Applying the nexus – meeting Ethiopia’s development goals by addressing links between water, energy and food

This policy brief describes a project by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) using a 'nexus approach' to analyze the interdependencies between water, energy, and food in Ethiopia's Upper Blue Nile region. By applying the WEAP-LEAP toolkit to the Lake Tana and Beles River basins, the project compared three development scenarios—Business-as-usual, National plans, and a Nexus scenario—to identify trade-offs between agricultural expansion, hydropower generation, and environmental sustainability.

• Agricultural transformation and energy transition in the Upper Blue Nile basin are interdependent and potentially competitive; intensified agriculture increases energy needs, while the energy system remains heavily dependent on biomass from croplands.
• Ethiopia has reached a "biomass ceiling" where the demand for biomass for food, fodder, and fuel equals the amount produced by primary productivity, which threatens biodiversity and may limit long-term economic development.
• Upstream irrigation withdrawals can conflict with hydropower generation and ecosystem health, although properly managed dams can mitigate seasonal water flow variations.
• The SEI nexus toolkit (WEAP-LEAP) facilitated joint learning among scientists, planners, and NGOs, allowing them to assess the impacts of different resource allocation scenarios on stakeholders and ecosystems in the upper Blue Nile region.
• Comparing development scenarios reveals significant trade-offs: the 'National plans' scenario prioritizes hydropower and food production but compromises Lake Tana's water levels, while the 'Nexus' scenario prioritizes the lake's water level, resulting in substantially lower hydropower production.
• Under a Business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, predicted biomass demand is more than double the amount produced in the study area, and per capita food production is expected to decrease due to rapid population growth.

APA

Karlberg, L., Hoff, H., Amsalu, T., Andersson, K., Binnington, T., Flores-López, F., de Bruin, A., Gebrehiwot, S. G., Gedif, B., Heide, F. Z., Johnson, O., Osbeck, M., & Young, C. (2014). Applying the nexus – meeting Ethiopia’s development goals by addressing links between water, energy and food. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-PolicyBrief-Karlberg-nexus-Ethiopia.pdf

Chicago

Karlberg, Louise, Holger Hoff, Tadesse Amsalu, Kim Andersson, Taylor Binnington, Francisco Flores-López, Annemarieke de Bruin, et al. Applying the nexus – meeting Ethiopia’s development goals by addressing links between water, energy and food. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2014. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-PolicyBrief-Karlberg-nexus-Ethiopia.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{karlberg2014applying, author = {Karlberg, Louise and Hoff, Holger and Amsalu, Tadesse and Andersson, Kim and Binnington, Taylor and Flores-López, Francisco and de Bruin, Annemarieke and Gebrehiwot, Solomon G. and Gedif, Birhanu and Heide, Friedrich zur and Johnson, Oliver and Osbeck, Maria and Young, Charles}, title = {{Applying the nexus – meeting Ethiopia’s development goals by addressing links between water, energy and food}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2014}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-PolicyBrief-Karlberg-nexus-Ethiopia.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }