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Abstract Despite broad consensus on the benefits of a nexus approach to multi-sector planning, actual implementation in government and other decision-making institutions is still rare. This study presents an approach to conducting integrated energy-water-land (EWL) planning, using Uruguay as an example. This stakeholder-driven study focuses on assessing the EWL nexus implications of actual planned policies aimed at strengthening three of Uruguay’s key exports (beef, soy, and rice), which account for more than 40% of total national export revenue. Five scenarios are analyzed in the study: a reference scenario, a climate impacts scenario, and three policy scenarios. The three policy scenarios include measures such as increasing the intensity of beef production while simultaneously decreasing emissions, increasing irrigated soybean production, and improving rice yields. This study supplements previous sector-specific planning efforts in Uruguay by conducting the first stakeholder-driven integrated multi-sector assessment of planned policies in Uruguay using a suite of integrated modeling tools. Key insights from the study are: as compared to a reference scenario, improving beef productivity could lead to cropland expansion (+30%) and significant indirect increases in water requirements (+20%); improving rice yields could lead to increases in total emissions (+3%), which may partially offset emissions reductions from other policies; expanding irrigated soy could have the least EWL impacts amongst the policies studied; and climate-driven changes could have significantly less impact on EWL systems as compared to human actions. The generalizable insights derived from this analysis are readily applicable to other countries facing similar multi-sector planning challenges. In particular, the study’s results reinforce the fact that policies often have multi-sector consequences, and thus policies can impact one another’s efficacy. Thus, policy design and implementation can benefit from coordination across sectors and decision-making institutions.
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The Implications of Global Change for the Co‐Evolution of Argentina's Integrated Energy‐Water‐Land Systems
Abstract This study seeks to understand how Argentina's energy, water, and land (EWL) systems will co‐evolve under a representative array of human and earth system influences, including socioeconomic change, climate change, and climate policy. To capture Argentina's sub‐national EWL dynamics in the context of global change, we couple the Global Change Analysis Model with a suite of consistent, gridded sectoral downscaling models to explore multiple stakeholder‐engaged scenarios. Across scenarios, Argentina has the economic opportunity to use its vast land resources to satisfy growing domestic and international demand for crops, such as oil (e.g., soy) and biomass. The human (rather than earth) system produces the most dominant changes in mid‐century EWL resource use. A Reference scenario characterized by modest socioeconomic growth projects a 40% increase in Argentina's agricultural production by 2050 (relative to 2020) by using 50,000 km2of additional cropland and 40% more water. A Climate Policy scenario designed to achieve net‐zero carbon emissions globally shortly after mid‐century projects that Argentina could use 100,000 km2of additional land (and 65% more water) to grow biomass and other crops. The burden of navigating these national opportunities and challenges could fall disproportionately on a subset of Argentina's river basins. The Colorado and Negro basins could experience moderate‐to‐severe water scarcity as they simultaneously navigate substantial irrigated crop demand growth and climate‐induced declines in natural water availability. Argentina serves as a generalizable testbed to demonstrate that multi‐scale EWL planning challenges can be identified and managed more effectively via integrated analysis of coupled human‐earth systems.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1855982
- PAR ID:
- 10449219
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earth's Future
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 2328-4277
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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