Water Use and Climate Stressors in a Multiuser River Basin Setting: Who Benefits from Adaptation?

Adapting to new climate conditions will require an intricate mix of knowledge, planning, coordination, and foresight. There is increasing sectoral evidence on the implementation of successful adaptation actions. However, the success of these actions when we consider the interdependencies among sectors remains debatable. This paper aims to assess who benefits from implementing adaptation options in a multiuser river basin to both climate-induced and demographic stress on water use. Our analysis relies on a hydro-economic model that considers two sets of water users: agriculture and urban households. We innovate in our modelling approach by analyzing and explicitly integrating the household-level economic behavior through its water demand. We assess the cross-user consequences of autonomous and planned adaptation actions. We provide insights into the different trade-offs at the basin level, demonstrating the compatibilities and divergences between agriculture and household-level water demand. We found different consequences of implementing either autonomous or planned adaptation measures. For instance, a decentralized scheme would drive negative implications for the entire basin, although the less water-intensive sector will be better off. On the other hand, different policy interventions would drive positive consequences for the entire basin, with the most water-intensive sector benefiting the most. These results highlight the distributional consequences across users of different adaptation measures.