870 4.4 23 28
South America 267 454 95 11,700 0.009 10,400 12 93 121
Globe 4830 8010 2520 39,300 0.078 37,100 4.1 50 61

286 14 JULY 2000 VOL 289 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

 REPORTS
specific. Expanded water use by itself (Sc2) pattern, however, is one of pandemic increase. ter supplies are at a premium, the challenges
increases relative DIA/Q for broad regions of The major increases in relative water de- also include curtailment of economic activi-
the globe, although small clusters of grid cells mand documented here reveal that much of ties, abandonment of existing water facilities,
showing relative decreases appear in areas of the world will face substantial challenges to mass migration, and conflict in international
rural-to-urban migration, as in Russia. The water infrastructure and associated water ser- river basins (2527).
large continental areas with elevated DIA/Q vices. Potentially large economic costs are Many parts of the developing world will
values under Sc3 reflect well the patterns of likely to be associated with the implementa- experience large increases in relative water
increase associated with Sc2. Interactions be- tion of response strategies (e.g., expansion of demand. In water-rich areas such as the wet
tween population growth and climate change facilities, new water-pricing policies, innova- tropics, the challenge will not be in providing
result in some notable net decreases in DIA/ tive technology, and mismanagement) or the adequate quantities of water, but in providing
Q, which are large enough to reverse the rela- consequences of inaction (e.g., deterioration clean supplies that minimize public health
tive water scarcity suggested by Sc2, as in of water quality and reduction in irrigated problems (28). Arid and semiarid regions
Mexico and much of central Asia. The overall crop yields) (24, 25). Where sustainable wa- face the additional challenge of absolute wa-
ter scarcity. Projected increases in scarcity
will be focused on rapidly expanding cities.
Much of the worlds population growth over
the next few decades will occur in urban
areas, which are projected to double in size to
near 5 billion between 1995 and 2025 (29)

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

and face major challenges in coping with
increased water pollution and incidence of
waterborne disease (5, 10, 19, 25, 29).
We conclude that impending global-scale
changes in population and economic develop-
ment over the next 25 years will dictate the
future relation between water supply and de-
mand to a much greater degree than will chang-
es in mean climate. To secure a more complete
picture of future water vulnerabilities, it will be
necessary to consider interactions among cli-
mate change and variability, land surface and
groundwater hydrology, water engineering, and
human systems, including societal adaptations
to water scarcity [see (30, 31)]. Pursuit of this
question will be limited by outdated and non-
existent socioeconomic data and information
from a progressively deteriorating global net-
work of hydrometric monitoring stations (32)
unless a vigorous commitment is made by the
water sciences community to collect, standard-
ize, and widely disseminate such information.
In light of our findings, an integrated approach
bringing together the climate change, water re-
sources, and socioeconomic communities ap-
pears essential to future progress.

References and Notes

1. N. Arnell et al., in Climate Change 1995: Impacts,
Adaptations, and Mitigation of Climate Change, R. T.
Watson et al., Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cam-
bridge, 1996), pp. 325363.
2. Z. Kaczmarek et al., in Climate Change 1995: Impacts,
Adaptations, and Mitigation of Climate Change, R. T.
Watson et al., Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cam-
bridge, 1996), pp. 469 486.
3. M. Falkenmark, Water Int. 16, 229 (1991).
4. M. I. Lvovich and G. F. White, in The Earth as Trans-
formed by Human Action, B. L. Turner et al., Eds.
(Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1990), pp. 235
252.
5. I. Shiklomanov, Ed., Assessment of Water Resources
and Water Availability in the World: Scientific and
Technical Report (State Hydrological Institute, St.
Petersburg, Russia, 1996).
6. J. Alcamo et al., in World Water Scenarios: Analyses,
Fig. 3. Maps of the change in water reuse index (DIA/Q) predicted by the CGCM1/WBM model F. R. Rijsberman, Ed. (Earthscan, London, 2000), pp.
configuration under Sc1 (climate change alone), Sc2 ( population and economic development only), 204 242.
and Sc3 (both effects). Changes in the ratio of scenario-specific DIA/Q (DIA/QScenario) relative 7. J. C. van Dam, Ed., Impacts of Climate Change and
to contemporary (DIA/QBase) conditions are shown. A threshold of 20% is used to highlight Climate Variability on Hydrological Regimes (Cam-
areas of substantial change. bridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1999).

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 289 14 JULY 2000 287

 REPORTS
8. Water resource infrastructure refers to water 21. Country-level totals for agricultural water demand Freshwater Resources (1998 99) (Island, Washing-
source, distribution, and treatment systems. We as- were distributed onto 30 grid cells on the basis of ton, DC, 1998).
sume that wherever there is a resident human pop- the fraction of each grid cell classified as irrigated 26. T. Homer-Dixon, Int. Secur. 19, 5 (1994).
ulation or irrigated cropland, there will be a corre- land from (35) and prorated on the basis of the ratio 27. M. Falkenmark and J. Rockstrom, Ambio 22, 427
sponding water infrastructure. Changes in water de- of unrealized potential evapotranspiration (i.e., the (1993).
mand due to population growth and industrialization potential minus the estimated actual) to the poten- 28. M. Bonell et al., Hydrology and Water Management in
or in water supply due to climate change will define tial from (13). Irrigation-dependent population was the Humid Tropics (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cam-
the vulnerability of water infrastructure and the hu- determined by proportionally assigning national-level bridge, 1993).
man population that is dependent on these systems. population to the corresponding irrigated areas in 29. World Resources: A Guide to the Global Environment
9. S. L. Postel et al., Science 271, 785 (1996). each country. We reason that entire national popu- 1996 97 (World Resources Institute, Washington,
10. United Nations, Comprehensive Assessment of the lations (and not simply local farmers and agribusi- DC, 1996).
Freshwater Resources of the World (overview docu- ness) benefit from the food and fiber (destined for
30. D. Conway et al., Ambio 25, 336 (1996).
ment) (World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, domestic or export markets) and income produced
31. K. M. Strzepek et al, in World Water Scenarios: Anal-
1997). from irrigated land. A/Q uses mean annual discharge.
yses, F. R. Rijsberman, Ed. (Earthscan, London, 2000),
11. C. J. Vorosmarty, C. A. Federer, A. Schloss, J. Hydrol. These relative water demand estimates are thus con-
pp. 120 159.
207, 147 (1998). servative and assume highly effective storage of sur-
12. C. J. Vorosmarty, B. Fekete, M. Meybeck, R. Lammers, face water for irrigation, such as through reservoir 32. J. C. Rodda, in Water: A Looming Crisis (International
Global Biogeochem. Cycles 14, 599 (2000). impoundment. We consider irrigated agriculture be- Hydrological Program, United Nations Educational,
13. B. M. Fekete et al., Global, Composite Runoff Fields cause it is a major component of water resource Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Paris, 1998).
Based on Observed River Discharge and Simulated infrastructure that is subject to changes in the avail- 33. W. Tobler et al., The Global Demography Project,
Water Balances, Report 22 (World Meteorological ability of net runoff. Rain-fed agriculture falls outside Technical Report TR-95-6 (National Center for Geo-
OrganizationGlobal Runoff Data Center, Koblenz, this definition, and we have not treated it here. graphic Information and Analysis, Santa Barbara, CA,
Germany, 1999). 22. Rates of increase in water demand to 2025 from 1995).
14. Data are from the IPCC Data Distribution Centre, Deut- regional estimates (5) were applied to the 1985 34. C. Elvidge et al., Int. J. Remote Sens. 18, 1373 (1997).
sches Klimarechenzentrum (Max-Planck-Institut) in water withdrawal data set. Future changes in pop- 35. P. Doll and S. Siebert, A Digital Global Map of Irrigat-
ed Areas, Report A9901 (University of Kassel, Kassel,

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

Hamburg, Germany, and the Climatic Research Unit at ulation and urban-to-rural ratios (19) were used to
the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. shift the geography of water demands. The distri- Germany, 1999).
CGCM1GSa1 and HadCM2GSa1 (GSa, ensemble of bution of irrigable lands was fixed to that observed 36. P. Gleick, in World Water Scenarios: Analyses, F. R.
greenhouse gas plus sulfate aerosol integrations) sce- under contemporary conditions. Projected water Rijsberman, Ed. (Earthscan, London, 2000), pp. 2737.
narios were obtained from http://ipcc-ddc.cru.uea. withdrawals in (5) are dependent on water use 37. Support for this work was through the Institute for
ac.uk/cru_data/datadownload/download_index.html. efficiencies that both increase and decrease for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (University of
Scenarios represent a 1% per year increase in CO2- different parts of the world. These estimates were New Hampshire); NASA Earth Observing System
equivalent forcing and sulfate aerosol dampening. Orig- made through extensive consultation of country- (grant NAG5-6137); NSF Division of Atmospheric
inal data at 3.75 by 3.75 (latitude by longitude) for level studies and trend analysis based on per unit Sciences (grant ATM-9707953); Office of Polar Pro-
CGCM1 and at 2.5 by 3.75 for HadCM2 were bilin- agricultural, municipal, and industrial water with- grams (grant OPP-9524740); NASA Tropical Rainfall
early interpolated to 30 resolution. Monthly forcings drawals; assumptions regarding future technology Monitoring Mission (grant NAG5-4785); and the U.S.
were applied to the WBM, and a statistically equivalent adoption; and economic capacity to institute effi- Department of Energy (DE-FG02-92ER61473). We
daily time step was used to integrate over time and ciency changes. acknowledge the efforts of B. Fekete and S. Glidden in
compute water budget variables, including runoff. 23. J. Milliman and R. Mei-e, in Climate Change: Impact helping to develop some of the geographically refer-
15. Simulated water budgets combined with discharge on Coastal Habitation, D. Eisma, Ed. (CRC Press, Boca enced databases used in this study. We also thank
data from several hundred recording stations in (13) Raton, FL, 1995), pp. 57 83. three anonymous reviewers for their comments.
yielded a mean global runoff of 300 mm year1 or a 24. S. Postel, Interciencia 10, 290 (1985).
discharge of 39,300 km3 year1; CGCM1/WBM com- 25. P. Gleick, The Worlds Water: The Biennial Report on 2 February 2000; accepted 3 May 2000
puted respective values of 319 mm year1 and
41,900 km3 year1, whereas HadCM2/WBM gave
302 mm year1 and 39,600 km3 year1, respectively.
16. The approach taken is that used in climate impact
studies on net primary production by VEMAP Mem-
bers [Global Biogeochem. Cycles 9, 407 (1995)].
Overpressure and Fluid Flow in
17. The values are statistically significant (P 1 106)
with the Wilcoxon sign test.
18. A 1-km gridded polygon file [Arc World Supplement, 1: 3
the New Jersey Continental
M scale digital map (ESRI, Redlands, CA, 1995)] defined
the spatial extent of 242 countries for which country-
level population statistics were available (19). We de-
Slope: Implications for Slope
fined urban spatial extents as a set of geographically
referenced city polygons with demographic data (n
1858) (33) and distributed the remaining country-level
Failure and Cold Seeps
urban population evenly across 1-km pixels classified as Brandon Dugan* and Peter B. Flemings
city lights from remote sensing (34). Lacking digital data
to the contrary, we distributed rural population uni-
formly among digitized points representing populated Miocene through Pleistocene sediments on the New Jersey continental slope
places [Digital Chart of the World, 1:1 M scale digital (Ocean Drilling Program Site 1073) are undercompacted ( porosity between 40
map (ESRI, Redlands, CA, 1993)] falling outside of urban and 65%) to 640 meters below the sea floor, and this is interpreted to record
spatial extents. A total of 155 countries simultaneously
showed water demand data and discharges greater than
fluid pressures that reach 95% of the lithostatic stress. A two-dimensional
zero and fell within our 30 digitized land mass. The model, where rapid Pleistocene sedimentation loads permeable sandy silt of
remaining 87 countries were mostly small islands and Miocene age, successfully predicts the observed pressures. The model describes
were not considered. For the contemporary setting, we
account for 99.7% of the global population (19); 98.4%
how lateral pressure equilibration in permeable beds produces fluid pressures
of the total is assigned water use statistics. that approach the lithostatic stress where overburden is thin. This transfer of
19. World Resources: A Guide to the Global Environment pressure may cause slope failure and drive cold seeps on passive margins around
1998 99 (World Resources Institute, Washington, the world.
DC, 1998).
20. National and sectoral water use statistics were from
(19). The mean reporting year was 1986, but the range Rapid sediment loading (1 mm year1) is around the world (1, 2). A suite of models
was from 1970 to 1995. National statistics were nor- documented as a source of overpressure (P*, describe how overpressure is generated during
malized to year 1985 by applying usage trends recorded pressure in excess of hydrostatic) in basins rapid deposition (36). These models quantify
in corresponding regional time series (5). Domestic wa-
ter demand was computed on a per capita basis for the rock properties and sedimentation rates re-
each country and distributed geographically with re- 503 Deike Building, Department of Geosciences, Penn quired to generate and maintain overpressure.
spect to the 1-km total population field. Industrial State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. Mass and volume measurements of wet and dry
usage was applied in proportion to urban population.
Grid-based aggregates at 30 resolution were then de- *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E- core samples provide porosity data (7) that we
termined for domestic plus industrial water demand. mail: dugan@geosc.psu.edu use to document overpressures on the New

288 14 JULY 2000 VOL 289 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

 Global Hydrological Cycles and World Water Resources
Taikan Oki and Shinjiro Kanae
Science 313, 1068 (2006);
DOI: 10.1126/science.1128845

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.

If you wish to distribute this article to others, you can order high-quality copies for your
colleagues, clients, or customers by clicking here.

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

Permission to republish or repurpose articles or portions of articles can be obtained by
following the guidelines here.

The following resources related to this article are available online at

www.sciencemag.org (this information is current as of June 7, 2013 ):

Updated information and services, including high-resolution figures, can be found in the online
version of this article at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5790/1068.full.html
A list of selected additional articles on the Science Web sites related to this article can be
found at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5790/1068.full.html#related
This article cites 17 articles, 4 of which can be accessed free:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5790/1068.full.html#ref-list-1
This article has been cited by 87 article(s) on the ISI Web of Science
This article has been cited by 15 articles hosted by HighWire Press; see:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5790/1068.full.html#related-urls
This article appears in the following subject collections:
Atmospheric Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/collection/atmos

Science (print ISSN 0036-8075; online ISSN 1095-9203) is published weekly, except the last week in December, by the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005. Copyright
2006 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science; all rights reserved. The title Science is a
registered trademark of AAAS.
 FRESHWATER RESOURCES

far into the future. Appropriate water manage-

REVIEW ment is a crucial point.
Conventional engineers of water resources
Global Hydrological Cycles and consider the water withdrawn from surface and
groundwater as water resources and evapo-
World Water Resources transpiration as a loss of water from the pre-
cipitated water. In that sense, precipitation minus
evapotranspiration over land is a measure of the
Taikan Oki1,2,3* and Shinjiro Kanae1,4*
maximum available RFWR. The major part of
Water is a naturally circulating resource that is constantly recharged. Therefore, even though the this available RFWR is surface water, particu-
stocks of water in natural and artificial reservoirs are helpful to increase the available water resources larly river discharge. However, some part of the
for human society, the flow of water should be the main focus in water resources assessments. The water, approximately 10% of total river dis-
climate system puts an upper limit on the circulation rate of available renewable freshwater resources charge (6), infiltrates to deep underground and
(RFWR). Although current global withdrawals are well below the upper limit, more than two billion will never appear as surface water but discharge
people live in highly water-stressed areas because of the uneven distribution of RFWR in time and into the ocean directly from groundwater.
space. Climate change is expected to accelerate water cycles and thereby increase the available RFWR. In contrast to the conventional view, it has
This would slow down the increase of people living under water stress; however, changes in seasonal been noted that evapotranspiration from non-

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

patterns and increasing probability of extreme events may offset this effect. Reducing current irrigated cropland also is a water resource that is
vulnerability will be the first step to prepare for such anticipated changes. beneficial to society (7). To distinguish between
this kind of resource and conventional re-
ll organisms, including humans, re- from liquid to gas and eventually recondenses as sources, evapotranspiration flow has been named

A quire water for their survival. There-

fore, ensuring that adequate supplies
of water are available is essential for human
a liquid. Water assimilated during photosyn-
thesis becomes part of carbohydrates stored in
plants, but ultimately reverts to water again by
green water, and conventional withdrawal from
rivers and groundwater has been named blue
water (7).
well-being. Although our planet is often called decomposition. About 3800 km3/year of RFWR (blue water)
the BBlue Planet,[ warnings of increasing water When used, water loses properties such as is currently withdrawn by human beings, and
scarcity in the world are common. However, purity, heat content, and potential gravitational that accounts for less than 10% of the maxi-
unlike oil, water circulates, forming closed energy, but eventually, most degraded water mum available RFWR in the world (Fig. 1).
hydrologic cycles. The amount of water will resources are refreshed by natural processes in Evapotranspiration is estimated to be 7600
not diminish on shorter than geological time the hydrological cycle, which is mostly driven km3/year from cropland and 14,400 km3/year
scales (1). Given this background, how could by solar energy. When considering water flux as from permanent grazing land. Cropland and
water scarcity become a widespread reality the most relevant measure of water resources, grazing land account for about one-third of the
within a few decades (2)? the speed of water circulation becomes crucial. total terrestrial evapotranspiration.
A common explanation is that even though Mean residence times of water moleculesi.e.,
there is a lot of water on Earth, only about 2.5% how long they stay in a given reservoircan be Can We Use All the RFWR?
is fresh water, and because most of that water is estimated by dividing the volume of the reser- Why should we be concerned about water
stored as glaciers or deep groundwater, only a voir by the mean flux into and out of it. For scarcity when presently only 10% of maximum
small amount of water is easily accessible. This rivers unaffected by human interventions, the available blue water and 30% of green water
answer is only partly correct: Rather than looking mean residential time of water is about two and a resources are used? The reason is the high
only at the stocks of water resources, assessments half weeks (1). In contrast, the recharge rate of variability of water resource availability in time
should concentrate mainly on the flows (Fig. 1) some groundwater aquifers is very slow, and and space (8). For example, the monthly mean
(1, 35). The amount of water stored in all the the mean residential time is considered to be discharge at the Obidos station in the Amazon
rivers in the world is only 2000 km3, much hundreds or even thousands of years. When River differs by a factor of 2 between the highest
less than the annual water withdrawal of 3800 water is extracted from such an aquifer, it will and the lowest months, even for climatologically
km3/year (Fig. 1). Clearly, a more adequate mea- take a very long time, measured on a human averaged values. River discharge is more varia-
sure of water availability is the 45,500 km3/year time scale, to return to the original volume ble in smaller river basins in general, and daily
of annual discharge, which flows mainly through stored; in practice, that water is exhausted once river discharge is, of course, more variable than
the rivers from continents to the sea. it has been used. Because it took so long to monthly river discharge. Because of this tempo-
accumulate, the groundwater in such aquifers is ral variability, it is impractical to use 100% of
What Is the Meaning of a Circulating Resource? sometimes called fossil water. the available RFWR for human society. Flow
Unlike most other natural resources, water cir- during floods and wet seasons cannot be used
culates naturally. When it evaporates, it changes How Much Renewable Fresh Water during the low flow seasons unless storage sys-
Is Available? tems are in place. That is why there are millions
1
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Can human demand for water be fully met by of artificial reservoirs, lakes, and ponds in the
4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan. 2Japan
using only circulating renewable freshwater world and why most of the major rivers are
Science and Technology Agency, 4-1-8 Honcho, Kawaguchi-
shi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan. 3Frontier Research Center resources (RFWR)? The answer is both yes regulated (9). Total capacity of this artificial
for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and no. Even though RFWR is naturally re- storage is estimated to 7200 km3 (10), about
and Technology, 3173-25 Showa, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama cycled, the circulation rate is determined by the twice the annual water withdrawal.
236-0001, Japan. 4Research Institute for Humanity and climate system, and there is an upper limit to the Another reason that RFWR can be insufficient
Nature, 457-7 Motoyama, Kamigamo, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-
8047, Japan. amount of RFWR available to human society. is its uneven spatial distribution. Annual runoff
*These authors contributed equally to this work.
On the global scale, current withdrawals are well (Fig. 2A) can be considered as the maximum
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: below this limit, and if the water cycle is man- available RFWR if water from upstream cannot
taikan@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp aged wisely, RFWR can cover human demand be reused downstream because of consumptive

1068 25 AUGUST 2006 VOL 313 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

 SPECIALSECTION
use or water pollution (11). Runoff is accumu- Water withdrawals now can be distributed into the hydrological cycles on a global scale. In such
lated through river channels and forms river grid boxes, using the distributions of popula- studies, human withdrawals are subtracted from
discharge (Fig. 2B). River discharge can be con- tion and the irrigation area as proxies, and the river flow (15), and the regulation of flow
sidered as the potentially maximum available compared with the available RFWR in each regime by major reservoirs is incorporated (17).
RFWR if all the water from upstream can be grid box (11, 14, 15). The distribution of the water scarcity index
used. Both runoff and river discharge are con- The water scarcity index is defined as Rws 0 Rws (11), recalculated with the latest multimodel
centrated in limited areas, and the amounts range (W S)/Q, where W, S, and Q are the annual ensemble estimates (3), is shown in Fig. 2C. Rws
from nearly zero in desert areas through more water withdrawal by all the sectors, the water is high in Northern China, in the area on the
than 2000 mm/year of runoff in the tropics and use from desalinated water, and the annual border between India and Pakistan, in the Middle
more than 200,000 m3/s of discharge on average RFWR, respectively. A region is usually con- East, and in the middle and western areas of the
near the river mouth of the Amazon. Further- sidered highly water stressed if Rws is higher United States. Based on this assessment, approx-
more, the water demands for ecosystems and than 0.4 (7, 11, 14, 15). It is considered to be a imately 2.4 billion people are currently living in
navigation should also be met, and all the reasonable, although not definitive, threshold highly water-stressed areas (18).
RFWR cannot be used only for human beings. value because not all the RFWR can be used
by human society. Data with shorter time scales Can the Virtual Water Trade Alone Save the
How Are the World Water Resources Assessed? will enable more detailed assessments consider- Water-Stressed Regions?
In the late 1960s, the International Hydrological ing the effects of temporal variability in the Transporting water over long distances, from

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

Decade promoted studies on world water bal- hydrological cycles. regions where water is abundant to dry regions
ances, and pioneering estimates were published In the era of the Anthropocene (16), where under water stress, is only feasible when gravity
in the 1970s (5, 12, 13). Shiklomanov (4) as- human impacts on natural processes are large can be used. The demand for high-quality drink-
sembled country statistics on water withdrawals and widespread, it no longer makes sense to ing water is limited to a few liters per person per
in the past and present and made future study only natural hydrological cycles. For this day and can be met through international trade
projections. Recent advances in information tech- reason, some studies have started to consider the or by desalination. However, other demands for
nologies have enabled global water-balance esti- impact of human interventions on the hydrolog- water for households, industry, and agriculture
mations at finer spatial resolution (11, 14, 15). ical cycles, thereby simulating more realistically require up to one metric ton of water per day per

Fig. 1. Global hydrological fluxes (1000 km3/year) and storages (1000 km3) precipitation and evapotranspiration in major landscapes (1000 km3/year)
with natural and anthropogenic cycles are synthesized from various sources presented by small vertical arrows; parentheses indicate area (million km2).
(1, 35). Big vertical arrows show total annual precipitation and evapo- The direct groundwater discharge, which is estimated to be about 10% of
transpiration over land and ocean (1000 km3/year), which include annual total river discharge globally (6), is included in river discharge.

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 313 25 AUGUST 2006 1069

 FRESHWATER RESOURCES

person in developing countries and considera- or other high energyconsuming means is offset by importing food or industrial goods. Such
bly more in developed countries. Therefore, the generally not realistic (8). trade is called virtual water trade (1921). The
supply for these sectors must be inexpensive, On the other hand, water demand for food weight of traded goods is normally just a
which means that transporting water by tanker and industrial production in dry regions can be small fraction, such as 1/100 to 1/1000, of the
weight of the water required to produce that
goods, so transporting goods is considerably
easier than transporting the water itself. Total
international virtual water trade is estimated
to be about 1000 km3/year (20, 21), although
only a part of that virtual water trade is
done to compensate for water shortage (22).
Problems of water, food, health, and poverty
are interlinked in many developing countries,
particularly in the regions where freshwater
resources are scarce, the local economy is too
weak to allow import of food from outside on a
large scale, and desalination plants are im-

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

practical to implement.
On the contrary, once water supply is se-
cured by appropriate infrastructure investments
and improved management, public health con-
ditions improve, food supply stabilizes, the po-
tential for industrial development increases, and
the time that was earlier devoted to acquiring
water can be used for more productive work or
educational opportunities. This is the reason
that the target Reduce by half the proportion of
people without sustainable access to safe
drinking water (23) is one of the Millennium
Development Goals of the United Nations.

How Will Water Use Change in the Future?

The global population will certainly grow, at
least for several decades, and water demand
will increase as a result. Water demand per
person will most likely also increase due to
economic growth. For example, an expected
growth of meat consumption will increase the
water demand for fodder production.
The ultimate objectives of future-oriented
world water resource assessments are to show
the international community what will happen
if we continue to manage our water resources as
we do today and to indicate what actions may
be needed to prevent undesirable outcomes. In
that sense, studies of future world water re-
sources are successful if their predictions based
on business-as-usual are proven wrong. In line
with this, plausible scenarios informed by past
experiences and current trends are built for
future projections of the demand side.
In the agricultural sector, which is estimated
to withdraw two-thirds of world water with-
drawals and which accounts for 90% of total
water consumption in the world (4), in the
period from 1961 to 2004, crop yield per area
increased by a factor of 2.3, more than the rate of
population growth (2.0), and the total crop yield
increased by a factor of 2.4, even though the
area of cropland increased by only 10% and
Fig. 2. Global distribution of (A) mean annual runoff (mm/year), (B) mean annual discharge harvested area increased less than that (24).
(million m3/year), and (C) water scarcity index Rws (3, 11). Water stress is higher for regions with This phenomenal growth was to a large extent
larger Rws. due to a doubling of the irrigation area and the

1070 25 AUGUST 2006 VOL 313 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

 SPECIALSECTION
corresponding increase of water withdrawal for high water stress until the end of the 21st will increase, sometimes in the same region
irrigation in addition to the increased usage of century (11, 18, 29, 30). Even though the of the world (34). These changes in risks are
fertilizer. Domestic per capita water use has projections vary by scenario, their estimates not well considered in current global assess-
increased with gross domestic product (GDP) correspond fairly well. Notably, climate ments on future water resource management.
growth, but in many developed countries this change is expected to accelerate the global Nevertheless, it is certain that there are people
increase seems to have come to an end; in some hydrological cycles, and precipitation will who are already suffering from water shortage
countries, domestic per capita water use is now increase on average. Evapotranspiration will today and that any change in the hydrological
decreasing. Such trend shifts should be con- not increase as much as precipitation globally cycle will demand changes in water resource
sidered in predictions of future water use. In- because elevated CO2 concentration induces management, whether the change is caused by
dustrial water use has also increased along with stomata closure and reduces transpiration global warming or cooling, or by anthropogenic
GDP, but recycling technology has reduced the (33), and river discharge will increase on or natural factors. If society is not well prepared
net intake of water for factories. For example, global scale because of the increased precip- for such changes and fails to monitor variations
nearly 80% of water used in the industrial sec- itation and the reduced transpiration (31, 32). in the hydrological cycle, large numbers of
tors in Japan is currently recycled (25). As a result, the available RFWR is expected people run the risk of living under water stress
There are concerns that in the decades to increase at a higher rate than water de- or seeing their livelihoods devastated by water-
ahead, water withdrawals for irrigation cannot mand, calculated from population and eco- related hazards such as floods.
be increased as required and that the lack of nomic growth. Because of this, the water

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

water will impede necessary growth of food scarcity index Rws and the water crowding How Can Hydrological Science Help
production. However, Rws in developing coun- indicator Aw, both based on annual RFWR, Solve World Water Issues?
tries is generally low, which means that they show that water stress will be reduced on a Detailed knowledge of global water resources
should have a potential to increase their water macro scale, except for the A2 scenario, certainly has been enriched over the 40 years
withdrawals. A key challenge for these coun- which represents a very heterogeneous world that have passed since the International Hydro-
tries should be how to implement soft mea- with high population growth. However, the logical Decade. Water cycles on Earth can now
sures (such as legislation, policies, and market decrease in the number of people under water be measured and simulated on finer temporal
mechanisms) in addition to technical ones to stress is only marginal and the results should and spatial scales with detailed models of each
simultaneously increase the supply and man- not be viewed too optimistically because they hydrological process, and the current and future
age the demand wisely (26). are based on estimates of annual RFWR. status of the global water system can be il-
Other anticipated impacts of climate change lustrated (Figs. 1 to 3). In contrast to these
What Effects Will Climate Change on water resources, such as modification of achievements in studies of the natural hydro-
Have on RFWR? seasonal variation of available RFWR, deg- logical cycles, data about the social aspects of
The effect of global climate change on hy- radation of water quality, and associated water use are not easily available.
drological cycles is still uncertain, but higher changes in water resource management, are Finally, the future development of hydrolo-
temperatures will turn some part of snowfall not taken into account. Furthermore, precip- gy requires improved communication between
into rainfall, the snowmelt season will be itation will become more intense and inter- scientists and policy-makers to ensure that
earlier, and, as a result, the timing and volume mittent, and the risks of floods and droughts hydrological expertise is translated into actions
of spring flood will change substantially (27).
Nearly half of the worlds population depends
on groundwater sources for drinking water
supply and for other uses (28). Sea level rise
will cause saline water intrusion into ground-
water aquifers near the coasts and will decrease
the available groundwater resources. On the
water demand side, changes in the seasonal
pattern have not been estimated globally, and a
comprehensive description of groundwater
withdrawal in the world is largely lacking.
Lack of seasonal details in existing assess-
ments is the reason that crude annual average
measures such as the water scarcity index Rws
and the Falkenmarks indicator or the water
crowding indicator Aw 0 Q/C (4), where C is
population size, are still being used. Of course,
there have been advances in world water re-
source assessments; projections on the demand
side now are based on the Intergovernmental Fig. 3. Current and future projections of population under high water stress under three business-as-
Panel on Climate Changes Special Report on usual scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes Special Report on Emissions
Emissions Scenarios, making them consistent Scenarios. Threshold values are set to be (A) the water-crowding indicator Aw 0 Q/C G 1000 m3/year per
with future climate projections (18, 29, 30), capita and (B) the water scarcity index Rws 0 (W S)/Q 9 0.4, where Q, C, W, and S are renewable
and uncertainties in the projections of future freshwater resources (RFWR), population, water withdrawal, and water generated by desalination,
hydrological cycles are reduced by the use of respectively. Error bars indicate the maximum and minimum population under high water stress
multimodel ensemble technique (18, 31, 32). corresponding to the RFWR projected by six climate models. Climatic conditions averaged for 30 years
Figure 3 compares three assessments of the are used for the plots at 2025 (averaged for 2010 to 2039), 2055 (averaged for 2040 to 2069), and
number of people who will live in regions with 2075 (averaged for 2060 to 2089).

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 313 25 AUGUST 2006 1071

 FRESHWATER RESOURCES

that address water challenges (35) and to make 11. T. Oki et al., Hydrol. Sci. J. 46, 983 (2001). 26. P. Gleick, Science 302, 1524 (2003).
sure that scientists understand what kinds of 12. M. I. Lvovitch, Trans. Am. Geophys. Union 54, 28 27. Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, Climate
(1973). Change, 2001: The Science Basis (Cambridge Univ. Press,
knowledge are required by policy-makers and 13. F. Baumgartner, E. Reichel, The World Water Balance: Cambridge, UK, 2001).
by society at large. Mean Annual Global, Continental and Maritime 28. World Water Day (www.worldwaterday.org/wwday/1998/).
Precipitation, Evaporation and Runoff (Ordenbourg, 29. J. Alcamo et al., personal communication.
References and Notes Munchen, Germany, 1975). 30. N. W. Arnell, Glob. Environ. Change 14, 31 (2004).
1. T. Oki, in Encyclopedia of Hydrological Sciences, 14. C. J. Vorosmarty, P. Green, J. Salisbury, R. B. Lammers, 31. D. Nohara, A. Kitoh, M. Hosaka, T. Oki, J. Hydromet.,
M.G. Anderson, J. McDonnell, Eds. (Wiley, New York, Science 289, 284 (2000). in press.
2005), vol. 1, pp. 1322. 15. J. Alcamo et al., Hydrol. Sci. J. 48, 339 (2003). 32. P. C. D. Milly, K. A. Dunne, A. V. Vecchia, Nature 438,
2. M. W. Rosegrant, C. Ximing, S. A. Cline, Environment 45, 16. P. J. Crutzen, Nature 415, 23 (2002). 347 (2005).
24 (2003). 17. N. Hanasaki, S. Kanae, T. Oki, J. Hydrol. 327, 22 33. N. Gedney et al., Nature 439, 835 (2006).
3. P. A. Dirmeyer et al., Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., in press. (2006). 34. Y. Hirabayashi et al., in preparation.
4. I. A. Shiklomanov, Ed., Assessment of Water Resources 18. N. Utsumi, thesis, The University of Tokyo (2006). 35. T. Oki, C. Valeo, K. Heal, Eds., Hydrology 2020: An
and Water Availability in the World (World Meteorological 19. J. A. Allan, Yale Univ. For. Environ. Studies Bull. 103, 141 Integrating Science to Meet World Water Challenges,
Organization/Stockholm Environment Institute, Geneva, (1998). IAHS Publication 300 (IAHS, Wallingford, UK, 2005).
Switzerland, 1997). 20. T. Oki et al., in Value of Water Research Report Series No. 36. We thank our research group members at Institute of
5. V. I. Korzun, World Water Balance and Water Resources of 12, A. Y. Hoekstra, Ed. (UNESCO-IHE, Delft, Netherlands, Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo for comments and
the Earth, vol. 25 of Studies and Reports in Hydrology 2003), pp. 221235. support, particularly Y. Shen, M. Bengtsson, Y. Agata, H. Kim,
(UNESCO, Paris, 1978). 21. A. K. Chapagain, A. Y. Hoekstra, Value of Water Research and N. Utsumi. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for
6. T. M. Church, Nature 380, 579 (1996). Report Series No. 13 (UNESCO-IHE, Delft, Netherlands, comments. For financial support, we thank Core Research for

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

7. M. Falkenmark, J. Rockstrom, Balancing Water for 2003). Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST), the Japan
Humans and Nature (Earthscan, London, 2004). 22. H. Yang, P. Eichert, K. C. Abbaspour, A. B. Zehnder, Science and Technology Agency (JST), the Research Institute
8. S. L. Postel, G. C. Daily, P. R. Ehrlich, Science 271, 785 Environ. Sci. Technol. 37, 3048 (2003). for Humanity and Nature (RIHN), the special coordination
(1996). 23. UN Millennium Development Goals (www.un.org/ funds for promoting science and technology by the Japan
9. C. Nilsson, C. A. Reidy, M. Dynesius, C. Revenga, Science millenniumgoals/index.html). Cabinet Office, and Global Environment Research Fund
308, 405 (2005). 24. FAOSTAT (http://faostat.fao.org/). (GERF) of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan.
10. World Register of Dams (International Commission on 25. Water Resources in Japan (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
Large Dams, Paris, 1998). and Transport, Tokyo, 2005). 10.1126/science.1128845

rivers, lakes, groundwater, or the coastal seas

REVIEW (1). These wastewaters contain numerous chem-
ical compounds in varying concentrations. About
The Challenge of Micropollutants 300 million tons of synthetic compounds annu-
ally used in industrial and consumer products
in Aquatic Systems partially find their way into natural waters (Table
1). Additional pollution comes from diffuse
sources from agriculture, where 140 million
Rene P. Schwarzenbach,* Beate I. Escher, Kathrin Fenner, Thomas B. Hofstetter,
tons of fertilizers and several million tons of
C. Annette Johnson, Urs von Gunten, Bernhard Wehrli
pesticides are applied each year (2). In the
European Union, for instance, there are more
The increasing worldwide contamination of freshwater systems with thousands of industrial and
than 100,000 registered chemicals, of which
natural chemical compounds is one of the key environmental problems facing humanity. Although
30,000 to 70,000 are in daily use (EINECS,
most of these compounds are present at low concentrations, many of them raise considerable
European Inventory of Existing Chemical Sub-
toxicological concerns, particularly when present as components of complex mixtures. Here we
stances). The input of 0.4 million tons of oil and
review three scientific challenges in addressing water-quality problems caused by such micro-
gasoline components through accidental spills
pollutants. First, tools to assess the impact of these pollutants on aquatic life and human health
represents yet another important source of water
must be further developed and refined. Second, cost-effective and appropriate remediation and
pollution. Other notable sources of contamination
water-treatment technologies must be explored and implemented. Third, usage and disposal
are the intrusion of salty water into groundwater
strategies, coupled with the search for environmentally more benign products and processes,
due to overexploitation of aquifers; the human-
should aim to minimize introduction of critical pollutants into the aquatic environment.
driven mobilization of naturally occurring geo-
genic toxic chemicals, including heavy metals and
bout one-fifth of the world_s popula- term effects on aquatic life and on human metalloids (Table 1); and the biological produc-

A tion does not have access to safe water,

and two-fifths suffer the consequences
of unacceptable sanitary conditions (1). Patho-
health, could easily lead to a problem of similar
or even greater magnitude. More than one-third
of the Earth_s accessible renewable freshwater
tion of toxins and malodorous compounds.
To date, an effective and sustainable global
strategy against this insidious and mostly unseen
gens in water cause more than 2 million deaths is used for agricultural, industrial, and domes- contamination of aquatic environments barely ex-
annually; most are children under the age of 5. tic purposes, and most of these activities lead ists. Source controls and technical systems, such
The increasing chemical pollution of surface to water contamination with numerous syn- as wastewater treatment plants, function as par-
and groundwaters, with largely unknown long- thetic and geogenic compounds (Table 1). It tial barriers, particularly in highly industrialized
therefore comes as no surprise that chemical countries, but major challenges remain. The
pollution of natural waters has already become source, behavior, and treatment of the relatively
Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and a major public concern in almost all parts of the small number of macropollutants (3) such as
Technology, 8600 Dubendorf, Switzerland, and Institute of
Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics, ETH Zurich, world. acids, salts, nutrients, and natural organic matter,
8092 Zurich, Switzerland. Industry and municipalities use about 10% occurring at mg/liter to mg/liter concentrations,
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: of the globally accessible runoff and generate a are relatively well understood: High nutrient
rene.schwarzenbach@env.ethz.ch stream of wastewater, which flows or seeps into loads can lead to increased primary production,

1072 25 AUGUST 2006 VOL 313 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

 NEWS&ANALYSIS

AUSTRALIA decadelong Millennium Drought starting in

the late 1990s exacerbated the water short-

River Basin Management Plan age. Along the lower Murray, three-quarters
of once-extensive red gum forests withered
and died. The Goolwa wetlands dried up,
Secures Water for the Environment oxidizing sulfates in the soil to sulfuric acid,
which acidified the wetlands and adjacent
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIAIn the scramble iconic Coorong with its 140-kilometer-long farms once the waters returned and spread
to secure water for drinking and agricul- lagoon that provides sanctuary for a cornu- it. The Coorong was cut off from the Mur-
ture, the environment often gets overlooked. copia of waterbirds. ray for 3 years. Its salinity jumped to ve to
Australia is aiming to set an example of how Beginning in the 1950s, dams and irriga- seven times that of seawater, turning half of
to balance all three needs in its agricultural tion channels transformed the free-owing the estuary into a dead sea. Paleoecologi-
heartland. The Murray-Darling basin plan, waterways into a highly managed system. cal evidence indicates it was unusual even
adopted by the government on 22 November, Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 1800s, for the last 7000 years, Rebecca Lester, an
is historic, says Richard Kingsford, a con- more than 40% of rainwater entering the sys- environmental scientist at Deakin University
servation biologist at the University of New tem annually, or 12,200 billion liters, made in Melbourne, penned on The Conversation,
South Wales in Sydney. South Australian it to the sea, according to a 2008 study by a research news Web site.

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

River Murray Minister Paul Caica praised the the Commonwealth Scientific and Indus- Upstream, nutrients accumulating in the
expected environmental gains: It will help trial Research Organisation. By 2008, even Murray and Darling rivers fueled toxic algal
oodplains support healthy red gum forests, with normal rainfall, ow in the rivers lower blooms, setting a world record in 1991 for a
waterbird and sh breeding habitats. It reaches had dwindled to nearly one-third of bloom that extended 1000 kilometers along
will keep water levels high enough to prevent historical levels, about 4700 billion liters. The the Darling River. Residents of Adelaide,
acidication in the lower lakes the city last in line to draw water
and reduce the risk of the Murray from the river system, had to
[m]outh needing to be dredged. contend with some of the worlds
Water managers worldwide saltiest drinking water. In 2009,
see it as a model for the use experts raised the alarm with
of technical advice and involve- some predicting that within the
ment of government at all levels, year, the city would have to turn
says water policy expert Sharon to bottled water.
Megdal of the University of Ari- The Millennium Drought led
zona in Tucson. The plans deft to a number of measures, includ-
balancing of societal and ecolog- ing the establishment in 2008 of
ical needs, adds Clifford Dahm, Free-owing. Balancing the Murray-Darling Basin Author-
an aquatic ecologist at the Uni- competing demands will keep ity (MDBA), which is an indepen-
versity of New Mexico, Albu- water owing through the dent federal agency charged with
querque, gives us some useful Murray-Darling river system. nding the right balance between
ideas for science, planning, and agricultural, social, and environ-
CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): RICHARD KINGSFORD; DISCOVER MURRAY RIVER, WWW.MURRAYRIVER.COM.AU

the political tightrope that such mental values. Restoring river and
decisionmaking requires. wetlands health meant primar-
The 1-million-square- ily removing less water for irri-
kilometer Murray-Darling basin gation. How much to take back
stretches across four states that is open for lots of debate, says
have been brawling over water Tony Minns, director of the Goy-
for more than a century. Rising der Institute for Water Research
from tributaries in Queensland in Adelaide. MDBA planners
and New South Wales, the Dar- also called for xing leaky irriga-
ling River flows southwest, tion systems to retain more water
R
joining the Murray River at the IVE in rivers and proposed that ows
GR
LIN
Victorian border, and finally could be bolstered by pumping in
R
DA

enters the sea near Adelaide. groundwater.

Although the two rivers and their In June 2010, the Wentworth
tributaries account for less than Group of Concerned Scientists,
7% of the nations stream ow, an independent conservation
the basin, which draws most of organization, called for water
its water from the Murray, pro- ows to be returned to two-thirds
duces about 40% of the food of historical levels, a target that
grown in Australia. Its ecological won broad though not universal
treasures include Chowilla wet- support among environmental-
lands, Macquarie marshes, and, ists. MDBA issued a preliminary
near the mouth of the Murray, the plan in November 2010 that

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 338 7 DECEMBER 2012 1273

Published by AAAS
 NEWS&ANALYSIS

looked at three water recovery scenarios water will come from buying water rights back, but Ruppia tuberosa, a key seagrass
none of which pleased farmers, who tossed from farmers; better irrigation infrastruc- species that sh and waterfowl feed on, has
it into bonres. A nal plan issued a year ture will spread it further. The basin plan is disappeared. Soil acidication still affects
later improved modeling to assess how dif- expected to be fully implemented by 2024. wetlands and farm fields. Its not clear
ferent scenarios would affect 18 key indica- The plan still faces hurdles. There are whether these changes are permanent,
tors of environmental health. One indicator many ways the states could frustrate the Minns says, referring to both biodiversity
is to keep salinity in the Coorong below deal, says Rhondda Dickson, MDBA chief loss and acidication.
60 grams per litera safe level for seagrasses executive. For instance, states still own the The basins future will depend not just on
that sh and birds depend on. (Pre-European water and could cap the amount of irriga- the volume of water owing through the sys-
salinity was 24 grams per liter; by 2009 it tion rights MDBA can purchase, as New tem, but how its added. We have to develop
had risen to 62 grams per liter.) Returning South Wales has threatened to do. To make ecological watering plans [to decide] how
3200 billion liters to the Murray-Darling it work, Dickson says, the government much, how often and when [to release water]
system would satisfy 17 of 18 indicators and needs the states support, however grudging. to achieve the environmental outcomes,
come close to the Wentworth target of two- The environment ministry is working on an Minns says. One goal is to restore natural
thirds of historical ows. But it poses another implementation agreement with the states. flow variability. Ecologically, occasional
problem: Infrastructure along the rivers Ecological recovery could take decades. ooding is important for these river systems,
lower reaches built to suit reduced flows MDBAs water purchases and infrastructure Kingsford says. Now that MDBA is getting

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 7, 2013

would be swamped. To accommodate more upgrades so far have returned 1327 billion the water it needs, it will have to learn how
ow, the government earmarked $1.85 bil- liters to the rivers, rejuvenating parched wet- to best manage it. As Minns says, The real
lion in October to raise bridges, build levees, land systems, Kingsford says. The numbers work starts now.
and compensate landowners. Much of that of nesting waterfowl species have bounced ELIZABETH FINKEL AND DENNIS NORMILE

U.S. SCIENCE POLICY

White House Panel Urges Agencies to Take More Risks

Be bolder. recommendations have been made by other in researchbacks incremental advances,
A new report by a presidential advisory groups, admits University of Texas, Aus- according to the report. And one of the cul-
panel urges U.S. research agencies to make tin, computer scientist William Press, who prits is a conservative merit review process
a bigger commitment to supporting high- co-chaired the working group that produced that rewards safe bets.
risk, interdisciplinary research by investiga- the report. (Press is also president of AAAS, NIH is taking small steps away from that
tors with a strong track record. Current efforts which publishes Science.) In fact, PCASTs approach with its Pioneer, New Innovator,
by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggestions to boost overall research spend- and Early Independence awards from the
and the National Science ing to 3% of the nations directors ofce, the report notes. Likewise,
Foundation (NSF) to do so gross domestic product, the report praises NSFs Rapid Response
are a drop in the bucket of make permanent a research Research grants and its planned expansion of
total agency funding, says tax credit for industry, and programs to reward creative transforma-
a report released last week help foreign scientists tive interdisciplinary ventures. But Press says
by the Presidents Council remain in the United States the funding agencies have been slower than
of Advisors on Science and after graduation have we would like to see in moving in these direc-
Technology (PCAST). already been embraced tions. And the report documents those baby
The new PCAST report, by its intended audi- steps: This year, it notes, NIH will make 50
entitled Transformation ence: President Barack awards in the three directors categories out of
and Opportunity: The Obama. But advocates for a total of 35,944 research grants. While this
Future of the U.S. Research the research community plethora of initiatives, each worthy in its own
Enterprise, offers 17 rec- say that it never hurts to way, gives an illusion of signicant progress,
ommendations to shore remind the administration the report notes, in truth the sum of all these
up the $450-billion-a-year that such proposed policy programs is tiny, almost invisible, in com-
U.S. research enterprise, changes are important parison to each agencys dominant form of
both public and private, and Presidential prodding. William especially when the White research support.
increase its eventual eco- Press led the PCAST panel that wants House and Congress are The report also urges Congress and the
nomic payoff. Most of the changes in U.S. research practices. engaged in tense negotia- executive branch to find a way to provide
ideasincluding the need tions to avoid heading over research agencies with multiyear budgets,
to ease the regulatory burden on universi- the so-called scal cliff next month. or at least funding guarantees for individual
ties, strengthen ties with industry, improve One area where the PCAST report breaks projects. Other countries operate on 5-year
science and math education, and ensure a from the pack is its call for research agencies budgets, notes NSF Director Subra Suresh.
CREDIT: SARA PRESS

steady, predictable rate of growth for federal to adopt revolutionary interdisciplinary But Suresh says its very difcult to carry
spending on sciencewill sound familiar ... and people-based awards. Too much of out long-term planning with our sister agen-
to readers of other recent reports by equally federal spendingwhich amounts to about cies under the current U.S. system of annual
prestigious panels. The majority of these one-third of the nations total investment appropriations. JEFFREY MERVIS

1274 7 DECEMBER 2012 VOL 338 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

Published by AAAS