Alazmi, H.J., Mitchell, G. orcid.org/0000-0003-0093-4519 and Trigg, M.A. (2024) Kuwait household water demand in 2050: Spatial microsimulation and impact appraisal. Water and Environment Journal, 38 (1). pp. 139-152. ISSN 1747-6585
Abstract
Household water demand has increased dramatically in Kuwait over the last few decades, due to rapid population growth and changing lifestyles. Avoiding a water deficit through a supply-side approach has been the default strategy in Kuwait, yet this approach is unsustainable, associated with declining groundwater levels, and reliance on desalination that results in major carbon emission and environmental impact and that takes a large and growing share of oil revenues. In this study, we forecast household water demand in Kuwait to 2050 under a Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario and evaluate the economic and environmental impacts. A spatial microsimulation, constrained by the national population projection of the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research (KISR), was developed to overcome data limitations in forecasting household demand. Results show a 45% increase in water demand by 2050, to 664.1 million cubic metres (MCM), relative to the 2019 base year. Annual production costs increase from 1.39 billion USD in 2019 to 1.99 billion USD by 2050, whilst carbon emissions increase from 10.85 to 15.54 million tonnes/year. These results should alert policymakers to the potential impacts of the growing water demand and provide further support for water conservation action to reduce demand.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. Water and Environment Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of CIWEM. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | BAU forecast, household water demand, impact appraisal, intervention measures, population projection, spatial microsimulation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Centre for Spatial Analysis & Policy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 23 Nov 2023 09:59 |
Last Modified: | 09 Dec 2024 15:07 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/wej.12906 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:205598 |