Enhancement of water and environmental carrying capacity in a changing climate: a coupled assessment of ecological footprint, biocapacity, and water stress
- 1Faculty of Civil Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
- 2Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering (SEED), KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract
Assessing water and environmental carrying capacity (WECC) requires a holistic approach that integrates ecological and hydrological aspects. This study introduces a novel integrated framework that couples projections of ecological footprint (EF), biological capacity (BC), and the water stress index (WSI) to evaluate WECC under climate change scenarios. The framework is applied to the Zarrinehrud Basin, the primary inflow source for Lake Urmia—one of the world's largest saltwater lakes—to support ecosystem preservation and sustainable development. Detailed time series analyses of BC and EF across multiple land uses reveal that carbon emissions constitute over 70% of the region's total EF. Using downscaled climate projections from five general circulation models (GCMs) and three shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), future carbon trends are forecasted, showing a potential increase of 6.43–6.52 million tons by 2040. This amplifies the existing per capita ecological deficit of 1.49 global hectares. To mitigate this impact, the study designs 15 targeted carbon-reduction packages spanning energy, transport, industry, and household sectors. Concurrently, WSI analysis identifies critical water stress threatening Lake Urmia's ecosystem, prompting the development of seven additional water-use optimization packages to improve WECC. The coupling of these mitigation strategies within the integrated framework identifies the most effective combination—packages P4, P5, P8, P11–P14, P17, P20, and P21—improves the ecological stress index from 2.52 to 0.9 and reduces the WSI from 0.7 to 0.43 by 2040 under the most probable climate change scenario. This intervention successfully transitions the basin from a “critically overloaded” state to “moderate capacity,” demonstrating that integrated water and environmental management can restore regional sustainability even under climate change pressures. This combined approach offers a powerful tool for restoring ecological balance and provides a decision-support system that can be adapted for other basins facing comparable sustainability challenges, thereby enhancing WECC evaluation and policy development.
Related
- Ecological footprint dimensions and mental health: asymmetric evidence across environmental pressures
- Carbon footprint of biomass-derived activated carbon: life cycle assessment, environmental sustainability, and carbon-negative potential.
- Environmental footprint of High-Throughput Screening technologies for enzyme discovery and engineering: a Life Cycle Assessment comparison
- High average and linear scaling of Ecological Footprint in cities
- Analysis of Carbon Footprint and Water Footprint in Laundry MSMEs Business Using Life Cycle Assessment
BibTeX
@article{dastranj2026enhancement,
title = {{Enhancement of water and environmental carrying capacity in a changing climate: a coupled assessment of ecological footprint, biocapacity, and water stress}},
author = {Elaheh Dastranj and Najmeh Mahjouri and Massoud Behboudian},
journal = {Ecological Indicators},
year = {2026},
month = may,
doi = {10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.114956},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.114956},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Enhancement of water and environmental carrying capacity in a changing climate: a coupled assessment of ecological footprint, biocapacity, and water stress
AU - Elaheh Dastranj
AU - Najmeh Mahjouri
AU - Massoud Behboudian
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/19
JO - Ecological Indicators
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.114956
UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.114956
AB - Assessing water and environmental carrying capacity (WECC) requires a holistic approach that integrates ecological and hydrological aspects. This study introduces a novel integrated framework that couples projections of ecological footprint (EF), biological capacity (BC), and the water stress index (WSI) to evaluate WECC under climate change scenarios. The framework is applied to the Zarrinehrud Basin, the primary inflow source for Lake Urmia—one of the world's largest saltwater lakes—to support ecosystem preservation and sustainable development. Detailed time series analyses of BC and EF across multiple land uses reveal that carbon emissions constitute over 70% of the region's total EF. Using downscaled climate projections from five general circulation models (GCMs) and three shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), future carbon trends are forecasted, showing a potential increase of 6.43–6.52 million tons by 2040. This amplifies the existing per capita ecological deficit of 1.49 global hectares. To mitigate this impact, the study designs 15 targeted carbon-reduction packages spanning energy, transport, industry, and household sectors. Concurrently, WSI analysis identifies critical water stress threatening Lake Urmia's ecosystem, prompting the development of seven additional water-use optimization packages to improve WECC. The coupling of these mitigation strategies within the integrated framework identifies the most effective combination—packages P4, P5, P8, P11–P14, P17, P20, and P21—improves the ecological stress index from 2.52 to 0.9 and reduces the WSI from 0.7 to 0.43 by 2040 under the most probable climate change scenario. This intervention successfully transitions the basin from a “critically overloaded” state to “moderate capacity,” demonstrating that integrated water and environmental management can restore regional sustainability even under climate change pressures. This combined approach offers a powerful tool for restoring ecological balance and provides a decision-support system that can be adapted for other basins facing comparable sustainability challenges, thereby enhancing WECC evaluation and policy development.
SN - 1470-160X
SN - 1872-7034
ER -