The socio-economic impacts of climate change on water resources in South Africa

Abstract

Using a computable general equilibrium approach, this study investigates the economy-wide impact of reductions in water resources in South Africa due to climate change. The simulation results show a potentially general deterioration in household welfare. Poor households are the most vulnerable. Short-run policy simulations suggest that this vulnerability can be reduced through welfare policies that maintain food consumption levels for households in the two lowest income quintiles.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• water availability
• sectoral output
• value added
• household welfare

Notes

*This article was presented as a contributed paper at the 27th Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists in Beijing, China, 16–22 August 2009.