Water-Energy-Food Nexus and Sustainable Development Goals: The grand challenges for the Indus Basin

About the event

This workshop is being organised to unveil a set of grand challenges for the Indus Basin formulated by the SustainIndus Research Consortium.

2023 is the last year for the SustainIndus project and this final workshop is the project’s last opportunity for sharing and disseminating their work with academics, practitioners, and policy makers in the region, and receive feedback on the project results. As a result of the project, a set of ‘Grand challenges’ for the Indus Basin have been formulated.

The organisers will be capturing the reflections of policy makers and practitioners working on food security, energy security, water management, water-energy-food nexus, and the SDGs.

Objectives

The workshop is designed as a science-policy dialogue consisting of two days. Day 1 is focused on scientific research, whereas day 2 is focused on implications for policy. The specific objectives are:

• Share the progress and key findings of the research work with the basin’s stakeholders
• Communicate the project outcomes to stakeholders for potential integration into relevant government policies and strategies for scalability and sustainability
• Jointly with stakeholders define the Indus Basin’s grand Water-Food-Energy Nexus challenges as final project outcomes

Background

The SustainIndus research consortium was formed in 2019 as a research partnership of Utrecht University, Wageningen University & Research, ICIMOD, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), and Climate Adaptation Services. The project is funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), Utrecht University, and Wageningen University & Research.

The SustainIndus project set out with the aim to develop sustainable pathways that support decision makers and practitioners to develop science-based policy and climate-smart solutions to provide food (SDG 2: Zero hunger), water (SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation) and energy (SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy) in the Indus Basin.

To this end, its objectives are to: (i) establish how the water-food-energy supply and demand may evolve in the future and translate global SDGs into quantifiable Indus Basin Development Goals (IDGs), (ii) develop, test and assess climate-smart technologies to conserve or generate energy and optimise water use and food production and to quantify potential for basin wide upscaling, (iii) quantify the synergies and trade-offs between water, food and energy related to IDGs, and (iv) develop sustainable pathways consisting of optimal mixes of adaptation measures aimed at reaching the IDGs in a changing climate.

Agenda