water Article Analysis of Current and Future Water Demands in the Upper Indus Basin under IPCC Climate and Socio-Economic Scenarios Using a Hydro-Economic WEAP Model Ali Amin 1,*, Javed Iqbal 1, Areesha Asghar 1 and Lars Ribbe 2 1 Institute of Geographical Information System, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan;
[email protected] (J.I.);
[email protected] (A.A.) 2 Integrated Land and Water Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics, Technology Arts Sciences TH Köln, 50679 Köln, Germany;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +92-323-7295-289 Received: 12 April 2018; Accepted: 20 April 2018; Published: 24 April 2018 Abstract: Pakistan is currently facing physical and economic water scarcity issues that are further complicated by the rapid increase in its population and by climate change. Many studies have focused on the physical water scarcity using hydrological modeling and the measurement of the impact of climate change on water resources in the Upper Indus Basin (UIB). However, few studies have concentrated on the importance of the economic water scarcity, that is, the water management issue under the looming impacts of climate change and the population explosion of Pakistan. The purpose of this study is to develop a management strategy which helps to achieve water security and sustainability in the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) with the help of different socio-economic and climate change scenarios using WEAP (Water Evaluation and Planning) modeling. The streamflow data of five sub-basins (Gilgit, Hunza, Shigar, Shyok, and Astore) and the entire Upper Indus Basin (UIB) were calibrated (2006–2010) and validated (2011–2014) in the WEAP model.