Integrated energy-water-land nexus planning to guide national policy: an example from Uruguay

Abstract

Despite broad consensus on the benefits of a nexus approach to multi-sector planning, actual implementation in government and other decision-making institutions is still rare. This study presents an approach to conducting integrated energy-water-land (EWL) planning, using Uruguay as an example. This stakeholder-driven study focuses on assessing the EWL nexus implications of actual planned policies aimed at strengthening three of Uruguay’s key exports (beef, soy, and rice), which account for more than 40% of total national export revenue. Five scenarios are analyzed in the study: a reference scenario, a climate impacts scenario, and three policy scenarios. The three policy scenarios include measures such as increasing the intensity of beef production while simultaneously decreasing emissions, increasing irrigated soybean production, and improving rice yields. This study supplements previous sector-specific planning efforts in Uruguay by conducting the first stakeholder-driven integrated multi-sector assessment of planned policies in Uruguay using a suite of integrated modeling tools. Key insights from the study are: as compared to a reference scenario, improving beef productivity could lead to cropland expansion (+30%) and significant indirect increases in water requirements (+20%); improving rice yields could lead to increases in total emissions (+3%), which may partially offset emissions reductions from other policies; expanding irrigated soy could have the least EWL impacts amongst the policies studied; and climate-driven changes could have significantly less impact on EWL systems as compared to human actions. The generalizable insights derived from this analysis are readily applicable to other countries facing similar multi-sector planning challenges. In particular, the study’s results reinforce the fact that policies often have multi-sector consequences, and thus policies can impact one another’s efficacy. Thus, policy design and implementation can benefit from coordination across sectors and decision-making institutions.

Nexus vs. Silo Investment Planning Under Uncertainty

“…However, across the sectors, cooperation is found beneficial for all countries. Khan et al (2020) find that improving the efficiency of beef production in Uruguay would lead to shift pasture land to crop land, significantly increasing water withdrawals. Sridharan et al (2020) find that a policy reducing the use of biomass in Uganda would lead to increase fossil fuel production, transferring a large part of the saved greenhouse gas emissions to the electric sector, increasing electricity prices and leading farmers to shift from irrigated to rainfed agriculture.…”

The Implications of Global Change for the Co‐Evolution of Argentina's Integrated Energy‐Water‐Land Systems

“…SSP2 is a middle‐of‐the‐road scenario in which the world's social, economic, and technological trends do not shift markedly from historical patterns. This study in Argentina is part of a broader set of case studies in the LAC region (e.g., Khan, Wild, Clarke, et al., 2020). Therefore, the Reference scenario also includes stakeholder‐defined Reference scenario improvements in Colombia and Uruguay (as described in Section S1).…”

“…such as socioeconomic change, climate change, and climate change policy. This stakeholder-led study is one of several such studies seeking to develop and apply EWL nexus planning principles in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, including in Uruguay (Khan et al, 2020a), Colombia, and Argentina. We formed a trans-disciplinary team in Argentina comprised of university scientists, regional development experts, and national government representatives to support Argentina's capacity as a testbed for evaluating integrated planning approaches.…”

“…Clearly, the future will pose myriad EWL planning challenges for the LAC region. Despite this, the predominance of integrated EWL studies have focused on Europe and North America (Endo et al., 2020), with limited coverage of LAC (e.g., da Silva et al., 2019; Khan, Wild, Clarke, et al., 2020). The LAC region has an opportunity to serve as a testbed for crafting novel national and sub‐national EWL planning approaches capable of informing this dialogue in other regions of the world.…”

Integrated energy-water-land nexus planning in the Colorado River Basin (Argentina)

“…In this sense, the basin represents an ideal testbed for crafting novel and generalizable sub-regional EWL planning approaches capable of informing the regional EWL planning dialogue globally. Studies in the LAC region also present an important and unique perspective; because, despite the complex EWL linkages that characterize the LAC region, most integrated EWL studies has focused on Europe and North America (Khan et al 2020b).…”