Anik Bhaduri

Sustainability in the water-energy-food nexus

Today we are more than ever convinced that security in food, energy and water is interwoven with human, economic and environmental sustainability, and that this interplay is strengthening under growing natural resource scarcity and climate change. This recognition suggests that policy making and decision making for sustainability could benefit from a holistic nexus approach that reduces trade-offs and builds synergies across sectors, and thus helps reduce costs and increase benefits for humans and nature, as compared to independent approaches to the management of water, energy and food, without compromising the resource basis on which humanity relies. In the past, research and policy work related to the nexus has looked at the interactions between water and food or water and energy, but given political and institutional realities there has been a reluctance to bring forward a broader systemic perspective to capture the dependencies across multiple sectors and resources. At the same time, the cost to the environment of neglecting these linkages has increased. The players in the nexus approach are public, private and civil society at local and broader human scales. Recognizing the urgent need to focus on sustainability in the water–energy–food nexus (WEF nexus) together with tools to analyze and approaches to govern the linkages at different scales, the Global Water System Project, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik, the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, and the CGIAR Research Program on Water Land and Ecosystems organized an international conference, Sustainability in the WaterEnergy-Food Nexus, in Bonn, Germany, in 2014. The conference addressed sustainability in the WEF nexus as a key research-for-action initiative, and included an international policy consultation process to inform, influence and catalyze action of policy makers, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, educators and researchers towards a nexus approach that both draws on and supports the environment. The conference brought together available information, identified knowledge and action gaps, shared lessons on viable instruments and approaches, facilitated networks, and contributed to consensus on priorities for appropriate investment and action by different actors and stakeholders for moving towards action on the WEF nexus. This special issue is an outcome of that conference, and contains significant pieces of work on the WEF nexus that were presented at the conference focusing on relevant tools, solutions and governance at different scales. Together, the articles in this special issue

Achieving Sustainable Development Goals from a Water Perspective

Efforts to meet human water needs only at local scales may cause negative environmental externality and stress on the water system at regional and global scales. Hence, assessing SDG targets requires a broad and in-depth knowledge of the global to local dynamics of water availability and use. Further, Interconnection and trade-offs between different SDG targets may lead to sub-optimal or even adverse outcome if the set of actions are not properly pre-designed considering such interlinkages. Thus scientific research and evidence have a role to play in facilitating the implementation of SDGs through assessments and policy engagement from global to local scales. The paper addresses some of these challenges related to implementation and monitoring the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals from a water perspective, based on the key findings of a conference organised in 2015 with the focus on three essential aspects of SDGs- indicators, interlinkages and implementation. The paper discusses that indicators should not be too simple but ultimately deliver sustainability measures. The paper finds that remote sensing and earth observation technologies can play a key role in supporting the monitoring of water targets. It also recognises that implementing SDGs is a societal process of development, and there is need to link how SDGs relate to public benefits and communicate this to the broader public.

How would the Rogun Dam affect water and energy scarcity in Central Asia

The construction of the Rogun Dam in the Amu Darya Basin to increase upstream energy generation creates potential trade-offs with existing downstream irrigation, due to the different timing of energy and irrigation water demands. The present analysis, based on a hydro-economic optimization model, shows that cooperative basin-wide maximization of benefits would lead to large increases in upstream hydropower production and only minor changes in downstream irrigation benefits. However, if upstream stations, including Rogun, are managed unilaterally to maximize energy production, hydropower benefits might more than double while irrigation benefits greatly decrease, thereby substantially reducing overall basin benefits.

Handbook on water security.

Water security has received increasing attention in the scientific and policy community in recent years. This Handbook covers the wide range of perspectives required to understand water security as a concept guiding water governance and management at different levels and in different regions. It reflects on past, present and future challenges to water security and strategies on how to overcome them. An invaluable resource for scientific scholars, it will also appeal policymakers and practitioners interested in a deeper understanding of this important concept.

Cooperation in Transboundary Water Sharing with Issue Linkage: Game-Theoretical Case Study in the Volta Basin

AbstractThis paper investigates issue linkage of water and energy in transboundary water sharing agreements and evaluates how such issue linkages can enhance the scope of cooperation between upstream and downstream countries. In a case study on transboundary water sharing between Burkina Faso and Ghana, the main upstream and downstream riparians in the Volta Basin, the paper evaluates both the scope and sustainability of such cooperation based on issue linkage. In the framework of a static Stackelberg game with numerical analysis, it is found that the interdependency of countries can lead to efficient and effective solutions regarding water sharing. In the cooperation phase, Ghana has the opportunity to increase its water consumption for agriculture, which is currently restricted, while Burkina Faso benefits from discounted hydropower as a compensation for restricting its water consumption. In such a case, the cooperation is mutually beneficial and stable. However, such interdependency may not be sustaina...

Political Altruism of Transboundary Water Sharing

Abstract In the paper, using a political altruism model, we make an attempt to explain why an upstream country might agree to a treaty that recognizes and enforces the water claims of a downstream country. In a natural extension of the standard economic model, it is possible to explain the above phenomena, by allowing for altruism between countries. The altruistic concerns of the countries are dependent on other countrys willingness to have a good political relationship. If both the countries maintain favorable political relations with one another, then the upstream country will care about the impacts of its water diversion on the downstream countrys welfare. The paper also illustrates the case of water sharing of the Ganges River between India and Bangladesh. The Ganges River, like many other rivers in the world, ignores political boundaries. In Bangladesh, the final downstream country along the Ganges, freshwater availability depends on the share of water diverted by the upstream country, India. For decades, India and Bangladesh failed to resolve the water-sharing issues of the Ganges River. However, in 1996, both India and Bangladesh signed a major new agreement on water sharing (Ganges River Treaty) in an effort to resolve the dispute. Using the political altruism model developed in the paper, we examine why despite needing more water than is available under the treaty, India has adapted to shortages instead of resorting to conflict with Bangladesh.

Water security: a popular but contested concept

The academic and political interest in the concept of water security has increased considerably over the past decade as reflected in numerous publications (Bakker, 2012), research and funding initiatives, and conferences. This growing interest may reflect the explosive rise in concern of scientific and policy communities about the state of freshwater resources and the urgent need for sustainable water and land management in an era of rapid change and persistent water and food challenges including access issues. Economic development, population increase, climate change, and other global to local drivers alter water resource availability and use, resulting in increased risk of extreme low and high flows, variously altered flow regimes, and water demands surpassing renewable supply. These have also affected the ability of waterdependent ecosystems to provide ecosystem services. Satisfying human demands is often achieved in the short term at the expense of the environment (Palmer et al., 2008; Vörösmarty et al., 2010) with harmful implications in the long run for socioecological systems as a whole. Many, but not all, water problems can be attributed to governance failures rather than the condition of the resource base itself. Governance failures occur at local through to global level, are manifold and affect both developing and industrialized countries albeit in different ways. They are also affected by drivers that operate simultaneously at multiple levels of governance (Gupta et al., 2013). In many developing countries, poor governance, including a lack of efficiency and effectiveness of existing resourceconstrained governance structures compounded by allegations of corruption and the absence of civil society, poses problems for any kind of development (PahlWostl et al., 2012; PahlWostl and Knieper, 2014). The developing countries face challenges of resource shortages regardless of economic, institutional or infrastructural characteristics. Some are even seen as failed states. Most of these countries have not met basic human needs, nor have they been able to meet health and educational requirements for their own societies. In contrast, many industrialized countries suffer from overregulation by rigid bureaucracies, sectoral fragmentation, unsustainable consumption patterns and a prevailing dominance of economic over environmental considerations. Some are increasingly facing the challenge of social inequality and live beyond their own environmental means – through importing resources from other parts of the world. Virtual water trade data shows how water moves from water stressed countries to countries with abundant water supplies (Orlowsky et al., 2014). To improve policy and scholarly capacity in dealing with such problems, demands are made for changes in both science and policy to overcome evident gaps that include more interdisciplinary and comparative studies, for an improved understanding of factors that shape water governance and cause governance failures, for the bridging of levels from

Scope and Sustainability of Cooperation in Transboundary Water Sharing of the Volta River

The paper explores the scope and sustainability of a self-enforcing cooperative agreement in the framework of a game theoretic model, where the upstream and downstream country, Burkina Faso and Ghana respectively in the Volta River Basin, bargain over the level of water abstraction in the upstream. In the model we consider the case where the downstream country, Ghana, offers a discounted price for energy export to the upstream country, Burkina Faso, to restrict its water abstraction rate in the upstream. The paper examines the benefits and sustainability of such self-enforcing cooperative arrangements between Ghana and Burkina Faso given stochastic uncertainty in the river flow. The findings of the paper suggest that at the present condition, the marginal benefit of Burkina Faso from increasing the water abstraction is much higher than that of Ghana’s marginal loss. However, the paper finds that if both countries’ water abstraction rates are at a much higher level, then the marginal loss of Ghana increases phenomenally from similar increase in water abstraction rate by Burkina Faso. Under such circumstances, there is an opportunity for Ghana to provide side payments in terms of discounted export price of power in order to motivate Burkina Faso to restrict water abstraction.

The Global Water System in the Anthropocene

Globally, fresh water is a limited resource, covering only about 0.8 % of the world’s surface area. With over 126,000 species living in its ecosystems, freshwater harbours a disproportionate share of the planet’s biodiversity; it is essential for life, and central to satisfying human development needs. However, as we enter the Anthropocene, multiple threats are affecting freshwater systems at a global scale. The combined challenges of an increasing need for water from a growing and wealthier human population, and the uncertainty of how to adapt to definite but unpredictable climate change, significantly add to this stress. It is imperative that landscape managers and policy-makers think carefully about strategic adaptive management of freshwater systems in order to both effectively conserve natural ecosystems, and the plants and animals that live within, and continue to supply human populations with the freshwater benefits they need. Maintaining freshwater biodiversity is necessary to ensure the functioning of J. Garcia-Moreno (&) Amphibian Survival Alliance, PO Box 20164, 1000 HD Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: jaime.garciamoreno@iucn.org J. Garcia-Moreno Het Haam 16, 6846 KW Arnhem, The Netherlands I. J. Harrison (&) Conservation International, Center for Environment and Peace, 2011 Crystal Drive, Suite 500, Arlington, VA 22202, USA e-mail: iharrison@conservation.org I. J. Harrison 6180 E Camden Rd, Flagstaff, AZ 86007, USA D. Dudgeon School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China V. Clausnitzer Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Gorlitz, PF 300154, 02806 Gorlitz, Germany A. Bhaduri et al. (eds.), The Global Water System in the Anthropocene, Springer Water, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-07548-8_17, Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 247

An analysis of groundwater irrigation expansion in India

This paper suggest that groundwater irrigation expansion in India is driven mainly by the population pressure and not necessarily dependent on the change in surface water irrigation. However, in the districts irrigated by Groundwater only, our findings indicate that the marginal effect of groundwater on Gross Irrigated Area (GIA) is lower than that in the district endowed with both surface and groundwater irrigation facilities. In a situation where groundwater irrigation is the dominant form of irrigation, any surface water irrigation project in future would thus facilitate better groundwater utilisation and help in increasing the land-use intensification.