3.2 Impacts of changing trends in resource consumption Flashcards
What is the water-food-energy nexus?
-The complex and dynamic interrelationships between water, energy, and food resource systems.
-Understandingthese interrelationships is essential if natural resources are to be used and managed more sustainably.
What is water security?
When all people, at all times, have sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable-quality water for sustainable livelihoods, well being and development.
What is food security?
-When all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle.
-Based on this definition, four food security dimensions can be identified: food availability, economic & physical access to food, food utilization, and stability over time.
What is energy security?
When all people, at all times, enjoy uninterrupted availability of the energy they require to meet their needs, and at an affordable price.
Diagram showing the WFE nexus
What are the issues associated with WATER and how are these connected to food and energy?
-2017 sees 2 billion people worldwide in the middle-income groups demanding consumer goods with high energy footprints
-Much of the population growth and the middle-income growth will occur in countries that are already water-scarce
-Increased water insecurity will lead to widespread displacement and tension from the village to the global scale
-Researchers estimate that cereal harvests decreased by an average of 9% during droughts and heat waves between 1964 and 2007, with the worst effects seen in North America, Europe, and Australia
-Persistent drought leads to the major food security crisis in Somalia, 2017
What are the issues associated with FOOD and how are these connected to energy and water?
-Meat-rich diets require far more land and water than traditional diets
-Food production impacts water quality through agro-chemical runoff & salinization
-Pastoral and arable food production needs clean water. Water scarcity increases tensions and conflict.
-Natural resource conflict escalates the Darfur crisis.Increasing pressure on land and other natural resources in Darfur is adding fuel to the fire of ethnic tensions in the region
What are the issues associated with ENERGY and how are these connected to food and water?
-Biofuels production fuels land grabs and impacts food security
-Energy infrastructure such as rigs and dams displaces people and impacts food supplies
-Energy production impacts on water quality e.g. pollution of groundwater supplies and National Energy security is fundamental to the geopolitics of countries, including the US and UK.
-China’s huge dam construction on the Upper Mekong will threaten Southeast Asia as water scarcity build downstream
Describe the connections between water and energy, giving specific examples
If the water supply falls:
-Declining water availability might reduce the input of water into reservoirs in hydroelectric power generation schemes, so a country that is heavily dependent on hydro-power may be unable to generate as much electricity as previously and may be unable to meet demand. E.g. Spain Summer drought 2022.
-Need to safeguard supplies of safe water might lead to fracking being banned
-Falling availability of potable water may lead to an increased need for desalinization plants (with their heavy energy usage)
-Lack of water needed for steam generation or cooling in thermal/nuclear power plants. E.g. France summer 2022
Describe the connections between water and food, giving specific examples
Water needs increase:
-Reservoir/dams built in one country uses water that another country needs for agriculture e..g Grand Renaissance dam in Ethiopia and its potential impact on Egypt’s agriculture.
-One country’s water imports leave another country with less water, imports of water cost money – less to invest in agriculture
-Water used for tourism or industry means there is a decreasing supply of water to agricultural areas/farms.
Agricultural land flooded by reservoir/dam.
Place example of the FWE nexus: Tana Delta, Kenya
-5 dams currently only produce 44% of energy needs rather than 50%, due to deforestation & agriculture upstream affecting the hydrological cycle.
-There are also plans by the government to convert 20,000 hectares of land into sugar cane production for biofuels (ethanol to be exported to the UK).
-Impacts: Rivers are disappearing and subsistence farmers are struggling to farm + facing higher food prices.
-These issues are causing conflict between farmers and the government, which is prioritizing energy over the local livelihoods.
Place example of the FWE nexus: Mekong River, China
-Flows through 6 Asian countries.
-Vital source of water for energy, food & livelihoods.
-Contains 11 HEP and 120 tributary dams.
-These impact the volume of water arriving in Vietnam, causing salinization and affecting rice crop yields.
-Food security in Laos is also affected by the above water & energy demands on the Mekong. Laos is the least developed downstream nation with 65% living in rural areas, with many densely populated farming communities living by the Mekong.
-Solution: Focusing on the Mekong to create an energy pathway (HEP) (meets industrial needs & CC requirements to cut emissions), but this has had a huge impact on other countries that lie on the Mekong.
How is energy a geopolitical issue?
-A vital component of the economy & thus a geopolitical issue. Can be seen at the moment – European gas supplies are cut by Russia and the impacts on the cost of living and thus consumer spending power.
-In order to manage sustainable industrial output and domestic energy supply, there needs to be energy security.
-Domestic production of oil and gas, both fossil fuels, remains a national priority for resource-rich countries despite the known impacts they have on climate change.
-For the USA this has meant huge capital investments into shale gas fracking, which now accounts for about 30% of its energy mix and 94% of its natural gas use, providing it with energy independence.
How is energy a geopolitical issue in the Middle East?
Source regions, such as the Middle East are of huge geo-strategic importance to countries like the US and Russia, securing safe production and supply routes is, therefore, a priority.
How might global climate change impact water security?
-Sahel region – climate data suggest a long-term reduction in rainfall may be taking place. Rainfall was lower in recent decades than during decades of the 20th century.
-50mn poor & vulnerable people live there.
-There is little money & technology available for them to adapt to shrinking water supplies.
-Crops & livestock may die.
-Other areas at risk – the desert fringes of Australia, China & the USA.
