National-level resilience: Innovative framework for Energy-Water-Food nexus evaluation

Abstract

The escalating demand for energy, water, and food (EWF) resources, alongside external stressors such as climate change, is placing significant strain on national systems. Therefore, this study introduces a novel framework for assessing the resilience of interconnected EWF systems at a national level. The framework utilizes a hybrid approach of network systems modeling and optimization models, integrating sectoral and dependency impacts to offer a comprehensive perspective on the interconnected resilience of EWF components. Applied to Qatar's EWF nexus, the framework revealed significant interdependencies, particularly between water and energy components, that led to cascading failures and challenged nexus resilience. Under single failure scenarios, unmet demands for energy and water ranged from 9 to 59 GWh and 97,000 to 359,000 m3, respectively, with resilience indices from 0.86 to 0.99. In double failure scenarios, significantly higher unmet demands caused the resilience index to drop to 0.43. Due to limited freshwater availability, the food sector is highly vulnerable to groundwater supply disruptions, resulting in an 85.6 % reduction in total crop production under extreme scenarios. Furthermore, the study highlighted resilience-enhancement strategies, such as utilizing treated wastewater for agricultural, industrial, and commercial activities and diversifying energy sources to reduce the risk of cascading failures, which increased the nexus's resilience by 17 %. The proposed framework serves as an essential tool for identifying critical components within the EWF nexus and planning strategies to enhance both operational and structural resilience.