WaterFoodEnergy Nexus in the Context of Climate Change: Develop a Water Security Index for Water Resources Management in Vietnam45231

Water-Food-Energy Nexus in the Context of Climate Change: Develop a Water Security Index for Water Resources Management in Vietnam Nguyen Mai Dang 1* , Duong Tran Anh 2 , Thanh Duc Dang

Water-Food-Energy Nexus in the Context of Climate Change: Develop a Water Security Index for Water Resources Management in Vietnam

Nguyen Mai Dang 1* , Duong Tran Anh 2 , Thanh Duc Dang 1

1 Thuyloi University, Hanoi, Vietnam

2 Van Lang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

* Correspondence: dang@tlu.edu.vn

Abstract: Reasonable distribution of water for food and energy production is pivotal for economic development, environmental protection, and social equality, and this task is becoming more challenging This is because the demand for water, food and energy has increased significantly recently due to population growth, higher standards of living, and industrialization, especially in developing countries like Vietnam Agricultural activities in Vietnam account for about 20% of GDP, and the total freshwater consumption is up to approximately 70% for the irrigation of agricultural cultivation, making it the largest user of water Food production and supply chain also consume about 20% of the total energy production Energy is required to produce, transport and distribute food as well as to extract, pump, collect, transport and treat water Consequently, Vietnam confronts with the problems of water, food, and energy shortages if these links are not thoroughly addressed Additionally, climate change, causing the alteration of weather conditions, will exacerbate a range of risks to water, food and energy Study results to deliver a comprehensive review of water, food and energy nexus in Vietnam and to propose using water security index and coupled water-energy-food modelling for better water resources management plans in the context of climate change

Keywords: Water-food-energy nexus; climate change; water resources management; water security;

Vietnam

Introduction

The Water-Energy-Food Nexus is a common concept used to describe and address the complex and interrelated nature of water usage for a variety of social, economic, and environmental targets (FAO, 2014) The three factors (water, energy, and food) are closely linked For example, water is used to rotate turbines for hydropower production and water is also necessary for irrigation and aquaculture production (Vogt, 2010; Ackerman and Fisher, 2013) (as can be seen in Figure 1) However, water supply is sometimes limited, which is caused by resource inavailability Thus, there is water shortage for agricultural and energy production (Feng et al., 2012; Pacetti et al., 2015) This problem normally occurs in fast-growing regions with limited precipitation or inflow The concept “water-energy-food nexus” helps scientists understand better the impact of human activities on the natural environment across different sectors and scales Stakeholders can also identify and manage trade-offs and propose integrated and cost-effective plans (Haase et al., 2012; Lehmann, 2018)

Figure 1 Water-Food-Energy nexus in climate change context (developed based on Haase et al., 2012 and Lehmann, 2018)

Generally, water shortage is a global problem In a report of Population Action International (PAI), 2.8 billion people in 48 countries are predicted to face water scarcity by

2025 Most countries in the list are from the West and South East Asia, North Africa, and sub Saharan Africa (Aaron, 2008) Among these countries, Vietnam is one of the most vulnerable countries to water scarcity, especially on large river deltas and coastal lowlands such as in the Red River Basin and Mekong River Basin (ADB, 2013)

Recently, the economy of Vietnam is growing rapidly, but fast development also contains economic, social, and environmental challenges In the growth model of Vietnam, industrial manufacturing and FDI companies contribute a large percentage of GDP (OECD, 2014) This model, however, requires a lot of natural resources, energy, and water More seriously, in the last decade, the country has been facing with unsustainable development because of burgeoning populations, increasing energy demand, and worsening water scarcity (Figure 2) In the future, climate change is predicted to worsen the problem of water scarcity In this context, water, food, and energy, which are the three most fundamental human needs and economic necessities, have been studied separately However, academic researchers and policymakers have put more and more attention on the emergence of the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus since the interlink among these three factors become more apparent (Smajgl et al., 2016) This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of the water, energy and food nexus in Vietnam

Figure 2 Global annual average of monthly water scarcity, and the water scarcity in Vietnam is at

level 3 (Source: Mekonnen and Koekstra, 2016)

Review of water-food-energy framework

In the nexus of water-food-energy, water plays a key role (Ripl, 2003) which can be expressed as (1) “water flowing through the veins of the economy” and (2) “water: the bloodstream of the biosphere” This exhibits that water acts as an important factor influencing and influenced by economic development and ecological sustainability (Figure 3) (Hoff, 2011) In a water cycle, water is renewable and unlimited resource, but a rapidly rising global population and growing prosperity are putting unsustainable pressures on this resource Demand for water, food and energy is expected to rise by 30-50% in the next decades (Swatuk and Cash, 2017) Water shortages, however, may result in geopolitical-social conflict and irreparable environmental damage Any strategy that focuses on one part

of the water-food-energy nexus without considering its interconnections risks serious unintended consequences (World Economic Forum, 2012)

Since the WEF Bonn Conference in 2011, several nexus frameworks have been developed (European Report Development, 2012; UNECE, 2015; ICIMOD, 2015) As described in McGrane et al (2018), different boundaries for frameworks are resulted from different purposes with constraints such as land and mineral resources The frameworks have also been developed at different scales, from regional (ICIMOD, 2015) to global (World Economic Forum, 2012) This range of frameworks stems from the complexity of the nexus and points to a need for a hierarchical framework that integrates across scales Such framework, however, is insufficient, and would rely on a variety of tools to represent the nexus from different perspectives and scales This paper focuses more on the case study of Vietnam The status of water consumption and production of food and energy in Vietnam

is described and analysed; the solutions to improve water use for food and energy are discussed and proposed

Figure 3 Framework for water-food-energy security nexus (developed based on Hoff, 2011)

Water

Water availability

In term of spatial distribution, Vietnam has dense river systems with a total length

of rivers up to 41,900 km (WEPA, 2002; 2030WRG, 2017) There are 9 major river basins with more than 10,000 km2 of catchment areas Nevertheless, over half of the total water resources are generated outside the country (ADB, 2009a) More specificially, around 323 km3/year (38%) out of 848 km3/year is generated in Vietnam’s river basins River basins such as Ca and Ma have about 40% of their basins outside the territory of Vietnam, when this rate of Dong Nai is 15% Neighboring countries contribute around 524.71 km3 into the total annual runoff, including 470 km3 from the Mekong River, 44.1 km3 from the Red River, 9.1 km3 from the Ca and Ma rivers, 1.41 km3 from the Dong Nai river (Frenken, 2012) This dependence results in Vietnam’s lack of effective solutions to manage water resources Table 1 presents statistical data of the total area of basins and the percentage of basins in Vietnam and neighboring countries

Table 1 Eight large river basins in Vietnam (Frenken, 2012)

River basin Total

basin area (km 2 )

Basin area in Vietnam (km 2 )

% of basin

in Vietnam

% of basin area in Vietnam and Total Vietnam area (331,052

km 2 )

Red - Thai Binh

(includes Da River

Basin)

Ky Cung - Bang

Giang

In term of temporal distribution, the country has abundant surface water resources all around, but water availability varies largely over the year When the total rainfall amount

is considerably high, runoff in the dry season only contributes around 15-30% of the annual flow

Figure 4 Water demand distribution for different sector in 2020 (developed based on data from Nhuan et al., 2014)

Water demand and supply

ADB reports that the total demand of the country is around 80.2 billion m3/year in

2009 (ADB, 2009b), while IWRP (2015) estimates water demand is at 80.6 billion m3/year, and this number increases to 95 billion m3/year in 2030 Water in Vietnam is mostly used for agricultural production (as shown in Figure 4), especially rice production In 2016, the total agricultural water use is at around 76 billion m3/year and is projected to increase to 91 billion

m3/year by 2030 Water demand for rice changes over seasons, ranging between 10,000 - 12,000 m3/ha in the winter-spring growing season and only 5,000 m3/ha in the summer-autumn growing season Paddy rice fields in the Mekong Delta require almost 45% of Vietnam’s irrigation water (Figure 5) Thus, to ensure water security, the rice production area is limited beyond 3.8 million ha (World Bank, 2016) Nevertheless, in order to ensure food security and export, rice production has to increase to 41 to 43 million tons/year in 2020 and 44 million tons/year in 2030

Figure 5 Water demand projections (dry season only) for Mekong, Red-Thai Binh, Dong Nai and

SERC (Source: 2030WRG, 2017)

Water demand in Vietnam not only increases due to the expansion of agricultural rice farms, but also due to urbanization, industrialization, tourism development, and population growth Although in the future, the predominant water use will remain for irrigation and aquaculture production (86-93%) (ADB, 2008), economic development and population growth will result in further increase of domestic and industrial demand Besides water for food production, hydropower generation is expanded drastically (Middleton, Garcia and Foran 2009) to fulfil the thirst of energy in Vietnam and its neighboring developing economies in South East Asia and China This will definitely influence the availability of water for domestic and agricultural uses in downstream communities (Waibel, 2010) Water for food production and energy production will be discussed in the next sections

Food

Food production

Agricultural production and food industry are the two largest users of water globally, accounting for nearly 80-90% of consumptive water When the world population

is predicted to increase to 9.2 billion people in 2050, it is also projected that agricultural and domestic water consumption will increase by 70% and 40%, respectively Consequently, the world may confront with a water shortage in the future This situation may also happen in Vietnam although it is an agricultural exporter

Food demand and security

The food crisis in 2007 - 2008 reveal a structural problem in the global food system The crisis pushed around 100 million people into poverty and a half of this number in the latter half of 2010 This global problem seriously influenced on Asia - Pacific region Especially, Vietnam was one of the biggest rice exporters worldwide and had to restrict its rice export, causing problems on many other countries who depend on its rice

Although the industrial proportion in Vietnam’s GDP is higher, the agricultural sector is still important in its economy This sector accounts for 22% of the country’s GDP and 52% of the country’s employment (IFAD, 2012) Agricultural growth has been accelerating in recent time by improving technology adoption and irrigation areas The Mekong River Delta is the largest rice and fruit production area in Vietnam, accounting for over half of the country production 90% of rice and 65% of aquaculture products are produced here for exports

It is noted that agricultural regions in Vietnam, such as the Red River Delta and the Mekong River Delta, are coping with impacts due to urbanization and climate change Although the government keeps 3.8 million hectares of rice fields to fulfill domestic consumption and export demand, the total paddy area is predicted to decrease in the future compared to the current stage Up to 32.2% of agricultural areas will be affected by climate change by the end of the 21st century (JICA, 2013; FAO, 2014)

Figure 6 shows that the concept of food security comprises four dimensions, including food availability, food accessibility, supply stability, and utilization In the nexus

of water-energy-food, FAO considers food security as an entry point This concept and historical data reveals that the main problem of food security in Vietnam stays in utilization and stability

Figure 6 A component of food security (developed from FAO, 2014)

Energy

Energy production

The slope of most rivers in the country is quite steep, so there are high potentials for hydropower development (Anh, 2015) In the last few decades, hydropower plants of various sizes have been developed in Vietnam For example, from 2002 to 2004, 17 medium-

to large-sized plants (>100 MW) with a total installed capacity of 2,952 MW and about 20 small-sized plants with total capacity of 500 MW are installed In 2010, the total installed capacity of all power plants increases to over 20,600 MW, equivalent to 3.2 times in 2000 and 1.78 times in 2005 Meanwhile, the total energy production increases 3.2 times between 2000 and 2010 and 1.78 times between 2005 and 2010 According to the Electricity Planning Scheme VII, hydropower output will increase to 17,400 MW in 2020 In order to obtain this target, 1,000 medium and small-sized hydropower projects will be implemented with the total capacity of 7,500 MW

When hydropower contributes to 45.5% of electricity generation, Vietnam also has other forms of energy resources, including 615 million tons of crude oil, 600 billion m3 of natural gas, and 5,883 million tons of coal (Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre, 2012; DEA, 2017) In term of petroleum, the country is the third-largest producer in Southeast Asia Natural gas is mostly extracted in the southern part of the country, and the discovery of 50 billion m3 gas in the Red River Basin will lead to an increase of gas production in the coming year In 2011, gas turbine power plants accounted for 33.6% and the number for coal power plants is 15.3% Oil and diesel power plants contribute a limited power generation with a total installed capacity of 22 GW (5.6%) Table 2 and Figure 7 show the installed capacity of each technology in 2011 These fossil resources are significant, but rapidly growing energy demand still put more stresses on energy production Subsequently, Vietnam has imported electricity from its neighboring countries by linking its energy network to Laos, Cambodia, and China

Table 2 Power Generation by Fuel Type (Dec 2016) (Source: Das, 2019)

Diesel, small hydropower and renewables 2,418 5.8

Figure 7 (left) Energy generation capacity by different fuel sources in 2011 and (right) Forecasted energy demand to 2030 by fuel sources in Vietnam (developed based on data from

Thuy and Bundit, 2014)

Energy consumption

In different sectors, energy consumption is often the opposite of water uses For excample, industrial areas use most of electricity (33%) while agricultural production only accounts for 1% of energy consumption in Vietnam Residential areas and transportation activities account for 33% and 24% of energy consumption respectively when service sections only need 3% Figure 8 shows the energy production in proportion by sector in 2012 (MIT, 2012)

Figure 8 Energy consumption by sectors

Energy development

In 2015, hydropower plants (59.76%), gas turbine plants (22.45%), coal-fired power plants (33.45%), renewable energy (5.37%), and import (1.42%) with a total installed capacity

of 45,600 MW are the main source of power generation in Vietnam Among these resources, hydro and renewable energy sources are constrained by water availability, limited

construction sites, and high cost, when nuclear power raises public attention due to safety issues

Table 3 Forecasted energy generation by power sources to 2030 (Source: DEA, 2017)

Electricity demand is projected to increase at the rate of 10.5% per year during

2016-2020, and the rate may slightly reduce to 8.0% per year during 2021-2030 Correspondingly, electricity consumption is predicted to increase to 234.6 TWh in 2020 and 506.0 TWh in 2030, respectively Electricity consumption in 2030 is about 4 times higher in comparision to that

in 2014 The peak demand is expected to reach 42.1 GW in 2020 and 90.7 GW in 2030, respectively Table 4 presents important indicator of energy production and consumption

in 2015, 2020, 2025, and 2030

Table 4 Electricity demand actual and project to 2030 (Source: DEA, 2017)

Annual demand (TWh) 141.8 234.6 252.3 506.0 Annual generation (TWh) 161.3 265.4 400.3 571.8 Maximum demand (GW) 25.3 42.1 63.5 90.7 Per capita consumption (kWh) 1,560 2,545 3,610 4,950 Notes: GW: gigawatt; kWh: kilowatt hour; TWh: terawatt hour

Water-related affect by climate change in Vietnam

Vietnam is among the top countries influenced by climate change, especially its coastal and river deltas The main manifestations of climate change impacts on water resources include the modification of water availability and spatial distribution with more extreme events (Giang et al., 2012) This study projects that the amount of water availability will reduce by 96%, 91%, and 86% respectively compared to today’s quantity Currently, the Mekong Delta accounts for approximately 60% of surface water of the nation, and the remaining 40% is shared by other regions, having 80% of Vietnam’s population and 90% of the national production Among these regions, there are several mountainous river basins, such as the Central Coast and the Southeast, with very high flow gradients Consequently, floods are one of the most dangerous disasters in the country Besides flood risk, Vietnam also faces with tropical typhoons due to 2,000 km2 of coastal zones UNDP (2003) The country, which is located in the northwest of Pacific Ocean, is along the typhoon route and