The Nexus concept and policy coherence for a resource-efficient and

circular economy

Resource Nexus Policy & Cluster Brussels, November 27, 2018

Floor Brouwer

WUR-LEI

27/11/2018

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The Nexus concept in transdisciplinary research

• Sustainable Integrated Management FOR the Nexus of water-land-food-energy-climate for a resource-efficient Europe• Target at a resource-efficient Europe• Nexus-compliant practices at different scales

(regional, national, transboundary, European and global) regarding water-land-food-energy-climate

• Focus on the sustainable & integrated management of resources

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Achieving resource efficiency in Europe is a challenge

Resource efficiency requires knowledge about making use of synergies and mitigation of trade-offs across water, energy, food, climate and land. Implementation needs the active participation among government, the private sector, academia and civil society. The Nexus concept will support this.

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The solution in SIM4NEXUS

A Serious Game is developed to learn from modelling tools, using impact assessment approaches and expert knowledge. SIM4NEXUS develops the game through 12 cases across Europe. The case studies use transdisciplinary approaches, driven by stakeholder needs

What can be the role of biomass in

the Dutch transition to a low-carbon

economy by 2050?

Is it possible to enlarge energy self-supply, by widening the use of

renewable energy sources in Latvia ?

How to achieve both the transition to low-carbon

economy and the sustainable management of water resources

in the Rhine region ?

How the governance of energy, water and agriculture

effects sustainable food production, the provision of

water and wastewater services and the move to a

smart and flexible system for resource management ?

How can agricultural and environmental policies be

integrated to address pressures on land and

water whilst promoting their sustainable use and economic development?

How to reach a resilient system able to satisfy all demands

under climate change?

Does the goal of becoming a fossil-free nation interferes with some of the

national environmental objectives such as sustainable development of water

and forest resources ?

Does the landscape structure dominated by monoculture-like crop areas in some of the lower parts and its alterations by energy production

affect the water cycle in an unfavorable way?

What are the Nexus issues at

the global scale?

What are the impacts of a

transition to a low-carboneconomy in

Europe?

What are the implications of

Azerbaijan’s transition to a low-carbon economy on the different Nexus

domains ?

How national policies in water management, renewable power production and land, affect each

other and result in changes in food production, tourism, GHG emissions, quantity & quality of

water resources ?

Main question addressed by the 12 SIM4Nexus

case studies

12 Cases Studies

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Policy Linkages

• The Nexus touches on many different policy areas

Circular economy

Bio-based economy

Low-carbon economy

Social welfare

Resource efficiency

Access to clean water

International development

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Policy coherence is a quality of policies and policy making process: Conflicts between policy objectives and instruments are made explicit and solved, and synergies exploited within and across individual policy areas and spatial scales

What is policy coherence?

INTERACTIONS

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EU Water – Land – Energy – Food - Climate policies

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Selection of 33 EU WLEFC objectives

Criteria:

• Relevance of the objectives to the project and cases

• Potential of the objectives to have a high number of interactions

• Unambiguous and clear definition

• Also looked at policy instruments

EU WATER POLICY

W1 Achieve good water quality status

W2 Ensure sufficient supply of good quality surface water and groundwater for people’s needs, the economy and the environment

W3 Increase water efficiency

W4 Reduce water consumption

W5 Assess and manage flood risk and mitigate flood effects

W6 Address and mitigate water scarcity and drought

EU ENERGY POLICY

E1 Increase production of biofuel

E2 Increase consumption of biofuel

E3 Increase production of energy from biomass (excluding biofuel)

E4 Increase consumption of energy from biomass (excluding biofuel)

E5 Increase hydro-energy production

E6 Increase hydro-energy consumption

E7 Increase energy efficiency

E8 Reduce energy consumption

E9 Push forward important energy infrastructure projects (grid, network, interconnectors, etc.)

E10 Achieve energy supply security

EU LAND USE POLICY

L1 Restoring degraded soils to a level of functionality consistent with at least current and intended use

L2 Prevent soil degradation

L3 Maintain and enhance forest cover

L4 Prevent indirect land use change from nature to productive use

EU FOOD AND AGRICULTURE POLICY

F1 Contribute to farm incomes (if farmers respect rules on environment, land management, soil protection, water management, food safety, animal health and welfare - ‘cross-compliance’)

F2 Improve competitiveness of agricultural sector (including sector-specific support and international trade issues)

F3 Ensure provision of environmental public goods in the agriculture sector

F4 Support rural areas economy (employment, social fabric, local markets, diverse farming systems)

F5 Promote resource efficiency in the agriculture, food and forestry sectors

F6 Reduce and prevent food waste

F7 Reduce intake of animal protein in human diet (non-binding objective; expressed intention on a research phase)

EU CLIMATE POLICY

C1 Reduce GHGs emissions to keep global temperature increase within 2 degrees

C2 Increase efficiency of the transport system

C3 Support the development and uptake of low-carbon technology

C4 Support the development and uptake of safe CCS technology

C5 Incentivize more climate-friendly land use

C6 Promote adaptation in key vulnerable EU sectors and in MSs

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Coherence analysisTypology of bilateral interactions (Nilsson et al., 2016)

CancellingProgress in one objective makes it impossible to reach another objective and possibly leads to a deteriorating state of the second. A choice has to be made between the two

Counteracting The pursuit of one objective counteract another objective

Constraining The pursuit of one objective sets a condition or a constraint one the achievement of another objective

Consistent There is no significant interaction between two objectives

Enabling The pursuit of one objective enables the achievement of another objective

Reinforcing One objective directly creates conditions that lead to the achievement of another objective

Indivisible One objective is inextricably linked to the achievement of another objective

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Mostly coherence between water and land-energy-food-climate policies

• Water > Land – Energy- Food – Climate

• Land – Energy – Food - Climate > Water

• Important in what context and how objectives are reached.

Total Positive Negative Pos. or neg.

64 43 0 21

Total Positive Negative Pos. or neg.

87 65 10 12

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Emissions: Continental Europe

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Emissions by sector: Continental Europe

EU28 CO2 emissions (energy only) in the

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EU28 CO2 emissions (energy only) in the 2

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EU28 Power generation mix, 2-degree, TWh/y

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2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050

Nuclear Coal Gas Oil Bioenergy Hydro Wind Solar Other

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Global GHG tax on Agriculture consistent with 2 degree pathway: Continental Europe

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Global GHG tax on Agriculture consistent with 2 degree pathway: Continental Europe

CAPRI-WATER version

Focus on agricultural water: irrigation and livestock water use

Crop production activities in the supply module of CAPRI are differentiated into non-irrigable and irrigable activities

o Irrigable activities are split into a rainfed and irrigated variant

o Input-output coefficients for rainfed/irrigated variants are defined such as to match the corresponding aggregate activity

Constraints on irrigable land and agricultural water use are accounted for

CAPRI water

Analysing the climate-water-food nexus

Irrigation share by Member State under different scenarios(percentage of utilised agricultural area)

Source: https://doi.org/10.2791/319578

CC: RCP 8.5, no otherchange from the baseline.

CCLessW: RCP8.5, 30%decrease in irrigation wateravailability.

CCIrrEff: RCP 8.5, 30%decrease in irrigation wateravailability and annualirrigation efficiencyincrease of 0.1% in bothwater application andwater transport.

CAPRI water

Scenario W1: an

increase in water price

of 0.05 €/m3 of

irrigation water.

Scenario W2: water

price as in the scenario

W1 and 0.1% annual

increase in irrigation

efficiency for both

water application

efficiency and water

transport efficiency.

Analysing the water-food nexus

Irrigation water use at the subnational level within the EU under different scenarios (% change from baseline)

Source: https://doi.org/10.2791/319578

Impacts of water pricing

Profitability of irrigated crops will go down, because of an increase in production costs. Prices of agricultural products will increase because of higher production costs.

Irrigated area of cereals and oilseed will go down and rainfed area for crops will increase.

Increase in irrigation efficiency will mitigate the impact of water pricing, reducing the decline in irrigated area and total water use will reduce as well.

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Afforestation and food security

› Large-scaleafforestation forclimatemitigation

› Trade-offs withfood security and energy transition

› Climate-land-food-energy nexus

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Doelman et al., in review

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Visualisation and interaction tool

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Try out scenarios3 at regional level, 5 at national level, 2 transboundary, for local stakeholders

1 at European level for policy makers and educational purposes

1 at Global level for educational purposes

The virtual world is designed according to realistic metadata

Each player manages own objectivesand indicators, and can only take specific actions (applying policies)

according to the role assigned

GeoPlatform, gathering all

metadataSettings

Case studies

The game involves players, acting according to chosen roles

The Serious Game concept

Qualitative value of the components of

SIM4NEXUS

Serious Game

ConsultancyActivity

Non profit organisation

NEXUS Business Group

Market study to identify the

needs of clients

SIM4NEXUS exploitation analysis and strategy

Understand the components of

SIM4NEXUS

Bridge the gap betweenproject outputs and

potential clients

Potential clients

Maturity of the components to be put on the market without additional development at M48

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For further information please consultwww.sim4nexus.eu,

follow us at @SIM4NEXUS

Thanks for your attention!

Floor.brouwer@wur.nl