The Water-Food-Energy Nexus in the Mekong Region by Alexander Smajgl & John Ward

Author:Alexander Smajgl & John Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer New York, New York, NY

3 Method

3.1 Approach to Energy Security

A number of indicators selected from literature on energy security support our analysis. Table 4.2 below presents 13 indicators, representing eight important dimensions of energy security. The selection reflects a compromise between comprehensiveness and maintaining a coherent focus on impacts of development on energy. Because the energy system is embedded in wider social-ecological systems, energy security is contested. The concept has been dominated by concerns with security of supply (short-term availability) and access at affordable prices. In more recent years analysts have called for adding environmental and socio-political attributes to the concept (Vivoda 2010; Sovacool et al. 2011).

For example, for environmental sustainability, in addition to metrics such as CO2 and SO2 emissions per capita, Sovacool et al. (2011) also include national forest cover and freshwater availability. However, including such metrics raises questions about causality and coherence. Non-energy developments also impact on forest cover and water availability (e.g. irrigation schemes may increase local water availability; rubber plantations and upland intensification may reduce forest cover). Although important, such broader system indicators are deliberately not included in our energy impact assessment. The reader interested in additional social-ecological indicators should refer to the relevant assessment chapter.

The diversity and complexity of the Mekong energy system challenges indicator-based assessment. In data-poor situations, the use of single metrics is pragmatic but also dangerously reductive. Poorly understood dimensions include how access to and affordability of different energy sources will change over time, particularly for rural people. Here it was necessary to make a number of assumption, as we discuss in Sect. 2 below.

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