UAE STATE OF ENERGY REPORT 2017
ENERGY - WATER NEXUS MODELLING APPROACH IN THE CONTEXT OF INTEGRATED POLICY MAKING IN THE UAE CREATING SUSTAINABLE POPULATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
ARTICLE
ARTICLE BY Saeed Kaddoura, Marouane Temimi, Sameh El Khatib, Masdar Institute
The relationships between water, energy, and food have been thoroughly studied and understood. Energy is needed to supply clean water. Also, water and energy are required for agriculture to provide food. We now also have a robust understanding of scientific fields that just a few years ago used to be considered novel, such as biofuels, which create a unique linkage between food and energy. However, these synergies are almost always associated with trade-offs. Growing crops for biofuel can jeopardize food security and increase water demand. Similarly, constructing a hydropower plant in one country could significantly impact the agricultural yield of other countries downstream, leading to political conflict. These are just a few examples within a complex network of interactions between water, energy, and food. Understanding these relationships is paramount to a nation’s successful development and growth. The synergies and trade-offs between water, energy and food are represented by what is commonly known as the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus, with possible other permutations of the three words, water, food, and energy. The term was originally coined by the World Economic Forum in 2011, identifying it as a global risk due to unsustainable resource pressures. Demand for water, energy, and food is expected to rise by 30-50% over the next two decades, due to economic and population growth, while an economic priority is placed on short-term responses in production and consumption as opposed to long-term sustainable options.
The Nexus Approach aims at providing decision-makers with better and more comprehensive information (...)
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