session 1 - global forum water-energy-food nexus, november 2014, sadoff

Global Dialogue on Water Security and Sustainable Growth

GWP/OECD Global Dialogue on Water Security & Sustainable Growth

Update from the Task Force

OECD Global Forum on Environment

November 27, 2014

Dr Claudia Sadoff, Professor Jim Hall, Professor David Grey


Objectives

To enhance sustainable growth by providing the evidence to guide investment in water security, to

° Understand the dynamics of water security and growth

° Quantify the risks, opportunities and trajectories

° Assess past pathways of investment in water security

° Provide insights to policy-makers


What is New About This Work?

° Focus on Growth – where, how and how much water insecurity limits growth Water security as the mitigation of water-related drags on economic growth

° Focus on Risk – identify key hazards & vulnerabilities amenable to policy interventions Moving beyond a focus on monitoring freshwater resources per capita Identify hotspots of compound water risks

° Focus on Case Histories – learning from pathways to water security Systematic comparative analysis of cities, river basins and aquifers

° Focus on Evidence – systematic/empirical analysis of water security drivers Rather than intuitive water security constructs with subjective weightings


Framing the Water Security Dynamic

° Sustainable growth, wealth & human well-being are at the core

° Focuses on the interplay between: ° water endowments

(water availability & variability)

° water security investments ° growth/wealth/well-being

° Recognizes that a country’s water endowment

influences the nature & level of investment needed to achieve water security


Starting Points (Water Endowments) Matter

Countries with simple hydrologies & high investments in water security have high incomes

Basins with population > 2 million Colors reflect GDP per capita Horizontal axis = hydrological complexity Vertical axis = investment in water security (storage, institutions, information)

Hall et al., Science (2014)


Main Lines of Inquiry

1. How important is water security to growth?

2. Where are the risks and opportunities located, what are their scales and their trajectories?

3. What have we learned about responding (pathways) to water insecurity?



Past research has shown strong correlations between hydrological variability & growth

Correlation between rainfall variability around the mean and GDP growth (World Bank 2006)

Ethiopia



Our research provides new empirical evidence that water insecurity causes diminished growth

° Water insecurity is a statistically significant global drag on growth

° The effect is not limited to highly agricultural economies but cuts across all economies

° Variability (changes in runoff, flood & drought) is a key causal factor driving the growth impacts

° Water insecurity acts as a drag or a “headwind” on growth, reducing the economic growth that would have occurred if hydrological variability could have been mitigated

Global Economic Growth with/without Drought

GWP/OECD Task Force: provisional results


2. Where are the risks and opportunities located? Water-related “headline” risks:

• Droughts, water scarcity and high variability

• Floods

• Inadequate water supply and sanitation

• Harmful impacts upon the environment

Water-related opportunities:

• Food: increased agricultural production

• Energy/Industry: hydropower, thermal power cooling

• Transport: waterway navigation

• Ecosystems: protection/restoration of services

WATER-RELATED RISKS

WATER-RELATED OPPORTUNITIES


2. Where are Drought/Scarcity Risks?

° Hazards: droughts, variability, unpredictability, over-abstraction

° Vulnerability and exposure: agricultural dependence, water-intensive industries

° Impacts: water shortages for people, agriculture (malnutrition), energy, industry and the environment; risk-aversion and under-investment

° Modelling progress: Water availability/reliability defined as frequency of shortage of water available for use (combines runoff & groundwater, adjusts for storage, balances water supply/demand)


2. Where are Flood Risks?

° Hazard: Extreme rainfall & snowmelt, flow, storm surges

° Vulnerability and exposure: Floodplain population & GDP

° Impacts: Fatalities and economic losses ~ US$ 120bn/yr (prelim)



° Hazards: inadequate access to water supply & sanitation

° Impacts: mortality, morbidity, socioeconomic

US$ 260bn/yr (WHO)

WASH-Related Deaths (per sq mile)

2. Where are Water Supply & Sanitation Risks?

WHO data

Population with Access to Sanitation

WHO data


° Hazards: Harmful water quality, over-abstraction, habitat disturbance

° Vulnerability and exposure: Species/ecosystem sensitivity

° Impacts: Endangered species, degraded habitats, clean up costs

° Modelling in process: Environmental flow requirement shortfalls

Habitats associated with 65% of continental discharge classified as moderately to highly threatened

Vorosmarty et al (2010)

2. Where are Environmental Risks?


2. Where is the Nexus? Water consumed in thermal power production (bcm)

Against a backdrop of increasing scarcity relative to demand the nexus of water/food/energy demands can affect water security

Water demands from irrigation in 2050

GWP/OECD Task Force: provisional results GWP/OECD Task Force: provisional results


Systematic Analysis of Pathways Case Studies

° Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) generating typologies of water security

° Identify, compare and evaluate pathways inform investments to different risks & opportunities

3. What Have We Learned About Pathways?



Detailed Pathways Analyses of Illustrative Cases ° Sequencing of investments in

infrastructure & institutions

° Context hazards, opportunities, economic growth, crises & triggers

3. What Have We Learned About Pathways?

Institutions

Infrastructure

Hazards and Opportunities

Senegal River Basin

1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s

1890:Earliest Recorded Flood

1904:Began monitoring water

1906

1940s:First attempts to manage flows

1950

1960s

1963: Bamako Convention

1964:Dakar Convention

1968: Organization of Riparian States

1970s: Drought

1972-73: Population and economic devastation

1972:Declared International Watercourse

1973:Agricultural dikes

1974-86: Irrigated fields grow 650%

1978:Declared common property of member states

1978: Trematodosis

1982:OMVS

1985

1986: Diama dam

1987: Manantalidam

1987

1988:Schistosomiasis

1992:Guinea joins

1992

1994

1999: Floods kill hundreds; thousands homeless

2000:Types of schistosomiasisincrease

2002: Hydroelectric power to Senegal, Mali, Maurinatnia

2013:100% increase in water flow

1997:Dam management

1998

2000

2003

2006-13:World Bank Funds

2010

Sources: The Organisation for the Development of the Senegal Basin, OMVS, (2012). "Senegal River Basin: Guinea, Mali,Mauritania, Senegal.

National Research Council. Scientific Data for Decision Making Toward Sustainable Development: Senegal River Basin Case Study -- Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2003.

World Bank (2013). "Transforming Lives in the Senegal Basin", http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/04/03/transforming-lives-in-the-senegal-river-basin, accessed, June 24, 2014

Sequencing Story:Institutions (River Basin Agreements) Infrastructure Development (Dams, Dikes and Diversions) +Increasing International Investment Increasing Water Security (limited by inadequate WASH)



Summary ° Water security is a statistically significant causal factor in economic growth

° Hydrological variability (runoff) is the key hydro-climatic factor with regard to economic growth & its effects reach across all economies (not just poor agricultural economies)

° The scale of economic risks/opportunities (hundreds of billions $/yr) should put it high on the agenda:

° The largest economic impacts are WASH risks, primarily in South Asia & Africa parts of Latin America

° Flood risks: People at risk heavily weighted in Asia/Assets at risk in OECD & Asia

° Scarcity risks (and opportunities): BRICs, parts of Africa & US

° Environmental Costs: Mitigation & restoration costs in OECD, rapidly increasing in China, India

° Sequencing matters: returns on investment are path dependent


Thank you