Author(s)

Amani Al-Adwani¹, Ali Karnib², Alaa Elsadek¹, Waleed Al-Zubari^1*

¹Department of Natural Resources and Environment, College of Graduate Studies, Arabian Gulf University, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain.
²Department of Liberal Education, School of Arts and Sciences, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon.

The interdependency among water, food, and energy (WEF) in the GCC countries is strongly and closely interlinked, and is intensifying as demand for resources increases with population growth and changing consumption patterns, and are expected to be further compounded by the impacts of climate change. Therefore, integrated management of the three sectors is crucial to reduce trade-offs and build synergies among them. This paper presents a comprehensive framework to assess the WEF nexus in Kuwait as a representative case for the GCC countries. The framework consists of three main steps: 1) evaluating the influence of socio-economic development and climate change on water, energy, and food resources; 2) generating scenario-based projections; and 3) conducting an extensive quantitative nexus analysis. The WEF interlinkages in Kuwait are modelled quantitatively using the Q-Nexus model, and current critical interdependencies are evaluated. Then, various WEF-Nexus scenarios were conducted for the year 2035 to explore the effects of management interventions in one sector on the other two sectors. The main findings are that per capita municipal water consumption is a major influencer on the WEF-nexus due to the heavy reliance on thermal desalination in municipal water supply in Kuwait, which is attributed to its energy intensity, financial cost, GHGs emissions, and environmental impacts on the marine and air environments. To reduce WEF trade-offs, mitigate risks, and build synergies among the three sectors, it is important to shift the current policy focus on supply-side management approach to the demand-side management and efficiency approaches.

Climate Change, Socio-Economic Development, Municipal Water Consumption, Agricultural Water Consumption, Renewable Energy, Desalination Technology

Al-Adwani, A. , Karnib, A. , Elsadek, A. and Al-Zubari, W. (2024) Scenario-Based Assessment of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Kuwait: Insights for Effective Resource Management. Computational Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering, 13, 38-57. doi: 10.4236/cweee.2024.131003.