Carrying Capacity and Sustainability Appraisals on Regional Water Supply Systems under Climate Change

This study aims to appraise the carrying capacity and sustainability of four water supply systems which are in the same watershed under climate change. An integrated assessment tool, TaiWAP, which integrates the common procedures of impact assessment of climate change, i.e., downscaling, weather generation, hydrological model, and interface for linking system dynamics model, is used to evaluate the sustainability of regional water resources systems. The GWLF physical model is used to simulate surface water processes and Vensim (a specialized software tool) is used in a system dynamics approach to simulate Taiwan’s Danshuei river watershed supply system to analyze climate impact on sustainable water resource utilization, which are both included in TaiWAP. To understand the sustainability of water supply systems, definition of a sustainable index are necessary to reveal the effects of response strategy and climate change. The results of this study could support making governmental strategies to enhance adaptive capacity, mitigate the impact of climate changes on water supplies and achieve sustainable and resilient water supply systems for the future.