Definition of Water Security and Its Assessment Using Water Poverty Index
As the development of human society and economy, security problem causing from the pressure of shortage of resources, population expansion and environmental degradation has increasingly becoming a serious problem of a country. The comprehensive security comprising of political security and environmental security, is proposed for the study of new security issues. The impaction of water resources and hydro-ecological changes on the sustainable development of human society and economy should be treated as a crucial part of comprehensive security. Obviously, the definition of water security needs an interdisciplinary and integrative perspective. In this paper, the connotation of water security is discussed based on the analysis of the relationship between environmental changes and security issues, and the definition of water security is suggested. According to the definition of water security, water security assessment should considere not only the situation of water resources, but the related factors of environment, ecology, society, political, economy. In this paper, Water Poverty Index (WPI) , developed by the Center of Ecology and Hydrology in UK, is applied to assess the regional water security. As the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is used as an indicator to assess consumer prices, WPI is proposed as a simple indicator to monitor qualitatively and quantitatively the progress in the water sector. Five components such as Resource, Access, Use, Capacity, Environment are scored on a scale of 1 ~ 100, WPI, ranging from 1 to 100, is calculated through qualitative and quantitative analysis of a wide range variables. A region with a higher WPI is more secure than that with a lower value. To demonstrate the capability of WPI in the assessment of regional water security, a catchment scale assessment has been carried out in the Haihe river catchment. Fig 1 shows the value of the five components and WPI in the Haihe river catchment. The water security of Haihe catchment can be identified as medium security according to the value of WPI, which reflects the real water situation in the Haihe river catchment. WPI indicates the key issues influencing water security of the Haihe river catchment are the shortage of resources and environmental degradation. In conclusion, characterizing the connotation and the definition of water security, the WPI is a useful tool to monitor the progress of water sector and helpful for the water resources management and policymaking.
Water resourcesWater securityDefinitionAssessment indexWater poverty index
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NSTL
万方数据
维普
