An Integrated Overview of the Water, Energy, Food Nexus in Central and South Asia

Abstract

This chapter provides a description of the nexus between water, energy, and food security in the Central and South Asian region, including a description of the commonalities and differences. This description serves as the rationale for the regional footprint used in this book and the interactions between the countries including in the region. It provides an overview of the geopolitical considerations that make the region strategically important to the world. The following dynamic drivers of large-scale and strategic changes in the region are briefly discussed: geopolitical forces and events, trends related to urbanization, impacts of the global climate change, and emerging factors such as the COVID-19 global pandemic. A brief summary of the regional challenges and opportunities is provided, which serves as an introduction to the four sections of this book and various chapters: developmental and economic challenges; threats to water, energy, and food security; and political volatility. Finally, this chapter provides a section-by-section overview of the book as a whole.

1 Introduction

1.1 Defining the Central and South Asian Region

In typical organizational and geographical distribution, Central Asia and South Asia are organized distinctly and the geographical footprint varies depending on the context. In the United Nations system, this region falls under the geographical coverage of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). In the context of this book, this region is described as including the following countries in the Central Asian subregion: Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; and the following countries in the South Asian subregion: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The corresponding maps are shown as Figs. 1.1 and 1.2, respectively.

Fig. 1.1

Disclaimer The boundaries and names shown, and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement and acceptance by the United Nations. The dotted line represents approximately the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir agreed upon by India and Pakistan. The final status of Jammu and Kashmir has not yet been agreed upon by the parties

Overview of the geographical area covered in this volume (Source United Nations, 2023).

Fig. 1.2

Geographical representation of the South Asia region, as used in this book (Source United Nations, 2023)

Disclaimer: The boundaries and names shown, and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement and acceptance by the United Nations. The dotted line represents approximately the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir agreed upon by India and Pakistan. The final status of Jammu and Kashmir has not yet been agreed upon by the parties

Given the proximity of China to this region and its economic and geopolitical influence on the countries in this region, the discussion in this book duly considers the corresponding issues pertinent to the water-energy-food nexus. For example, China is situated upstream on a number of transboundary river systems in the region. Further, its Belt and Road Initiative¹) has an impact on the economic development across the countries in this region, and beyond.

Climatologically, the Central and South Asian region covers a whole range of the main climate zone spectrum, including tropical, sub-tropical and temperate zones, and within this realm a set of climate types occurs, such as the humid and sub-humid tropical climates in Bangladesh, south India, and Sri Lanka, semi-arid Steppe climates of Central Asia, alpine climates in northern Pakistan, northern India, Nepal, and Bhutan, as well as hyper-arid dry desert climates in the south of Iran and Pakistan. Moreover, it includes the maritime high-humidity climate of the Maldives, with its constant sea breezes and constantly high temperatures above 25 °C, and high annual rainfall averages between 2500 and 3800 mm. According to the climate classification of Siegmund and Frankenberg (2013) the two factors temperature and water balance are the most important climate-ecologically relevant indicators of an area, and this, in turn, is a major factor for freshwater availability and food-production.

1.2 Unique Features of This Region

The Central and South Asian region sits at the middle of geographical, geopolitical, economic, and historical cross-roads. Since the independence of the Central Asian states in the 1990’s, following the demise of the Soviet Union, and emergence of regional trade and political ties means that the region’s evolution has also been subject to common drivers—external and internal. In South Asia alone, home to about 1.8 billion people, growing concerns for securing water, energy, and food require innovative thinking and out-of-the box responses. The long-term social and economic success of the region depends on how water, energy, and food security is achieved at a regional scale—combining Central Asia and South Asia, which are typically treated separately in policy and scholarly work. This book undertakes a region-wide analysis of the “Nexus” between water, energy, and food security. It does so by identifying the present state of play, deeply analyzing cross-cutting drivers (e.g., climate change, economic shocks, health scares, widespread poverty, environmental crises, and rapid urbanization), and offering insights into possible solutions.

1.3 The Concept of a Nexus Between Water, Energy, and Food Security

The concept of strategic, policy, and pragmatic nexus between managing water, energy, and food domains has emerged in the twenty-first century, leading to a consolidated description that emerged from a major international conference in Bonn during November 2011 (Hoff 2011). This concept is built on the argument that water, energy, and food represent three cross-linked services that are essential to economic, social, and environmental development of any country or region. It is critical to understand that these three services and the accompanying sectors are intertwined and cross-linked to constitute a triangular relationship. The triangularity of this relationship posits that if one of the apexes of the triangle is influenced or disturbed, the other two must also change in response; schematically, this arrangement is shown in Fig. 1.3.

Fig. 1.3

Adapted from Hoff (2011)

A schematic description of the water, energy, food nexus, including a listing of global trends that drive the nexus, and a listing of promoted outcomes.

It is important to note that a number of externalities influence the nexus between water, energy, and security, also summarized in Fig. 1.3: urbanization patterns, population growth, changes to population demographics, environmental and economic impacts of global climate change, and other political and economic drivers. Most recently, the COVID-19 global pandemic has also influenced this nexus in multiple ways, demonstrating how an externality can perturb the three interlinked domains. The integrated and mutually cohesive strategic planning of the three resource domains is meant to achieve a number of desirable and promoted outcomes, including the following shown in Fig. 1.3. First, securing safe and sufficient water for every individual and their livelihoods, providing sustainable, reliable, and modern forms of energy to everyone, and ensuring sufficient and nutritious food for everyone. Second, ensuring sustainable economic growth which assures equitable distribution of benefits to all. Third, protecting and conserving the environmental resources in a manner to achieve resiliency against adverse impacts and sustained productive utilization for generations to come.

The international dialogue on the water, energy, food nexus has identified a number of action areas that can facilitate the achievement of the promoted outcomes shown in Fig. 1.3. First, governments must incorporate a greater level of policy coherence between the water, energy, and food sectors, while integrating such policy formulation with national and regional development pathways. Second, there should be a worldwide focus on accelerating the provisioning of these three resources to the most disadvantaged populations, which is often referred to as the “bottom billion.” Third, the approaches along the nexus must incorporate technological and management innovations that can lead to increased productivity and reduction of losses. Fourth, it is essential to mobilize consumers to understand the impact of their choices on the security of water, energy, and food; achieving such mobilization must be based on increased access to knowledge and awareness that allows consumers to make informed choices. Achieving success along these four action areas requires generation of targeted knowledge, provisioning of incentives to individuals and organizations, and development of institutional frameworks that reward favorable transitions.

In a broad sense, a number of roadblocks remain in Central and South Asia in achieving water, energy, and food security. The various contributors to this volume have explored these challenges and, in many cases, identified solutions or pathways that can help achieve the promoted outcomes.

1.4 Objectives of This Book

This book, including the individual chapters authored by world-class experts, aims to achieve the following broad objectives:

• provide an overview of the current regional status of water, energy, and food security in Central and South Asia, relying on the state-of-the-science research and information sources on this topic;

• identify common themes and threads that interlink water, energy, and food, and illustrate how these common threads (e.g., hydropower generation, food production) create impacts on the entire nexus;

• describe how achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is integrally linked to securing the water-energy-food nexus throughout the region;

  • highlight how populations dynamics, combined with bio-geographical and anthropo-ecological factors are major drivers of water-, food-, and energy security, and its nexus, and,

• identify knowledge and policy gaps, particularly focusing on what is known, what is working in which countries, and what lessons can be extracted with regional implications.

2 Dynamic Drivers of Change in Central and South Asia

It has been argued that we live in the Anthropocene Epoch (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000) because the drivers of change over geological timeframes—such as solar variation, volcanic eruptions, plate tectonics, proliferation and abatement of life, impacts from meteorites, and changes to Earth’s orbit and spin—are being overtaken by the anthropogenic impacts on a planetary scale. These impacts, coupled with resource depletion, are the hallmarks of the Anthropocene Epoch. World-renowned ecologist Heinrich Walter (1989) in his ‘Confessions of an Ecologist’ already concluded in his memoirs that the combination of anthropogenic change, in particular population growth, coupled with the ‘blind belief in technology’, are the two most important challenges for ecosystem functioning and keeping the human life support system intact.

In the context of the Central and South Asian region, it is important to understand the dynamic drivers of change and use that knowledge to develop evidence-based and scientifically supported responses. Such understanding must be driven by inclusive and comprehensive dialogue that engages a broad range of stakeholders that encompass the scientific community, policy makers, private sector representatives, and the general public. The following description is intended to highlight and summarize some of the most significant drivers of change, including geopolitics, urbanization, climate change, as well as the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

2.1 Geopolitical Forces and Events

2.1.1 Long-Term Conflict in Afghanistan

The long-term conflict in Afghanistan has been going on since the mid-1970s, and it has been prescribed and analyzed by many authors, some of which have described the conflict as unsolvable, due to the ethno-geographical and ethno-historical dimensions of Afghanistan and some of the bordering areas (Goepner 2018). The conflict has resulted in millions of Afghans seeking asylum in Pakistan, Iran, and elsewhere. In addition, a number of volunteers traveled from different parts of the world to join the struggle, which was already involving numerous major outside forces, causing long-term political instability. Further instability was caused by drug-production and trade: by 2000 Afghanistan accounted for an estimated 75% of the world's opium supply, which by 2005, increased to 90%, most of which was processed into heroin and sold in Europe and Russia. Specific estimates have been provided by UNODC (2021). Needless to say, that the long-term conflict has a major adverse impact on food, energy, and water security of Afghanistan, and it also influences other countries in the neighbourhood as well as further away. For example, almost 90,000 ha of land that could be used for the production of food-crops, have been diverted for opium production. In addition, any long-term conflict inevitably distracts the focus and reduces the capacity of directly involved communities from securing food, water, and energy production, supply, and trade.

The most recent development in this long-term conflict was the Taliban takeover on 30 August 2021, when the last American military plane departed Afghanistan, ending almost 20 years of western military presence in the country. How exactly these developments will influence the short, medium, and long-term water, energy, and food security in Afghanistan and the region, remains to be seen. However, there is no doubt, that the anticipated near future changes will significantly impact human lives.

2.1.2 Global Sanctions on Iran

Over the years, beginning in 1979, sanctions on arms, banking, energy, shipping, trade, and other sectors have taken a serious toll on Iran’s economy and people. Numerous publications describe the situation or aspects of it (Fathollah-Nejad 2014; Butler 2019; Sahraian et al. 2021). The energy sector has been hit especially hard due to Iran’s oil-dominated economy. The average Iranian citizen suffers from inflation, which has been estimated at 25% annually, leading to a drastic increase of food-costs, such as for bread and chicken. The economic sanctions are having an impact on the purchasing power of ordinary Iranians, whether as a result of inflation, scarcity, or through the removal of government subsidies.

2.1.3 Terrorism

Terrorism has impacted the Central and South Asian region over the past four decades in various forms and intensity (Rosand et al. 2009; Akhmat et al. 2013). Those impacts permeate the water-energy-food nexus also. Damaging water supply, quality, and infrastructure by terrorist attacks could adversely impact public health, possibly causing loss of life. Terror activities range from vandalizing infrastructure, including large infrastructure, such as dams and water-reservoirs, and intentionally or inadvertently polluting water-sources with toxic or pathogenic substances. A brief history of terrorism has been published by UNODC (2018).

Despite the lack of large-scale attacks against agriculture, it remains vulnerable due to the economic and social significance of an agro-terrorist attack. The production and distribution of the food supply is a complex system, involving over ten waypoints between the farm and the consumer. Many of these waypoints, such as farms, feedlots, import/export, markets, mills, packaging operations, processing plants, ranches, restaurants, shipping, shops, slaughterhouses, storage sites, stores, and wholesalers, are vulnerable to sabotage (Craft 2017). The World Health Organization warned that ‘the malicious contamination of food for terrorist purposes is a real and current threat, and deliberate contamination of food at one location could have global public health implications. Chemical, biological or radionuclear agents might be used deliberately to harm civilian populations and food might be a vehicle for disseminating such agents’ (WHO 2002). This WHO document provides advice on strengthening of national systems to respond to food terrorism.

The impact of terrorism on energy supply and infrastructure is very real. ‘Terrorist organizations have always been interested in targeting oil and gas facilities. Striking pipelines, tankers, refineries and oil fields accomplishes two desired goals: undermining the internal stability of the regimes they are fighting, and economically weakening foreign powers with vested interests in their region’ (Luft and Korin 2003). In the past decade alone, there have been scores of attacks against oil targets. The 1991 Gulf War Oil Spill, the biggest oil spill known to humanity, caused the intentional release of an estimated 1.29 million tons of oil into the Gulf, significantly impacting the energy system by wasting large amounts of oil as well as the destruction of oil infrastructure, adversely impacting the marine ecosystem, and threatening the functioning of vital seawater desalinization plants (Krupp et al. 1996). Another example of energy terrorism was the drone-attack of the Saudi-Aramco oil facilities in September 2019, and as recent as 7 March 2021. Toft et al. (2010) analyzed the number of terror attacks that occurred between 1997 and 2008. In their paper, for the Central and South Asian region, the most vulnerable countries that have witnessed most energy-terrorism attacks on their territory included in order of number of attacks: Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Iran, Nepal, and Bhutan.

2.1.4 China’s Belt and Road Initiative

In 2013, China launched the “Belt and Road Initiative”² (BRI) as a platform for inducing innovative thinking on its development investments facing the outside world (Liu and Dunford 2016). The BRI comprises international cooperation with its partner countries in five general policy domains: (1) coordinating development policies; (2) forging infrastructure and facilities networks; (3) strengthening investment and trade relations; (4) enhancing financial cooperation; and (5) deepening social and cultural exchanges (Liu and Dunford 2016; Johnston 2019). The BRI utilizes Chinese foreign aid, humanitarian assistance, and financial investments and loans to achieve its objectives in all five of the listed domains (Johnston 2019).

The geographical footprint of BRI is quite extensive and covers at least three continents, while proclaiming to be open to all nations (Johnston 2019). Because of China’s immediate proximity to the Central and South Asian region, the BRI has interlinkages to essentially all the countries in that region. A great deal of the infrastructure-related investment under the BRI, loan-funded in most of the cases (Pairault 2018), can significantly impact the water, energy, and food security—both directly by providing corridors for trading of these resources and indirectly by incentivizing economic activities that may have impacts on the nexus. Implementation of this strategic initiative is still in early stages and forecasting its long-term impacts would be speculative. One should note that China is a major trading partner for the countries in this region; for example, China had a total trade with Central Asian countries as follows: USD22.5 billion with Kazakhstan, USD1.5 billion with Kyrgyzstan, USD2.1 billion with Tajikistan, USD9.3 billion with Turkmenistan, and USD4.5 billion with Uzbekistan (Contessi 2016). Given the scale of China’s economic investments, the potential impacts on the developing and intermediate economies in the Central and South Asian region can be very significant. An ongoing analysis of the BRI’s influence on the nexus is therefore critical.

2.1.5 The Ukraine-Russia Conflict

The Ukraine-Russia armed conflict, that intensified into a war in February 2022, has already dramatically impacted global energy distribution and costs, and hugely impacted global food-security, especially based on the availability of wheat (World Food Programme 2022, UN Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance 2022). The scale and scope of the impact is not yet fully predictable, particularly because a pathway to peace does not appear to be feasible in the short term. The war has already caused highly adverse impacts on global food and energy security, and in some places, it has reached crisis-levels. Billions of people are facing extreme cost of living increases based on high food and energy expenditures, due to escalating global energy, fertilizer, and food price shocks (Benton et al. 2022; United Nations 2022). Further, secondary adverse impacts can be expected by industrial nations turning to previously phased out “dirty” energy sources, particularly locally sourced coal and gas extraction through hydraulic fracturing, which will inevitably contribute to the exacerbation of global climate change that will further impact food, water, and energy security.

2.2 Population Growth and Urbanization Trends

Most of the countries have steep population growth rates (Table 1.1) multiplying their total populations between 1980 and 2040 by a factor of 2 or even 3, with the exception of Sri Lanka (data source: UN DESA 2022). For most countries the growth trend will remain for the next 35–80 years, respectively, before an equilibrium will be reached. However accurate these data between 1980 and 2020 are, and however accurate the population growth forecasts are, it is clear that the overall trend already has an enormous impact on water, energy, and food security, due to natural limitations on the supply of clean water, food, and energy, and this challenge will remain for decades to come. Population dynamics, together with climate change and natural and man-made disasters are probably the three most decisive factors for sustainable human living in the Central and South Asian region in terms of water-, energy-, and food-security.

Table 1.1 Population distribution in the Central and South Asian region

The availability of clean freshwater is a human right. In some locations, freshwater is already scarce, especially in dry-desert areas. Poor water quality and inadequate sanitation are threats to water security and have adverse impacts on food security, health, educational opportunities, and the environment. Currently there are already more than 4.7 billion people globally suffering a lack of access to clean freshwater for at least one month per year (UNESCO 2019). The population growth as documented and predicted in Table 1.1 will inevitably have an adverse impact on access to clean water, unless knowledge and skills of the general public are being augmented and adaptation measures applied, keeping socio-ecological factors and carrying capacities in mind. Equally, the impact of population dynamics on energy supply gives reason for concern: 1.2 billion people globally have little or no access to electricity (Routley 2019). A number of these people, therefore, rely on firewood collection or illegal logging, which at least partially contributes to deforestation (Rhodes et al. 2006). With increasing demand and limited arable land available, it is essential to transition towards responsible production and consumption of biomass. Moreover, according to the World Food Programme’s Hunger Map 2019 (World Food Programme 2019), there are 821 million people—more than 1 in 9 of the world population—who do not get enough to eat. How will population increase by hundreds of millions of people in the next decades impact on food security?

2.2.1 Major Mega-Cities in the Region

We often refer to a mega-city as a city with more than 10 million inhabitants, although some other definitions are also considered in the published literature; additionally, city-limits are not always clearly defined, leading to differing estimates of a city’s population. Table 1.2 shows the mega-cities and largest cities in the Central and South Asian countries. Three countries are clearly in the lead in terms of total numbers of mega-cities, including India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Table 1.2 Mega-cities in the Central and South Asian region

2.2.2 Footprint of Urban Growth

‘Food waste is a massive global problem that has negative humanitarian, environmental and financial implications. Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year - approximately 1.3 billion tonnes - gets lost or wasted’. The ‘per capita waste by consumers is between 95–115 kg a year in Europe and North America, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeastern Asia, each throw away only 6-11 kg a year’ (UNEP no date). Needless to say, that food-, energy-, and water-supply in most urban centers, especially large and mega-cities depend on rural areas and trade. This, in turn, means, that the larger the urban settlement, the larger its environmental footprint on the surrounding area, causing an increase of natural habitat loss via encroachment of agricultural ecosystems into natural places. The burning of agricultural by-products not only contributes to the significant release of greenhouse gases, but it also contributes to vehicular emissions and dust, to the massive urban air-pollution in cities. For example, New Delhi counts as one of the most air-polluted cities in the world. The water-demand of urban places is frequently supplied by water resources further away from the cities, such as dams, rivers, and aquifers, causing significant and ecologically noticeable pressure on the water-source. Consequently, it is highly important to put in place measures that aim to increase the efficiency of urbanization and land use, including via good infrastructure planning that supports efficient use of energy, water, and food, considering waste reduction, forest conservation, and restoration, as well as science-based ecosystem management. UNESCO, UN Habitat and SEAMEO (2021) developed a simple and affordable model, called UNESCO Green Academies, to retrofit existing schools and universities into places that develop the knowledge and skills of the students and the general public for better urban environmental management. If we consider three million schools globally, the application of this concept could create a substantial increase in environmental awareness and skills, contributing to the trend towards significantly lower urban footprints. Only one UNESCO Green Academy exists for the time being (in Ethiopia); however, Central and South Asian countries and cities have a huge potential to benefit from converting as many schools as possible according to this concept.

2.3 Climate Change Impacts

Climate change, broadly interpreted, is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. Climate change is caused by natural factors, as well as by human-specific impacts. For decades, there has been an increasing concern regarding anthropogenic contributions to climate change. The accelerated warming of the earth’s atmosphere is significantly influenced by the massive release of greenhouse gases and reduced carbon-sequestration, due to deforestation and the loss of blue-carbon ecosystems (WWF 2018; European Commission no date). The reason for concern is obvious: changes in climate conditions can bring flooding, droughts, and changes in temperature, which in turn will cause significant changes in natural, urban, and agro-ecosystems. Agriculture, forestry, human health, and other parameters depend on climate conditions.

Ecosystem services, water security, food security, and the energy security for human wellbeing are all inextricably linked to climate conditions. Sustainable Development Goal 13 addressing Climate Action explicitly states in Target 13.1. to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity regarding climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries. Moreover, Target 13.3. demands improvements to education, awareness raising, and building human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning systems. This clearly demonstrates how highly important it is to develop science-based knowledge, skills and preparedness for climate events and climate adaptation, including shock events on a global scale.

The United Nations recognizes that climate change is a threat to global peace and security. Extreme weather events cause adverse impacts on the water, energy, and food nexus, with the potential to trigger social discontent and unrest. In recent years, we have observed massive wildfires, unusual droughts, extreme hurricanes, and immense floods. These weather-related phenomena are linked to the increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere (WWF 2018). To enable competency-based discussions, it is important to speak with the same vocabulary and science-based knowledge when addressing climate issues. This is, unfortunately, frequently not the case. Climate literacy needs a science-based foundation. UNESCO, ILO, IOM, UNDP, UNDRR, UN ESCAP, UNICEF, and UNDRR have completed the production of climate-science-literacy materials (UNESCO 2022). The materials are available in English and Spanish for free download.³

The changing weather patterns in Central and South Asia have a profound effect on the region’s national economies. The agricultural sector is a key pillar of national economy in many of these countries, and the sector is increasingly vulnerable to the unpredictability and extreme variations in weather conditions caused by climate change (FAO 2015). However, climate change as an impact factor cannot be viewed on its own because there are clearly at least three major additional factors adversely affecting food-security, such as rapid population growth, land-use methods not supported by scientific evidence, and the wastage of water-resources and food-waste.

Table 1.3 shows a few items of major socio-ecological and socio-economic relevance related to the water, energy, and food security nexus. According to the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security, food security is defined as the means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life (FAO 2006). The FAO defines it as “The concept of food self-sufficiency is generally taken to mean the extent to which a country can satisfy its food needs from its own domestic production.” This means a 100% food self-sufficiency where food production is equal to food consumption. Some countries are more than self-sufficient, whereas other countries have a food deficit, as shown in Table 1.3, for cereals and starchy roots, with an output of greater than 140% for Kazakhstan at one end of the spectrum, compared with less than 60% in the case of Bhutan.

Table 1.3 Unique geographical socio-ecological and socio-economic characteristics include the following items

Total renewable water resources include the long-term average water availability in km³ combining precipitation, groundwater, and surface water inflows from surrounding countries. Table 1.3. shows data obtained from Wikipedia (2020), with data from 2011, calculated as per capita. There are huge differences when comparing the countries in the region, with huge per capita resources availability in Bhutan, whereas Pakistan’s, India’s, and Iran’s renewable water per capita being highly limited.

Challenges of undernourishment are less pronounced in Kazakhstan (less than 2.5% of the population), as well as Iran, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (all rated at less than 5% of the population), when compared against Afghanistan, which has comparatively very high rates of undernourishment (25–35% of the population), possibly related to the long-term conflict in Afghanistan, described in Sect. 2.1.1 (FAO et al. 2020).

The same enormous difference can be observed by simply comparing geographical country size, the smallest being Bhutan (38,394 km²) and Sri Lanka (65,610 km²), in comparison to geographical giants, such as, India (3,287,000 km²), Kazakhstan (2,725,000 km²), and Iran (1,648,000 km²).

The climatic conditions are also highly diverse, as can be observed, for example by comparing the average annual temperatures, which are as low as 1.6 and 2.0 °C for the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, respectively, in contrast to Sir Lanka (27 °C) and Bangladesh (25 °C). In addition, especially for the large countries, there are diverse climatological situations within the countries, especially the main parameters of temperature, precipitation, and evapotranspiration, causing substantially different conditions for agriculture, pastoralism, forestry, and water availability.⁴ At the time of writing this manuscript (September 2022), the temperature difference ranged from −8 °C in north-eastern Pakistan to 44 °C in South-Eastern Iran (day time temperatures 14:00), and snow cover could be observed in high-altitude parts of Afghanistan, Bhutan, northern India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan; whereas, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, most of India, and large areas of most of the countries appeared free of snow.

2.3.1 Glacier Retreat

Central Asia’s glaciers are losing vast amounts of ice every year. The 2014 Dushanbe Seminar Report (Diebold 2014) concluded that ‘Global warming and climate change will have effects on the high mountains of Central Asia. Most likely glaciers will be melting more rapidly. This will have consequences not only for the water balance in the Aral Sea basin. It will lead among others to natural disasters like landslides, glacial lake outburst and it will affect the socio-economic development of the region’.

2.3.2 Sea-Level Rise

Coastal areas are immensely exposed to sea-level rise (McGranahan et al. 2006; Vivekananda and Bhatiya 2016) including coastal mega-cities, in the geographical context of this book, Dhaka, Karachi, and Kolkota, as well as numerous other large settlements in costal South Asia.

Especially the Maldives, consisting of 1,190 islands and no ground surface higher than three meters above sea-level, and most of its land below one meter above sea-level, is one of the most vulnerable countries to sea-level rise and coastal flooding.

2.3.3 Changes to the Hydrological Cycle

Changes in the hydrological cycle include changes in evaporation, evapotranspiration, cloud-formation, high-altitude winds, precipitation, surface water bodies and run-off, soil infiltration and aquifer recharge, shallow and deep ground-water resources, as well as coastal and marine seawater dynamics, including sea-level changes. These changes are being caused by climate-fluctuations, both, natural and anthropogenic, the functioning of the biosphere, in particular by inter-tidal mangrove stands and terrestrial forests, as well as by river straightening, dams, deforestation, surface-sealing, massive freshwater extraction, and other factors.

The most alarming scenarios are of course prolonged droughts, adversely impacting water-, food, and energy-supply, massive floods, causing the decline or loss of crop-harvests, and infrastructural damage to water-reservoirs, as well as the slow increase in seawater-levels. This is of increasing concern for highly productive delta agro-systems, such as, the Bengal Delta (formed by the confluence of the rivers Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and Meghna), as well as the Indus Delta, and deltas of many more rivers, where seawater intrusion and salinization of agricultural land can be anticipated (Eslami et al. 2012; Rahman et al. 2019; Bricheno et al. 2021). In Pakistan, the University of Karachi’s Dr. Mohamed Ajmal Khan Institute for Sustainable Halophyte Utilization (ISHU), as well as in the United Arab Emirates, the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), as well as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and more recently the Tunisian Science Institute of Blue Carbon Ecosystem Research and Development for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation (in planning), as well as other halophyte and salinity research groups in many are of the world are studying how biosaline agriculture can work under increased soil-water conditions exposed to high salinity levels. It is believed this will become even more important when the effects of seawater intrusion into delta systems force farmers to turn from freshwater systems to agriculture under high-salinity conditions.

2.3.4 Impacts on Food Production

Climate change has a substantial impact on food production, since every plant species (Böer and Sargeant 1998) and food crop that is under cultivation or collected from nature, has a bio-geographical range that it cannot exceed. Every plant, including every food plant, fodder plant, and all other plants have certain thresholds for the average annual temperatures, maximum and minimum temperatures, as well as soil and water conditions under which they can germinate, grow, produce flowers and seeds, and undergo the entire reproductive cycle. Should the temperature and water-supply regimes change noticeably, that would cause the crops-species to grow outside the ecological optimum, which in turn causes changes, possibly reductions in crop harvests. Should the regime tilt beyond the ecological tolerance, that would mean that the crop-species cannot be produced and grow anymore, and it would have to be replaced (if possible), with an alternative food-crop that is more tolerant to the new climatic situation when compared to the crop that was previously produced. This would also require the whole food-production and consumption network to adapt to new soil melioration, fertilization, possibly irrigation and drainage methods, different harvest-systems, times, machinery, storage, transport, trade, and it would still need to be in line with the supply and demand, as well as cultural acceptability.

2.3.5 Increase in Energy Demand

Climate change can trigger an increase for energy demand, either for heating or for cooling of human accommodation, including in large and mega-cities, but also, via forced changes in agricultural systems triggering an increase in energy demand, for example, by introducing more energy-demanding crop-production, harvest, storage, transport, trading, and consumption systems.

A rise in temperature could lead to more cooling requirements in summer and in warm areas, whereas increased winter cold temperatures, significantly reduce cooling requirements in winter.

According to van Ruijven et al. (2019) ‘the future energy demand is likely to increase due to climate change, but the magnitude depends on many interacting sources of uncertainty.' The authors believe that warming increases global climate-exposed energy demand around 2050 by more than 25% in the tropics.

2.4 COVID-19 Pandemic

The global COVID-19 pandemic that started in China in November 2019, and that caused step-by-step the partial or complete lock-down of countries, has had a substantial impact on the health and economic situation in the region, long-term consequences for economic development, as well as potential impact for the water-energy-food nexus, yet to be assessed in detail. Table 1.4 shows the number of people that had been infected with COVID-19, number of deaths, as well as the number of people that have recovered.

Table 1.4 COVID-19 statistics in the Central and South Asian region

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a significant strain on public health systems in the Central and South Asian region. Governments, UN agencies, and other partners are assessing the socio-economic impacts still unfolding. The whole socio-economic loss, including the loss of jobs and income, income-based migration, as well as the effect on the water, energy, and food security can only be comprehensively assessed once the situation has globally improved. Measures to contain the spread and health impact of the disease have already led to a breakdown in supply chains and interruptions of production units, as well as demand shocks caused by declines in consumption, investment, and exports.

It is remarkable, for the time being, that with the exception of Iran, all countries under consideration on this volume have lower COVID-19 death/per million population rates, when compared with the world average (Table 1.4). Naturally, the figures can be more or less accurate, and certainly influenced by a variety of factors, including the number and accuracy of tests, climate conditions, natural resilience, as well as average age of the population (and the corresponding immune-system strengths), which would influence the number of asymptomatic cases, which would remain undetected. Another remaining question, globally valid, of course is: did the person die with COVID-19 infection, or because of the COVID-19 infection?

In any case, the total number of confirmed infected persons is more than 610 million (Worldometer September 2022), with the total number of deaths exceeding 250,000 people. Not only is this very tragic, sad, and often highly traumatizing for the relatives, who, in addition to their emotional loss often suffer the loss of an income provider, it is most certainly also having a significant direct and indirect impact on the local food-, water-, and energy-security situations, due to the inability of hospitalized persons of being productive during treatment, quarantine, and recuperation.

3 Key Challenges and Opportunities in Central and South Asia

3.1 Economic Growth and Developmental Challenges

All the countries in the Central and South Asian region have undergone significant structural changes in the past two decades, in conjunction with economic growth (Osmani 2018); these changes are reflected in the growth rates of the economy of this period, as shown in Table 1.5. In general, South Asian economies have not kept pace with other East and Southeast Asian economies, while there has been considerable population growth (Osmani 2018). Overall, the Central Asian economies have performed better in comparison to South Asia, with higher annual average growth rates in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Multiple factors impact the economic performance of national economies, including but not limited to: population growth rates, strength of democratic institutions, history of colonialism and its pervading impacts on national institutions, geographical advantages and disadvantages (e.g., being landlocked), access to water resources and related agricultural productivity, and political stability and trajectory of democratic institutions (Osmani 2018).

Table 1.5 Economic growth rate in Central and South Asia, described in terms of growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Some countries in the region have shown remarkable deceleration in their economies over the past decade (2010–2020), as shown in Table 1.5—notably including Afghanistan, Bhutan, Iran, and Kazakhstan. Other countries have either maintained the economic growth rate or demonstrated a minor drop; including India, Kyrgyz Republic, Maldives, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan; we should note here that the GDP growth rate of these countries is still reasonable, except for Maldives and Pakistan which hover around 4% annual growth in GDP. Bangladesh has shown remarkable growth in its economy; this acceleration is accompanied by a significant decline in the population growth rate, resulting in a sharp rise in GDP per capita values (Osmani 2018). Strength of economy and its growth rate is a major determinant in the national capacity to respond to water, energy, and food security challenges, and the resilience against external shocks such as climate-related disasters and the global COVID-19 pandemic.

3.2 Sustainable Development Goals and Their Implementation

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adapted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 present the global roadmap for addressing economic, social, and environmental challenges facing the world. The various SDG targets and indicators have a bearing on the water, energy, food nexus; it can be argued that the most direct correlation with the water, energy, food nexus is for the following goals:

• SDG 2 that aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

• SDG 6 that aims to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

• SDG 7 that aims to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.

• SDG 8 that promotes sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all.

• SDG 12 that ensures sustainable consumption and production patterns.

• SDG 13 that aims to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

• SDG 17 that aims to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.

One may argue that it would be important to review the progress of the countries in Central and South Asian region against the targets set within the SDG framework. The most detailed and up to date analysis is provided in the Sustainable Development Report 2022 (Sachs et al. 2022); such a SDG-by-SDG comparison for the region is summarized in Table 1.6. It is important to point out that the SDG “dashboard” represents a composite of data and analyses produced by a number of international organizations, civil society organizations, and research centers (Sachs et al. 2022). We must also recognize that this summary of progress towards SDG targets is influenced by a number of factors discussed earlier in this chapter including the Ukraine war, the COVID-19 pandemic, the political turmoil in Afghanistan, and prolonged economic sanctions against Iran.

A review of Table 1.6 demonstrates that of the seven SDGs identified above, most countries in the region appear to be struggling and doing poorly to achieve the underlying targets. For SDG 2 and SDG 6, all countries appear to have major or significant challenges in achieving food and water security for all, respectively. The situation appears to be more encouraging for achieving the energy-related targets for SDG 7 in the region. Another positive aspect is around SDG 12 and SDG 13, for which most countries in the region seem to be on target or close to achieving the targets. One may argue that SDG 17 represents that capacity of the countries to enhance responses in achieving SDG targets, and the situation does not look particularly hopeful for any of the countries in the region.

Table 1.6 2022 SDG dashboard for Central and South Asia

The Sustainable Development Report 2022 (Sachs et al. 2022) also provides a composite SDG Index for each country, on a scale of 0–100. The SDG Index scores for all countries are used to rank them in accordance with the relative effectiveness of their SDG implementation strategies. Such scores and ranking are presented in Table 1.7. Of the 163 countries ranked according to their SDG Index, none of the Central and South Asian countries except the Kyrgyz Republic rank in the top 50. Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan rank the lowest and considerably behind the rest of the countries in the region. Such performance in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development translates into relatively limited capacity to meet the SDG targets pertaining to water, energy, and food nexus; we can also directly observe this outcome in Table 1.6.

Table 1.7 Ranking of Central and South Asian countries in accordance with their respective SDG Index score and ranking

3.3 New Energy Corridors in Central and South Asia

In terms of fossil fuel-based energy resources, the Central Asian states (i.e., the former Soviet Republics) possess significant reserves that far exceed their domestic consumptive needs (Pradhan 2022). These fossil fuel reserves have been historically underdeveloped. Overall, this situation considerably increases the geopolitical significance of these countries as the net energy exporters in the region. By the same token, development of energy corridors to export these resources to various international markets and their geographic location also gain strategic importance. The Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan are the two most energy scarce countries in terms of fossil fuel reserves, but their potential for hydropower generation enables them to also be considered net energy exporters.

A number of energy corridors have been discussed, primarily meant to export oil and natural gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to the rest of the of the world. A typical example of such a corridor is the gas pipeline project called the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline (Sachdeva 2010). This project has been marred, however, because of the uncertainties surrounding natural gas supply in Turkmenistan, the worsening security situation in Afghanistan as discussed earlier, and the escalating political tensions between India and Pakistan (Pradhan 2022). To meet its increasing energy demands, India has also signed exploration agreements with its counterparts in Kazakhstan, focused on natural gas reserves in the northwestern Caspian Sea (Sajjanhar 2016). The Central Asia South Asia Regional Energy Markets (CASAREM) is a regional electricity network that connects the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan (being net exporters) to Afghanistan (the energy importer).

4 Organization of This Book

4.1 Section I—A Region-Wide Overview

A regional overview establishes the basic facts around the state of water, energy, and food resources; this section is meant as the foundation upon which further exploration and analysis is built. Lal provides an overview of the state of food security in the region, with a particular focus on the role of soil condition in ensuring agricultural productivity. Qadir provides a detailed analysis of the regional interface between water and food security, thus offering key insights into one-third of the nexus. Rahimzoda similarly analyzes the water-energy interface, particularly focusing on the role of Tajikistan in this region (as also discussed in Sect. 3.3).

4.2 Section II—Regional Issues

This section turns its attention to regional issues and unpacks the nexus into key strategic action areas. Zia discusses the role of early warning systems (EWS) in achieving water-, energy-, and food-security at a regional scale. Rochholz and her colleagues take an in-depth look at the impact of climate change on the nexus. Pandey and Midha discuss how gender perspectives can be incorporated in the nexus dialogue and related policy solutions.

4.3 Section III—Cross-Cutting Themes for Nexus Security

In this section, a number of cross-cutting themes are explored with an eye towards the major drivers of policy and development strategies in the region. Mawani focuses on the South Asian experience of how gender interplays with food and water insecurity, particularly the overlay of other cultural barriers to women’s engagement in decision-making processes. Tiwari undertakes an in-depth analysis of the economic policies enacted to reduce poverty in the Central and South Asian region. Akram and his colleagues analyze how the implementation of the SDGs fits into the larger picture of water, energy, and security for the region.

4.4 Section IV—An Integrated Narrative

The two chapters in this concluding section undertake the development of an integrated narrative based on the discussions throughout the book. This section explores how the new global development framework in the form of SDGs might offer a new perspective for achieving the nexus security in the region. Lone makes an argument that the security of water, energy and food resources is closely tied to with achievement of long-term peace and security. A final wrap-up chapter by Adeel gazes into the crystal ball to play out some future scenarios based on the evidence presented in the book.