Call for Papers : Water-Food-Energy Nexus in Drylands: Bridging Science and Policy
On 12-13 June 2014 King’s College London (KCL), the OCP Policy Center, the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and Texas A&M University will organize an international conference on The Water-FoodEnergy-Climate Nexus in Global Drylands, which will take place in Rabat, Morocco. The program will be organized by Tony Allan (KCL), Martin Keulertz (KCL), Karim El Aynaoui (OCP Policy Center), Eckart Woertz (CIDOB), Francis Ghilès (CIDOB) and Rabi Mohtar (Texas A&M University). It will consist of about twelve papers with formal discussants for each paper.
Papers from the conference will be considered for a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development, subject to the Journal’s normal refereeing process.
Approximately two billion people live in arid countries. One third of the global population will be most affected by water scarcity and climate change. Efficient management of water resources for food and energy production in global drylands is a developmental challenge that requires holistic approaches. The water-foodenergy nexus approach highlights that food, water and energy security are inextricably linked and that any decision in one of the three sectors has consequences for the other. Nowhere else this nexus is as evident as in global drylands. Energy will be required to pump, treat and desalinate water for domestic and agricultural purposes. Water will be required to produce energy. Such management challenges call for a nexus approach to broaden the analysis from a mere ‘blue water’ focus to the more efficient use of soil moisture (‘green water’) and sustainable policy options.
We invite abstracts from researchers to provide analyses and recommendations on how to address the nexus in the Global Drylands. North Africa, West, Central and South Asia have a particularly high occurrence of drylands and would form the focal regions of the special issue. But the call for papers is open to any other arid region/ country of the world such as Chile, Mexico, Spain, Australia or South-West USA; especially if their importance for solutions to shared problems can be highlighted. Topics of interest include: New theoretical approaches to tackle quantitative data gaps that underpin the nexus approach and new concepts such
as energy-water footprints; the role of technology and innovation in supporting the better use of water resources for food and energy production; the impact of climate change on water resources and agricultural productivity; improved supply chain management, logistics and inputs; and, also, the role of ‘ancient farming techniques’ like terraced fields in preserving water resources. Another area of interest relates to policy relevant issues such as the enablement of farmers in drylands to realize nexus ideas; hydropolitics and the administration of cross border water resources; and the role of multinational cooperation and institutional reform in dryland countries to govern water for food and energy production.
The organizers invite detailed proposals and preferably draft research papers. Proposals should be submitted electronically to nexusinglobaldrylands@gmail.com no later than 7 February 2014. The organizers will make the final selection of papers to be included in the Conference and authors will be notified by 21 February 2014 if their paper has been selected. Please note that the organizers will contact authors only if their paper is accepted. The papers should have a length of 6,000 words and represent original research not presented or published elsewhere. Authors will receive an honorarium of $1,000 and be expected to present their paper at the conference. For selected papers a contribution towards travel and accommodation costs will be made available.
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