The Impact of Water Scarcity
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Pujas Das using Earth systems models found there is an alarming decrease in runoff from the world’s major rivers. CEE Distinguished Professor Auroop Ganguly co-authored Das’s paper that details the negative impacts of declining runoff on humans and the world as a whole.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cynthia McCormick Hibbert. Main photo: Professor Auroop Ganguly says the more skillful models of Earth systems show worse outcomes in terms of water scarcity from declining river runoff. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University.
Nearly a billion people will be affected by a scarcity of water by 2100, Northeastern researchers say
In an analysis of the best available Earth systems models, Northeastern researchers found that by the turn of the next century, 850 million people will feel the effects of declining runoff from the world’s major rivers.
That is more than three times the number estimated by previous analysis of Earth system models, says Puja Das, a post-doctoral research fellow at AI for Climate and Sustainability within the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University.
“What (Das) found is that some of the more skillful models seem to project the worst conditions in terms of the impact of water scarcity,” says Northeastern professor Auroop Ganguly, who served as co-author for the paper Das published recently in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.
Population estimates are important because they give policymakers an idea of what to expect in terms of the availability of food, water and energy, since river runoff recharges water supplies, enriches agricultural soil and generates hydropower, Das says.
Earth systems models are complex computer simulations of Earth’s processes, such as the atmosphere, oceans and human activity.
Her research shows that the five most skillful models project 40% of the world’s 30 major rivers will exhibit decreased runoff by 2100, affecting a population 100 times the size of New York City, as opposed to earlier estimates of 260 million.
“We chose the 30 biggest river basins around the world, including the Amazon, Congo, Ganges, Brahmaputra and Nile rivers,” she says. “We were trying to see how the runoff in those river basins, or water availability in those river basins, are presented in climate models.”
“We know that climate models use different equations and parameterizations to estimate these variables. We are trying to see how good they are,” she says.
The researchers compared two generations of Coupled Modeling Intercomparison Projects, the CMIP5 and the more recent CMIP6, to see how they performed against historical projections of annual runoff from 1960 to 2005.
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