Mainstreaming Water-Energy-Food-Nexus in Developing Countries

Mainstreaming Water-Energy-Food-Nexus in developing countries, From a sector perspective to a more integrated approach.

The Nexus is a conceptual framework that recognizes the interconnectedness of water food- and energy Securities and seeks to develop collective solutions that mitigate the tradeoffs and promote synergies among them. The nexus approach basically means integrating solutions and strategies while focusing on issues in the interlinks between the three resources!  

Nexus approach is needed to tap positive synergies and avoid negative externalities. Risks to food security through higher prices are greatest where bioenergy is based on food crops or uses land and water that would otherwise go into food production. Based on current technology, the rapid expansion of liquid biofuels is contributing significantly to rising food prices. This benefits rural farmers with a surplus to sell and may create jobs, but hurts urban consumers and the rural poor who must buy food.  

As shown below in the figure, According to UN report, Low income and middle countries tend to use most of the water towards meeting their basic needs such as food, whereas, the share of domestic and industrial consumption increases magnificently for high-income countries.

• By 2030, a 40% increase in energy demand in the United States using current energy cooling systems, translate into a large increase in freshwater access needs, up to 165%
• Replacing 5-6% of energy consumption with biofuels could double water withdrawals for agriculture
• 76% increase in water demand for energy and industry will be required across Asia by 2030 compared to today
• Over the next 20 years, farmers will need to increase global agricultural production by 70-100%.
• More than 25% of this increase in grain demand will actually be due to changes in consumer diets
• By 2030, nearly 55% of the world’s population may be increasingly dependent on food (i.e. water) imports
• An increase in cereal imports could save Asia up to 12% of its irrigation water consumption  

The many interlinkages of global:

With Increasing Demands for water, energy, and food:  

Policy integration of WEF nexus in pursuit of the sustainable development goals is a great challenge, which stems from the fact that it is not business as usual.

Water policies are often organized along functional silos with fragmented agenda setting with poor infrastructure for policy integration across the sectors. But it is too simple and risky to just replace vertical silos by horizontal ones. Effective institutional arrangements facilitating policy integration are still subject to considerable uncertainty due to differences in environments. 

The question now, what are the ways to improve resource values in order to achieve higher resource use efficiency in the WEF nexus.  

Resource-use efficiency cannot be captured (achieved) in isolation. New policies and tools are needed to induce resource use efficiency:

• Financing: Search new sources of financing
• Governance: Institutional changes, changes in legal frameworks à Decentralization, enabling legal framework through reform of water laws, property rights, separation of water and land rights
• Innovation: Stimulate innovation for efficient technology à Technological and most importantly institutional innovation for conserving water, and protecting ecosystem

To optimize the market and trade solutions:

• Value Resource: Implicit pricing has been considered to be a powerful tool to induce efficient use of resources in agriculture.
• Create incentives to increase farmers willingness to pay (WTP) for water  

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Taxonomy

• Sustainable Water Resource Management
• Water-Energy Nexus
• Energy-Water Nexus
• Water