| Title Of The Magazine |
Chinese Geographical Science |
| Year Information |
2025 |
| KeyWord |
water use trajectory; water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) nexus; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); scenarios analysis; Earth observation data; Zambezi River Basin, Africaobservation data; Zambezi River Basin, Africa |
| Authors |
TIAN Fuyou, ZENG Hongwei, WU Bingfang, ZHANG Miao, ZHU Weiwei, Elijah PHIRI, Emmanuel MASHONJOWA |
| Intro |
Given the heightened competition for water in energy, food, and the environment in Africa, it is essential to implement sound
integrated plans for basin or regional sustainable development. Zambezi River Basin (ZRB), one of the least developed basins in the
world, is under development with great ambition for hydropower and irrigation infrastructure. Here, we proposed a framework to assess
different water usage trajectories for agricultural and hydropower development scenarios with data derived from big earth data method.
Three future scenarios were set for irrigaiton expansion and development hydropower construction according to current plan, global average
and high level, respectively. Using spatial analysis methods, average evapotranspiration (ET) difference before and after irrigation
expansion and reservoir construction was used to estimate water usage trajectories. Results show that the total available water resource
for ZRB is estimated as 111.8 km3. Due to irrigation and reservoirs construction, additional annual water consumption is estimated to be
0.9 and 14.2 km3 for 2017, respectively. By analyzing the water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) nexus given water availability constraints,
we found that the water development boundary in the ZRB could support increases in both irrigation proportion and dam density
to global average levels of 20% and 0.56/104 km2, respectively, without degrading the environment. The proposed paradigm for assessing
water resources has the potential to endow the ZRB with significant capacity to support the achievement of relevant Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). |
| Links To Magazines |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-025-1548-8 |
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