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"Scarcity"
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Scarcity in the modern world : history, politics, society and sustainability, 1800-2075
\"Scarcity in the Modern World brings together world-renowned scholars to examine how concerns about the scarcity of environmental resources such as water, food, energy and materials have developed, and subsequently been managed, from the 18th to the 21st century. These multi-disciplinary contributions situate contemporary concerns about scarcity within their longer history, and address recent forecasts and debates surrounding the future scarcity of fossil fuels, renewable energy and water up to 2075. This book offers a fresh way of tackling the current challenge of meeting global needs in an increasingly resource-stressed environment. By bringing together scholars from a variety of academic disciplines, this volume provides an innovative multi-disciplinary perspective that corrects previous scholarship which has discussed scientific and cultural issues separately. In doing so, it recognizes that this challenge is complex and cannot be addressed by a single discipline, but requires a concerted effort to think about its political and social, as well as technical and economic dimensions. This volume is essential for all students and scholars interested in scarcity, past, present and future.\"--Back cover.
Book
Scarcity and frontiers : how economies have developed through natural resource exploitation
\"Throughout much of history, a critical driving force behind global economic development has been the response of society to the scarcity of key natural resources. Increasing scarcity raises the cost of exploiting existing natural resources and creates incentives in all economies to innovate and conserve more of these resources. However, economies have also responded to increasing scarcity by obtaining and developing more of these resources. Since the agricultural transition over 12,000 years ago, this exploitation of new 'frontiers' has often proved to be a pivotal human response to natural resource scarcity. This book provides a fascinating account of the contribution that natural resource exploitation has made to economic development in key eras of world history. This not only fills an important gap in the literature on economic history but also shows how we can draw lessons from these past epochs for attaining sustainable economic development in the world today\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The measurement of water scarcity: Defining a meaningful indicator
Metrics of water scarcity and stress have evolved over the last three decades from simple threshold indicators to holistic measures characterising human environments and freshwater sustainability. Metrics commonly estimate renewable freshwater resources using mean annual river runoff, which masks hydrological variability, and quantify subjectively socio-economic conditions characterising adaptive capacity. There is a marked absence of research evaluating whether these metrics of water scarcity are meaningful. We argue that measurement of water scarcity (1) be redefined physically in terms of the freshwater storage required to address imbalances in intra- and inter-annual fluxes of freshwater supply and demand; (2) abandons subjective quantifications of human environments and (3) be used to inform participatory decision-making processes that explore a wide range of options for addressing freshwater storage requirements beyond dams that include use of renewable groundwater, soil water and trading in virtual water. Further, we outline a conceptual framework redefining water scarcity in terms of freshwater storage.
Journal Article
Overfished ocean strategy : powering up innovation for a resource-deprived world
\" We are living amidst a remarkable transformation. The linear, throwaway economy of today--in which we extract resources, create products, use them, and throw them away like a cheap plastic fork--is rapidly coming to a close. We are, simply put, running out of things to mine and places to trash. A new economy is being born, one that takes this line and turns it into a circle. Resource scarcity--the overfished ocean--is the reality virtually every company is swimming in. Those managers who deeply understand and master this shift will be able to turn the new reality into disruptive innovation and remarkable competitive advantage. Overfished Ocean Strategy offers five essential principles for developing products and services for this new reality. A business owner herself, Nadya Zhexembayeva fills the book with examples of companies that are already successfully navigating the overfished ocean. Unlike less-farsighted companies, they are not making \"green\" products as a sideline for a niche market but rather have made dealing with resource scarcity the central, driving force of their entire strategy. As these innovators ride ahead of the wave, new products, new business models, new markets, and new profits follow. You can join them, or you can be left standing on the shore\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The effects of scarcity on consumer decision journeys
Research in marketing often begins with two assumptions: that consumers are able to choose among desirable products, and that they have sufficient resources to buy them. However, many consumer decision journeys are constrained by a scarcity of products and/or a scarcity of resources. We review research in marketing, psychology, economics and sociology to construct an integrative framework outlining how these different types of scarcity individually and jointly influence consumers at various stages of their decision journeys. We outline avenues for future research and discuss implications for developing consumer-based marketing strategies.
Journal Article
Graphene oxide-based efficient and scalable solar desalination under one sun with a confined 2D water path
Because it is able to produce desalinated water directly using solar energy with minimum carbon footprint, solar steam generation and desalination is considered one of the most important technologies to address the increasingly pressing global water scarcity. Despite tremendous progress in the past few years, efficient solar steam generation and desalination can only be achieved for rather limited water quantity with the assistance of concentrators and thermal insulation, not feasible for large-scale applications. The fundamental paradox is that the conventional design of direct absorber–bulk water contact ensures efficient energy transfer and water supply but also has intrinsic thermal loss through bulk water. Here, enabled by a confined 2D water path, we report an efficient (80% under one-sun illumination) and effective (four orders salinity decrement) solar desalination device. More strikingly, because of minimized heat loss, high efficiency of solar desalination is independent of the water quantity and can be maintained without thermal insulation of the container. A foldable graphene oxide film, fabricated by a scalable process, serves as efficient solar absorbers (>94%), vapor channels, and thermal insulators. With unique structure designs fabricated by scalable processes and high and stable efficiency achieved under normal solar illumination independent of water quantity without any supporting systems, our device represents a concrete step for solar desalination to emerge as a complementary portable and personalized clean water solution.
Journal Article
The world’s road to water scarcity: shortage and stress in the 20th century and pathways towards sustainability
Water scarcity is a rapidly growing concern around the globe, but little is known about how it has developed over time. This study provides a first assessment of continuous sub-national trajectories of blue water consumption, renewable freshwater availability, and water scarcity for the entire 20
th
century. Water scarcity is analysed using the fundamental concepts of shortage (impacts due to low availability per capita) and stress (impacts due to high consumption relative to availability) which indicate difficulties in satisfying the needs of a population and overuse of resources respectively. While water consumption increased fourfold within the study period, the population under water scarcity increased from 0.24 billion (14% of global population) in the 1900s to 3.8 billion (58%) in the 2000s. Nearly all sub-national trajectories show an increasing trend in water scarcity. The concept of scarcity trajectory archetypes and shapes is introduced to characterize the historical development of water scarcity and suggest measures for alleviating water scarcity and increasing sustainability. Linking the scarcity trajectories to other datasets may help further deepen understanding of how trajectories relate to historical and future drivers, and hence help tackle these evolving challenges.
Journal Article
Pollution exacerbates China’s water scarcity and its regional inequality
Inadequate water quality can mean that water is unsuitable for a variety of human uses, thus exacerbating freshwater scarcity. Previous large-scale water scarcity assessments mostly focused on the availability of sufficient freshwater quantity for providing supplies, but neglected the quality constraints on water usability. Here we report a comprehensive nationwide water scarcity assessment in China, which explicitly includes quality requirements for human water uses. We highlight the necessity of incorporating water scarcity assessment at multiple temporal and geographic scales. Our results show that inadequate water quality exacerbates China’s water scarcity, which is unevenly distributed across the country. North China often suffers water scarcity throughout the year, whereas South China, despite sufficient quantities, experiences seasonal water scarcity due to inadequate quality. Over half of the population are affected by water scarcity, pointing to an urgent need for improving freshwater quantity and quality management to cope with water scarcity.
The impact on inadequate water quality on water scarcity is unclear. Here the authors quantify China’s present-day water scarcity and show that inadequate water quality exacerbates China’s water scarcity, which is unevenly distributed across the country.
Journal Article