1. 07/11/2012
A Nexus for Whom? Connectivity, Integration, Vulnerability,
Water Resources, Social Justice and Resources, Security
Environmental Insecurity
• Old news
Larry Swatuk
• New thinking
University of Waterloo • Enduring debates
lswatuk@uwaterloo.ca
New(s) to Some
• World Economic Forum, Global Risks 2012
• World Economic Forum, Water Security: the water,
food, energy, climate nexus
• The World Bank, Grow in Concert with Nature:
sustaining East Asia’s Resources Through Green
Water Defense
• Bonn2011 Conference on The Water, Energy and
Food Security Nexus – Solutions for a Green Economy
(26 pages of recommendations; 12 lines to civil
society)
1

2. 07/11/2012
Infrastructure for Integrated Water Resources Management
management of
floods and
droughts,
multipurpose
storage, water
quality and source
protection
Policy/ Other uses
Institutional Water supply Irrigation & Energy Environ- including
framework & sanitation drainage mental industry and
services navigation
Management
instruments
Political economy
of water
management Economic Environmental
Equity
efficiency Sustainability
Water Uses
Management Institutional
Instruments Enabling Framework
Environment
Assessme Central- Local
nt Policies River Basin
Allocation Legislation Public -
instruments Private
Balance “water for livelihood” and “water as a resource”
Gain?
• Insight
– [A]wareness is rising on how interconnected the
issues of water, energy, food and climate actually
are (Margaret Catley-Carlson, 2011)
2

3. 07/11/2012
Awareness Raising Awareness Raising
• ‘Water lies at the heart of a nexus of social, • ‘Our political, economic and social stability
economic, and political issues – agriculture, into the 21st Century will depend as much on
energy, cities, trade, finance, national security, how we manage our freshwater resources as it
human livelihoods, within rich and poor will on any of the other well-recognized “hard
countries alike.’ (WEF, Water Security, 2011) power” global security issues of the 21st
Century, such as terrorism, nuclear
proliferation and fossil-fuel security.’ (WEF,
Water Security, 2011).
Lose?
• What should be a social project becomes a
national security issue
• What should be provision of public goods
becomes privatized delivery and resource
capture
• What should be an opportunity to think
creatively about what and where water is,
becomes an exercise in protecting the status
quo
Different Lenses, Better Insights? If your point of departure accepts:
• Human security: decentre ‘the state’ • Primacy of the state
• Environmental insecurity • Security as consolidation of the status quo
• Environmental justice • Environmental security as implications of
– ‘Rethink security from the bottom up’ (Booth, changing resource endowments for state
2005) security
– ‘how to grasp the radical environmental • Neoliberal capitalism
insecurities confronting the global underclasses’
(Watts, backcover blurb) • Consumption as global ethos
3

4. 07/11/2012
Then: The relevance of ‘Nexus thinking’
• [H]elps to identify mutually beneficial responses and
provides an informed and transparent framework for
determining trade-offs to meet demand without
compromising sustainability and exceeding
environmental tipping points. (Bonn2011)
4