Water Security Under Compound Climate and Institutional Risk

Authors

  • Samuel Lewis Author

Keywords:

water security, compound risk, climate adaptation, institutions, equity

Abstract

This interdisciplinary review examines water security under compound climate and institutional risk. The organizing question is how infrastructure, ecosystems, finance, and public institutions jointly shape reliable and fair water access. Ten related scholarly sources are synthesized through a decision-centered framework spanning problem definition, mechanism, measurement, evaluation, implementation, and governance. The review does not invent experiments, pooled estimates, or unreported quantitative results. It instead evaluates the strength and transferability of the available evidence, with particular attention to treating physical scarcity as independent of institutions and distribution. The resulting framework links technical or empirical performance to explicit use conditions and identifies tests that should precede wider adoption in regional water planning under climatic and political uncertainty.

References

  1. Abedin, M. A., Collins, A. E., Habiba, U., & Shaw, R. (2018). Climate Change, Water Scarcity, and Health Adaptation in Southwestern Coastal Bangladesh. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 10(1), 28-42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-018-0211-8
  2. Borrelli, P., Robinson, D. A., Panagos, P., Lugato, E., Yang, J. E., Alewell, C., Wuepper, D., Montanarella, L., & Ballabio, C. (2020). Land use and climate change impacts on global soil erosion by water (2015-2070). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(36), 21994-22001. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001403117
  3. DeNicola, E., Aburizaiza, O. S., Siddique, A., Siddique, A., Khwaja, H., & Carpenter, D. O. (2015). Climate Change and Water Scarcity: The Case of Saudi Arabia. Annals of Global Health, 81(3), 342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aogh.2015.08.005
  4. Hoekstra, A. Y., Buurman, J., & Ginkel, K. C. H. V. (2018). Urban water security: A review. Environmental Research Letters, 13(5), 053002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaba52
  5. Koop, S. H. A., & Leeuwen, C. J. V. (2016). The challenges of water, waste and climate change in cities. Environment Development and Sustainability, 19(2), 385-418. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-016-9760-4
  6. Mishra, B., Kumar, P., Saraswat, C., Chakraborty, S., & Gautam, A. (2021). Water Security in a Changing Environment: Concept, Challenges and Solutions. Water, 13(4), 490. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13040490
  7. Mpandeli, S., Naidoo, D., Mabhaudhi, T., Nhemachena, C., Nhamo, L., Liphadzi, S., Hlahla, S., & Modi, A. T. (2018). Climate Change Adaptation through the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Southern Africa. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(10), 2306. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15102306
  8. Simpson, G. B., & Jewitt, G. P. W. (2019). The Development of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus as a Framework for Achieving Resource Security: A Review. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2019.00008
  9. Stringer, L. C., Mirzabaev, A., Benjaminsen, T. A., Harris, R. M. B., Jafari, M., Lissner, T. K., Stevens, N., & Pahlen, C. T. V. D. (2021). Climate change impacts on water security in global drylands. One Earth, 4(6), 851-864. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.05.010
  10. Woodhouse, P., & Muller, M. (2017). Water Governance—An Historical Perspective on Current Debates. World Development, 92, 225-241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.11.014

Downloads

Published

2026-08-05

Issue

Vol. 1 (2026): Archive

Section

Interdisciplinary Review

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Global Questions: An Interdisciplinary Review

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.