Understanding and managing Sweden’s exposure to water resilience risks in the Anthropocene

The loss of freshwater resilience is increasingly widespread, and the drivers of and disruptions in freshwater-dependent systems are prone to interact, cascade, and amplify through the complex, globally hyper-connected networks of the Anthropocene.

Evidence suggests mounting risks of water-driven disruptions and collapses across ecosystems, production systems, land carbon sinks, and weather systems. Sweden is a highly connected country, whose reliance on global water resilience vastly exceeds its domestic water use. However, current state-of-the-art water footprint mappings do not address these interrelated and systemic risks.

In the proposed research, we aim to (1) assess Sweden’s exposure to global water resilience risks, (2) identify potential opportunities for Sweden to mitigate and adapt to such future risks, and (3) explore policy interdependence for securing water resilience nationally and internationally.

The focus of the proposed research will be on the risks and opportunities associated with Sweden’s trade network and its connection with non-linear or synchronous water-driven impacts on crop yields, ecosystem health, carbon sinks, and rainfall generation.

The proposed research takes a complex systems perspective on water resilience, and the results will contribute to the safeguarding of Sweden’s water security.