Water Policy Vol 10 No S1 pp 23–36 © IWA Publishing 2008 doi:10.2166/wp.2008.050
Water–food–energy–environment synergies and tradeoffs: major issues and case studies
Peter G. McCornicka, Seleshi B. Awulachewb and Michael Abebec
aInternational Water Management Institute, P.O. Box 2075, Colombo, Sri Lanka. *Corresponding author. E-mail: p.mccornick@cgiar.org
bInternational Water Management Institute, PO Box 5689, East Africa Office, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
cMinistry of Water Resources, Government of Ethiopia, PO Box 17598, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
ABSTRACT
The already complex interrelationships between water, food, energy and the environment are facing both challenges and opportunities. Rising fuel costs and increasing concerns over the effects of climate change are reinvigorating policymakers’ interest in renewable energy sources such as hydropower and bio-energy—both from biofuels as well as biomass. Development of any of these sources has the potential to generate positive economic and environmental benefits, yet, at the same time, they can cause negative food and equity impacts. This obviously entails major tradeoffs between the food, energy and environmental goals of water and energy development, allocation and management. Using both a brief global overview as well as a closer review of four case studies from India, Ethiopia, Jordon and the USA, this paper tries to (i) a present the nature of the tradeoffs under different hydrological, energy, agricultural and environmental contexts and (ii) provide some anecdotal evidence and illustrative cases for the available policy options for minimizing conflicts but maximizing synergies between water, energy, food and environment.
Keywords: Biofuels; Energy; Environment; Ethiopia; Food; Hydropower; India; Jordan; Policy tradeoffs; USA
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