Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Piemontese, Luigi
• Fetzer, Ingo
• Rockström, Johan
• Jaramillo, Fernando

Titel

Future Hydroclimatic Impacts on Africa: Beyond the Paris Agreement

Ist Teil von

• Earth's future, 2019-07, Vol.7 (7), p.748-761

Ort / Verlag

United States: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Quelle

Wiley Online Library Journals Frontfile Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Projections of global warming in Africa are generally associated with increasing aridity and decreasing water availability. However, most freshwater assessments focus on single hydroclimatic indicators (e.g., runoff, precipitation, or aridity), lacking analysis on combined changes in evaporative demand, and water availability on land. There remains a high degree of uncertainty over water implications at the basin scale, in particular for the most water‐consuming sector—food production. Using the Budyko framework, we perform an assessment of future hydroclimatic change for the 50 largest African basins, finding a consistent pattern of change in four distinct regions across the two main emission scenarios corresponding to the Paris Agreement, and the business as usual. Although the Paris Agreement is likely to lead to less intense changes when compared to the business as usual, both scenarios show the same pattern of hydroclimatic shifts, suggesting a potential roadmap for hydroclimatic adaptation. We discuss the social‐ecological implications of the projected hydroclimatic shifts in the four regions and argue that climate policies need to be complemented by soil and water conservation practices to make the best use of future water resources. Key Points Hydroclimatic parameters show a consistent pattern of change delineating four hydroclimate change regions Future African hydroclimate is likely to change with similar regional patterns regardless of the emission mitigation scenarios The Paris Agreement could limit the intensity of the hydroclimatic change but not the direction of the change