Assessing water scarcity by simultaneously considering environmental flow requirements, water quantity, and water quality

• Published in: Ecological indicators Vol. 60; pp. 434 - 441
• Main Authors: Liu, Junguo, Liu, Qingying, Yang, Hong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2016
• Subjects: aquaculture; Assessments; Basins; Ecosystems; Environmental flow requirement; environmental health; Freshwater; Huangqihai River Basin; Indicators; issues and policy; pollution; Pollution abatement; Rivers; swimming; Water pollution; Water quality; Water quantity; Water scarcity; watersheds; China; China, People's Rep., Inner Mongolia; China, People's Rep; Huangqihai River Basin; Environmental flow requirement; Water quantity; Water scarcity; Water quality
• ISSN: 1470-160X; 1872-7034
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.07.019

•Consider environmental flow requirement (EFR) in water scarcity assessment.•A new quantity–quality-EFR (QQE) approach for water scarcity assessment.•Huangqihai Basin suffered from both quantity- and quality-induced water scarcity.•Reduce water use and pollution, and meet EFR for healthy river ecosystems. Water scarcity is a widespread problem in many parts of the world. Most previous methods of water scarcity assessment only considered water quantity, and ignored water quality. In addition, the environmental flow requirement (EFR) was commonly not explicitly considered in the assessment. In this study, we developed an approach to assess water scarcity by considering both water quantity and quality, while at the same time explicitly considering EFR. We applied this quantity–quality-EFR (QQE) approach for the Huangqihai River Basin in Inner Mongolia, China. We found that to keep the river ecosystem health at a “good” level (i.e., suitable for swimming, fishing, and aquaculture), 26% of the total blue water resources should be allocated to meet the EFR. When such a “good” level is maintained, the quantity- and quality-based water scarcity indicators were 1.3 and 14.2, respectively; both were above the threshold of 1.0. The QQE water scarcity indicator thus can be expressed as 1.3(26%)|14.2, indicating that the basin was suffering from scarcity problems related to both water quantity and water quality for a given rate of EFR. The current water consumption has resulted in degradation of the basin's river ecosystems, and the EFR cannot be met in 3 months of a year. To reverse this situation, future policies should aim to reduce water use and pollution discharge, meet the EFR for maintaining healthy river ecosystems, and substantially improve pollution treatment.