Urban FEW Nexus Model for the Otun River Watershed

Abstract

The food-energy-water (FEW) nexus has emerged as an alternative to improve the management of the resources used in the food, energy, and water systems. However, there are limited case studies in the Latin American and Caribbean region where a FEW nexus methodology has been implemented. This region will greatly benefit from a FEW nexus approach since more than half of the electricity comes from hydropower, and even though the region has excess in water resources, these resources are not equally distributed and they are poor managed. In this study, an urban FEW nexus framework was used in the Otun River Watershed (ORW) to evaluate the changes in food, energy, and water demand for four scenarios (base scenario, year 2017; scenario 1, year 2035-population growth; scenario 2, year 2035-population growth and reduction in locally produced food; scenario 3, year 2035-population growth and increase in electricity generated locally). Additionally, regional climate models (RCMs) were used to estimate the water availability in the ORW from 2030-2039. The results show that water demand could increase by 16% and energy demand will increase roughly 15% for scenario 2, while water demand in scenario 3 will likely remain unchanged in relation to the current conditions (base scenario). As the Latin America and Caribbean region is the most urbanized region in the world, the modeling tool developed as part of this study may be implemented in other urban watersheds in the Andean Region.