| Popis: |
In order to address the sustainability challenges emerging from interdependencies in water, energy, food nexus, in recent years ecosystem services have been identified as an important link in the nexus. Ecosystem services are essential for environmental sustainability and for provision of natural resources in WEF sectors and its degradation due to climate change and socio-economic development impacts resource security in all sectors creating a feedback loop of exploitation. This study highlights the need to integrate freshwater ecosystem health in planning development strategies as sustainable freshwater ecosystem is vital for climate change resilient future. Integrated hydrological models have been widely used to identify scenarios with optimal economic benefits in agriculture, energy and urban sectors from a water development project, in this research we have used GWAVA model to assess the impacts of changes in water use efficiency, land use change, population growth and climate change on water resources and ecologically relevant hydrological regime indicators at a basin scale. The analysis of model stimulated stream flows was used to compare the sensitivity of water resource availability induced by natural or anthropogenic changes at a sub-catchment scale. The results suggest significant uncertainties in availability and use of river water resources in the mid-century, however, aligned with the global and national climate change commitments, results shows that demand side management of water and sustainable land use management can mitigate immediate consequences of climate change on river health. |
