Norwegian researchers look at how bioeconomy transition will impact Nordic water resources

In Norway, in the future, the world may increasingly rely on renewable biomass resources for the provision of food, fodder, fiber and fuel. How this transition to a bioeconomy will affect Nordic water resources, is something BIOWATER, a Nordic Centre of Excellence, is currently looking into.

In a recent special issue of the human environment journal Ambio, BIOWATER’s researchers have explored how the answer may be found in plausible scenarios, long-term datasets, and modeling. They have also studied how societies will be affected by these changes and investigated various environmental mitigation options.

The full impacts of a bioeconomy on water resources and society is unknown, seeing as most of BIOWATER’s modeling of impacts in various future scenarios only started up this autumn. That being said, results so far, in combination with other investigations, indicate that a bioeconomy with heavy exploitation of natural resources can have severe and irreversible negative effects on nature and the ecosystem services that it provides.