Decarbonizing under water stress: an integrated assessment of Chile’s pathway to carbon neutrality by 2050

Journal article

Anthropogenic climate change is exacerbating water scarcity in Mediterranean climate regions, such as Central Chile, which already has a low annual precipitation rate, increasing the likelihood of a potentially permanent ‘mega-drought’. While carbon-neutrality policies often combine energy- and land-sector measures, their specific implications for water-energy-land (WEL) interactions in Chile remain insufficiently explored. This study presents the first national-level application of GCAM-Chile to assess how combined energy- and land-sector carbon-neutrality pathways may reshape sectoral water-demand patterns in an already water-stressed context. We examine one reference scenario and eight alternative carbon-neutrality pathways combining energy-sector decarbonization with different levels of land-sector mitigation (LM) while holding basin water supply static, so results reflect changes in water demand rather than future water availability. Findings indicate that renewable energy-enabled decarbonization substantially reduces electricity-sector water withdrawals by decoupling power generation from thermal cooling demand, offering direct water-demand co-benefits in a water-scarce context. Scenarios that assume the emergence of low-cost carbon capture and storage technologies, achieve smaller reductions in electricity water withdrawals due to the higher water demands associated with fossil generation equipped with these technologies. However, total water withdrawals remain dominated by agricultural irrigation, which continues to grow under all scenarios. LM reduces irrigation demand by constraining agricultural production, but introduces trade-offs with food production. The implications of these interactions could instigate a new policy landscape of WEL interactions in Chile’s near future, necessitating further attention to nexus implications of climate policies in water-scarce contexts.

Authors: Henze, J; Santos da Silva, SR; Feijoo, F; Flores, F; Miralles-Wilhelm, F

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Journal: Environmental Research Letters More from this journal
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 19
• Pages: 194026-194026
• Article number: 194026
• Publication date: 2026-09-25
• DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aeac70
• EISSN: 1748-9326
• ISSN: 1748-9326
• Language: English
• Keywords: renewable energy; water demand; energy-water-land nexus; water scarcity; central Chile; carbon capture and storage; thermal power plant cooling; decarbonization; climate policy; agricultural irrigation