Bassel Daher

Water–energy–food (WEF) Nexus Tool 2.0: guiding integrative resource planning and decision-making

The paper introduces a framework and set of methodologies that define the linkages between the interconnected resources of water, energy and food, and enable explicit corresponding quantifications. The paper presents a new water–energy–food (WEF) Nexus modelling tool (WEF Nexus Tool 2.0) based on that framework which offers a common platform for scientists and policy-makers to evaluate scenarios and identify sustainable national resource allocation strategies. The tool is applied to a case study focusing on Qatar, a hyper-arid Gulf country.

Water-Energy-Food Nexus Framework for facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue

Water, energy and food are deeply interlinked resources. Food and energy production require over 90% of our global water resources. In this time of climate change and rapid population growth, water is increasingly the limiting factor for economic development and future security of both energy and food. Present policy making often lacks the necessary mechanisms to incorporate the interlinkages between water, energy and food. The different institutions governing resource allocation often do not communicate with one another, creating a lack of integrated planning, allocation and management of these key resources. Although the scientific community has made serious efforts to identify and quantify the interlinkages between resource systems, there continues to be a wide gap between science and policy making in effectively communicating those findings for proper incorporation in planning agendas. This science-to-policy gap could be reduced through improved exchange and the integration of scientific data and policy considerations into inclusive tools that address policy objectives and are technically viable from the perspective of sustainable resource utilization. Global debates have placed economic security, in which water, energy and food security are the main constituent pillars, on a par with physical security threats, such as terrorism and disease. Water, energy and food security are high on the agendas of global think tanks – identified as critical, interconnected risks that need to be addressed. The InterAction Council (Axworthy & Adeel, 2014) identified the water-energy-food nexus as one of the major risks facing our global community, alongside religious divides and nuclear proliferation. Moreover, Global Risk reports from 2007 through 2015 (World Economic Forum, 2015) highlight food crises, water scarcity and energy shocks among the top five risks to the modern world in terms of likelihood and impact. Awareness of the volume of present and expected challenges has grown in multiple circles, including academic, policy, business, and civil society. Nevertheless, the tools and mechanisms to ensure that these challenges are properly addressed have yet to be developed.

Economic, social, and environmental evaluation of energy development in the Eagle Ford shale play

This research investigates the relation between water, energy, and transportation systems, using the growing hydraulic fracturing activity in the Eagle Ford shale play region of southwest Texas in which the local water systems and road infrastructure were not designed for the frequent transport of water into the production site and of produced gas and oil from the site as are often required for hydraulic fracturing. The research: 1) quantifies the interconnections between water, energy, and transportation systems specific to the Eagle Ford shale region; 2) identifies and quantifies the economic, social, and environmental indicators to evaluate scenarios of oil and gas production; and 3) develops a framework for analysis of the economic, societal, and long term sustainability of the sectors and 4) an assessment tool (WET Tool) that estimates several economic indicators: oil and natural gas production, direct and indirect tax revenues, and average wages for each scenario facilitates the holistic assessment of oil and gas production scenarios and their associated trade-offs between them. Additionally, the Tool evaluates these social and environmental indices, (water demand, emissions, water tanker traffic, accidents, road deterioration, and expected average employment times). Scale of production is derived from the price of oil and gas; government revenues from production fluctuations in relation to rise and fall of the oil and gas market prices. While the economic benefits are straightforward, the social costs of shale development (water consumption, carbon emissions, and transportation/infrastructure factors), are difficult to quantify. The tool quantifies and assesses potential scenario outcomes, providing an aid to decision makers in the public and private sectors that allows increased understanding of the implications of each scenario for each sector by summarizing projected outcomes to allow evaluation of the scenarios and comparison of choices and facilitate the essential dialogue between these sectors.

Toward creating an environment of cooperation between water, energy, and food stakeholders in San Antonio

The San Antonio Region is home to a rapidly growing population with developing energy and agricultural sectors competing for water, land, and financial resources. Despite the tight interconnectedness between water, energy, and food challenges, little is known about the levels of communication and coordination among the various officials responsible for making the decisions that affect the management and planning of the three resource systems. It has been postulated that efficient communication is a prerequisite to developing resource allocation strategies that avoid potential unintended negative consequences that could result from inefficient allocation of natural resources and competing demands. Factors that may impact communication are identified and their potential roles are considered in improving existing levels of communication between San Antonios water officials and those at other energy, food, and water institutions in the San Antonio Region. A questionnaire designed to gather information on stakeholder concerns, frequency of communication, and participation in engagement forums was sent to public water officials in the Region. Using social network analysis and bivariate Ordinary Least Square regression analysis, the authors conclude that while modest levels of communication exist among water institutions, a very low level of communication exists between water institutions and those responsible for food and energy. It was further concluded that the frequency of communication among officials at different water institutions is higher among those that participated in stakeholder engagement activities. However, there is insufficient evidence to suggest that participation in stakeholder engagement activities improves communication frequency between water stakeholders and those in the food and energy sectors. There is also insufficient evidence to conclude that people at water institutions in San Antonio would have a higher frequency of communication with other water, energy, and food stakeholder in correlation with a higher level of concern about future water availability in the Region.

Water–energy–food nexus: a platform for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals

Tight interconnections exist between water, energy, and food systems. As stresses on these resource systems continue to increase, there is a growing need to better quantify and understand the trade...

Current Water for Food Situational Analysis in the Arab Region and Expected Changes Due to Dynamic Externalities

Uneven distribution of water, food, and energy (WEF) resources, together with demographic, geographic, political, and other natural constraints, burden WEF security plans in many regions of the world. Decision makers are under pressure to bridge the WEF supply-demand gap, and often propose reactive, rather than preventive, strategies that are associated with uncertainty, challenges of sustainability, and various socio-economic, environmental, cultural, and political drawbacks. Arab countries, like most regions of the world, face internal and external challenges to managing, sustaining, and securing these scarce, unevenly distributed natural resources. According to the World Bank (2007), current management plans for addressing the WEF security challenges faced by the Arab countries fail to take into account the complicated internal and external dynamics of the region. This chapter looks holistically at the region and provides a situational analysis of the major stresses on WEF securities by specific location; it describes how these are impacted by externalities such as climate change, population growth, and economic development. The chapter explores the uncertainties associated with predicting the future of these external stresses and identifies management risks associated with the lack of understanding of the soil-water and associated spatial variability. The chapter concludes with a vision for adaptive management approaches that address the external stresses on regional WEF security, and offer a vision for increased resilience of local communities. The paper concludes by discussing ways to expand the vision and adapt it to offer a more general, broader security by localizing water and food securities.

Lessons learned: Creating an interdisciplinary team and using a nexus approach to address a resource hotspot

Moving resource management and allocation away from sectoral silos to a paradigm founded in integration and leveraging cross-sectoral and trans-disciplinary synergies will result in expanded opportunities for economic development and improved social well-being (Mohtar, 2017; Mohtar and Daher, 2017). Interventions to address complex resource challenges must identify opportunities while cognizant of holistic, system level trade-offs (Daher and Mohtar, 2015; Daher et al., 2018a, b, c). These interventions must be contextualized locally: Texas has spatially varied water scarcity, energy resource abundance, and rapid population growth; in the northeastern United States water quality, drainage, and extreme weather events pose far greater challenges. While the overall system-of-systems quantification of water, energy, food and other interconnected systems remains similar across hotspots, the solutions to the challenges posed within each hotspot are bound by local knowledge, physical resource constraints, and governance challenges. This paper introduces the experience of the Texas A&M University Water-Energy-Food Nexus Initiative (WEFNI) in creating a University wide, three-year investigatory experience in which an interdisciplinary group addressed the resource challenges facing the San Antonio region. This Science of the Total Environment (STOTEN) Special Issue documents, in 9 distinct, yet complementary, research articles, the multiple dimensions of this resource hotspot. This paper reflects on the process of creating interdisciplinary teams and presents an overview of the questions and research conducted under thematic foci: data and modeling, trade-off analysis, water for food, water for energy, and governance. Lessons learned from the interdisciplinary experience are presented; potentially transferrable to addressing other resource hotspots within the US, and globally.