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Climatic risks and impacts in South Asia: extremes of water scarcity and excess

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Abstract

This paper reviews the current knowledge of climatic risks and impacts in South Asia associated with anthropogenic warming levels of 1.5–4 °C above pre-industrial values in the twenty-first century. It is based on the World Bank Report “Turn Down the Heat, Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts and the Case for Resilience” (2013b) . Many of the climate change impacts in the region, which appear quite severe even with relatively modest warming of 1.5–2 °C, pose significant hazards to development. For example, increased monsoon variability and loss or glacial meltwater will likely confront populations with ongoing and multiple challenges. The result is a significant risk to stable and reliable water resources for the region, with increases in peak flows potentially causing floods and dry season flow reductions threatening agriculture. Irrespective of the anticipated economic development and growth, climate projections indicate that large parts of South Asia’s growing population and especially the poor are likely to remain highly vulnerable to climate change.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all contributors to the World Bank Report “Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts and the Case for Resilience,” which is the basis for this regional review. RVD was financially supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) via the Young Investigator’s Group CoSy-CC2 (Grant No. 01LN1306A).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Telegraphenberg A31, 14412, Potsdam, Germany

    Kira Vinke, Maria A. Martin, Dim Coumou, Reik V. Donner, Mahé Perrette, Alexander Robinson & Anastasia Svirejeva-Hopkins

  2. University of New South Wales, High St, Kensington, NSW, 2052, Australia

    Sophie Adams

  3. Climate Analytics, Friedrichstraße 231, 10969, Berlin, Germany

    Sophie Adams, Florent Baarsch, Marcia Rocha, Michiel Schaeffer & Olivia Serdeczny

  4. Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie marine et continentale (IMBE) Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, IRD, Avignon Université, Aix-en-Provence, France

    Alberte Bondeau

  5. Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Telegraphenberg A43, 14412, Potsdam, Germany

    Kira Rehfeld

  6. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Alexander Robinson

  7. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1-5, 65760, Eschborn, Germany

    Susanne Schwan

  8. NCAS-Climate, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK

    Arathy Menon

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  1. Kira Vinke
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  2. Maria A. Martin
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Correspondence to Kira Vinke.

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Vinke, K., Martin, M.A., Adams, S. et al. Climatic risks and impacts in South Asia: extremes of water scarcity and excess. Reg Environ Change 17, 1569–1583 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-015-0924-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-015-0924-9

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