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Policies on bioeconomy are some of the key emerging ones around the world to support sustainability in terms of using renewable resources. However, these may lead to significant demand for biomass feedstock which relies on limited resources, viz., water, land, and energy. The impact of climate change on water availability makes it more challenging. This paper demonstrates the analysis of the water, energy, and food resource nexus of a bioeconomy-based industrial complex and future climate change impact. The model structure consists of cultivation, crop processing, and urban sectors. Sugarcane is the major crop in the case study area and is the main bioeconomy crop. The results indicate that the average sugarcane yield will be lower than the minimum industrial goal for the 2020s and 2030s decades. Consequently, sugarcane feedstock shortage may often occur. The drought situation tends to be increased, so groundwater resources can be the main reserve source of water. In all improvement scenarios on water supply management, nexus energy used for water acquisition was mainly for groundwater acquisition. Direct energy use in the cultivation process is high and fossil fuels based, while most of the energy used in processing came from biomass waste. This implies that technologies for water acquisition will be more important in the future and should be developed in terms of energy efficiency and the aspect of promoting the usage of renewable energy to reduce greenhouse gases and fossil fuels use. The impact of climate change will cause significant fluctuations in the annual rainfall characteristics of the study area. An additional irrigation water supply of about 250 mm and expansion to cover more than 90% of the cultivation area should be considered to secure the minimum supply of sugarcane for the local biorefinery complex in the following decades. [Display omitted] • Integrate climate change impact to Water-Food-Energy nexus model for bioeconomy. • The water–crop yield response model was set up to analyze interventions for improving yield. • In all scenarios, nexus energy used for water acquisition was mainly for groundwater acquisition. • The area will face a water supply shortage in the 2020s, and groundwater is the primary reserve source. • The irrigation expansion to cover 90% of the cultivation area can secure the supply of sugarcane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consideration of the impact of climate change has penetrated urban infrastructure planning worldwide, and the water sector is no exception. This paper provides an approach to incorporate a low-carbon consideration and climate externalities into an environmental economic analysis for an urban water treatment work planning with a case study from Ningbo, China. The discounted incremental costs are calculated with carbon footprint accounting. The analysis confirms that the inclusion of GHG emission costs as a component in the techno-economic criteria affects the priority ranking for the siting options, and may lead to an entirely different decision on the siting of the water supply facility. However, these criteria should be cross-examined with a sensitivity test during the decision making process, with the discounting rate and carbon pricing level being the main sensitivity factors. This study suggests that the benchmark discount rate for the water supply infrastructure average incremental economic cost accounting should be decreased from 6% to 4.5–4.0%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities consume large amounts of fossil fuels and this results in significant increase of global anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Using city-level carbon dioxide emission data from Shijiazhuang, a traditional heavy manufacturing city and one of the key cities in Jing-Jin-Ji urban agglomeration in Northern China, this paper employs logarithmic mean Divisia index decomposition method (LMDI) to explore the influence of energy intensity, consumption structure, industry structure, per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and population on Shijiazhuang's total carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 to 2016. The LMDI method is further extended to analyze the impacts of above factors at the industry-segment level. This paper finds that the reduction of energy intensity is the major contributor of decreasing carbon dioxide emissions in Shijiazhuang, whereas the growth of per capita GDP is the main driving force for emission accretion. The dominant industrial segments contributing to increasing emissions in Shijiazhuang City from 2005 to 2016, have changed from CMD (coal mining and dressing), EPSH (electric power, steam and hot water production and supply) to SPFM (smelting and pressing of ferrous metals) and PPC (petroleum processing and coking). The CMD industrial segment shows a significant carbon reducing effort and indicates a strong decoupling status. However, the SPFM and PPC respectively show expansive negative decoupling and weak decoupling status, enlightening a change in the policy focus when Shijiazhuang formulates its emission-reduction plans in the future. This study provides important policy insights for the heavy manufacturing cities in other countries with similar industrial structure, as the industry-based carbon mitigation policies should always be adjusted in different stages of the cities' development according to the change of carbon emission driving industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, agriculture uses about 70–80% of global water resources and, in the Mediterranean area, it accounts for the high pressure of freshwater demand. This study provides a useful framework for the meso-level assessment of the Water Footprint (WF) in agriculture. Particularly, the WF methodology is used to quantify the water consumption and pollution of olives, grapes and tomatoes, traditional crops widespread both in the Apulia region, in Southern Italy, and in the Mediterranean area. Hence, from a meso-level assessment of the Water Footprint of Apulian agriculture, a general level of evaluation of the use of Mediterranean water resources was provided, estimating the Virtual Water (VW) too. Furthermore the climate change effects on the Water Footprint of the traditional crops identified were predicted, proposing some scenarios useful to reduce the grey component, which values for olives were evaluated by a sensitivity analysis. The results highlight that olives present the highest value of the WF and that grapes are the most affected by the variations according to the climate change scenarios, increasing over 200% of the green component and 77% of the blue one. Finally, a Circular Economy proposal, based on the reuse of the wastewater from a meso-scale perspective, highlights saving up to 70% of the water resource. The research questions proposed displayed the novelty of this paper, particularly as concerns the use of the Water Footprint analysis on a meso-level evaluation. Particularly, the new insights of this research addressed the needs of stakeholders in areas suffering from drought, such as the Mediterranean, to integrate and systematize a data-set of indicators to rationalize and plan water resource usage and safety in agriculture. [Display omitted] • Water stress spurs Water Footprint assessment in the Mediterranean area. • Multi-level approach of water quantifying for olive, grape and tomato is applied. • Italian grapes have the highest Virtual Water, compared to Spanish and Greek ones. • Effects of climate change on Water Footprint of traditional crops are estimated. • Grey Water Footprint of the olives is evaluated by a sensitivity analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water plays a quintessential role in the lives of individuals and communities. In recent decades, population growth, migration from rural to urban areas, industrialization, and climate change have increasingly jeopardized the sustainability of cities, especially in developing countries, including Iran. The purpose of this study is to assess recent and future perspectives for urban water security in Iran. To do so, the paper extends previous water security studies within the region by collecting data on urban water security from a cohort of cities rather than a single location. To assess the state of water security in the recent past, from 2013 to 2019, we introduce a dedicated framework comprised of five dimensions and twelve indicators. In estimating future water resources for Iran in the period up to 2100, ensemble-based hydro-climatic regional climate model projections for RCPs 4.5 and 8.5 were analyzed in time and space. The results show that four of the five dimensions of present-day urban water security, including accessibility, availability, water health and sanitation, and the economic value of water, all demonstrate general improvements in water-related urban infrastructure, whereas the environmental indicator depicts a decreasing trend. Future projected trends for Iran's hydro-climate show a general decline in its net availability from already scarce conditions and also increased variability due to climate change. In general, the study indicates both advances in Iran's urban water security recently and severe implications for future water availability in certain regions and periods in the decades to come. The study also advises policymakers to seek to mitigate the water crisis in so far, as also enforced by climate change, by increasing the appropriate infrastructure and using new technologies in the water and wastewater industry. [Display omitted] • A new and recent data set on urban water security indicators in Iran was analyzed. • Twelve indicators formed the novel and combined urban water security index. • Four out of five water security dimensions showed progress during 2013–2019. • The urban water environment dimension showed a declining trend. • Projected future water recourses in Iran is under increasing pressure towards 2100. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the alternative water sources, rainwater harvesting is the most popular and readily useable. However, studies related to the knowledge of future sustainability of this resource and its usage are limited. In this paper, projected future rainfall data for two distinct future set of periods (2020–39 and 2080–99) are used to calculate future water savings potentials using an earlier developed daily water balance model for five different regions in Sydney, the largest city in Australia. The rainfall data is collected from four different projection tools provided by the Australian government's climate data portal. With the assumptions of average household water demand as 400 L/day, a tank size of 5000 L and a roof catchment area of 200 m2, water savings and reliabilities of water availability are calculated for future scenarios for five different locations within a broader region of Sydney. Water savings and reliabilities are then compared with the same for current average rainfall condition based on historical data for the same locations. It is found that for most of the studied cases, both in the near (2020–39) and distant (2080–99) future, water savings as well as reliabilities are expected to be decreased compared to the current average scenario. However, in the distant future, both water savings and reliabilities are expected to be increased compared to the near future scenario. Also, it is predicted that spatial variability of water savings within the selected region will increase compared to the current scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]