Review of water energy food nexus in Africa: Morocco and South Africa as case studies

Abstract

The population of the African continent is significantly increasing which has given rise to societal, economic and environmental changes. This will generate an increase in demand for food, water and energy. Thus, strategies for sustainable management of natural resources need to be adopted urgently in order to match the future needs and to ensure sustainable development on the continent. The Water Energy Food (WEF) nexus is one the avenues for studying the current and future interactions and interdependencies of the WEF sectors under different scenarios and challenges in the effort towards establishing sustainable use of natural resources. Policies around the nexus approach are few or absent at the continental and countrylevels. This paper is a first review on the adoption of the Nexus in two model African countries, Morocco and South Africa. The review compares the water, energy and food sectors and the related national policies, plans and frameworks. The data related to the WEF Nexus revealed key difficulties of availability in both countries. A comparative analysis of the situation in both countries demonstrated differences in policies relating to the WEF Nexus across the sectors: water, energy, and agriculture. Additionally, the paper explores the relevance of technology-assisted frameworks for the WEF nexus and also analyzed risks to agriculture and food security in the context of the reviewed countries.

The role of water and energy use in expanding the boundaries of irrigated agriculture in the Berrechid plain of Morocco

“…This came at the expense of energy efficiency, as observed in our study area and globally, among other communities of smallholder irrigators (Mateos et al, 2018). These policies aimed to increase the production of high‐value crops, mostly fruit and vegetables, and the development of the food processing sector (El Youssfi et al, 2020), thereby further increasing energy requirements: in 2012, the global food supply chains represented approximately 30% of the total energy demand, with inherent environmental costs and questions concerning the sustainability of this agricultural model (Ameur et al, 2017; Mukuve & Fenner, 2015).…”

“…Due to market‐oriented and profitable agricultural products, some large‐scale farmers located near the study area have progressively increased their own irrigated area up to 200 ha (Ouassissou, Kuper, Hammani & El Amrani, 2019). Second, there is increasing evidence of the mobility of capital‐owning farmers in North Africa, renting the land from local farmers to practise highly intensive agriculture through a variety of informal arrangements and contracts with local well owners (Ameur et al, 2017; El Youssfi et al, 2020; Ouassissou, Kuper, Dugué, et al, 2019). These capital‐intensive farmers have gained the upper hand in these arrangements, and while they constitute a small minority of farmers, they exploit a large part of the groundwater.…”

Understanding the Climate–Water–Energy–Food Nexus and the Transition Towards a Circular Economy: The Case of Morocco

“…This has received limited attention in the waterenergy-food nexus discourse so far but is an important factor that needs to be considered [1], and it's also important to mention that when there is an increase in agricultural productivity, the agricultural sector is supposed to become a more significant energy consumer. Going forward in this process, energy will be a fundamental input to ensure universal food security [6]. Food production further affects the water and energy sectors through the degradation of land, changes in overflow, disturbance of groundwater release, water quality, and accessibility of water and land for different purposes [7].…”

“…Most of the energy needs of the country is coming from oil and coal. Electricity is also imported with an increasing cadence during the last decade to satisfy the demand in peak periods [6].…”

“…The correlation between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and agricultural GDP(AGDP) is very high. AGDP contributed to 12,65 percent of the GDP in 2022 and employs 39 % of the Moroccan population [6,15] Figure 2. Water stress, undernourishment, and agriculture value in Morocco [16] However, the consumed volume of the mobilized water resources is 85% and it leads to a negative impact on the quality of water resources through the leaching of nitrates and pesticides into groundwater [6].…”