The Environment Agency's national water resources strategy, Water Resources for the Future (2001),
provides a secure framework for the management of water that protects the long-term future of the water
environment while encouraging sustainable development. Underpinning the strategy are a suite of scenario
based forecasts developed to explore the impact of key drivers of demand within different sectors of water use
across England and Wales. This paper explains the approach used to produce these forecasts, summarizes how
the individual components of demand were considered, and highlights opportunities for future application and
development of this approach. Using the premise that total water demand can mask conflicting trends between
sectors, it is essential to consider each sector and its micro-components independently to understand the specific
drivers of demand and consequently determine how these might best be managed. Four scenarios reflecting
different possible futures of socio-economic and governmental structure were created to test "how", "why" and
"where" these water demands may change by 2025. Such an approach provides an opportunity to test the
implications of macro drivers of demand, such as, economic growth and regulatory reform, on the microcomponents
of water use, linking disparate sectors to a common set of assumptions about the future. Includes 11 references, tables, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 330 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 10 |
| Published : | 01/11/2004 |
