The water–energy nexus in Middle East and North Africa

What is it about?

Extracting, delivering, and disposing water requires energy, and similarly, many processes for extracting and refining various fuel sources and producing electricity use water. This so-called ‘water–energy nexus’, is important to understand due to increasing energy demands and decreasing freshwater supplies in many areas. This paper performed a country-level quantitative assessment of this nexus between energy and water systems operating in the year 2010 in the MENA region. The results showed a highly skewed coupling with a relatively weak dependence of energy systems on freshwater, but a strong dependence of water abstraction and production systems on energy. In case of Saudi Arabia, it was estimated that up to 9% of the total annual electrical energy consumption maybe attributed to groundwater pumping and desalination. Some other countries in the region may have consumed 5-12% or more of total electricity consumption for desalination.

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Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The results of this work highlighted important implications for policy. For example, policymakers could explicitly consider energy implications in water intensive food imports and future restructuring of water demand. This may help in making more integrated decisions on water and energy infrastructure systems. An integrated assessment may in some cases favor water reuse and changes in the agricultural sector as opposed to the expansion of energy intensive and financially expensive desalination systems.