Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2010) 368, 5323–5337 doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0143 The aesthetics of water and land: a promising concept for managing scarce water resources under climate change BY KATJA TIELBÖRGER 1, *, ALIZA FLEISCHER 2 ,LUCAS MENZEL 3 , JOHANNES METZ 1 AND MARCELO STERNBERG 4 1 Department of Plant Ecology, University of Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 3, 72076 Tübingen, Germany 2 Department of Agricultural Economics and Management, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, PO Box 12, Rehovot 76100, Israel 3 Department of Geography, Im Neuenheimer Feld 348, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany 4 Department of Plant Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel The eastern Mediterranean faces a severe water crisis: water supply decreases due to climate change, while demand increases due to rapid population growth. The GLOWA Jordan River project generates science-based management strategies for maximizing water productivity under global climate change. We use a novel definition of water productivity as the full range of services provided by landscapes per unit blue (surface) and green (in plants and soil) water. Our combined results from climatological, ecological, economic and hydrological studies suggest that, in Israel, certain landscapes provide high returns as ecosystem services for little input of additional blue water. Specifically, cultural services such as recreation may by far exceed that of food production. Interestingly, some highly valued landscapes (e.g. rangeland) appear resistant to climate change, making them an ideal candidate for adaptive land management. Vice versa, expanding irrigated agriculture is unlikely to be sustainable under global climate change. We advocate the inclusion of a large range of ecosystem services into integrated land and water resources management. The focus on cultural services and integration of irrigation demand will lead to entirely different but productive water and land allocation schemes that may be suitable for withstanding the problems caused by climate change. Keywords: blue–green water approach; ecosystem services; global change; integrated land and water resources management; Middle East; water productivity 1. Water and climate change Many semi-arid regions will suffer from the consequences of global climate change, not only because of warming but also owing to changes in annual precipitation. For example, the Mediterranean basin is one of the few regions where global *Author for correspondence (katja.tielboerger@uni-tuebingen.de). One contribution of 14 to a Discussion Meeting Issue ‘Water and society: past, present and future’. This journal is © 2010 The Royal Society 5323 Downloaded from https://royalsocietypublishing.org/ on 21 January 2022