Revegetation of degraded ecosystems provides opportunities for carbon sequestration and bioenergy production. However, vegetation expansion in water-limited areas creates potentially conflicting demands for water between the ecosystem and humans. Current understanding of these competing demands is still limited. Here, we study the semi-arid Loess Plateau in China, where the ‘Grain to Green’ large-scale revegetation programme has been in operation since 1999.

Human activities are increasingly leading to overuse of surface water and nonrenewable groundwater, challenging the capacity of water resources to ensure food security and continuous growth of the economy. Adaptation policies targeting specifically water security can easily overlook its interaction with other sustainability metrics and unanticipated local responses to the larger-scale policy interventions.

Rampant deforestation, extensive damming of the rivers, huge diversions of water for industrial projects and even elite resorts can be seen across the state. All these underlie Maharashtra’s terrible water crisis. They won’t get washed away by the monsoon, even if media coverage of it dries up with the onset of the rains.

Water supply consumes a substantial amount of energy directly and indirectly. This study aims to provide an enhanced understanding of the influence of water stressors on the embodied energy of water supply (EEWS). To achieve this goal, the EEWS in 75 North Carolina counties was estimated through an economic input-output based hybrid life cycle assessment. Ten water stressor indicators related to population, economic development, climate, water source, and land use were obtained for the 75 counties.