Resources

1.
Hanjra, M. A., Ferede, T. & Gutta, D. G. Reducing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa through investments in water and other priorities. Agric. Water Manag. 96, 1062–1070 (2009).
Article  Google Scholar 
2.
Moris, J. R. Irrigation Development in Africa: Lessons of Experience (Routledge, 1990).

3.
Aw, D. & Diemer, G. Making a Large Irrigation Scheme Work: A Case Study from Mali (World Bank, 2005).

4.
Bertoncin, M., Pase, A., Quatrida, D. & Turrini, S. At the junction between state, nature and capital: irrigation mega-projects in Sudan. Geoforum 106, 24–37 (2019).
Article  Google Scholar 

5.
Adams, W. M. Wasting the Rain: Rivers, People and Planning in Africa (Earthscan, 1992).

6.
Chambers, R. & Moris J. R. (eds) Mwea: An Irrigated Rice Settlement in Kenya (Weltforum Verlag, 1973).

7.
Awojobi, O. & Jenkins, G. P. Were the hydro dams financed by the World Bank from 1976 to 2005 worthwhile? Energy Policy 86, 222–232 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

8.
Bazin, F., Hathie, I., Skinner, J. & Koundouno, J. Irrigation, Food Security and Poverty—Lessons from Three Large Dams in West Africa (IIED and IUCN, 2017).

9.
World Commission on Dams Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making (Earthscan, 2000).

10.
Thomas, D. H. L. & Adams, W. M. Adapting to dams: agrarian change downstream of the Tiga dam, northern Nigeria. World Dev. 27, 919–935 (1999).
Article  Google Scholar 

11.
Balasubramanian, V., Sie, M., Hijmans, R. J. & Otsuka, K. Increasing rice production in sub-Saharan Africa: challenges and opportunities. Adv. Agron. 94, 55–133 (2007).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

12.
Alam, M. Problems and potential of irrigated agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. J. Irrig. Drain. Eng. 117, 155–172 (1991).
Article  Google Scholar 

13.
Mold, A. Will it all end in tears? Infrastructure spending and African development in historical perspective. J. Int. Dev. 24, 237–254 (2012).
Article  Google Scholar 

14.
Veldwisch, G. J., Bolding, A. & Wester, P. Sand in the engine: the travails of an irrigated rice scheme in Bwanje Valley, Malawi. J. Dev. Stud. 45, 197–226 (2009).
Article  Google Scholar 

15.
Carney, J. Converting the wetlands, engendering the environment: the intersection of gender with agrarian change in the Gambia. Econ. Geogr. 69, 329–348 (1993).
Article  Google Scholar 

16.
Zarfl, C., Lumsdon, A. E., Berlekamp, J., Tydecks, L. & Tockner, K. A global boom in hydropower dam construction. Aquat. Sci. 77, 161–170 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

17.
Woodhouse, P. et al. African farmer-led irrigation development: re-framing agricultural policy and investment? J. Peasant Stud. 44, 213–233 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar 

18.
Dakar Declaration on Irrigation: Building Resilience and Accelerate Growth in Sahel and West Africa by Boosting Irrigated Agriculture (ICID, 2013).

19.
Merrey, D. J. & Sally, H. Another well-intentioned bad investment in irrigation: the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s ‘compact’ with the Republic of Niger. Water Altern. 10, 195–203 (2017).
Google Scholar 

20.
Rufin, P. et al. Global-scale patterns and determinants of cropping frequency in irrigation dam command areas. Glob. Environ. Change 50, 110–122 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

21.
Blanc, E. & Strobl, E. Is small better? A comparison of the effect of large and small dams on cropland productivity in South Africa. World Bank Econ. Rev. 28, 545–576 (2014).
Article  Google Scholar 

22.
Flyvbjerg, B. Policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects: problems, causes, cures. Environ. Plan. B 34, 578–597 (2007).
Article  Google Scholar 

23.
Ansar, A., Flyvbjerg, B., Budzier, A. & Lunn, D. Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development. Energy Policy 69, 43–56 (2014).
Article  Google Scholar 

24.
Ika, L. A., Diallo, A. & Thuillier, D. Critical success factors for World Bank projects: an empirical investigation. Int. J. Proj. Manag. 30, 105–116 (2012).
Article  Google Scholar 

25.
Duponchel, M., Chauvet, L. & Collier, P. What Explains Aid Project Success in Post-Conflict Situations? Policy Research Working Paper Series 5418 (World Bank, 2010).

26.
Flyvbjerg, B. Survival of the unfittest: why the worst infrastructure gets built—and what we can do about it. Oxf. Rev. Econ. Policy 25, 344–367 (2009).
Article  Google Scholar 

27.
Scott, J. C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Yale Univ. Press, 1998).

28.
Li, T. M. Beyond ‘the state’ and failed schemes. Am. Anthropol. 107, 383–394 (2005).
Article  Google Scholar 

29.
de Bont, C., Komakech, H. C. & Veldwisch, G. J. Neither modern nor traditional: farmer-led irrigation development in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania. World Dev. 116, 15–27 (2019).
Article  Google Scholar 

30.
Li, T. M. The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics (Duke Univ. Press, 2007).

31.
Project Performance Audit Report—Chad Lake Chad Polders Project (Credit 592-CD) Report No. 6751 (World Bank, 1987).

32.
Chad: Appraisal of Sategui-Deressia Irrigation Project Report No. 145a-CD (World Bank, 1974).

33.
Adams, W. M. Large scale irrigation in northern Nigeria: performance and ideology. Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. 16, 287–300 (1991).
Article  Google Scholar 

34.
Biswas, A. K. Irrigation in Africa. Land Use Policy 3, 269–285 (1986).
Article  Google Scholar 

35.
Ansar, A., Flyvbjerg, B., Budzier, A. & Lunn, D. in The Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management (ed. Flyvbjerg, B.) Ch. 4 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2017).

36.
Adams, W. M. The downstream impacts of dam construction: a case study from Nigeria. Trans Inst. Br. Geogr. 10, 292–302 (1985).
Article  Google Scholar 

37.
Hirschman, A. O. Development Projects Observed (Brookings, 1967).

38.
de Bont, C. The continuous quest for control by African irrigation planners in the face of farmer-led irrigation development: the case of the Lower Moshi area, Tanzania (1935–2017). Water Altern. 11, 893–915 (2018).
Google Scholar 

39.
Bertoncin, M. & Pase, A. Interpreting mega-development projects as territorial traps: the case of irrigation schemes on the shores of Lake Chad (Borno State, Nigeria). Geogr. Helv. 72, 243–254 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar 

40.
Schumacher, E. F. Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as If People Mattered (Vintage, 1973).

41.
Jones, B. Desiccation and the West African colonies. Geogr. J. 91, 401–423 (1938).
Article  Google Scholar 

42.
Adams, W. M. How beautiful is small? Scale, control and success in Kenyan irrigation. World Dev. 18, 1309–1323 (1990).
Article  Google Scholar 

43.
Ahlers, R., Brandimarte, L., Kleemans, I. & Sadat, S. H. Ambitious development on fragile foundations: criticalities of current large dam construction in Afghanistan. Geoforum 54, 49–58 (2014).
Article  Google Scholar 

44.
Green, N., Sovacool, B. K. & Hancock, K. Grand designs: assessing the African energy security implications of the Grand Inga dam. Afr. Stud. Rev. 58, 133–158 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

45.
Mbara, C. J., Gadain, H. M. & Muthusi, F. M. Status of Medium to Large Irrigation Schemes in Southern Somalia Technical Report No. W-05 (FAO-SWALIM, 2007).

46.
Flyvbjerg, B. Policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects: problems, causes, cures. Environ. Plan. B 34, 578–597 (2007).
Article  Google Scholar 

47.
Burney, J., Woltering, L., Burke, M., Naylor, R. & Pasternak, D. Solar-powered drip irrigation enhances food security in the Sudano–Sahel. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 1848–1853 (2010).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

48.
Higginbottom, T. P., Symeonakis, E., Meyer, H. & van der Linden, S. Mapping fractional woody cover in semi-arid savannahs using multi-seasonal composites from Landsat data. ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens. 139, 88–102 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

49.
Müller, H., Rufin, P., Griffiths, P., Siqueira, A. J. & Hostert, P. Mining dense Landsat time series for separating cropland and pasture in a heterogeneous Brazilian savanna landscape. Remote Sens. Environ. 156, 490–499 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

50.
Pal, M. Random forest classifier for remote sensing classification. Int. J. Remote Sens. 26, 217–222 (2005).
Article  Google Scholar 

51.
Gorelick, N. et al. Google Earth Engine: planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote Sens. Environ. 202, 18–27 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar 

52.
Abatzoglou, J. T., Dobrowski, S. Z., Parks, S. A. & Hegewisch, K. C. Terraclimate, a high-resolution global dataset of monthly climate and climatic water balance from 1958–2015. Sci. Data 5, 170191 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

53.
Weiss, D. J. et al. A global map of travel time to cities to assess inequalities in accessibility in 2015. Nature 553, 333–336 (2018).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

54.
Lloyd, C. T., Sorichetta, A. & Tatem, A. J. High resolution global gridded data for use in population studies. Sci. Data 4, 170001 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar 

55.
Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A. & Mastruzzi, M. The worldwide governance indicators: methodology and analytical issues. Hague J. Rule Law 3, 220–246 (2011).
Article  Google Scholar 

56.
Walsh, R. P. D. & Lawler, D. M. Rainfall seasonality: description, spatial patterns and change through time. Weather 36, 201–208 (1981).
Article  Google Scholar 

57.
Wood, S. N. Generalized Additive Models: an Introduction with R 2nd edn (Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2017).

58.
Wood, S. N. Fast stable restricted maximum likelihood and marginal likelihood estimation of semiparametric generalized linear models. J. R. Stat. Soc. B 73, 3–36 (2011).
Article  Google Scholar  More

To compute the water footprint of global energy trade, we rely upon data originating from the UN Commodity Trade (UN Comtrade) database, sourced through an Application Program Interface (API) in the R coding language. Trade data are then cleaned to eliminate outliers and erroneous values. The International Energy Agency (IEA) provides information on electricity generation portfolios, retrieved using an API in Python. Water intensity factors are sourced through various literature based on the energy type; see Table 1. Figure 1 illustrates the process of generating the database. Each step is described thoroughly below. All referenced scripts, input files, and output files are accessible via the study’s accompanying Zenodo database22, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3891722. These methods are expanded versions of descriptions in our related work21 and offer additional insights to related discussions on water footprints of electricity. This data descriptor facilitates the reproducibility of results and provides the scripts needed to add additional years to the database should the study need to be revisited. Therefore, this data descriptor goes beyond the complementary manuscript by providing greater insights, assumptions, and opportunities on the methods and resultant datasets.
Table 1 Water intensity factors and ranges for each energy commodity considered in the database.
Full size table

Fig. 1

There are five general steps in the creation of the databases, requiring the integration of data from the United Nations, International Energy Agency, and literature sources.

Full size image

Determining electricity water footprints
There is no comprehensive database associated with water footprints of electricity across the globe. Therefore, many studies rely on data based in the United States to inform global estimations23. For thermoelectric power plants, water footprints vary based on cooling system and fuel type24. Water footprint values for thermoelectric power generation were obtained from Macknick et al.3, a widely utilized reference in the literature. Additionally, Davies et al.25 provides estimates of cooling technology, globally, by region. The range and expected values of water consumption intensity for each of these generation technologies and fuel types were utilized. Finally, country-specific water footprint values of hydroelectricity were gathered from Mekonnen et al.26; no uncertainty or range for these values was available. The water intensity values for electricity generation were static and did not vary interannually.
Creating country-specific water footprints of electricity
Here, we determine the water footprint of electricity for each country based on their electricity generation portfolio. The portfolios are gathered from the IEA for each year27. In several instances, specific country values are not available and generation portfolios were manually determined. The database contains the Python script used to interface with the API and download electricity portfolios from 2010-2017 (IEA-webscraping.ipynb). At the time of writing, the IEA values were incomplete for 2018 and generation profiles in this year were assumed to be identical to 2017 absent any other data. We also provide the cleaned outputs of this script (IEA-electricity-mix-20XX-GWh.csv).
In this study, we consider the water footprint of renewable electricity technologies such as solar or wind power as negligible with respect to its operational stage and assign a water consumption rate of 0 m3/MWh to these electricity resources. Utilizing the water intensity factors completed in the previous step, we determine the virtual water footprint of each country, weighted by generation; see Eq. 1. Therefore, interannual variations in a countries’ water footprint are dictated solely by changing electricity generation portfolios.

$$VW{F}_{i}=frac{sum _{g}{w}_{g}times {e}_{i,g}}{sum _{g}{e}_{i,g}}$$
(1)

Where i is the country of origin, w is the water footprint of each electricity generation technology, g, and e is the electricity generation in each country by technology. This calculation is completed using R and the script, getElectricityWF.R. The resultant database contains estimates of water footporint in m3/MWh for each country from 2010–2018 (ElectricityWaterIntensity.csv).
Water footprints of other energy sources
Fossil fuels
Only static values of water footprint were available for the energy resources of coal, lignite, and oil resources, which did not vary temporally or spatially. Table 1 shows the assumed range of water footprints and the literature sources for these values23,26,28,29,30. All water intensities are provided in m3/kg to be consistent with the reported values of the UN Comtrade data. For coal, we assume a conversion value of 36.04 kg/MMBtu to convert between literature estimates. Similarly, we assume a conversion value of 45 MJ/kg for crude oil.
The water consumption of natural gas varies widely depending on the method of extraction. However, there are only four countries that produce shale gas commercially: the United States, Canada, China, and Argentina. Therefore, for exports from these four countries, we define a weighted average of conventional and shale gas extraction water intensity, based on data from the Energy Information Administration31. In the process of extracting and processing natural gas, other hydrocarbons such as ethane, propane, butane, or pentanes are produced. Using production factors from the United States, we estimate the ratio of butane and propane production versus natural gas production32. Using these ratios, we estimate water footprints of these fuels assuming similar water footprints to natural gas. Approximately 8.1 MMBtu of propane was produced per MMBtu of natural gas from 2010 to 2018. The ratio of butane to natural gas was lower, at 2.6 MMBtu butane per MMBtu natural gas.
Biodiesel
Biofuel trade data are only available from 2012–2018. To calculate the temporal and spatial differences in water footprints for biodiesel, we combine water footprint estimates from Gerbens-Leenes et al.33 and Mekonnen and Hoekstra34 with biofuel reports from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Energy Information Administration (EIA) that detail foodstock inputs by weight for biodiesel production. These reports provide a significant amount of data to capture the major countries and foodstock sources, but it is still necessary to create assumptions for the remainder of the countries and foodstocks. Animal fat was a common source for biodiesel production. We estimate that one liter of biodiesel requires 0.88 kg of animal fat and has a yield of 90%35, averaging the water footprint of pork, chicken, and beef fat based on global meat production estimates from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and water footprints of meat36. The resultant estimate of water intensity for animal fat-derived biodiesel is 217 m3/GJ. Another common component of biodiesel production is used cooking oil, which was assigned a water footprint of zero as it is a waste product. Equation 2 describes the process of generating country-specific biodiesel water footprints.

$$W{F}_{C}=frac{mathop{sum }limits_{C}^{f}{w}_{f}times {y}_{f}times {m}_{f}}{sum {y}_{f}times {m}_{f}}$$
(2)

Where, C is a country, f is a specific feedstock, w is the water intensity of each feedstock, y is the yield ratio of each feedstock to biodiesel, and m is the mass of feedstock used in each country.
Per the UN trade definition, the biodiesel category must contain less than 70% petroleum based fuels. This creates a wide range of uncertainty in the actual biodiesel content of the trade. To account for this uncertainty, we set mean, maximum, and minimum thresholds of the fuel mix. We assume the mean to be 50% biodiesel, the minimum to be 30% biodiesel, and the maximum to be 70% biodiesel. The resulting water footprints of biodiesel for each exporting country are provided in BiodieselWF.csv.
Firewood and charcoal
Schyns et al.37 provide globally gridded blue and green water footprints of roundwood production, attributing the water consumption of forests based on an economic evaluation of the wood product relative to other forest values. Blue water footprints refer to water consumed from surface or groundwater sources, whereas green water footprints are driven by rainfall38. The globally gridded values were aggregated by country with minimum, maximum, and average values reported in m3water/m3wood. We assume a specific volume of firewood to be 2.08 × 10−3 m3/kg and 5.92 × 10−3 m3/kg of charcoal39. For countries that did not have gridded values within the dataset, we average values from neighboring countries. No interannual variation in water footprint was available. The final water footprints by country for firewood and charcoal are provided in FuelwoodWF.csv and CharcoalWF.csv, respectively.
Trade data download and cleaning
The UN Comtrade data provide the basis for the analysis40. These data were downloaded using the comtradr package in R, which interfaces with the Comtrade API. Both import and export data were downloaded for all countries from 2010-2018 across eleven different energy commodities. These trade statistics provide the value (USD) of the economic transfer, direction of trade (import or export), trade partners, commodity traded, and the amount of the good transferred. Electricity trade is reported in 1000 kWh (1 MWh); all other energy commodities report trade in kilograms. The script to download trade data is included in the database; see DownloadComtradeData.R. Querying the Comtrade API is limited by the number of qualifiers; therefore, the queries are broken down by energy commodity and combined using the CompileTradeData.R script provided in the database.
Upon investigation of the data, we identify four areas of data cleaning: (i) resolve differences in imports versus export data, (ii) address discrepancies in electricity trade, (iii) fill data gaps, and (iv) remove outliers.
i
To be conservative, in cases where the import and export data were different (or one was not available), the largest traded volume was kept. This assumption was made in absence of any other estimate acknowledging the potential for overestimation. This conservative approach for estimating the water footprint of energy is consistent with similar studies19.

ii
In some instances, there was reported electricity trade between two non-neighboring countries (i.e., European Countries and the United States). To resolve these potential concerns, we created a database of geographically neighboring countries and inventoried a list of undersea connections and eliminate trades occuring outside these connections. While this assumption would negate potential agreements of electricity trade through countries, we assumed that this proportion of electricity trade is relatively small. Additionally, these assumptions reflect the constraints of electricity trade with infrastructure. Removal of these links is completed in CompileTradeData.R using the ElectricConnection.R function and the accompanying database of country neighbors, ElectricityConnections.csv.

iii
For values that were reported as zero but had a monetary value, we determined a unit value ($/kg or $/MWh) as the median of a commodities’ trade between the two countries in the preceding year, following year, and the overall unit value of the commodity originating from the country in the current year. Data gaps are filled using the filldatagaps.R script.

iv
There were some instances of extreme trade values, particularly in the year 2017. These quantities were often reported two orders of magnitude greater than similar trade links in other years. To manage these errors, we took an objective approach to all reported quantities and identified any values that met all of the following three criteria:

reported quantities greater than 5 times the median value from other years on the same link,

reported quantities with a unit value greater than 5 times the median unit value from other years on the same link, and

reported quantities with a unit value greater than 5 times the median unit value for all exports from the originating country in that year

The above assumptions allowed us to remove extreme values and replace them with estimations based on the reported monetary trade value of the commodity, as above. The script for removing and correcting outliers is provided in the database; see reviseOutliers.R.
Creating the virtual water trade network
Following a cleaned and formatted version of the Comtrade data from Step 4, the virtual water trade network was created by multiplying a water footprint of each energy source, f, based on its country of origin i and year y and the reported trade volume from country i to j:

$$VW{T}_{i,j}^{f,y}={e}_{i,j}^{f,y}times {w}_{i}^{f,y}$$
(3)

For each link in the network, a mean, minimum, and maximum value of trade is calculated based on the ranges of water footprint calculated in Steps 1-3. This step is completed using the DetermineWF.R script and results in the main output of the database EnergyWF_Trade.csv. The final dataset maintains information on export/import, countries in the trade link, quantity traded, trade value, and associated water footprints. ‘Reporter’ columns refer to the country of origin and ‘partner’ columns are the destination country. The final database includes virtual water exports from 215 countries. Of these countries, only 25 (12%) did not feature exports for all nine years of the analysis. Figure 2 illustrates the global extent of the database with many countries exporting all eleven commodities for at least one year during the study period.
Fig. 2

Many countries had export data for all 11 commodities for at least one year from 2010–2018.

Full size image More

1.
Immerzeel, W. W. et al. Importance and vulnerability of the world’s water towers. Nature 577, 364–369 (2020).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 
2.
Tian, L. et al. Stable isotopic variations in west China: a consideration of moisture sources. J. Geophys. Res. 112, D10112 (2007).
Google Scholar 

3.
Schiemann, R., Lüthi, D. & Schär, C. Seasonality and interannual variability of the westerly jet in the Tibetan Plateau region. J. Clim. 22, 2940–2957 (2009).
Article  Google Scholar 

4.
Yao, T. et al. A review of climatic controls on δ18O in precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau: observations and simulations. Rev. Geophys. 51, 525–548 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

5.
Huss, M. & Hock, R. Global-scale hydrological response to future glacier mass loss. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 135–140 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

6.
Shea, J. M. & Immerzeel, W. W. An assessment of basin-scale glaciological and hydrological sensitivities in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya. Ann. Glaciol. 57, 308–318 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

7.
Kraaijenbrink, P. D. A., Bierkens, M. F. P., Lutz, A. F. & Immerzeel, W. W. Impact of a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius on Asia’s glaciers. Nature 549, 257–260 (2017).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

8.
Immerzeel, W. W., Van, B. L. P. & Bierkens, M. F. Climate change will affect the Asian water towers. Science 328, 1382–1385 (2010).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

9.
Bookhagen, B. & Burbank, D. W. Toward a complete Himalayan hydrological budget: spatiotemporal distribution of snowmelt and rainfall and their impact on river discharge. J. Geophys. Res. F 115, F03019 (2010).
Google Scholar 

10.
Mukhopadhyay, B. & Khan, A. A reevaluation of the snowmelt and glacial melt in river flows within upper Indus basin and its significance in a changing climate. J. Hydrol. 527, 119–132 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

11.
Yao, T. et al. Different glacier status with atmospheric circulations in Tibetan plateau and surroundings. Nat. Clim. Change 2, 663–667 (2012).
Article  Google Scholar 

12.
Yang, K. et al. Response of hydrological cycle to recent climate changes in the Tibetan plateau. Climatic Change 109, 517–534 (2011).
Article  Google Scholar 

13.
Yang, W., Guo, X., Yao, T., Zhu, M. & Wang, Y. Recent accelerating mass loss of southeast Tibetan glaciers and the relationship with changes in macroscale atmospheric circulations. Clim. Dynam. 47, 805–815 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

14.
Cuo, L., Zhang, Y., Zhu, F. & Liang, L. Characteristics and changes of streamflow on the Tibetan Plateau: a review. J. Hydrol. 2, 49–68 (2014).
Google Scholar 

15.
Wang, Y. et al. Contrasting runoff trends between dry and wet parts of eastern Tibetan Plateau. Sci. Rep. 7, 15458 (2017).
Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

16.
Lutz, A. F., Immerzeel, W. W., Shrestha, A. B. & Bierkens, M. F. P. Consistent increase in high Asia’s runoff due to increasing glacier melt and precipitation. Nat. Clim. Change 4, 587–592 (2014).
Article  Google Scholar 

17.
Lutz, A. F., Immerzeel, W. W., Kraaijenbrink, P. D., Shrestha, A. B. & Bierkens, M. F. Climate change impacts on the upper Indus hydrology: sources, shifts and extremes. PLoS ONE 11, e0165630 (2016).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

18.
Immerzeel, W. W. & Bierkens, M. F. P. Asia’s water balance. Nat. Geosci. 5, 841–842 (2012).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

19.
Pepin, N. et al. Elevation-dependent warming in mountain regions of the world. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 424–430 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

20.
Turner, A. G. & Annamalai, H. Climate change and the South Asian summer monsoon. Nat. Clim. Change 2, 587–595 (2012).
Article  Google Scholar 

21.
Schott, F. A. & McCreary Jr, J. P. The monsoon circulation of the Indian Ocean. Prog. Oceanogr. 51, 1–123 (2001).
Article  Google Scholar 

22.
Gao, J., Masson-Delmotte, V., Risi, C., He, Y. & Yao, T. What controls precipitation δ18O in the southern Tibetan Plateau at seasonal and intra-seasonal scales? A case study at Lhasa and Nyalam. Tellus B 65, 21043–21055 (2013).
Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

23.
Zhang, L., Su, F., Yang, D., Hao, Z. & Tong, K. Discharge regime and simulation for the upstream of major rivers over Tibetan Plateau. J. Geophys. Res. D 118, 8500–8518 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

24.
Immerzeel, W. W., Droogers, P., De Jong, S. M. & Bierkens, M. F. P. Large-scale monitoring of snow cover and runoff simulation in Himalayan river basins using remote sensing. Remote Sens. Environ. 113, 40–49 (2009).
Article  Google Scholar 

25.
Kääb, A., Berthier, E., Nuth, C., Gardelle, J. & Arnaud, Y. Contrasting patterns of early twenty-first-century glacier mass change in the Himalayas. Nature 488, 495–498 (2012).
Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

26.
Falkenmark, et al. On the Verge of a New Water Scarcity: A Call for Good Governance and Human Ingenuity (Stockholm International Water Institute, 2007).

27.
Pritchard, H. D. Asia’s shrinking glaciers protect large populations from drought stress. Nature 569, 649–654 (2019).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

28.
Falkenmark, M. Meeting water requirements of an expanding world population. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 352, 929–936 (1997).
Article  Google Scholar 

29.
Jones, B. & O’Neill, B. C. Spatially explicit global population scenarios consistent with the shared socioeconomic pathways. Environ. Res. Lett. 11, 084003 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

30.
Taylor, K. E., Stouffer, R. J. & Meehl, G. A. An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 93, 485–498 (2012).
Article  Google Scholar 

31.
O’Neill, B. C. et al. The scenario model intercomparison project (ScenarioMIP) for CMIP6. Geosci. Model Dev. 9, 3461–3482 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

32.
Van Vuuren, D. P. et al. The representative concentration pathways: an overview. Climatic Change 109, 5–31 (2011).
Article  Google Scholar 

33.
Hawkins, E. & Sutton, R. The potential to narrow uncertainty in regional climate predictions. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 90, 1095–1107 (2009).
Article  Google Scholar 

34.
Anav, A. et al. Evaluating the land and ocean components of the global carbon cycle in the CMIP5 earth system models. J. Clim. 26, 6801–6843 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

35.
Navarro, R. C. et al. High-resolution and bias-corrected CMIP5 projections for climate change impact assessments. Sci. Data 7, 1–14 (2020).
Google Scholar 

36.
Seager, R., Naik, N. & Vecchi, G. A. Thermodynamic and dynamic mechanisms for large-scale changes in the hydrological cycle in response to global warming. J. Clim. 23, 4651–4668 (2010).
Article  Google Scholar 

37.
Tibshirani, R. Regression shrinkage and selection via the lasso. J. R. Stat. Soc. B 58, 267–288 (1996).
Google Scholar 

38.
Allan, R. & Ansell, T. A new globally complete monthly historical gridded mean sea level pressure dataset (HadSLP2): 1850–2004. J. Clim. 19, 5816–5842 (2006).
Article  Google Scholar 

39.
Cox, P. et al. Sensitivity of tropical carbon to climate change constrained by carbon dioxide variability. Nature 494, 341–344 (2013).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

40.
O’Callaghan, J. F. & Mark, D. M. The extraction of drainage networks from digital elevation data.Computer Vision Graphics Image Process. 28, 323–344 (1984).
Article  Google Scholar 

41.
Rogelj, J. et al. Energy system transformations for limiting end-of-century warming to below 1.5 °C. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 519–527 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

42.
Samir, K. C. & Lutz, W. The human core of the shared socioeconomic pathways: population scenarios by age, sex, and level of education for all countries to 2100. Glob. Environ. Change 42, 181–192 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar  More

1.
Oki, T. & Kanae, S. Global hydrological cycles and world water resources. Science 313, 1068–1072 (2006).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 
2.
Rockström, J. et al. Future water availability for global food production: the potential of green water for increasing resilience to global change. Water Resour. Res. 45, W00A12 (2009).
Article  Google Scholar 

3.
Anderegg, W. R. L. et al. Tree mortality predicted from drought-induced vascular damage. Nat. Geosci. 8, 367–371 (2015).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

4.
Ruppert, J. C. et al. Quantifying drylands’ drought resistance and recovery: the importance of drought intensity, dominant life history and grazing regime. Glob. Change Biol. 21, 1258–1270 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

5.
Huntington, T. G. Evidence for intensification of the global water cycle: review and synthesis. J. Hydrol. 319, 83–95 (2006).
Article  Google Scholar 

6.
Held, I. M. & Soden, B. J. Robust responses of the hydrological cycle to global warming. J. Clim. 19, 5686–5699 (2006).
Article  Google Scholar 

7.
Lorenz, D. J. & DeWeaver, E. T. The response of the extratropical hydrological cycle to global warming. J. Clim. 20, 3470–3484 (2007).
Article  Google Scholar 

8.
Greve, P. & Seneviratne, S. I. Assessment of future changes in water availability and aridity. Geophys. Res. Lett. 42, 5493–5499 (2015).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

9.
Byrne, M. P. & O’Gorman, P. A. The response of precipitation minus evapotranspiration to climate warming: why the ‘wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier’ scaling does not hold over land. J. Clim. 28, 8078–8092 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

10.
Chou, C., Neelin, J. D., Chen, C.-A. & Tu, J.-Y. Evaluating the ‘rich-get-richer’ mechanism in tropical precipitation change under global warming. J. Clim. 22, 1982–2005 (2009).
Article  Google Scholar 

11.
Vecchi, G. A. et al. Weakening of tropical Pacific atmospheric circulation due to anthropogenic forcing. Nature 441, 73–76 (2006).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

12.
Chadwick, R., Boutle, I. & Martin, G. Spatial patterns of precipitation change in CMIP5: why the rich do not get richer in the tropics. J. Clim. 26, 3803–3822 (2012).
Article  Google Scholar 

13.
Guillod, B. P., Orlowsky, B., Miralles, D. G., Teuling, A. J. & Seneviratne, S. I. Reconciling spatial and temporal soil moisture effects on afternoon rainfall. Nat. Commun. 6, 6443 (2015).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

14.
Seneviratne, S. I. et al. Investigating soil moisture–climate interactions in a changing climate: a review. Earth Sci. Rev. 99, 125–161 (2010).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

15.
Taylor, C. M., Parker, D. J. & Harris, P. P. An observational case study of mesoscale atmospheric circulations induced by soil moisture. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L15801 (2007).
Article  Google Scholar 

16.
Ookouchi, Y., Segal, M., Kessler, R. C. & Pielke, R. A. Evaluation of soil moisture effects on the generation and modification of mesoscale circulations. Mon. Weather Rev. 112, 2281–2292 (1984).
Article  Google Scholar 

17.
Segal, M. & Arritt, R. W. Nonclassical mesoscale circulations caused by surface sensible heat-flux gradients. Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc. 73, 1593–1604 (1992).
Article  Google Scholar 

18.
Taylor, C. M., de Jeu, R. A. M., Guichard, F., Harris, P. P. & Dorigo, W. A. Afternoon rain more likely over drier soils. Nature 489, 423–426 (2012).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

19.
Hsu, H., Lo, M.-H., Guillod, B. P., Miralles, D. G. & Kumar, S. Relation between precipitation location and antecedent/subsequent soil moisture spatial patterns: precipitation–soil moisture coupling. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 122, 6319–6328 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar 

20.
Froidevaux, P., Schlemmer, L., Schmidli, J., Langhans, W. & Schär, C. Influence of the background wind on the local soil moisture–precipitation feedback. J. Atmos. Sci. 71, 782–799 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

21.
Seneviratne, S. I. et al. Impact of soil moisture–climate feedbacks on CMIP5 projections: first results from the GLACE-CMIP5 experiment. Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 5212–5217 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

22.
Byrne, M. P. & O’Gorman, P. A. Land–ocean warming contrast over a wide range of climates: convective quasi-equilibrium theory and idealized simulations. J. Clim. 26, 4000–4016 (2012).
Article  Google Scholar 

23.
Joshi, M. M., Gregory, J. M., Webb, M. J., Sexton, D. M. H. & Johns, T. C. Mechanisms for the land/sea warming contrast exhibited by simulations of climate change. Clim. Dyn. 30, 455–465 (2008).
Article  Google Scholar 

24.
Fasullo, J. T. Robust land–ocean contrasts in energy and water cycle feedbacks. J. Clim. 23, 4677–4693 (2010).
Article  Google Scholar 

25.
Tokinaga, H., Xie, S.-P., Deser, C., Kosaka, Y. & Okumura, Y. M. Slowdown of the Walker circulation driven by tropical Indo-Pacific warming. Nature 491, 439–443 (2012).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

26.
Lu, J., Vecchi, G. A. & Reichler, T. Expansion of the Hadley cell under global warming. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L06805 (2007).
Google Scholar 

27.
Karnauskas, K. B. & Ummenhofer, C. C. On the dynamics of the Hadley circulation and subtropical drying. Clim. Dyn. 42, 2259–2269 (2014).
Article  Google Scholar 

28.
Lau, W. K. M. & Kim, K.-M. Robust Hadley circulation changes and increasing global dryness due to CO2 warming from CMIP5 model projections. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 3630–3635 (2015).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

29.
Seager, R. et al. Model projections of an imminent transition to a more arid climate in Southwestern North America. Science 316, 1181–1184 (2007).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

30.
Seager, R., Naik, N. & Vecchi, G. A. Thermodynamic and dynamic mechanisms for large-scale changes in the hydrological cycle in response to global warming. J. Clim. 23, 4651–4668 (2010).
Article  Google Scholar 

31.
O’Gorman, P. A. & Schneider, T. Stochastic models for the kinematics of moisture transport and condensation in homogeneous turbulent flows. J. Atmos. Sci. 63, 2992–3005 (2006).
Article  Google Scholar 

32.
He, J. & Soden, B. J. A re-examination of the projected subtropical precipitation decline. Nat. Clim. Change 7, 53–57 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar 

33.
Chadwick, R., Ackerley, D., Ogura, T. & Dommenget, D. Separating the influences of land warming, the direct CO2 effect, the plant physiological effect, and SST warming on regional precipitation changes. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 124, 624–640 (2019).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

34.
Findell, K. L. et al. Rising temperatures increase importance of oceanic evaporation as a source for continental precipitation. J. Clim. 32, 7713–7726 (2019).
Article  Google Scholar 

35.
Krakauer, N., Book, B. I. & Puma, M. J. Contribution of soil moisture feedback to hydroclimatic variability. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 16, 505–520 (2010).
Article  Google Scholar 

36.
Roudier, P. et al. Projections of future floods and hydrological droughts in Europe under a +2°C global warming. Climatic Change 135, 341–355 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

37.
Zhou, S., Zhang, Y., Williams, A. P. & Gentine, P. Projected increases in intensity, frequency, and terrestrial carbon costs of compound drought and aridity events. Sci. Adv. 5, eaau5740 (2019).
Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

38.
Lorenz, R. et al. Influence of land–atmosphere feedbacks on temperature and precipitation extremes in the GLACE-CMIP5 ensemble. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 121, 607–623 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

39.
Berg, A. et al. Land–atmosphere feedbacks amplify aridity increase over land under global warming. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 869–874 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

40.
Zhou, S. et al. Land–atmosphere feedbacks exacerbate concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 18848–18853 (2019).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

41.
Gelaro, R. et al. The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2). J. Clim. 30, 5419–5454 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar 

42.
Green, J. K. et al. Regionally strong feedbacks between the atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere. Nat. Geosci. 10, 410–414 (2017).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

43.
Huang, J., Yu, H., Guan, X., Wang, G. & Guo, R. Accelerated dryland expansion under climate change. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 166–171 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

44.
Milly, P. C. D. & Dunne, K. A. Potential evapotranspiration and continental drying. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 946–949 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

45.
Zhou, S., Yu, B., Huang, Y. & Wang, G. The complementary relationship and generation of the Budyko functions. Geophys. Res. Lett. 42, 1781–1790 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

46.
Choudhury, B. J. Evaluation of an empirical equation for annual evaporation using field observations and results from a biophysical model. J. Hydrol. 216, 99–110 (1999).
Article  Google Scholar 

47.
Wei, J., Dickinson, R. E. & Chen, H. A negative soil moisture–precipitation relationship and its causes. J. Hydrometeorol. 9, 1364–1376 (2008).
Article  Google Scholar 

48.
Zhang, J., Wang, W.-C. & Wei, J. Assessing land–atmosphere coupling using soil moisture from the Global Land Data Assimilation System and observational precipitation. J. Geophys. Res. 113, D17119 (2008).
Article  Google Scholar 

49.
Seneviratne, S. I. et al. Soil moisture memory in AGCM simulations: analysis of Global Land–Atmosphere Coupling Experiment (GLACE) data. J. Hydrometeorol. 7, 1090–1112 (2006).
Article  Google Scholar 

50.
Geladi, P. & Kowalski, B. R. Partial least-squares regression: a tutorial. Anal. Chim. Acta 185, 1–17 (1986).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

51.
Zhou, S. et al. Sources of uncertainty in modeled land carbon storage within and across three MIPs: diagnosis with three new techniques. J. Clim. 31, 2833–2851 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

52.
Zhou, S. et al. Response of water use efficiency to global environmental change based on output from terrestrial biosphere models: drivers of WUE variability. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 31, 1639–1655 (2017).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar  More

Figure 1 | The weir at Pulteney Bridge, Bath, UK. Belletti et al.1 estimate that more than 1.2 million artificial constructions, such as weirs, dams and locks, alter the flow of Europe’s rivers and streams.Credit: Getty

If you asked a child in Europe to draw a river, what would this picture look like? Would it resemble a natural, wild and scenic river, with braided and meandering flow paths in a vast floodplain, fringed by riverine vegetation? Or would it show a modern, well-managed river with houses lined up along the banks and boats passing by on a confined channel? Writing in Nature, Belletti et al.1 report a remarkably detailed survey of river barriers in Europe, which suggests that the second picture would be much more likely.

Free-flowing rivers have become increasingly rare, because centuries of human activities have altered their passage and channels: dams and levees have been built to protect us from floods; weirs have been added (Fig. 1) to abstract water for irrigation or human use; locks and canals have been used to ensure and expand navigable waters; and river flows have been trapped or diverted for power-generating applications ranging from ancient waterwheels to modern hydroelectricity plants. Diverse in-stream structures have been constructed for these purposes, such as large concrete dams, wooden locks, small weirs and partially submerged fords. All of these interventions fragment the rivers and disturb the flow in various ways across different spatial and temporal scales, affecting the transport and delivery of sediments and nutrients2,3, and the migration and dispersal of aquatic organisms4.
Researchers and water managers who want to investigate the consequences — both beneficial and harmful — of these modifications must first ask some fundamental questions. How many barriers have been installed, and what types? And, most importantly, where have they been built?
Perhaps surprisingly, the answers are largely unknown. No comprehensive inventory of barriers has been available on a continental scale that includes structures less than 10 metres high, uses consistent, clearly defined terminology and does not under-represent certain barrier sizes and types or geographical regions. This is not least because of the long history of barrier construction and the general lack of documentation. Recent research5 has compiled global data for the locations of dams, but mostly only those that are larger than 10–15 m in height or visible in space-satellite imagery.
The degree of connectivity of rivers worldwide has also been quantified6 using records for about 20,000 of the largest dams. The study not only accounted for longitudinal connectivity along the river, but also considered lateral interactions with the floodplain, temporal flow alterations, and vertical exchanges of water with the atmosphere and groundwater; such exchanges are often lost in cities if rivers are lined with concrete or forced into underground channels. According to that study, the main causes of the decline in the number and condition of free-flowing rivers are dam-related effects, such as river fragmentation, flow regulation and sediment entrapment. However, because the data underpinning this research did not take smaller barriers into account, the estimated 63% global loss of very long free-flowing rivers (greater than 1,000 km in length) probably represents only the tip of the iceberg.

This type of knowledge gap motivated Belletti et al. to compile a pan-European atlas of river barriers for 36 countries. The primary aim was to quantify the density of artificial barriers (defined as any built structure that can cause longitudinal discontinuity) across the rivers of these countries. The results are a prerequisite for various approaches7 that analyse the level of river fragmentation.
The authors took on the tedious and challenging task of compiling records from 120 local, regional and national databases. They curated the data, for example to remove duplicates and ensure consistency in the size categories and terminology, and then mapped out all the barriers to the European river network — a system that contains 1.65 million km of rivers.
However, Belletti and co-workers recognized that there will be inherent biases in the source data, such as the omission of small or unusual barriers. They therefore made an impressive effort to test the quality of their data: they surveyed about 2,700 km of the river network in 26 countries by walking along selected river stretches during low-flow conditions. The researchers recorded the characteristics of each barrier observed, such as its location, size and whether it was abandoned or still in use. None of the 147 surveyed rivers was found to be free of obstructions, a concerning observation in itself. The findings from this monumental field trip were used to improve the precision of the calculated barrier density, correcting errors and biases in the existing records.
Finally, Belletti and colleagues extrapolated their data to estimate the barrier density in countries and regions with missing data records, taking into account anthropogenic and environmental factors, such as the degree of urbanization and the amount of agriculture. Although each step of the study has its own shortcomings, as the authors discuss, the combination of approaches strengthens the overall quality of results and reduces uncertainties caused by the variability of the available data across large regions and across several scales in barrier size.
Belletti et al. identified almost 630,000 unique barrier records, the majority of which were for ramps and bed sills, weirs and culverts. This is the most comprehensive inventory of river barriers ever created. Nevertheless, it still substantially under-represents reality: the number of barriers observed in the field study was, on average, 2.5 times that reported in the existing inventory. In fact, the authors estimate that there are more than 1.2 million artificial barriers obstructing Europe’s rivers and streams, possibly making it the most fragmented river network in the world.

The authors estimate that barrier densities range from 5 barriers per 1,000 km in Montenegro to almost 20 barriers per km in the Netherlands. Their statistical model suggests that the average barrier density across Europe is 0.6 per km, which is similar to the value obtained from the field observations (0.74 per km), confirming the robustness of the modelling results. Central Europe has the highest abundance and density of barriers, whereas rivers in the Balkans in southeastern Europe, in parts of northern Scandinavia and in some remote areas in southern Europe remain relatively free-flowing. The authors point out, however, that these unfragmented rivers face new threats from a boom in hydropower development, which could put the biodiversity and ecosystem health of the rivers at risk8.
Given the challenges of global environmental change, finding sustainable solutions to protect fluvial ecosystems and their associated services to humans will need a combination of actions — for example, measuring the ecological impacts of barriers; developing models of regional hydropower installations to find ways of minimizing the environmental toll on the river system while maximizing electricity production; and examining past and future trends in barrier construction and their effects. All of these require a large knowledge base and data that fit the scale, complexity and resolution of the questions to be asked. For example, some barrier types might interrupt sediment transport but pose no problem for a specific aquatic organism, whereas others might be detrimental to that organism despite not interrupting sediment movement.
Belletti and colleagues’ river-barrier atlas for Europe is an excellent accomplishment, but more efforts like this are now needed. After all, river barriers and their effects are not confined to Europe, and data availability tends to be even more restricted in many other parts of the world. A large global network of scientists and stakeholders will need to join forces to compile data and develop tools (such as the Global Dam Watch initiative at http://globaldamwatch.org) before a complete assessment of the impacts of barriers — both large and small — on river ecosystems can be achieved. More

1.
Laghari, A. N., Vanham, D. & Rauch, W. The Indus basin in the framework of current and future water resources management. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 16, 1063–1083 (2012).
Article  Google Scholar 
2.
Wada, Y. et al. Co-designing Indus water–energy–land futures. One Earth 1, 185–194 (2019).
Article  Google Scholar 

3.
AQUASTAT Transboundary River Basin Overview—Indus (FAO, 2011); https://go.nature.com/2KxKRqB

4.
Aslam, M. Agricultural productivity current scenario, constraints and future prospects in Pakistan. Sarhad J. Agric. 32, 289–303 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

5.
Karimi, P., Bastiaanssen, W. G. M., Molden, D. & Cheema, M. J. M. Basin-wide water accounting based on remote sensing data: an application for the Indus basin. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 17, 2473–2486 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

6.
Akhter, M. in Imagining Industan—Overcoming Water Insecurity in the Indus Basin (eds Adeel, Z. & Wirsing, R. G.) 21–33 (Springer, 2017); https://go.nature.com/3pVNgvo

7.
Yu, W. et al. Indus Basin of Pakistan: Impacts of Climate Risks on Water and Agriculture (World Bank, 2013); https://go.nature.com/3kY7dxV

8.
Cheema, M., Immerzeel, W. & Bastiaanssen, W. Spatial quantification of groundwater abstraction in the irrigated Indus Basin. Groundwater 52, 25–36 (2014).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

9.
Syvitski, J. P. et al. Anthropocene metamorphosis of the Indus Delta and lower floodplain. Anthropocene 3, 24–35 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

10.
Adeel, Z. & Wirsing, R. G. in Imagining Industan—Overcoming Water Insecurity in the Indus Basin (eds Adeel, Z. & Wirsing, R. G.) 3–20 (Springer, 2017); https://go.nature.com/3pYJHF1

11.
Raman, D. Damming and infrastructural development of the Indus River basin: strengthening the provisions of the indus waters treaty. Asian J. Int. Law 8, 372–402 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

12.
Archer, D. R., Forsythe, N., Fowler, H. J. & Shah, S. M. Sustainability of water resources management in the Indus Basin under changing climatic and socio economic conditions. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 14, 1669–1680 (2010).
Article  Google Scholar 

13.
Just, R. E. & Netanyahu, S. Conflict and Cooperation on Trans-Boundary Water Resources (Springer, 1998).

14.
Qamar, M. U., Azmat, M. & Claps, P. Pitfalls in transboundary Indus Water Treaty: a perspective to prevent unattended threats to the global security. npj Clean Water 2, 22 (2019).
Article  Google Scholar 

15.
Grill, G. et al. Mapping the world’s free-flowing rivers. Nature 569, 215–221 (2019).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

16.
Wu, X. & Whittington, D. Incentive compatibility and conflict resolution in international river basins: a case study of the Nile Basin. Water Resour. Res. 42, W02417 (2006).
Article  Google Scholar 

17.
Keskinen, M. et al. The water–energy–food nexus and the transboundary context: insights from large Asian rivers. Water 8, 193 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

18.
Bhaduri, A. et al. Achieving Sustainable Development Goals from a water perspective. Front. Environ. Sci. 4, 64 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

19.
Howells, M. et al. Integrated analysis of climate change, land-use, energy and water strategies. Nat. Clim. Change 3, 621–626 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

20.
Liu, J. et al. Nexus approaches to global sustainable development. Nat. Sustain. 1, 466–476 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

21.
Bleischwitz, R. et al. Resource nexus perspectives towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Nat. Sustain. 1, 737–743 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

22.
Albrecht, T. R., Crootof, A. & Scott, C. A. The water–energy–food nexus: a systematic review of methods for Nexus assessment. Environ. Res. Lett. 13, 043002 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

23.
Kaddoura, S. & El Khatib, S. Review of water–energy–food nexus tools to improve the nexus modelling approach for integrated policy making. Environ. Sci. Policy 77, 114–121 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar 

24.
Siddiqi, A. & Wescoat, J. L. Energy use in large-scale irrigated agriculture in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Water Int. 38, 571–586 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

25.
Stewart, J. et al. Indus River System Model (IRSM)—a Planning Tool to Explore Water Management Options in Pakistan: Model Conceptualisation, Configuration and Calibration (CSIRO Land & Water, 2018); https://go.nature.com/3q4rkyz

26.
Yang, Y. C. E., Ringler, C., Brown, C. & Mondal, M. A. H. Modeling the agricultural water–energy–food nexus in the Indus River basin, Pakistan. J. Water Resour. Plan. Manag. 142, 04016062 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

27.
de Strasser, L., Lipponen, A., Howells, M., Stec, S. & Bréthaut, C. A methodology to assess the water energy food ecosystems nexus in transboundary river basins. Water 8, 59 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

28.
Parrachino, I., Dinar, A. & Patrone, F. Cooperative Game Theory and its Application to Natural, Environmental, and Water Resource Issues: 3. Application to Water Resources Policy Research Working Papers (World Bank, 2006); https://go.nature.com/2UXhPCQ

29.
Singh, A., Jamasb, T., Nepal, R. & Toman, M. A. Cross-Border Electricity Cooperation in South Asia Policy Research Working Paper No. 7328 (World Bank, 2015).

30.
Hasson, R., Löfgren, Å. & Visser, M. Climate change in a public goods game: investment decision in mitigation versus adaptation. Ecol. Econ. 70, 331–338 (2010).
Article  Google Scholar 

31.
Dalin, C., Wada, Y., Kastner, T. & Puma, M. J. Groundwater depletion embedded in international food trade. Nature 543, 700–704 (2017).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

32.
Kalair, A. R. et al. Water, energy and food nexus of Indus Water Treaty: water governance. Water-Energy Nexus 2, 10–24 (2019).
Article  Google Scholar 

33.
Vinca, A. et al. The NExus Solutions Tool (NEST) v1.0: an open platform for optimizing multi-scale energy-water-land system transformations. Geosci. Model Dev. 13, 1095–1121 (2020).
Article  Google Scholar 

34.
Mir, K. A., Purohit, P. & Mehmood, S. Sectoral assessment of greenhouse gas emissions in Pakistan. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 24, 27345–27355 (2017).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

35.
Ahmad, B. & Saqlain, S. People perception regarding possible impact of urbanization on environmental degradation in Islamabad. IAU Int. J. Soc. Sci. 8, 1–10 (2018).
Google Scholar 

36.
Scott, C. A., Vicuña, S., Blanco-Gutiérrez, I., Meza, F. & Varela-Ortega, C. Irrigation efficiency and water-policy implications for river basin resilience. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 18, 1339–1348 (2014).
Article  Google Scholar 

37.
Grafton, R. Q. et al. The paradox of irrigation efficiency. Science 361, 748–750 (2018).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

38.
Baum, R., Luh, J. & Bartram, J. Sanitation: A global estimate of sewerage connections without treatment and the resulting impact on MDG progress. Environ. Sci. Technol. 47, 1994–2000 (2013).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

39.
González-villareal, F. & Schultz, B. Final Report of IPOE for Review of Studies on Water Escapages Below Kotri Barrage Technical Report (ResearchGate, 2018); https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.28670.02885

40.
Casillas, C. E. & Kammen, D. M. The energy–poverty–climate nexus. Science 26, 1181–1182 (2010).
Article  Google Scholar 

41.
GDP (current US$)—Pakistan (World Bank, 2020); https://go.nature.com/2KCSDzB

42.
Singh, A., Jamasb, T., Nepal, R. & Toman, M. Electricity cooperation in South Asia: barriers to cross-border trade. Energy Policy 120, 741–748 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

43.
Rasul, G., Neupane, N., Hussain, A. & Pasakhala, B. Beyond hydropower: towards an integrated solution for water, energy and food security in South Asia. Int. J. Water Resour. Dev. https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2019.1579705 (2019).

44.
Lutz, A. F., Immerzeel, W. W., Kraaijenbrink, P. D., Shrestha, A. B. & Bierkens, M. F. Climate change impacts on the upper Indus hydrology: sources, shifts and extremes. PLoS ONE 11, e0165630 (2016).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

45.
Maurer, J. M., Schaefer, J. M., Rupper, S. & Corley, A. Acceleration of ice loss across the Himalayas over the past 40 years. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav7266 (2019).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

46.
Immerzeel, W. W., Van Beek, L. P. & Bierkens, M. F. Climate change will affect the Asian water towers. Science 328, 1382–1385 (2010).
CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

47.
Biemans, H. et al. Importance of snow and glacier meltwater for agriculture on the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Nat. Sustain. 2, 594–601 (2019).
Article  Google Scholar 

48.
Majhi, B. & Kumar, A. Changing cropping pattern in Indian agriculture. J. Econ. Soc. Dev. 14, 37–45 (2018).
Google Scholar 

49.
Burek, P. et al. Development of the Community Water Model (CWatM v1.04)—a high-resolution hydrological model for global and regional assessment of integrated water resources management. Geosci. Model Dev. 13, 3267–3298 (2020).
Article  Google Scholar 

50.
Huppmann, D. et al. The MESSAGEix Integrated Assessment Model and the ix modeling platform (ixmp): an open framework for integrated and cross-cutting analysis of energy, climate, the environment, and sustainable development. Environ. Model. Softw. 112, 143–156 (2019).
Article  Google Scholar 

51.
Messner, S. & Strubegger, M. User’s Guide for MESSAGE III IIASA Working Paper (IIASA, 1995).

52.
Riahi, K., Grübler, A. & Nakicenovic, N. Scenarios of long-term socio-economic and environmental development under climate stabilization. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 74, 887–935 (2007).
Article  Google Scholar 

53.
Van Vliet, O. et al. Synergies in the Asian energy system: climate change, energy security, energy access and air pollution. Energy Econ. 34, S470–S480 (2012).
Article  Google Scholar 

54.
Kiani, B. et al. Optimal electricity system planning in a large hydro jurisdiction: will British Columbia soon become a major importer of electricity? Energy Policy 54, 311–319 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

55.
Salmivaara, A. et al. Exploring the modifiable areal unit problem in spatial water assessments: a case of water shortage in monsoon Asia. Water 7, 898–917 (2015).
Article  Google Scholar 

56.
Yang, Y.-C. E., Brown, C. M., Yu, W. H. & Savitsky, A. An introduction to the IBMR, a hydro-economic model for climate change impact assessment in Pakistan’s Indus River basin. Water Int. 38, 632–650 (2013).
Article  Google Scholar 

57.
Kahil, T. et al. A continental-scale hydroeconomic model for integrating water-energy-land nexus solutions. Water Resour. Res 54, 7511–7533 (2018).
Article  Google Scholar 

58.
Kim, S. H. et al. Balancing global water availability and use at basin scale in an integrated assessment model. Clim. Change 136, 217–231 (2016).
Article  Google Scholar 

59.
Payet-Burin, R., Kromann, M., Pereira-Cardenal, S., Strzepek, K. M. & Bauer-Gottwein, P. WHAT-IF: an open-source decision support tool for water infrastructure investment planning within the water–energy–food-climate nexus. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 23, 4129–4152 (2019).
Article  Google Scholar 

60.
Sridharan, V., Shivakumar, A., Niet, T., Ramos, E. P. & Howells, M. Land, energy and water resource management and its impact on GHG emissions, electricity supply and food production- Insights from a Ugandan case study. Environ. Res. Commun. 2, 085003 (2020).
Article  Google Scholar 

61.
Saif, Y. & Almansoori, A. An optimization framework for the climate, land, energy, and water (CLEWS) nexus by a discrete optimization model. Energy Procedia 105, 3232–3238 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar 

62.
Smakhtin, V. U., Revenga, C. & Doll, P. Taking Into Account Environmental Water Requirements in Global-scale Water Resources Assessments IWMI Research Reports (IWMI, 2004).

63.
Van Vuuren, D. P. et al. The representative concentration pathways: an overview. Clim. Change 109, 5 (2011).
Article  Google Scholar 

64.
O’Neill, B. C. et al. The roads ahead: narratives for shared socioeconomic pathways describing world futures in the 21st century. Glob. Environ. Change 42, 169–180 (2017).
Article  Google Scholar  More