Climate Change and Its Effects on Freshwater Ecosystem Services and Water Resources

Climate change can be viewed as a significant threat to the sustainability of ecosystem services provided by freshwater bodies around the world. Changes in temperature, rainfall, and water cycle patterns have begun to adversely affect provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services associated with freshwater systems with significant implications for human well-being and biological diversity. This paper attempts to analyze the impact of climate change on ecosystem services and related water resources through hydrological models and ecosystem services value assessment models. Based on the climate change predictions made under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios, the decline in water provisioning, purification, and habitat provisioning is quantified at up to −47.2%, −51.3%, and −44.5% respectively. A systematic analysis of the study watersheds shows crucial areas where the provision of ecosystem services is poor, especially in semi-arid sub-watersheds, where there is an imbalance between demand and supply of ecosystem services. This study also considers four other adaptive management measures and finds that integrated watershed management is the best strategy, which leads to an increase in overall ecosystem service provisioning by 28.1%. Findings from this study demonstrate the need for integration of climate-adaptive approaches into water policy management. The findings contribute to existing research that associates the functioning of the hydrologic cycle with ecosystem services and provide an approach that can be replicated in other watersheds.