Asia’s water-food-energy nexus

IN our frantic search for solutions to our water crisis, we tend to overlook the relationship between water, food and energy. It is still not too late. As my colleague Tony Allan, a Stockholm Water Prize laureate, says so pithily, the three are the corners of a triangle with politics and emotion at its centre.

About 80% of accessible freshwater in Asia is used for agriculture; the rest is drawn by energy, industry and domestic use. Energy costs typically average 50% of the cost of delivering urban water supplies, and the amount of water consumed is significant both in terms of hydropower and cooling requirements for thermal power.