The different political economies of water and energy should be recognized, as these affect the scope, speed and direction of change in each domain.
While energy generally carries great political clout, water most often does not. Partly as a result, there is a marked difference in the pace of change in the domains; a pace which is driven also by the evolution of markets and technologies.
Unless those responsible for water step up their own governance reform efforts, the pressures emanating from developments in the energy sphere will become increasingly restrictive and make the tasks facing water planners, and the objective of a secure water future, much more difficult to achieve.
Failures in water can lead directly to failures in energy and other sectors critical for development.
Sustainability of water resources is becoming a business risk for some energy managers. Multinationals and other large corporations are increasingly interested in their water footprints and how to minimize them.
In its 2013 Global Risks Report , the World Economic Forum ranks the ‘water supply crisis’ as the fourth crisis in likelihood and second in impact, a marked elevation from its rank in previous reports (WEF, 2013).
Climate change adaptation and mitigation
Climate change adaptation is primarily about water, as stated for example by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which identifies water as the fundamental link through which climate change will impact humans and the environment (IPCC, 2008).
In addition, water is critical for climate change mitigation, as many efforts to reduce carbon emissions such as carbon capture and storage rely on water availability for long-term success.
Providing sufficient energy for all while radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require a paramount shift towards fossil-free energy use, very high energy efficiency, and equity.
These goals may limit the availability of water resources for communities and ecosystems and result in a reduction of adaptive capacity for future change.
For example, bio-fuels need vast quantities of water to grow the bio-fuel crop and process it into bio-energy, while large hydro-power plants need to store vast quantities of water, especially during dry seasons, which could in certain instances hamper irrigated agriculture as an adaptation measure to combat climate-driven drought.
In this case adaptation and mitigation measures are competing for water. Another urgent mitigation challenge intimately linked to water is terrestrial carbon sequestration.
Water in vegetation, soils and wetlands is the lock that seals carbon reservoirs, for example in peat lands, and provides necessary water for sustaining or restoring carbon storage by forests.
Climate change mitigation requires effective adaptation to succeed. The water cycle is sensitive to climate change and water is vital to energy generation and carbon storage. Water can also serve as a bridge to support both adaptation and
mitigation.
For instance, reforestation can reduce or prevent destructive surface runoff and debris flows from intensifying precipitation events by stabilizing hill slopes and promoting recharge.
Strategic decisions should ideally acknowledge the turnover
periods of technical systems, such as approximately 40 years for energy systems, in order to recognize the risks for technical lock-in in systems that lack robustness in coping with changes in climatic conditions and demand (IEA, 2012a).
Major droughts and high temperatures can hinder the ability of the power sector to achieve sufficient cooling, leading to power outages. When the monsoon rains arrived late in 2012, leaving much of northern India in drought and extreme heat, farmers turned to electrical pumps to bring groundwater to the surface for irrigation. Electricity demand peaked at the same time that hydro-power reservoirs were at their lowest, resulting in numerous
blackouts.
The reverse scenario can also occur: a problem with a power grid far away might become a local power outage that inhibits water production and treatment.
Other examples of water and energy interconnections include policies supporting the development of bio-fuels that have had negative impacts on land, water and food prices.
Replacing fossil fuels with bio-fuels in transport will measurably reduce the carbon footprint, but will also enlarge the water footprint of transport
(UNEP,).
Desalination of salt water and pumping of freshwater supplies over large distances may help reduce freshwater scarcity in certain places, but will also increase energy use.
Conflicts over water between irrigation and hydro-power provide yet another example.
Interconnections, however, need not necessarily have negative repercussions. In France, for example, under the RT 2020 sustainable energy framework all buildings by 2020 will produce more energy than they consume, and they will also purify and recycle water naturally.
Such policies are driving the development of innovative technologies; for example, a system that filters waste water for use as grey water while at the same time harnessing the energy-generating potential of the algae present in the waste water.
An added benefit of this approach is that it reduces the volume of waste water returning to the treatment plant, ultimately resulting in energy savings.
Source: United Nations
Joshua Daniel Mosshart BIO
Cleantech Grants
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