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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Water
Sec. Water and Human Systems
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frwa.2024.1492336

Uncharted water conflicts ahead 1 : mapping the scenario space for Germany in the year 2050

Provisionally accepted
Hannah Kosow Hannah Kosow 1*Simon Brauner Simon Brauner 2Anja Brumme Anja Brumme 3Wolfgang Hauser Wolfgang Hauser 1Fabian Hölzlberger Fabian Hölzlberger 3Janina Moschner Janina Moschner 1Dirk Rübbelke Dirk Rübbelke 3Stefan Vögele Stefan Vögele 2Wolfgang Weimer-Jehle Wolfgang Weimer-Jehle 1
  • 1 University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
  • 2 Julich Research Center, Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (HZ), Jülich, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
  • 3 Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, Freiberg, Lower Saxony, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In recent years, conflicts surrounding the use, distribution, and governance of surface water and groundwater in Germany have gained prominence in the media, on the political agenda, and in research. Increasing effects of climate change, such as heatwaves and drought but also extreme rain events and flooding, are considered to become more prominent and pressing in the future by different societal actors. However, it remains highly uncertain if and what type of conflicts related to water quantity Germany might actually facing in the future (and how they will be framed). This paper addresses one dimension of this uncertaintynamely the future context uncertainty of possible resource and water governance conflicts. Our research contributes to an improved understanding of the uncertainty concerning future climatic, natural, land use related, political, economic, and other societal contexts that could impact water conflicts. We ask: What are possible coherent context scenarios for Germany in the year 2050, and how are they expected to influence future water conflicts? In an expertbased process, we apply a qualitative and systematic method of systems analysis, crossimpact balances (CIB). With CIB, we build internally consistent scenarios of possible futures and map the future scenario space. Diversity mapping with a new CIB web application of the ScenarioWizard reveals that the scenario space is rather large and diverse. The identified scenario space of n= 355 internally consistent scenarios spans four most diverse scenarios "Polycrisis", "Economy and agriculture in crisis", "Growth through adaptation to climate change", and "Sustainable transformation". Depending on the development of future contexts, the risk for future water resource and governance conflicts may unfold in various ways. We conclude that our scenario analysis provides a useful base for research and practice to address the context uncertainty of water conflicts in Germany. Our results can be used for risk assessment, to define societal framework assumptions for societal-hydrological modeling, and to develop robust and adaptive strategies and policies.

    Keywords: Water, scenarios, uncertainty, Cross-Impact Balances (CIB), Conflict assessment, Complexity, Year 2050, Germany

    Received: 06 Sep 2024; Accepted: 04 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kosow, Brauner, Brumme, Hauser, Hölzlberger, Moschner, Rübbelke, Vögele and Weimer-Jehle. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Hannah Kosow, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

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