Developing the food, water, and energy nexus for food and energy scenarios with the World trade model

The food, energy, and water (FEW) nexus has gained increased attention, resulting in numerous studies on management approaches. Themes of resource use, and their subsequent scarcity and economic rents, which are within the application domain of the World Trade Model, are ripe for study, with the continuing development of forward- and backward-facing economic data. Scenarios of future food and energy demand, relating to supply chains, as well as direct and indirect resource uses, are modelled in this paper. While it is possible to generate a substantial number of economic and environmental scenarios, our focus is on the development of an overarching approach involving a range of scenarios. We intend to establish a benchmark of possibilities in the context of the debates surrounding the Paris Climate Agreement (COP21) and the Green New Deal. Our approach draws heavily from the existing literature on international agreements and targets, notably that of COP21, whose application we associate with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP). Relevant factor uses and scarcity rent increases are found and localized, e.g., on the optimal qualities of water, minerals, and land. A clear policy implication is that, in all scenarios, processes of energy transition, raw material use reduction, and recycling must be strengthened

Implementing integrated water resources management in the Ebro River Basin: From theory to facts

In this article, we analyze how successful the implementation of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in the Ebro river catchment (in Spain) has been. Our main aim is to show some gaps between theory and practice. This implies analyzing the political dimensions of governance and their change and reflecting on the interface between governance and technical knowledge about water. We highlight problems, such as the lack of institutional coordination, blind spots in technical information and path dependences. Actual water management has led to plans for further irrigation even though water availability is, and is expected to continue, shrinking due to climate change and other local factors. To overcome these mismatches, we propose further synchronization, innovative ways of public participation and knowledge sharing between institutions and researchers. As a showcase, we portray a practical real example of a desirable institutional arrangement in one sub-catchment

Testing the SDG targets on water and sanitation using the world trade model with a waste, wastewater, and recycling framework

In this article, we employ an extended world trade model and rectangular choice of technology (WTM/RCOT) framework, which minimizes global factor costs subject to satisfying final demand and respecting region-specific factor constraints, to calculate the economic costs of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for water and sanitation. We estimate how achieving these goals will affect factor use, trade balances, scarcity rents, and production in 19 regions of the world, drawing on an expanded database developed from the GTAP9 database, the developed model involves 64 technology columns and 74 rows of factors of production. On a theoretical level, this model contributes to the existing literature on the topic by using endogenous cost estimates that consider shifts in production and factor scarcity rents and by considering recycling and wastes within an input-output model, in which wastes can be modelled as input resources as well as waste outputs. We find that the additional factor costs of meeting the water and sanitation targets of the SDGs exceed US$100 billion annually, with a total cost of US$3.3 trillion from 2015 to 2030. These figures are similar to other recent works on the subject despite methodological differences. It also suggests that the worldwide SDG targets can be achieved with moderate costs relative to the total global GDP, especially in comparison to the high estimated cost of inaction. Predictably, in areas working toward water and sanitation SDGs (areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, regions in South Asia, etc.), factor use costs increase, but not commensurately with the growth of coverage some regions, such as areas of South America, notably have higher factor use costs along in proportion to the coverage. Indeed, Sub-Saharan Africa, which needs the highest increase in coverage, will not likely have as large increases in factor uses and would barely get scarcity rents. In general, regions with higher SDG targets will require further trade, especially additional imports of inputs such as chemicals and energy products. This trade will increase factor earnings in factor rich regions such as the European Union, Japan, and Korea. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.This work was started having support by US National Science Foundation CNH grant # 1115025 , “Impacts of Global Change Scenarios on Ecosystem Services from the World's Rivers

Nations’ water footprints and virtual water trade of wood products

Several studies addressed the water footprint (WF) of countries and virtual water (VW) trade in agricultural and industrial products, but freshwater use associated with wood products has received little attention. Yet, international trade in wood products has been growing, and forestry competes with other forest ecosystem services over limited freshwater resources. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to assess nations’ WFs of consumption of wood products, the sustainability of these WFs, and the VW flows associated with international trade in wood products. We account nations’ WFs of and VW trade in wood products with a Multi-regional Input-Output model (MRIO-forest) that tracks wood flows along global supply chains (production, processing, trade, and final uses) for the period 1997-2017 and assess the sustainability of the green and blue WF of wood products in 2017. The WF of wood production increased from 8.37 × 1011 m3/y in 1997 to 9.87 × 1011 m3/y in 2017. About 38% (3.76 × 1011 m3/y) of this WF relates to wood products for export (in 2017), which means that VW trade associated with wood products ranks in between agricultural and industrial products in absolute volumes. About 10% (9.9 × 1010 m³/y) of the green WF and 11% (3.4 × 109 m³/y) of the blue WF of wood products in 2017 are unsustainable, meaning that they are located in areas where the total green/blue WF exceeds the maximum sustainable green/blue WF. The unsustainable green WF occurs mainly in Germany, Indonesia, the Czech Republic and the UK, and mainly relates to coniferous sawnwood, paper and paperboard other than newsprint, fibreboard and non-coniferous sawnwood. The unsustainable blue WF, which is much smaller, occurs in the USA, Russia. Nigeria, Canada and India, and mainly relates to fuelwood, paper and paperboard other than newsprint, sawnwood and fibreboard. This study increases our understanding of how forest evaporation flows link to the final consumption of wood products and contributes to the wider debate on the allocation of freshwater resources in the global economy. © 2022BC3 authors thank the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the project Modeling and analysis of low carbon transitions (MALCON, RTI2018-099858-A-I00), and the Spanish State Research Agency through María de Maeztu Excellence Unit accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/) and Basque Government BERC 2022-2025 Programme. I. Cazcarro thanks the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (State Research Agency. 2019 Call for R+D+i) PID2019-106822RB-I0 “Multisectoral and multiregional models, innovation and dynamics, for economic, social and environmental sustainability. J.F. Schyns was supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Earth@lternatives project, grant agreement No 834716). This article has been also a parallel study to one developed on land footprints under Letter of Agreement between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, UN-REDD Programme) and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3). BC3 authors thank the staff of the FAO and BC3 for their comments, discussions and suggestions related to forest data and policy. We are especially grateful to Malgorzata Buszko-Briggs and Tina Vahanen (FAO Forestry Department) for their contribution to frame and coordinate the research, and to Salar Tayyib, Daniela Di Filippo, Tomasz Filipczuk (FAO Statistics Division) and Arvydas Lebedys (FAO Forestry Department) for providing datasets and for their discussions and comments on data and methodological issues

Restricting water withdrawals of the thermal power sector: An input-output analysis for the northeast of the United States

As water scarcity and pollution of sources become increasingly severe and widespread, competition over this resource intensifies. Unlike much of the rest of the world, thermal power plants in the US are the biggest users of water due to heavy reliance on once-through cooling technology. This cooling technology withdraws large amounts of water and discharges it back almost in its entirety but at higher temperatures. These water withdrawals are increasingly subjected to legislation intended to reduce the effects of thermal pollution. We utilize an interregional input-output model for quantifying the money costs and the shifts in the distribution of power production by state and by technology when withdrawals and discharges of fresh water are restricted. This model allows for the choice among alternative power generation technologies with different cost structures within each state. We analyze a Baseline scenario for 2010 and alternative scenarios that impose constraints on water withdrawals and inter-state power transmission. Based on an annual analysis, we conclude that this region can satisfy its electric power requirements while fully complying with legislated water restrictions at moderate cost by compensating the curtailment of output from some plants by otherwise unutilized capacities of other plants in the region. When we revisit the analysis using a monthly time step, however, sharp seasonal variations exhibit a strong impact on economic costs. In the summer months, intra-state transmission does not suffice, and regional demand cannot be met in the absence of substantial inter-state transmission. © 2018This study is based on work supported by U. S. National Science Foundation Award No. 1049181 , “A Regional Earth System Model of the Northeast Corridor: Analyzing 21st Century Climate and Environment.

Double concentration explaining the outstanding increase in Spanish crop production

Aim of study: To evaluate the changes in Spanish agricultural production since 1950s in a context of intense transformations in terms of the regional and crop composition. Area of study: Spanish provinces during the second half of the twentieth century. Material and methods: We use index decomposition analysis to evaluate the changes in the value and volume of crop production, as well as the role of product composition and the regional distribution of production. Main results: Spanish agriculture have focused on certain regions in the south or in the east of Spain. Some products like vegetables or fruits have a positive prices and composition effects, encouraging the production in these provinces. Research highlights: We found a ‘double concentration’: Spanish agriculture has increasingly tended to produce high value-added pro-ducts, such as vegetables, fruit and olive oil. On the other hand, crop production is concentrated in the southern and eastern provinces of Spain

Linking multisectoral economic models and consumption surveys for the European Union

Multisectoral models usually have a single representative household. However, more diversity of household types is needed to analyse the effects of multiple phenomena (i.e. ageing, gender inequality, distributional income impact, etc.). Household consumption surveys’ microdata is a rich data source for these types of analysis. However, feeding multisectoral models with this type of information is not simple and recent studies show how even slightly inaccurate procedures might result in significantly biased results. This paper presents the full procedure for feeding household consumption microdata into macroeconomic models and for the first time provides in a systematic way an estimation of the bridge matrices needed to link European Union Household Budget Surveys’ microdata with the most popular multi-regional input–output frameworks (e.g. Eurostat, WIOD, EORA, OECD)

Gender dimensions of the migration, sustainability and care nexus: The case study of the Mahanadi delta, India

Migration and environmental change are deeply interconnected processes, intimately linked to development pathways. The gender dimension of these complex interactions is often overlooked. Yet there are profound linkages and implications. This paper focuses on the gender division of labour to investigate how migration and environmental change relate to gender equality and sustainability. The study draws on research conducted in the Mahanadi delta, in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. In the Mahanadi delta labour migration is largely male dominated. Women remain behind in vulnerable environments facing social and economic challenges having impacts on their empowerment and wellbeing. The findings show shifts in work burden, as women often engage in new activities alongside the traditional domestic and social reproductive work but highlight differences across age and household headship. Firstly, this paper identifies the connections between gender, sustainability and care –conceptually and empirically. Secondly, it explores the gender division of labour in the study area by discussing its structural causes. Thirdly, it provides insights into migration dynamics and examines how they feed back into gender equality and sustainability. Finally, it argues for the need of integrated analytical approaches that reflect ecological and social-equity challenges. © 2021 The Author

The global economic costs of substituting dietary protein from fish with meat, grains and legumes, and dairy

This paper estimates the costs to replace fish by protein from meat, from grains and legumes, or from dairy products. We apply the World Trade Model, an input output model of the interactions among major world regions based on comparative advantage, to analyze alternative scenarios about protein content and sources in global diets. We find that the substitution of fish by meat or dairy entails several trillion U.S. dollars of additional costs annually, corresponding to increased use of pastureland, cropland, water, and other factors of production. The price of animal products increases steeply as higher-cost producers need to come online, yielding rents to owners of scarce resources. By contrast, the global economy adjusts at significantly lower costs to the substitution of fish by grains and legumes, but this dietary shift involves substantial modification in the mix of agricultural output and its geographic distribution. There have been few analytic studies able to associate costs and prices directly with specific combinations of dietary options. We provide a flexible economic framework for analyzing alternative scenarios about the present and future production of food. The focus on the provision of protein for the human diet, allowing for substitutions between land-based and aquatic sources, lays the groundwork for subsequent closer examinations of the potential future contribution of aquaculture and, in a yet broader framework, the impact of the coming generation of large dams on fish habitat and freshwater ecosystems more generally. (c) 2019 by Yale UniversityThis work was supported by U.S. National Science Foundation CNH grant #1115025, Impacts of Global Change Scenarios on Ecosystem Services from the World's River

A new accounting framework for assessing forest footprint of nations

n a tele-coupled and globalized World, understanding the links between demand for wood products and land use is becoming challenging. World's economies are increasingly open and interconnected, and international trade flows of wood products are continuously growing. The increasing resource consumption of humanity is increasingly dependent on international trade. In this context, the study of forest products demand from a global-multi-regional perspective emerges as a critical issue to achieve the goal of sustainable consumption and production. In this paper, we introduce a novel accounting framework for assessing the forest footprint of nations. The method combines Multi-regional Input-Output techniques and detailed data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on production, consumption and bilateral trade of primary, intermediate and final wood products, advancing with respect to existing approaches with these practical distinctions for more accurate computations. The approach tracks resource flows along the global supply chain and provides detailed information on the production, transformation, international trade, and final use of 20 forest products in 223 countries, having also much wider coverage than most previous studies. We test this framework to analyse forest footprint of nations in the year 2014, showing that 22 Million hectares (Mha) of forest were harvested for the extraction of roundwood for global demand, being 9.1 Mha to satisfy the foreign demand of wood products (42% of the total forestland harvested area). Harvested forestland is concentrated in America (32%), Asia (29%) and Europe (28%), representing Africa (7%) and Oceania (4%). More than 50% of the reported forest area harvested worldwide is located in USA (15%), China (14%); Russia (11%) and Canada (8%). In terms of forest footprint, Asia shows the highest share of the total forest footprint (44%), followed by America (25%), Europe (21%), Africa (7%) and Oceania (2%). Country-wise, half is concentrated in China (24%), USA (16%), India (5%), and Russia (5%).This article was developed under Letter of Agreement between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, UN-REDD Programme) and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3). The authors thank the staff of the FAO and BC3 for their comments, discussions and suggestions on this report. We are especially grateful to Malgorzata Buszko-Briggs, Tina Vahanen and Caroline Merle (FAO Forestry Department) for their contribution to frame and coordinate the research, and to Salar Tayyib, Daniela Di Filippo, Tomasz Filipczuk (FAO Statistics Division) and Arvydas Lebedys (FAO Forestry Department) for providing datasets and for their discussions and comments on data and methodological issues. The authors also thank the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, through the project MALCON, RTI 2018-099858-A-I00, the Spanish State Research Agency through María de Maeztu Excellence Unit accreditation 2018–2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, the Basque Government BERC 2018-2021 Programme, and the EU H2020 project LOCOMOTION GA no 821105