Limited impact of climate change on water resources in Switzerland
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Over the next 50 years, climate change is likely to lead to a substantial increase in the price of drinking water in Switzerland. Simulations show that the impact on households and the economy will be small.
Around the world, climate change is expected to broadly impact the water cycle, shifting rainfall patterns, pushing snowfall to higher altitudes, and changing the timing of snowmelt in the spring. In 2009 the Federal Office for the Environment mandated researchers from ENAC to evaluate how these changes will affect the availability and the price of drinking water in Switzerland by 2050. Using a mathematical model, they found that while the prices are expected to increase significantly, the overall impact on household and the economy would be small. The research, which was carried out by Anne-Kathrin within her PhD thesis, was published in the journal Water Policy this week.
The motor behind the study is GEMINI-E3, a mathematic model designed specifically to study the economic impact of energy policies on households and industry in the context of climate change. Led by Marc Vielle, from the Laboratory of Environmental and Urban Economics, the researchers extended GEMENI-E3 to explicitly account for the drinking water sector and raw water resources. In particular, industries were given the option of extracting water themselves or replacing it with drinking water. Using this model, they carried out simulations to determine which sectors would be most affected by changes in the availability of water and to predict its price in 2050 under a range of climate change scenarios.
For one, the simulations confirmed the obvious: the fields most affected would be those most reliant on water. In Switzerland, these include the drinking water sector, the chemical and agricultural sectors, and winter tourism, heavily reliant on water to produce snow. The study further pointed at reducing water losses and decreasing the need by improving production processes as the most efficient adaptive strategies for industries. While the results showed that the price of water may vary quite significantly, the overall impact of these changes on households and the economy would be limited.
Reference: A.-K. Faust, C. Gonseth and M. Vielle. The economic impact of climate driven changes in water availability in Switzerland, Water Policy In Press, doi:10.2166/wp.2015.064