This paper presents socio-economic scenarios for the Caribbean. While developed within the region, a novel technique was used to link them to global scenario narratives and models from the climate community: the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and the shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs). The regional scenarios are applied to the specific case of water demand in the Barbados tourism sector. The study found significant impacts on water demand arising from socio-economic factors.
This paper presents socio-economic scenarios for the Caribbean. Photo: Scott S. Bateman / Pixabay.
For this paper, the authors constructed four regional exploratory socio-economic scenarios that are partially consistent with global scenarios. In addition, national storylines for four island states were developed based on the regional scenarios. Using RCP 4.5, hotel water demand in Barbados is estimated under three of the regional scenarios based on compatibility. The results indicate there is a 17% difference between the highest and lowest estimated water demand, indicating the effect of varying socio-economic conditions on water demand.
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