Research Article // Quantifying the Sustainability of Water Availability for the Water-Food-Energy-Ecosystem Nexus in the Niger River Basin
By Jie Yang and colleagues. Meeting the growing demands for fresh water, food, and energy while maintaining the sustainability of eco-systems is a pressing global challenge. This paper used the Niger River Basin in West Africa to apply a newly developed combined agent-based hydrological modeling framework for assessing the impacts of climate change and socioeconomic development on the sustainability of water availability in a water-food-energy-ecosystem nexus.
Abstract
Water, food, energy, and the ecosystems they depend on interact with each other in highly complex and interlinked ways. These interdependencies can be traced particularly well in the context of a river basin, which is delineated by hydrological boundaries. The interactions are shaped by humans interacting with nature, and as such, a river basin can be characterized as a complex, coupled socioecological system. The Niger River Basin in West Africa is such a system, where water infrastructure development to meet growing water, food, and energy demands may threaten a productive and vulnerable basin ecosystem. These dynamic interactions remain poorly understood. Trade-off analyses between different sectors and at different spatial scales are needed to support solution-oriented policy analysis, particularly in transboundary basins. This study assesses the impact of climate and human/anthropogenic changes on the water, energy, food, and ecosystem sectors and characterizes the resulting trade-offs through a set of generic metrics related to the sustainability of water availability. Results suggest that dam development can mitigate negative impacts from climate change on hydropower generation and also on ecosystem health to some extent.
Published
August 2018
By
Citation
Yang, J., Yang, Y. E., Khan, H. F., Xie, H., Ringler, C., Ogilvie, A., ... & Tharme, R. (2018). Quantifying the Sustainability of Water Availability for the Water‐Food‐Energy‐Ecosystem Nexus in the Niger River Basin. Earth's future, 6(9), 1292-1310.
Download
Download the article here.
Related Articles
- COP26 // Water, climate, and borders - The role of River Basin Cooperation for Climate Resilience
- Report // Baseline Study for the Basin of Lake Kivu and the Ruzizi River
- Publication // Assessing River Basin Development Given Water‐Energy‐Food‐Environment Interdependencies
- Rivers Basins // Water-Energy-Food Security Nexus in Large Asian River Basins
- Transboundary Basins // Reconciling resource uses in transboundary basins: assessment of the water-food-energy-ecosystems nexus in the Sava River Basin