H31K-05:
Security of water, energy, and food nexus in the Asia-Pacific region

Wednesday, 17 December 2014: 9:00 AM
Makoto Taniguchi1, Aiko Endo1, Masahiko Fujii2, Jun Shoji3, Kenshi Baba4, Jason J Gurdak5, Diana M Allen6, Fernando Pascual Siringan7 and Robert Delinom8, (1)RIHN Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan, (2)Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, (3)Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan, (4)Hosei University, Center for Regional Research, Tokyo, Japan, (5)San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, United States, (6)Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada, (7)Marine Science Institute, University of the Philippines, Metro Manila, Philippines, (8)Research Center for Geotechnology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Bandung, Indonesia
Abstract:
Water, energy, and food are the most important and fundamental resources for human beings and society. Demands for these resources are escalating rapidly because of increases in populations and changes in lifestyles. Therefore intensive demand for those resources makes conflicts between resources. Securities of water, energy, and food are treated separately, however they should be considered as one integrated matter, because water-energy-food are connected and it makes nexus and tradeoff. Security in terms of self-production, diversity of alternatives, and variability are evaluated for water, energy and food for thirty two countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The water and energy nexus includes water consumption for the cooling of power plant systems, water use for hydro power generation, and energy consumption for water allocation and pumping. The water and food nexus consists of water consumption for agriculture and aquaculture. The energy and food nexus includes energy consumption for food production and biomass for energy. Analyses of 11 countries within the Asia- Pacific region show that energy consumption for fish is the largest among foods in Japan, Philippines, and Peru, while energy consumption for cereals is the largest among foods in Canada, US, Indonesia, and others. Water consumption for different types of food and energy are also analyzed, including nexus ratio to total water consumption.

The water-energy-food nexus at a local level in the Asia Pacific region are examined by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature project “Human environmental security in Asia Pacific Ring of Fire”. Themes including geothermal power plants for energy development and hot springs as water, shale gas for energy development and water consumption/contamination, aquaculture for food and water contamination are used to evaluate the water-energy-food nexus in the Asia-Pacific region.