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This discussion brief describes a collaborative project led by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) applying a water-energy-food nexus toolkit to the Lake Tana and Beles River basins in the Upper Blue Nile region of Ethiopia. The project uses integrated modelling to help policy-makers manage trade-offs between national development goals—such as increasing hydropower production fivefold by 2015 and boosting agricultural production by over 8%—and the sustainable management of natural resources.

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.