by EDF Group, Thai and Lao Governments

by the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Laos), TheunHinboun Power Company, Statkraft Oslo, Electrcité du Laos, and GMS Lao Company Ltd.

Executive editor of the Guardian Jo Confino hosts the second of our Nexus debates about the technical and social challenges of achieving sustainability in water, energy and food consumption.

The second Guardian Nexus Debate, in association with SAB Miller, focuses on food and water in producing energy.

Background paper from the Second Mekong Forum on Water, Food and Energy: “Cooperation, not conflict, is the real story of hydropower development in the Mekong.”

Background paper from the Second Mekong Forum on Water, Food and Energy: “Polarized debates only further entrenched positions. It’s time for dialog on acceptable tradeoffs.”

Held at the Second Annual Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa Addis Ababa, 19-20 October 2012, by Gisela Prasad, Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town

The corporate world is waking to the realisation that improved water management is fundamental for future prosperity and human well-being. This special issue explores aspects of its response: from the application of an array of analytical tools such as water footprint accounting, risk filters and standards; water use efficiencies; derivatives and insurance mechanisms; to collaborative infrastructure and watershed projects; stakeholder engagement and attempts to influence water governance at all scales. Drawing on the papers in this issue the motivations for this new agenda are traced and its potential in helping to unlock some of our most intractable water challenges, or to open a Pandora’s box of controversies are considered. Key concerns include the potential for diverging corporate and public interests; policy and regulatory capture; privileging of economic over social perspectives; process inequities; displacement of existing water management priorities, and the risks of misguided interventions which undermine institutional and hydrological sustainability - with the financial support of Water Witness International, WWF, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and German Technical Cooperation (GIZ)

The AgWater Solutions Project, led by IWMI, explored how innovations in on-farm water management could help smallholder farmers. In Ghana, one of the countries targeted by the researchers, the use of motorized pumps and drip irrigation gives farmers new opportunities to grow valuable crops during the dry season. In this video farmers, scientists and policymakers explain how adopting these simple new technologies can change lives and boost incomes.

A major international conference was held by CEP-BCI in February 2012. The conference benchmarked GMS economic growth between 2001 and 2010 and its impact on environmental and social development as well as provided an outlook for the next decade. Topics discussed included known and emerging economic, environmental, and climate change challenges in the context of food, water and energy security, and participants charted out key strategic thrusts for the coming decade. More than 233 delegates, including senior government officials from the GMS countries, private sector representatives and development partners attended. The conference outcomes have provided important inputs to the GMS program in general, and CEP-BCI Phase II in particular. During the next decade, emphasis will need to be placed on the management of food, water and energy resources in the GMS, which requires a careful balance of economic and environmental interests and better management of natural resources.

by Holger Hoff (SEI): Overview, Initial Scenarios, Charles Iceland (WRI): Hydropower, Vulnerability to and Impacts on Water Scarcity, Jakob Granit (SEI/SIWI): Water Energy Nexus Opportunities, Guy Pegram (Pegasys): Water Food Nexus Opportunities, Abby Onencan (Nile Basin Discourse): The Role of Science, Nexus, Cooperation

by Stuart Orr, WWF International

by Janos J. Bogardi, Executive Officer of GWSP

Agriwaterpedia is an initiative to foster the provision of approaches and good practices, and to draw data from experiences and lessons learnt from a variety of development countries. The platform is also an instrument to trigger communication and actively promote knowledge exchange. Aggriwaterpedia is a major step towards closing this knowledge gap - a tool in discussing strategies and challenges related to agricultural water use on a global scale. Initiated by GIZ, the platform was launched during World Water Week 2012 on 28 August. Wiki Workspace focuses on climate change, agricultural water management, food security, with good practices and tool box.

The paper provides an overview of the current status of large scale artificial water storage development and its functions in the water, energy and food security nexus. The paper presents a typology of water storage structures and provides an analysis of the risks, benefits and trade-offs posed by different storage options. It also highlights good practices and lessons learned from past experiences and explores emerging opportunities for water storage schemes to enhance water, energy and food security in the future.

The twentieth anniversary of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, comes at a time when human-caused emissions have pushed our planet to the brink of a climate crisis. The effects of the global industrial economy brought planetary levels of carbon dioxide to a record high of 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2011, according to a 2012 International Energy Agency (IEA) report – only 1 Gt below the level that the IEA considers necessary to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 2°C. In response, many governments, banks, and corporations are increasingly looking to large hydropower dams to reduce fossil fuel use. Proponents claim that large hydropower dams will help usher in a “green economy.” Rather than achieving greater protection of the planet’s ecosystems from the demands of growing energy use, this policy direction will put an increasing burden on Earth’s freshwater species and habitats.

This paper aims at identifying and recommending best practices and policies from global business to address the water-energy nexus, while outlining potential drivers of innovation.

West African countries are planning to construct new large dams in order to meet their energy and water needs and to promote food security against an uncertain backdrop of climate change. If these new dams are to offer development opportunities for all and avoid social conflict over land and water management then lessons need to be learned from past projects.

by Dr. Jerome Delli Priscoli, Institute for Water Resources, US Army Corps of Engineers, Governor World Water Council, Editor in Chief Water Policy, held on the SAWEF Conference in South Africa

Presentation by Prof Susan Bolton PhD, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington (USA)

Message from the International Conference on Transboundary River Basin Management, Phuket, 1-3 May 2012

New report by South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) underlines the nexus between water, food and energy security

Nature is the unseen dimension of the nexus. With its functions integral to the three securities and their inter-dependence, nature is part of the infrastructure needed to manage the nexus and its resilience. Nature helps mediate the nexus links, by storing, moving, cleaning and buffering flows of water, making drought and flood less severe, and food and energy production more reliable. Without healthy ecosystems in well-functioning watersheds, the infrastructure built for irrigation, hydropower or municipal water supply does not function sustainably, and is unlikely to achieve the economic returns necessary to justify investments.

“At the heart of the dams debate are issues of equity, governance, justice and power – issues that underlie the many intractable problems faced by humanity.”

A collection of case studies on the NEXUS presented by CGIAR’s Challenge Programm, the EDF Groupe and the World Water Council on the WWF6

World’s top 10 rivers at risk – by

Dams – Blessing or curse? Over 48,000 large dams are in operation worldwide.

“The nexus is an important process which has been started at the Bonn conference and needs to be continued by committed people at all levels in order to effect change”. — by Nicole Kranz

The Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental, and Scientific Affairs (OES) at the U.S. Department of State (DOS) requests applications from non-profits, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, and public international organizations for grants to support the management of a new initiative on multi-purpose infrastructure. Deadline is 4 June 2012.

How Water Makes Green Economies a Moving Target

Why attempts to ensure water, food and energy security should focus on innovative bottom-up strategies rather than large multipurpose projects

International experts comment on the main topics of the Bonn2011 Nexus Conference

This workshop will discuss food security from a nexus perspective with particular emphasis on scientific analysis and evidence as well as generating tools and appropriate responses.

The 2-day conference in December 2012 will focus on how energy policy and governance are influenced by or influencing water and food sectors. The first day deals mainly with energy governance issues in Asia Pacific countries, but with papers pointing to the importance of Nexus internationally.

The Second Mekong Forum on Water, Food and Energy will continue this constructive dialogue on the relationship between the cost and benefits of water development.

Stanford experts from a range of disciplines will discuss the interconnections and interactions among humanity’s needs for and use of water, food, energy, and environment.

UCN and the International Water Association (IWA) launched the Nexus Dialogue on Water Infrastructure Solutions.The goal is to building partnerships for innovation in water, food, and energy security.

In short, predictions of a Water World War are overwrought. However, tensions over water usage can still exacerbate other existing regional conflicts. Climate change is expected to intensify droughts, floods, and other extreme weather conditions that jeopardize freshwater quantity and quality and therefore act as a threat-multiplier, making shaky regions shakier -by

Asia’s water crisis is at the heart of the world’s water challenges, where the degradation of surface and subterranean water resources threatens the ecosystem. With Asia facing the world’s lowest per capita access to fresh water, the continent’s ever-deeper search for water is sucking groundwater reserves dry with millions of pump-operated wells even as it confronts river depletion. Groundwater is recklessly exploited because it is not visible to the human eye. What is out of sight tends to be out of mind, as people drill ever deeper into the receding water table. At least seven factors have contributed to the rising economic and security risks linked with the Asian water crisis.

A summary of the Stockholm Water Week’s discussions on the NEXUS on 28 August 2012.

Imagine a world of spiralling food prices, water shortages and soaring energy costs. For many living in the world today, this nightmare scenario is already a reality. Even for the well-off living in developed economies, it is becoming all too familiar.

Hunderttausenden Menschen droht eine ökologische Katastrophe: Ein gigantischer äthiopischer Staudamm könnte dazu führen, dass der Turkana-See in Kenia noch weiter austrocknet. Die Region gilt jetzt schon als eine der gewalttätigsten Afrikas - die Konflikte würden sich weiter verschärfen.

In December the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental body made up of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, called again for approval of a potentially devastating dam at Xayaburi in northern Laos to be withheld until more is known about its effect on the lower Mekong. But now CH. Karnchang, a Thai construction giant contracted to build a $3.8 billion dam at Xayaburi has told the Bangkok Stock Exchange that dam construction officially began on March 15th, and that 5,000 workers have just been hired.

Competition for increasingly scarce water in the next decade will fuel instability in regions such as South Asia and the Middle East that are important to U.S. national security, according to a U.S. intelligence report.

“Clearly at the end of the day if you want to provide water, energy and food to a household, the nexus between them is evident.”

“The water-food-energy nexus is at the heart of any country.”

The Guardian takes a look at some of the world’s most contentious dam projects, from the Three Gorges in China to Brazil’s Belo Monte dam

Dams on tributaries worse for fish than those on the main river