News

Article in Top 25 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Science Nature Communications papers of 2024

article_published_on_label
April 1, 2025

The research article of Mengru Wang et al. entitled "A triple increase in global river basins with water scarcity due to future pollution" received 26220 article downloads in 2024, placing it as one of the Top 25 downloaded Earth, Environmental and Planetary Science papers published in Nature Communications last year.

The journal published over 765 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Science papers in 2024, so a position in the top downloaded articles is an extraordinary achievement.

About the article

Water scarcity is known to be a crucial issue worldwide. In many regions, there is insufficient water for the increasing human demand for irrigation, drinking, recreation, and other social needs. Climate change-induced changes in the hydrological cycles exaggerate this issue as well. While water scarcity caused by low water quantity has been an issue that is widely studied, how future water pollution from intensified human activities can limit safe water supply is not much understood.

Dr. Mengru Wang, Dr. Maryna Strokal, and Mirjam Bak at ESC group, together with scientists from Utrecht University, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and other research institutes in Germany, introduced a new indicator: the Clean-Water Scarcity indicator based on both water quantity and water quality. They conducted a global assessment of future clean-water scarcity in more than 10,000 global river sub-basins for the 2050s by adding the water pollution aspect to the classical water quantity-induced scarcity assessments. This assessment is largely based on the MARINA model at the ESC group.

The results are alarming. The authors found that the number of sub-basins facing water scarcity triples worldwide due to future nitrogen pollution”. In 2010, 984 sub-basins were classified as water-scarce when considering only water quantity, while clean water supply in 2,517 sub-basins is affected by quantity & quality-induced scarcity. This number even increases to 3,061 sub-basins in the worst-case scenario in 2050. This aggravation means an extra 40 million km2 of basin area and 3 billion more people that may potentially face water scarcity in 2050. These results highlight that more attention is needed to address water pollution in future water management policies to ensure a sufficient clean water supply for nature and society.

More information