Journal of Cleaner Production 320 (2021) 128829

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Additional surface-water deficit to meet global universal water accessibility

by 2030
Yan Bo a, Feng Zhou a, *, Jianshi Zhao b, Junguo Liu c, Jiahong Liu d, Philippe Ciais e,
Jinfeng Chang f, Lei Chen g
a
Sino-France Institute of Earth Systems Science, Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing,
100871, China
b
State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
c
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China
d
State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, 100038,
China
e
Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, LSCE, Gif sur Yvette, France
f
College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, 310058, Hangzhou, China
g
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Handling editor: Yutao Wang Universal access to safe drinking water for all is a key target of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal
6. However, how water accessibility improvement impacts domestic water demand and surface-water deficit (the
Keywords: quantity of water demand that exceeds surface-water availability) are poorly known due to uncertainty and
Water accessibility variability in domestic water use intensities (WUIdom). Here, we developed a data-driven model to create global
Water use
gridded maps of historical and future WUIdom, constrained by 1758 survey-based records spanning 220 admin­
Water availability
istrative units. The results show that water accessibility improvement dominated the growth in WUIdom over the
Water deficit
Sustainable development goal period 1990–2015, particularly in developing and least-developed economies. Achieving universal water
accessibility by 2030 may lead to an additional growth in global mean WUIdom by 21.7 L capita− 1 day− 1.
Additional 88.3 million people, from 14 developing countries and 9 least-developed countries, may move into
domestic surface-water deficit. Another 16% of global irrigated areas would be at risk of irrigation surface-water
deficit mainly in South Asia, Central Asia, and North Africa. These findings imply the need of spatially flexible set
of actions to achieve global universal water accessibility by 2030 without worsening surface-water deficit.

1. Introduction between domestic and other water-use sectors particularly in

Universal access to safe drinking water for all by 2030, a key target of
the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6.1) (United
Nations, 2015), is fundamental human rights and essential for
water-borne disease reduction and poverty eradication (Banerjee et al.,
2019; Bayu et al., 2020; Fukuda et al., 2019; Saravanan, 2013).
Achieving universal water accessibility will stimulate the growth in
domestic water use at least through changing water supply pattern (e.g.,
continuous or intermittent), geographical proximity, and time spent for
fetching water (Arouna and Dabbert, 2010; Fan et al., 2013; Haziq and
Panezai, 2017). This positive feedback implies higher requirements of
water supply reliability which potentially increases the dependence on
external water resources and expectedly induces the competition
water-stressed regions (Flörke et al., 2018; Munia et al., 2020). Although
water accessibility improvement is more of a local issue, water deficit
resulting from additional water demand would be exacerbated by global
processes (e.g. climate change, population and economic growth, food
production and trade) and thus needs global resolution (Wada et al.,
2014). It’s therefore necessary to know global-scale influence of
achieving universal water accessibility to help guiding policies from
both local and international aspects. Nevertheless, the magnitude and
spatial distribution of additional domestic water demands due to uni­
versal water accessibility achieved have not been quantified. This hin­
ders identifying hotspots of water supply challenges and thus precludes
governments from developing spatial targeted water management pol­
icies to ensure achievement of SDG6.1.

* Corresponding author. Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.

E-mail address: zhouf@pku.edu.cn (F. Zhou).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128829
Received 18 February 2021; Received in revised form 12 August 2021; Accepted 24 August 2021
Available online 25 August 2021
0959-6526/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Bo et al.
In order to project additional domestic water demands and assess
associated challenges from universal water accessibility achieved by
2030, it is necessary to understand how water accessibility improve­
ments may impact domestic water demand under the context of future
socio-economic development and climate change. Most approaches to
date have focused on two main aspects. First, the simulations of global
domestic water demand through explicitly accounting for per-capita
income change and technological improvements over time but implic­
itly for other socio-economic and climatic drivers over space through
model stratification by regions or countries (e.g. Global Hydrological
Models) (Flörke et al., 2013; Hanasaki et al., 2013; Wada et al., 2016).
However, it is difficult to reproduce the spatial variation in domestic
water-use intensity (defined as domestic water use per capita per day,
WUIdom) spanning more than two order of magnitude across countries
surveyed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in AQUA­
STAT database (FAO, 2016). Second, the analyses of impacts of intensive
socio-economic and climatic factors on domestic water use based on
economic equations (Ward et al., 2010; Hughes et al., 2010), system
dynamics, agent-based models and field surveys under the socio­
hydrological framework (Konar et al., 2019; Wu et al., 2019). However,
to date, no model framework has integrated a set of those drivers of
WUIdom to identify the most important ones and to isolate the impacts of
universal water accessibility on future domestic water demand.
Here, we address these limitations by developing a data-driven
model to connect WUIdom variations to climate change, income
growth, population structure shift, and water accessibility improve­
ment, based on an extensive compilation of 1758 survey-based records
spanning 50 states in the USA, 31 provinces in China, and other 139
countries. With this data-driven model, we can begin to address three
key questions: how strongly does water accessibility improvement in­
fluence variations in WUIdom at the global and regional scales? What are
the magnitude and spatial distribution of domestic water demands when
achieving universal water accessibility by 2030? And whether, and to
what extent does additional growth in domestic water demands
reshuffle global hotspots of surface-water deficit?
To do so, we first use model-based scenario simulations to disen­
tangle the relative contributions of climatic, socioeconomic, and
technology-related variables to temporal change in WUIdom. We then
combine spatially-explicit information of simulated WUIdom with the
latest population maps to project domestic water demand in 2030 at 30-
arc-minute spatial resolution. The additional growth in domestic water
demands due to the achievement of universal water accessibility is
isolated from scenario simulations. By combining this with the multi-
model ensemble assessment of surface-water availability (Hanasaki
et al., 2018; Pokhrel et al., 2012; Rost et al., 2008), we further quantify
additional surface-water deficits of domestic and irrigation sectors. In
the end, we discuss about the advantages and limitations of our
data-driven model, as well as the implications for designing spatially
flexible set of actions.
Table 1
Data source of domestic water use and associated drivers.
Namea Region Resolution
DOM, POP China Province
USA State
Others Country
A, G, U China Province
USA State
Others Country
T, P Globe 0.5 × 0.5
◦ ◦
a
DOM: domestic water use, POP: total population, A: water accessibility, G: per-capita income, U: population structure, T: mean daily maximum temperature, P:
annual precipitation.
Journal of Cleaner Production 320 (2021) 128829
2. Methods and data
2.1. Domestic water use model
Domestic water use is defined as the annual quantity of water
withdrawal for the direct use of urban and rural residents, which is in
line with that from the FAO AQUASTAT (FAO, 2016). This includes
water that is lost in treatment and in water supply networks. Generally,
domestic water use consists of indoor uses for drinking, cooking, toilet
flushing, laundry, and bathing, and outdoor uses for watering lawns,
maintaining pools, and municipal activities. We developed a data-driven
model by quantifying each of the indoor and outdoor water use be­
haviors as the sum of a baseline and an elastic change in response to
different drivers. The drivers considered in the model included mean
daily maximum temperature (T), annual precipitation (P), per-capita
income (G, measured as gross domestic product per capita), popula­
tion structure (U, measured as percentage of urban population), and
water accessibility (A, defined as percentage of the total population
using improved water sources that are located on premises, available
when needed or free from contamination). These drivers were selected
as they were reported to have direct effects on domestic water use and
widely used in domestic water use estimation (Flörke et al., 2013; Fan
et al., 2013; Opalinski et al., 2020) (See details in Supplementary
Method). Besides, selected drivers should be accessible at administrative
scale in line with the surveyed WUIdom for historical period to support
model calibration and also for future periods to support demand pro­
jection. However, the proposed model did not consider the impacts of
the other technical improvements, demographic features, or consump­
tion habits due to lack of data availability. After simplification, the
model is expressed below, with the detailed description in Supplementary
Method.
[ ]
WUIdom = C1 + C2 + f CLM (T, P) ⋅ f G (G) ⋅ f A (A)⋅f U (U), [1a]
where
⎧ CLM
⎪ f (T, P) = T⋅(a1 ⋅P + a2 )
⎪ ( )− 1
⎨ G
f (G) = b + e− c⋅G
, [1b]
⎪ A 3
⎩ f U(A) = (Am− p)
⎪
f (U) = U
and parameters (C1, C2, a1, a2, b, c, p and m) were calibrated using a
least-squares error technique based on historical records (Table S1).
Domestic water use (DOM) and related population (POP) were collected
to calculate WUIdom from local statistical agencies (see details in
Table 1). WUIdom records were weighted by reciprocals of the number of
occurrences at each administrative unit to compensate unequal proba­
bilities of administrative unit being surveyed (United Nations, 2005,
Supplementary Method). Population weighting was also evaluated and
found to be less relevant for evaluating change in access to water
(Supplementary Method). For each record, data of five predictive factors
Period Source
1979–2015 Zhou et al. (2020)
1980–2015 USGS (http://water.usgs.gov/watuse/)
1990–2015 DOM: FAO’s AQUASTAT (http://www.fao.org/faostat/)
POP:World Bank
1979–2015 Zhou et al. (2020)
1980–2015 G: Bureau of Economic Analysis
U: U.S. Census Bureau
A: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1990–2015 G and U: World bank
A: FAO’s AQUASTAT database (http://www.fao.org/faostat/)
1990–2015 NOAA (https://psl.noaa.gov/)
2
Y. Bo et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 320 (2021) 128829

were obtained from publicly available data repositories (Table 1), and
were aggregated for the administrative units in line with the surveyed
WUIdom if applicable. Note that climatic drivers were upscaled into
administrative scales using population in each region in each grid cell to
weight the grid cell means, reflecting the average exposure for the
population of each region (Hughes et al., 2010). We finally excluded the
outliers of WUIdom based on the Z-Score outlier test and created a global
database of 1758 records.
We conducted additional analyses to evaluate the robustness and
predictability of the data-driven model. First, five-fold cross validation
was performed by dividing the surveyed dataset into 5 nearly-equal
random subsets (Phillips et al., 2019). To avoid the bias due to subsets
randomly divided, we repeated the above steps by 50 times for possible
subdivisions. The R2 and RMSE were calculated for all predicted data.
Second, the method from van den Hoogen et al. (2019) was used to
investigate the interpolation capability for global prediction. Interpo­
lation percentage is defined to estimate how much our newly-compiled
dataset adequately captured the multivariate covariate space of the
global layers. For example, if all global layers within a pixel were within
the convex hull derived from the dataset, the interpolation percentage
would be 100%, while it would be 50% if only half of the layers were
within the convex hull.
2.2. Driver of historical change in WUIdom
Detection of historical change in domestic water use intensities
(ΔWUIdom) requires at least two surveyed years covering a certain time
period of specific region. Thus, administrative units were first selected
from our historical dataset for which (i) at least two records exist, and
(ii) surveyed years cover a period of more than five years within
1990–2015. We then defined the earliest and latest surveyed year as the
starting (P1) and ending year (P2) for each region for attribution anal­
ysis (see details in Fig. S1).
Five scenario simulations were then conducted with the validated
model to isolate the effects of each driver (i.e. G, T, P, U, A) on ΔWUIdom
(see details in Table 2). For each simulation, WUIdom in P1 and P2 were
first predicted at 30-arc-minute spatial resolution forced by the input
data of 5 predictive factors (Table 1), and then aggregated into 220
administrative units. In addition, the difference between surveyed and
simulated ΔWUIdom represented the effect from other factors (OF) that
are not incorporated in the model. We finally identified the dominant
driver that contributes the most to ΔWUIdom for each of administrative
units.
2.3. Future projection of domestic water demand
In order to represent the impact of achieving universal water
accessibility, we designed two scenario simulations: water accessibility
was held as in 2015 for the 1st scenario (S1) but set to be 100% by 2030
for the 2nd scenario (S2), while the climatic and socio-economic factors
varied to 2030 for both scenarios. We then projected WUIdom and do­
mestic water demand at 30-arc-minute spatial resolution for simulations
S1 and S2. The difference in domestic water demand between S1 and S2
represented the effect from universal water accessibility achieved.
For each simulation, the latest set of global change scenarios on
climate and socio-economic developments were considered for climatic
and socio-economic factors, i.e., RCP2.6-SSP2 and RCP6.0-SSP2 sce­
narios. Bias-corrected climate data was from an ensemble of four general
circulation models (30-arc-minute) from the Inter-Sectoral Impact
Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP 2b), including IPSL-CM5A-LR,
GFDL-ESM2M, MIROC5 and HadGEM2-ES under RCP2.6 and 6.0.
Global gridded data of GDP and population (30-arc-minute) were
available from Jing et al. (2020) under SSP2, from which per-capita
income was calculated and harmonized to match the level for the
initial year 2015. However, future urbanization rates was only available
at the national scale from the IIASA SSP database (Jiang and O’Neill,
2017). We then projected the urbanization rate at 30-arc-minute spatial
resolution up to 2030 by extending global gridded data in 2015 (Table 1)
based on the future temporal change of the IIASA SSP database.
2.4. Domestic and irrigation surface-water deficits
We used surface-water deficit as an indicator to quantify how much
water demand exceeds surface-water availability. The difference in
surface-water deficits between simulations S1 and S2 represents the
additional surface-water deficit when achieving universal water acces­
sibility by 2030. This indicator is calculated separately for domestic and
irrigation sectors. First, domestic surface-water deficit (SWDdom) in 2030
was calculated as the difference between domestic water demand and
total surface-water availability, given the highest priority for this sector
within water supply system (Lei et al., 2018). Second, irrigation
surface-water deficit (SWDirr) in 2030 was calculated as the difference
between irrigation water demand and the surface-water availability
after meeting domestic and industrial sectors:
{
DOMi,y − Qi,y , DOMi,y > Qi,y
SWDi,y,dom = , [2a]
0, DOMi,y ≤ Qi,y
⎧
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ IRRi,y , Qi,y < DOMi,y + INDi,y
⎨
SWDi,y,irr = IRRi,y − Q*i,y , DOMi,y + INDi,y < Qi,y ≤ WUi,y , [2b]
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎩ 0, Qi,y ≥ WUi,y
where DOMi,y, INDi,y, and IRRi,y are water demands for domestic, in­
dustrial, and irrigation sectors for cell i and scenario y, respectively. WUi,
y is total water demands for cell i and scenario y. Qi,y is total surface-
water availability for cell i and scenario y. Qi,y* is surface-water avail­
ability for irrigation for cell i and scenario y, calculated as total surface-
water availability (Qi,y) minus water demands for domestic and indus­
trial sectors. It should be noted that we underestimate the total amount
of water resources that may be available from groundwater, and thus
overestimate surface-water deficit where groundwater is used for water
supply.

Table 2
Simulation protocol for attributing historical change in domestic water use intensities to different drivers.
Drivera Scenario simulation Contribution

S1 S2 S3 S4 S5

A P1–P2b P1 P1 P1 P1 ΔWUIdom(S1)-ΔWUIdom (S2)

G P1–P2 P1–P2 P1 P1 P1 ΔWUIdom (S2)-ΔWUIdom (S3)
T P1–P2 P1–P2 P1–P2 P1 P1 ΔWUIdom (S3)-ΔWUIdom (S4)
P P1–P2 P1–P2 P1–P2 P1–P2 P1 ΔWUIdom (S4)-ΔWUIdom (S5)
U P1–P2 P1–P2 P1–P2 P1–P2 P1–P2 ΔWUIdom (S5)
a
A: water accessibility, G: per-capita income, T: mean daily maximum temperature, P: annual precipitation, U: population structure.
b
P1 indicates that the driver was held as in P1 (the starting year of historical records), P1–P2 indicates that the driver varied from P1 to P2 (ending year of historical
records).

3
Y. Bo et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 320 (2021) 128829

DOMi,y was predicted by our model, while INDi,y and IRRi,y were
available from the estimates of three impact models (i.e. H08 (Hanasaki
et al., 2018), LPJmL (Rost et al., 2008) and MATSIRO (Pokhrel et al.,
2012)) participating the ISIMIP2b. Three impact models were only
selected because they provided INDi,y, IRRi,y, and the outputs for quan­
tifying Qi,y under both scenarios RCP2.6-SSP2 and RCP6.0-SSP2. Each
impact model was forced by four meteorological datasets (IPSL-C­
M5A-LR, GFDL-ESM2M, MIROC5 and HadGEM2-ES).
Following the approach in previous studies (Mekonnen and Hoek­
stra, 2016; Veldkamp et al., 2017), Qi,y was defined as the sum of local
runoff and incoming discharge from the upstream cells minus environ­
mental flow requirements:
∑
n
( )
Qi,y = Qloc,i,y + Qj,y − WCj,y − EFRi,y ,
j=i+1
different between scenario S1 and S2, as achieving universal water
accessibility means an increase in WUi,y and WCj,y that will decrease
water resources available for downstream cells. The “flow accumula­
tion” function of ArcGIS was used to route water consumption from
upstream to downstream grid cells for two scenarios. The flow direction
raster at 0.5◦ × 0.5◦ was obtained from the Simulated Topological
Network STN-30 (Ceola et al., 2019).
On the basis of the considerations described above, we quantified
affected population and croplands at the grid scale that are exposed to
additional surface-water deficit due to achievement of universal water
accessibility by 2030. The number of people who move into domestic
surface-water deficit from scenario S1 to S2 was determined based on
the global gridded population data (Jing et al., 2020). The irrigated area
[3] at risk of suffering from additional irrigation surface-water deficit was
calculated based on the FAO’s AQUASTAT (FAO, 2016).

where Qloc,i is the surface and subsurface runoff generated for cell i, Qj is
natural discharge entering cell i from all upstream cells j. Both of Qloc,i
and Qj were available from an ensemble of three impact models forced
by four meteorological datasets. WCj,y is total upstream water con­
sumptions for cell i and scenario y, encompassing domestic, industrial
and irrigation sectors. Water consumption was calculated based on the
water consumption to water withdrawal ratio derived from Abu-Zeid
and Shiklomanov (2003). EFRi is the environmental flow requirements
in cell i. Monthly EFR was first calculated based on the variable monthly
flow method (Pastor et al., 2019) by using monthly natural flow that was
obtained from the ISIMIP. Then monthly EFR was aggregated to obtain
annual values and annual average of EFR for 1991–2010 was used to
calculate annual surface-water availability. In addition, Qi,y was
3. Results
3.1. Historical change in domestic water use intensity and its drivers
WUIdom of 220 administrative units increased by 29.8 L capita− 1
day− 1 from 155.9 L capita− 1 day− 1 in P1 to 185.7 L capita− 1 day− 1 in P2
(Fig. 1A). To exclude the possibility that the growth in WUIdom was
caused by large increase in a few regions, we repeated the analysis 300
times by randomly sampling 90% of the regions each time and found
consistent increase (29.9 ± 2.5 L capita− 1 day− 1, P < 0.001). Spatial
analyses further confirmed that the growth in WUIdom was widespread
affecting 68% of global population (Fig. 1B). Change in domestic water-
use intensities between P1 and P2 (ΔWUIdom) differed largely among

Fig. 1. Historical changes in domestic water-use intensity (ΔWUIdom) and their drivers. A. ΔWUIdom surveyed from P1 to P2 for the globe and four economies.
Four economies are classified according to United Nations development categories (United Nations, 2019), i.e., developed economies (D1), developing economies
(D2), least-developed economies (D3), and economies in transition (D4) (see Fig. S2). Error bars present interquartile range across administrative units. Note that the
first year (P1) and the last year (P2) may differ between administrative units depending on the data availability (see Fig. S1). B. Spatial pattern of ΔWUIdom surveyed
from P1 to P2. C. Contribution of ΔWUIdom drivers for the globe and four economies. Bars represent contribution from changes in water accessibility (A), per-capita
income (G), mean daily maximum temperature (T), annual precipitation (P), population structure (U), and unexplained factors (OF). D. Dominant factor of ΔWUIdom,
defined as the driving factor that contributed the most to ΔWUIdom. See contribution of each driver to ΔWUIdom in Fig. S3.

4
Y. Bo et al.
economies (Fig. 1A and Fig. S2). ΔWUIdom was the largest in developing
economies (58.0 L capita− 1 day− 1 [interquartile range: 6.9–94.8]),
while ΔWUIdom was quite small in the least-developed economies (8.7
[-2.1 − 12.9] L capita− 1 day− 1). By contrast, WUIdom decreased in 75%
of developed economies (− 48.8 [-91.8 − − 1.9] L capita− 1 day− 1), spe­
cifically in Canada, western USA, Australia, and Europe. ΔWUIdom
showed a large spread between the economies in transition (from − 71.2
to 136.7 L capita− 1 day− 1) with a decrease occurred primarily in eastern
Europe and an increase in Central Asia.
We attempted to quantify the relative contributions of climatic and
5
Journal of Cleaner Production 320 (2021) 128829
socioeconomic drivers to ΔWUIdom. Prior to this analysis, we evaluated
model performance of WUIdom. First, the model explained 63% of the
variations of surveyed WUIdom globally and avoided over-fitting as evi­
denced by the five-fold cross-validation (R2 = 0.6-0.7 and RMSE =
62–78 L capita− 1 day− 1due to 50-times resampling of possible sub­
divisions, Figs. S4A and B). Second, the model performed better in
reproducing the spatial variation of WUIdom averaged over 1990–2015
than income-based model and an ensemble of GHMs, particularly for the
regions with high WUIdom and DOM (Fig. 2, Figs. S4C and D). Third, our
model required limited extrapolation to the global predictor layers, with
Fig. 2. Evaluation of the data-driven model. A.
Pattern of WUIdom surveyed from FAO’s AQUASTAT,
USGS, and (Zhou et al., 2020). B. Pattern of WUIdom
simulated from our data-driven model. C. Pattern of
WUIdom simulated from the income-based model. The
model only considered the effect of per-capita income
growth on WUIdom, and calibrated based on our sur­
vey data. D. Pattern of WUIdom simulated from an
ensemble mean of three GHMs (H08, PCR-GLOBWB,
and MATSIRO participating the ISIMIP2a). The
value of WUIdom for each administrative unit is
averaged over the period 1990 to 2015.
Y. Bo et al.
covariate values in our compiled observations spanning most of the full
multivariate environmental covariate space at the global scale, which
suggests a high confidence of the data-driven model (Fig. S5). Last, our
model performed well in predicting domestic water use especially for
regions with higher quantities (Fig. S4E), and presented a lower RMSE of
0.83 km3 yr− 1 than 2.2 km3 yr− 1 presented by Hejazi et al. (2013). The
global total over 1990–2015 was also in general consistent with previous
studies (Fig. S4F).
At the global scale, water accessibility improvement was identified
as the most important driver of ΔWUIdom accounting for 20.9 L capita− 1
day− 1 (Fig. 1C), followed by a shift in population structure (14.5 L
capita− 1 day− 1) and per-capita income growth (9.8 L capita− 1 day− 1),
while climate change was less important. Similarly, water accessibility
improvement dominated the growth in WUIdom in both developing and
least-developed economies (Fig. 1C). This finding is consistent with the
observational evidences in China (Fan et al., 2013), Nigeria (Akoteyon,
2019; Nyong and Kanaroglou, 2001), and Benin (Arouna and Dabbert,
2010). Spatial analyses further confirmed the dominant role of water
accessibility improvement primarily in southern China, India, Mexico,
and Sub-Saharan Africa, where lives 39% of the global population
together (Fig. 1D). ΔWUIdom was also positively associated with the shift
in population structure in regions accounting for 7% of global popula­
tion, mainly in eastern USA, northern and northwest China, Angola,
Botswana, Mozambique and Rwanda (Fig. 1D). We further found a
positive correlation between ΔWUIdom and per-capita income growth in
regions accounting for 8% of global population, mainly in Brazil,
Columbia, and Argentina. In addition, our analyses suggest that other
factors unexplained by our model might have non-negligible effects
(colored in grey in Fig. 1). These factors dominated the increased
WUIdom in regions accounting for 17% of global population mainly in
Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and North Africa. And these factors
dominated the decreased WUIdom in regions accounting for 23% of
global population primarily in North America and Europe (Fig. 1D).
3.2. Additional growth in domestic water demand by 2030
For the RCP2.6-SSP2, our results indicate that global mean WUIdom
Fig. 3. Additional growth in domestic water-use intensity (ΔWUIdom) and domestic water demand (ΔDOM) due to achieving universal water accessibility.
A. ΔWUIdom for the globe and four economies. Error bars present their interquartile range across administrative units. B. Spatial pattern of ΔWUIdom. C and D present
similar contents to A and B, respectively, but for DOM. Additional growth was calculated as the difference between S1 and S2.
6
Journal of Cleaner Production 320 (2021) 128829
will increase to 233.4 L capita− 1 day− 1 in 2030 in S1 (i.e., water
accessibility held as in 2015) and further to 255.0 L capita− 1 day− 1 in S2
(i.e., water accessibility set to be 100%). Namely, achieving universal
water accessibility by 2030 may lead to an additional growth of WUIdom
by 21.7 L capita− 1 day− 1 at the global scale (Fig. 3A), as quantified by
the difference between scenarios S2 and S1. Such additional growth
differs between four economies. Overall, additional growth in WUIdom
would be 48.1 [32.4–66.0] L capita− 1 day− 1 in least-developed coun­
tries, higher than that in developing countries (19.6 [3.6–30.3] L cap­
ita− 1 day− 1), economies in transition (15.2 [1.3–28.4] L capita− 1
day− 1), and developed countries (6.2 [0–23.3] L capita− 1 day− 1)
(Fig. 3A). The largest additional growth in WUIdom will occur in eastern
USA, Mongolia, southwestern China, Sub-Saharan Africa, and
Turkmenistan (Fig. 3B), as a result of high potential in water accessi­
bility improvements (Fig. S6). For states in eastern USA (e.g. South
Carolina, North Carolina, Indiana and Maine), possible improvements in
access to water happen because percentage of total population served by
self-supply are relatively high, ranging from 24 to 50% in 2015 (see
Supplementary Method for the details on how water access is deter­
mined). The large additional growth in similar developed regions im­
plies that although with overall high level of water accessibility, water
supply challenges may occur from local perspective and needs finer
investigations for further detailed research and management.
Achieving universal water accessibility by 2030 may lead to the
additional growth in domestic water demand by 65.2 km3 for the
RCP2.6-SSP2 (Fig. 3C), which is ~30% of its total increase from 2015 to
2030 in S2. Developing countries would be the largest contributor to the
additional growth in domestic water demand (62%), mostly because of
the increase in population, followed by least-developed economies with
a contribution of 31%, both from additional WUIdom and population
increase, while the rest (7%) from developed and economies in transi­
tion. Additional growth in domestic water demand tend to concentrate
in eastern USA, Sub-Saharan Africa, eastern China, and India as a result
of densely distributed population (Fig. 3D and Fig. S7). It is worth to be
noted that industrial and irrigation water demands in these regions
would be simultaneously large (Fig. S8), possibly intensifying the
competition among sectors for surface-water resources. In addition, the
Y. Bo et al.
results of additional growth in domestic water demand for RCP6.0-SSP2
could be found in Table S2 and Fig. S9.
3.3. Additional surface-water deficit by 2030
For the RCP2.6-SSP2, domestic water demand is expected to exceed
surface-water availability by 73 km3 in 2030 in S1 and by 81 km3 in S2,
where their difference (8.1 km3) represents additional domestic surface-
water deficit due to achieving universal water accessibility. Such
7
Journal of Cleaner Production 320 (2021) 128829
Fig. 4. Domestic and irrigation surface-water
deficits due to achieving universal water accessi­
bility. A. Additional domestic surface-water deficit.
B. The number of people move into domestic surface-
water deficit from scenario S1 to S2. C. Additional
irrigation surface-water deficit. D. Proportion of the
irrigated area at risk of suffering from additional
irrigation surface-water deficit. Inserted bars show
values by four economies (developed [D1], devel­
oping [D2], least developed economies [D3]. and
economies in transition [D4]). Hatching and dot mark
developing and least-developed economies,
respectively.
additional deficit will occur mainly in 31 developing countries and 15
least-developed countries, which account for 82% and 14% of the
deficit, respectively (Fig. 4A). China and India will experience the
largest additional domestic surface-water deficit (1.6 and 1.1 km3,
Fig. 4A), as a result of significant additional growth in domestic water
demand (8.1 and 6.9 km3) and reduction in surface-water availability
(21.5 and 6.8 km3, Fig. S10). More importantly, domestic surface-water
deficit will be doubled in 7 countries, i.e., Kenya, Mongolia,
Afghanistan, Mali, Senegal, Yemen, and Morocco, when universal water
Y. Bo et al.
accessibility achieved. An additional 88.3 million people will move into
domestic surface-water deficit from 14 developing countries (62.2
million, Fig. 4B) and 9 least-developed countries (26.1 million). In
particular, affected population will exceed 15% of the total population
in Syria, Zambia, Jordan, Chad, Kenya, Uganda, and Israel (Table S3).
Achieving universal water accessibility may lead to an additional
irrigation surface-water deficit across 51 countries worldwide (Fig. 4C
and Table S4), as a result of additional increase in domestic water de­
mand and simultaneous reduction in surface-water availability for irri­
gation sector. Larger additional irrigation surface-water deficit will
concentrate in South Asia, Indonesia and north China (Fig. 4C). Nearly
one fifth of global irrigated areas (16%) are expected to be at risk of
additional irrigation surface-water deficit, and this proportion is the
largest in economies in transition (25%), followed by developing
economies (17%), least-developed economies (12%), and developed
economies (7%) (Fig. 3D). Larger proportion (≥30%) of affected irri­
gated areas were found in 5 countries, i.e., Morocco, Uzbekistan, Niger,
Yemen, and Tunisia (Table S4). These findings suggest an enhanced
pressure on future food security that requires a multi-sectoral water
management solution. It should be noted that both domestic and irri­
gation surface-water deficits are not detected in Central Africa (Fig. 4A
and C), but an economic water scarcity was previously reported in these
regions (Liu et al., 2017). In addition, the results of additional
surface-water deficit for RCP6.0-SSP2 could be found in Table S2 and
Fig. S11.
4. Discussion
In this study, we develop a data-driven model to project additional
growth in domestic water demand due to achieving universal water
accessibility by 2030 and to identify global hotspots of additional
surface-water deficits of both domestic and irrigation sectors. The model
expands on previous researches in at least three aspects. First, we
compiled an extensive dataset of surveyed domestic water use and its
key drivers in 220 administrative units covering most of global popu­
lation. This data provides a broader range of model variables with
limited extrapolation requirements for global prediction (Fig. S5). Sec­
ond, our data-driven model quantified WUIdom in response to income
and non-income variables explicitly, while previous models were strat­
ified by region to implicitly represent the effects of non-income variables
(Flörke et al., 2013; Wada et al., 2016). Compared with an income-based
model with four parameters calibrated against all observations, our
model performed better for reproducing the spread of WUIdom globally
(Fig. 2 and Fig. S4) and could support to quantify the influence from
water accessibility improvements. The model thus provides a generic
framework for more comprehensive factors to be included as it was
developed by incorporating different end-uses processes. Third, based
on the spatially detailed estimation of future domestic water demands,
we identified the global hotspots of additional surface-water deficit. This
could serve as an early warning for policymakers to implement flexible
measures to ensure water supply reliability and food security.
We do not exclude the possibility that other variables ignored in this
study might substantially impact WUIdom. First, technological improve­
ments and water pricing policies, which were not incorporated into our
model, might contribute to the decrease of WUIdom in developed econ­
omies. For example, water efficient fixtures and technologies were
deployed in the USA and contributed to the improvement in domestic
water efficiency (Donnelly and Cooley, 2015; Schwabe et al., 2020);
volume-based water pricing schemes were widely adopted in Canada
and helped reduce WUIdom by 37% (Environment Canada, 2014). Sec­
ond, the exclusion of demographic and housing variables (e.g. gender
composition, household size, education level, age structure, garden size
and type) and religious-related activities (e.g. ablution) might result in
the underestimation of the positive ΔWUIdom in Central Asia and North
Africa (Fan et al., 2013; Haziq and Panezai, 2017; Hussien et al., 2016).
Last, diets and consumption habits like food waste can influence not
8
Journal of Cleaner Production 320 (2021) 128829
only irrigation water use, but also domestic water use (Liu et al., 2008,
2013). However, these factors are difficult to quantify over space and
time, and their complex effects on domestic water use remain uncertain
and should be extensively examined in the future (Fan et al., 2013).
Besides, it should be noted that this study focuses on capturing the
average behavior of the municipal water use system, and thus is able to
reveal difference among regions or economies. In other words, the
current study could not reflect influence from varying individual water
use habits, because both WUIdom and drivers could only reflect overall
regional conditions, and data of individual characteristics was not
accessible on global coverage. Moreover, we acknowledged that large
differences in population size among regions exist, and the calibration
using population weights shown in the supplementary method could be
used to ensure equivalent individual coverage. For example, when
estimating the economic costs from technological improvements or
water engineering projects to avoid such potential surface-water deficit
risks, regional varying population weights would be necessary (Hughes
et al., 2010). In addition, adoption of the model calibrated at adminis­
trative level to gridded level also rises concerns about result sensitivity
against aggregation levels, which is difficult to be fully addressed by
now due to data limitation. Nevertheless, this study is valuable in casting
such a model in the context of an integrated assessment framework, and
could serve as a benchmark for further model calibration and accurate
assessments at local scales provided necessary data is available.
Despite these limitations, our assessments underscore a need of
spatially flexible policies for both supply- and demand-side management
to meet universal access to safe drinking water for all without additional
surface-water deficits. First, developing economies may experience the
largest domestic water use growth and additional surface-water deficits
in the world (Fig. 4). Therefore, these countries could focus on techno­
logical improvements to accelerate decoupling of water demand from
the rapid socioeconomic development, e.g., promotion of water-saving
domestic appliance and irrigation technologies (Chu et al., 2009; Fan
et al., 2017). In addition to conventional water resources, unconven­
tional water resources, e.g., rainwater harvesting, wastewater recycling,
and seawater desalination, could be explored to avoid the additional
surface-water deficit. Joint efforts from government, community, school
and public media to raise water conservation awareness and to
encourage water use behavior change could also be taken simulta­
neously (Fan et al., 2017).
Second, the least-developed economies require the highest water
accessibility improvements of >30% (Fig. S6) and associated growth in
domestic water demand. On the one hand, expanding water accessibility
through investment into construction and maintenance of water in­
frastructures is proposed as the top priority. Water governance including
stakeholder involvement, such as the decentralized and community-
based water governance approach, is also suggested to be helpful in
advancing sustainable water access (Dos Santos et al., 2017). On the
other hand, targeted strategies for farming systems could also be
encouraged, such as adopting water price policies, adjustment of crop
varieties into drought-resilient cropping systems (Pastor et al., 2019)
and the deployment of locally appropriate water-harvesting techniques
(Zhou et al., 2020). In addition, international financial assistance and
technology transfer could be inclined to these countries to improve their
water supply reliability.
Third, irrigation surface-water deficit may be significant in the
economies in transition, despite a lower additional domestic surface-
water deficit compared to other economies. For example, more than
30% of irrigated areas are threatened in Uzbekistan. Thus it is urgent to
curb the irrational water use behaviors (e.g., fountain and excessive
tree-planting) and avoid unintended water losses in irrigation water
supply systems (OECD, 2020; Russell, 2018), given the fact that the goal
of universal water accessibility is not within reach in these countries.
International cooperation between upstream and downstream countries
could be valuable for the Central Asia to improve irrigation water supply
and to manage transboundary water resources more sustainably
Y. Bo et al.
(Bernauer and Bohmelt, 2020).
In contrast to the abovementioned economies, developed economies
are not likely to be at risk of additional surface-water deficit for domestic
or irrigation sectors, largely owing to their water accessibility almost
close to 100%. One exception is the High Plains in the USA which may
suffer from the additional irrigation surface-water deficit (Fig. S11).
Lowering the current high WUIdom (>300 L capita− 1 day− 1, Fig. S12)
would make room for future irrigation water demand. Maintenance of
current water delivery network is proposed as a priority to reduce water
loss from supply side, and stricter water-pricing regulation has also been
proposed to control WUIdom from demand side (Maggioni, 2015; Sauri,
2013). Besides, increasing water-intensive food import and redistribut­
ing crops could be an alternative to reduce irrigation water demand
(Chapagain et al., 2006; Davis et al., 2017; Qin et al., 2019).
5. Conclusion
In conclusion, this study reveals that water accessibility improve­
ments dominated the global growth in domestic water-use intensity over
1990–2015. Combining the data-driven model of domestic water-use
intensity with assessment of surface-water availability from multi-
model ensemble, this study suggests that the developing and least-
developed countries would likely suffer from additional domestic
surface-water deficit for achieving universal water accessibility by 2030.
In addition, South Asia, Central Asia, and North Africa are the hotspots
of additional irrigation surface-water deficits. The findings imply a ris­
ing dependence on groundwater resources or external water resources
(e.g., transboundary water diversion, virtual water trade) and an
intensive conflict between domestic and irrigation sectors.
Countries, corporations, and multilateral entities (e.g., the United
Nations) have proposed plans to realize universal water accessibility as
one of the 17 sustainable development goals (Botswana, 2017; China,
2016; Ireland, 2018; Japan, 2017; South Africa, 2019; Sweden, 2017;
Viet Nam, 2018). Although with the possibility of ignoring some
important drivers, our high-resolution assessments could serve as a
starting point for identifying areas facing surface-water deficit and tar­
geting actions towards high water supply reliability to meet universal
water accessibility. To help designing a spatially flexible set of actions,
the data-driven model proposed in this study is valuable, and should be
coupled into the global hydrological models (GHMs) (Flörke et al., 2013;
Pokhrel et al., 2012; Rost et al., 2008). The empirical linkages between
WUIdom change and water accessibility identified in this study may be
also used for designing more realistic future water demand scenarios,
with the ultimate goal to improve GHMs for choosing water sources (e.
g., surface water, groundwater, surface-water transfer) to ensure uni­
versal water accessibility. Water accessibility improvements depends
not only on how strong the multi-national collaborations and in­
vestments will incentivize the developing and least-developed econo­
mies with the highest surface-water deficit, but also on how technical or
socio-economic barriers are addressed (Greve et al., 2018; Sadoff et al.,
2020; Zhao et al., 2019). With that being said, our study can serve as an
important reference for policymakers to make sure that achieving the
SDG6.1 is implemented with a dynamic and sustainable water use
management framework.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yan Bo: Data curation, Formal analysis, Software, Visualization,
Writing – original draft. Feng Zhou: Conceptualization, Supervision,
Writing – review & editing. Jianshi Zhao: Conceptualization, Writing –
review & editing. Junguo Liu: Conceptualization, Writing – review &
editing. Jiahong Liu: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing.
Philippe Ciais: Writing – review & editing, Supervision. Jinfeng
Chang: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. Lei Chen:
Writing – review & editing.
9
Journal of Cleaner Production 320 (2021) 128829
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Founda­
tion of China (Grant number 41977082 and 41625001). JL was also
supported by the High-level Special Funding of the Southern University
of Science and Technology (Grant number G02296302, G02296402).
We acknowledge FAO and its member countries for their ongoing
collection, analysis and dissemination of relevant national statistics. We
also acknowledge the other input data providers for HYDE 3.2.1, FAO­
STAT, AQUASTAT, NOAA, IIASA and gridded dataset of GDP. We also
want to thank ISIMIP data providers Flörke, Pokhrel and Rost and the
coordination team responsible for bringing together the different global
hydrological modelling groups and for coordinating the research
agenda, which results in this manuscript.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128829.
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