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Title: Integrated energy-water-land nexus planning to guide national policy: an example from Uruguay

Journal Article · · Environmental Research Letters
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [3];  [5];  [5];  [6];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [7]
  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), College Park, MD (United States). Joint Global Change Research Inst.
  2. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), College Park, MD (United States). Joint Global Change Research Inst.; Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC)
  3. National Secretary of the Environment, Water and Climate Change (Uruguay)
  4. National Planning Directorate, Planning and Budget Office (Uruguay)
  5. Univ. de la Republica, Montevideo (Uruguay)
  6. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC)
  7. Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington DC (United States)

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.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830; C0260-16; 1855982
OSTI ID:
1664389
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-150376
Journal Information:
Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 15, Issue 9; ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Figures / Tables (8)