The water-energy-food nexus at the 7th World Water...

At the 7th World Water Forum earlier this year the Nexus Dialogue on Water Infrastructure Solutions continued to support the sharing of knowledge and experiences around understanding and managing the inter-linkages between water, energy and food in order to meet future needs.

In South Korea, there is an old saying called ‘Body Soil Fuji’, which literally means that the body and land are not two different things. Koreans believe that they can get health by eating food grown on their own land and use this phrase to express their support for agricultural production in their country.

From a certain perspective, ‘Body Soil Fuji’ reflects the pursuit of harmony between nature and prosperity. However,achieving this kind of harmony is not an easy thing. By 2050, the world population is predicted to grow from seven billion in 2010 to 9.1 billion, and the world economy is predicted to grow at an average of over 3% per annum in the period 2015- 2050; doubling in size by 2037 and nearly tripling by 2050. A growing population and expanding global economy means that we are likely to experience greater competition for key resources, including water, energy and food, as well as increasing pressure on the environment. By 2050, water, energy and food demands are projected to increase by 55%, 80% and 70% respectively over current levels.

Within governance institutions at regional and national levels, the issues in the water, energy and food sectors are treated in isolation. However, the ‘nexus’ recognises the complex inter-linkages between water, energy and food security, and through this recognition can help to identify sustainable solutions to challenges across the different sectors. By encouraging cross-sectoral cooperation and enhancing communication and data sharing,the nexus approach can help to find ways to provide accessible, affordable and acceptable water, energy and food for all, and therefore make contributions to sustainable economic development, poverty reduction, and social well-being.

Putting ideas into practice

Water is at the core of the nexus. Under the theme of ‘Water for Our Future,’the 7th World Water Forum took place this year in Daegu and Gyeongbuk in South Korea on 12-17 April. The Forum takes place every three years and aims to mobilise creativity, innovation, and know-how around water. The focus for 2015 was on the implementation of solutions identified at previous events. Enough talk– time to act.

The Nexus Dialogue on Water Infrastructure Solutions organised and participated in a number of sessions, side events and roundtables at the Forum. These sessions brought together stakeholders from public, private and civil society sectors to explore the possible solutions and to share knowledge and experiences in order to more effectively cope with the nexus challenges we face.

Over the last five years the nexus has become a feature in decision making. However, we still face questions such as how to connect the water, energy and food sectors at different levels of governance so they can more actively collaborate. Many of the agencies of the member countries that the Asian Development Bank is working in are complicated and setup separately. In an integrated project in India that involves the urban, water,energy and land sectors, the ADB had to work across two Ministries and five departments.

Despite the risk and awkward nature ofworking in complexity among multiple institutions, there is a greater risk of ignoring the impacts on and from other sectors.

It was not surprising that the nexus concept was one of the critical issues discussed during the Ministerial Roundtables on the opening day of the 7th World Water Forum. Discussions emphasised that to better coordinate the planning, management, development and conservation of environmental resources and services, dialogue between all stakeholders is needed to prioritise more equitable responses that are viable across different resource users. This requires transparency and meaningful participation from all actors. Enabling collaboration across sectors and between countries while implementing a nexus approach is challenging. Gathering consistent data, analysing it and sharing the results will improve collaboration and enable realistic and appropriate implementation mechanisms to be found. To do so effectively, there is a need to enhance how data is collected, analysed and agreed upon across sectors.

To achieve these goals requires a strong enabling environment. The appropriate political processes, legal frameworks and enabling policies will further the implementation of integrated and holistic solutions to water issues. Some areas of active engagement at the ministerial level are within the European Commission, which is establishing different policy frameworks to help investors have a better idea of rules, benefits and risks in investments and to stimulate collaboration between sectors. More political dialogues around the nexus will help bring different ministries and sectors together to find solutions to concrete problems.

The elements reflected on during the ministerial roundtable were further discussed during the various thematic sessions and side events. The key questions asked included: how can we get actions t o scale? What information is needed for investments? What are the incentives for such investments that secure resources across sectors?

Understanding trade-offs

When considering scale, transboundary basins and aquifers add another level of complexity to determining trade-offs across sectors. Water, energy, food and environmental services are common priorities for the well-being and economic development of each nation. Yet, each country needs water for different nexus dimensions (e.g. for hydropower, irrigation,industry, etc.).

It is often not economically viable or physically possible to attain sovereign resource independence. Consequently, cooperation with neighbouring countries is imperative in many situations, including cooperation on regulation of water flows to mitigate impacts from floods and droughts.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has undertaken various assessments in transboundary basins, which included complex economic modelling and mapping as well as institutional mapping. Such assessments are important because they help identify the areas for coordination of plans and policies between countries and identify the benefits of the countries to invest in the basin as a whole. Some of the findings from the assessments included the need for improved infrastructure for water and wastewater management, as well as improved flood management to reduce pressureon ecosystems. The important message here is that the implementation of projects should not be in isolation, but that consideration of the impacts at a wider scale must be understood and mitigated.

To support ‘good’ investments that maximise benefits and reduce trade-offs across sectors, the evidence base is significant to communicate and demonstrate interlinkages. Identifying and quantifying nexus synergies and trade-offs is key: for example what exactly will hydropower development mean for downstream communities who rely on river water to catchfish or to irrigate crops? Is there a way to ensure that smallholders or landless farmers are not disproportionately affected by dam construction?

As a starting point for providing such evidence, the Global Electricity Initiative undertook a survey of its electricity utilities and asked what the main concerns are leading up to 2030. The main issues were identified as being water and land. Land is important for the energy sector because space is needed for the production of renewable energy, which can have a large footprint, and water for hydropower and thermal electric power production.Problems in thermal plant cooling can materialise when there are changes in river temperature, which reduces production and cost efficiency – thus changes in climate need to be considered in future planning for power plants.

Cross-sector co-operation

Local partnerships also play a key role in delivering good investment outcomes. Bottom-up incentives emerge when nexus projects take into account the needs and interests of local communities, respect local knowledge and closely collaborate with local stakeholders to solve concrete issues. The American beer brewer Miller Coors, together with TNC, developed a strategic partnership with local growers and utility companies in Silver Creek Valley, Idaho to reduce the water and energy intensity of beer production. By setting up process baselines, the energy and water nexus was accurately applied to barley farming. A resource conservation fund was established to encourage farmers interested in retrofitting irrigation systems to explore ways of improving water and energy efficiency. As a result, the overall water flow was reduced from 1200 gallons (4560 litres) per minute per pivot to 700-800 gallons (2600-3040 litres) per minute per pivot and the energy costs were reduced by more than 50%; from $50 per acre to $21 per acre. A nexus approach to investment can contribute to long term benefits and the key to success is to highlight good partnership and capacity building at the local level, by providing education, training and raising awareness to strengthen the dialogue between investors and their long-standing partners, while incorporating additional stakeholders such as governments in order to scale-up projects.

To improve cross-sectoral collaboration, actors from different sectors need incentives to work together for mutual benefits. It's necessary for policy makers to take into account the diversified demands and characteristics of different industries, practices and regions, while also ensuring environmental and social resilience. At the same time, in order to attract financing for environmental and social resilience, projects need to be bankable and have a strong economic argument. A report developed by IWA, IUCN,the Global Canopy Programme, GIZ, and CDKN ‘The Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Latin America and the Caribbean Region’ noted there is a big infrastructure gap withinthe water, energy, and transport sectors due to low levels of investment. Infrastructure is critical to enable countries to continue to harness the region’s abundant resources and to deliver water, energy and food to its citizens. However, ultimately quantifying economic, social and importantly environmental trade-offs of different policy responses will provide the evidence base and incentives for decision makers.

Furthermore, investments need to be considered not just from a water viewpoint, they need to incorporate the energy and/or food perspective in order to arrive at appropriate decisions that not only improve the way we use our resources, but also provide incentives for mutual benefits across sectors. For water and wastewater utilities cost savings are a strong incentive to take action. Implementing technologies and processes which can improve energy efficiency during water abstraction, as well as reducing water loss during distribution can result in significant energy savings and reduced energy costs for utilities, freeing financial resources to invest in other areas.

The core of the nexus approach is to help stakeholders identify and understand risks to the security of food, energy,environment and water, engage decision makers on developing and implementing scalable actions that can result in sustainable long-term outcomes. The discussion around the nexus at the Forum identified the support needed to implement such actions.

First, partnerships across scales are essential as they create better outputs. However, the costs may be greater in order to facilitate effective cooperation and develop joint projects and budgeting must reflect this.

Secondly, establishing collaboration platforms between sectors requires guidance – across scales and sectors. For example, policy and funding institutions such as the OECD, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the Global Environment Facility can help work with governments to steer resources to incentivise great cross-sectoral collaboration and investments.

Thirdly, research and policy relevant discussions need to be closer engagements. There is a need for common data platforms,agreements, and public-private- civil society coordination.

The Nexus Dialogue and other nexus initiatives will continue to make efforts to build cross-sectoral partnerships and allow opportunities to be identified, synergies to emerge and trade-offs to be negotiated.

About the authors

Katharine Cross, Programme Manager at IWA.

Dan Wang, Project Officer at IWA.

James Dalton, Coordinator,Global Initiatives,Water Programme at IUCN.

本文摘译自国际水协会会员杂志《Water 21》

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