Assessing Freshwater Provision and Consumption in the Alpine Space Applying the Ecosystem Service Concept
1
Department of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Sternwartestrasse 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
2
Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research, Viale Druso 1, 39100 Bozen/Bolzano, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
Both authors contributed equally to this work.
Sustainability 2019, 11(4), 1131; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11041131
Received: 11 January 2019 / Revised: 13 February 2019 / Accepted: 18 February 2019 / Published: 21 February 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of the Ecosystem Service Concept in Social–Ecological Systems—from Theory to Practice)
A key challenge in the sustainable management of freshwater is related to non-stationary processes and transboundary requirements. The assessment of freshwater is often hampered due to small-scale analyses, lacking data and with the focus on only its provision. Based on the ecosystem service (ES) concept, this study aims at quantitatively comparing potential water supply with the demand for freshwater in the European Alps and their surrounding lowlands. We propose an easy-to-use combination of different mapping approaches, including a large-scale hydrologic model to estimate water supply and the downscaling of regional data to the local scale to map demand. Our results demonstrate spatial mismatches between supply and demand and a high dependency of the densely populated lowlands from water providing mountain areas. Under expected climate variations and future demographic changes, our results suggest increasing pressures on freshwater in the south of the Alps. Hence, sustainable water management strategies need to assure the supply of freshwater under changing environmental conditions to meet the increasing water demand of urbanized areas in the lowlands. Moreover, national water management strategies need to be optimally concerted at the international level, as transboundary policies and frameworks can strengthen future water provision.
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Keywords:
ecosystem services; InVEST; spatial modelling; water yield; water abstraction; water budget; climate change; demographic change; scenario analysis
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MDPI and ACS Style
Meisch, C.; Schirpke, U.; Huber, L.; Rüdisser, J.; Tappeiner, U. Assessing Freshwater Provision and Consumption in the Alpine Space Applying the Ecosystem Service Concept. Sustainability 2019, 11, 1131. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11041131
AMA Style
Meisch C, Schirpke U, Huber L, Rüdisser J, Tappeiner U. Assessing Freshwater Provision and Consumption in the Alpine Space Applying the Ecosystem Service Concept. Sustainability. 2019; 11(4):1131. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11041131
Chicago/Turabian StyleMeisch, Claude, Uta Schirpke, Lisa Huber, Johannes Rüdisser, and Ulrike Tappeiner. 2019. "Assessing Freshwater Provision and Consumption in the Alpine Space Applying the Ecosystem Service Concept" Sustainability 11, no. 4: 1131. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11041131
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