Ecological balance emerges in implementing the water-energy-food security nexus in well-developed countries in Africa.

Autor: Muhirwa F; Key Laboratory for Resource Use and Environmental Remediation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Faculty of Development studies, Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences, Rwanda., Shen L; Key Laboratory for Resource Use and Environmental Remediation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Key Laboratory of Carrying Capacity Assessment for Resource and Environment, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 101149, China. Electronic address: Shenl@igsnrr.ac.cn., Elshkaki A; Key Laboratory for Resource Use and Environmental Remediation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Key Laboratory of Carrying Capacity Assessment for Resource and Environment, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 101149, China., Zhong S; Key Laboratory for Resource Use and Environmental Remediation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Key Laboratory of Carrying Capacity Assessment for Resource and Environment, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 101149, China., Hu S; Key Laboratory for Resource Use and Environmental Remediation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China., Hirwa H; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; State Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China., Chiaka JC; Key Laboratory for Resource Use and Environmental Remediation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China., Umarishavu F; Faculty of Development studies, Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences, Rwanda., Mulinga N; Anhui Agricultural University, Department of Economics and Management, Hefei, China; College of Agriculture Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, University of Rwanda.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2022 Aug 10; Vol. 833, pp. 154999. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Apr 02.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154999
Abstrakt: Although many African countries have made significant progress towards universal access to water, energy, and food resources (WEF), assessing the ecological response to the increasing productivity of these resources is not well researched, which carries the risk of ecological deficit, resource degradation, and inefficient policy responses to resource management. This study seeks to assess the ecological sustainability response to the high increase demand for WEF resources in well-developed African countries. The study developed new measurement metrics for the WEF production system, including three indicators of ecological footprint (EF), ecological biocapacity (EBC), and eco-balance. The overall analysis considers data from four distinct types of water and energy use activities, and eight distinct types of food consumption, in nine African countries with the highest WEF nexus performance. An evaluation tool for the Water, Energy, Food and Ecological Balance (WEFEB) nexus index is proposed as one of the study's outcomes. Despite having 100% access to WEF resources related to the SDG targets. The results reveal the significant levels of imbalance and large ecological deficits existing in many of the concerned countries, especially North Africa, Mauritius, and South Africa, which need to rethink their economic models. Projecting a sustained increase in resource demand so that each country achieves at least 1700 m 3 /capita/year as the minimum amount of water needed, most countries would suffer from a steady increase in ecological imbalance. According to the results, managing the ecological imbalances with increasing demand for WEF resources in well-developed African countries may require well-designed policies to effectively reduce certain types of human demand that have a large ecological footprint.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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