Evaluating the Potential of Adopting a Water-Energy-Food Nexus Approach Toward Sustainable Development: A Case Study from Bangladesh
Abstract
In pursuance of continuous economic development, Bangladesh has undertaken a couple of long-term plans, namely Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 and Power System Master Plan 2016, to buttress its productivity in agriculture, energy, and industrial sectors, which are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In this study, the development endeavors of different ministries associated to water, energy and food of Bangladesh, projected for 2030 and 2041 was studied using Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus approach. Using the local resource usage characteristics of Bangladesh, a scenario-based assessment tool was developed following the 7 Question Guideline (7QG). It was found that either of the national priorities or global SDG indicators corresponding to food self-sufficiency, emission from energy and fresh water withdrawal, are hardly achievable with the limited internal water and land resources available. After carefully inspecting the trade-offs and synergies in water-energy-food cross-sectoral resource interactions, a set of scenarios, comprising of existing policy planning to alternative planning, has been developed for a comparative representation of highly connected to silo policy planning. Assessments from each scenario have been traced to national priorities and global SDG indicators to demonstrate which scenarios project more significant achievement of national goals. Unattainable scenarios were filtered following Socio-Technical-Economical-Political (STEP) 3 filter methodology. Feasible scenarios have been mapped back to the policies and connected ministries to point out the demanding coherency required for the implementation of such scenarios. Critical and potential interconnections among resource subsystems have been identified to point out the resource hotspots, stress, trade-offs, and synergies to explore future policy recommendations.
Subject
Global SDG IndicatorsPolicy Coherence
Seven Question Guideline
Social-Technical-Economical-Political analysis
Sustainable Development Goals
Synergies
Trade-offs
Water-Energy-Food Nexus
Citation
Karim, Mohammad Nahidul (2020). Evaluating the Potential of Adopting a Water-Energy-Food Nexus Approach Toward Sustainable Development: A Case Study from Bangladesh. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /192596.