Policy statement 576 - Civil infrastructure and the water-energy-food nexus

Approved by the Energy, Environment, and Water Policy Committee on April 29, 2024
Approved by the Public Policy Committee on June 5, 2024
Adopted by the Board of Direction on July 18, 2024

Policy

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) supports advances in the Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) sectors, known as the Water-Energy-Food Nexus or Food-Energy-Water Nexus by:

• Requiring private and public entities evaluate the systemic tradeoffs and synergies, sustainability, and resilience of interconnected networked services supported by civil infrastructure.
• Updating infrastructure design codes, standards, and permitting to include WEF supply chain sustainability and/or resilience.
• Modernizing life-cycle analysis, engineering workflows, and construction methods and techniques.
• Utilizing the recognized science and technology best practices.
• Updating and increasing public outreach and policy development and analysis to include WEF.
• Requiring continuing education regarding WEF for engineers and other professionals.

Issue

According to the United Nations water, food and energy form a nexus at the heart of sustainable development. Demand for all three is increasing rapidly. To withstand current and future pressures, governments (and other stakeholders) must ensure integrated and sustainable management of water, food, and energy to balance the needs of people, nature, and the economy.

Sustainability and resilience of WEF sectors in an uncertain, disruptive, and evolving environment are significantly dependent on natural and built infrastructure systems. Natural and built infrastructure systems play a critical role in WEF sectors, where addressing a problem in one sector can have positive or negative unintended consequences in another sector via direct and indirect connections. Policy and action in one government agency can affect agencies and sectors outside the original jurisdiction, including in how we design, implement, operate, maintain, retrofit, and decommission infrastructure. 

Rationale

The civil engineering profession plays a leading role in planning, designing, implementing, operating, maintaining, retrofitting, and decommissioning infrastructure that support the functions and performance of interconnected WEF sectors. Each resource influences the others, creating opportunities for collaboration and challenges that require integrated solutions. Scenarios where WEF interconnectedness should be considered include, but are not limited to:

• Increasing populations and changing lifestyles drive up demand for all three resources, leading to potential conflicts over allocation and sustainability.
• Lifelines, including roads, railways, waterways, and pipelines are critical for the efficient and equitable distribution of food, energy, and water on local, regional, and national scales. 
• Water use is directly related to energy use in cities, including energy used by water infrastructure for conveying, treating, and distributing water and collecting, treating, and disposing treated water and wastewater.  
• Many of the nations’ reservoirs are multi-purpose systems that are operated to balance tradeoffs that arise from irrigated agriculture, municipal and industrial water supply, hydropower generation, recreational activities, and water for downstream aquatic ecosystems. 
• Navigation dam removal or dam failure may constrain grain exports if alternative distribution systems are not available or affordable, suppressing domestic grain prices and increasing international grain prices. 
• When levels of groundwater used for irrigated agriculture and municipal and industrial water supplies, particularly during drought periods, are drawn down, energy requirements for pumping increase. 
• Irrigation with recycled wastewater and recovery of nutrients during wastewater treatment could support additional crop cultivation and diversify portfolios for water resources, but with risks of increased energy needs and environmental impacts.
• Power line maintenance failures can trigger forest fires, which damage water quality, denude the land and increase the potential for erosion and flooding.
• Aging infrastructure for water, energy, and sanitation can lead to inefficiencies, losses, and pollution, further straining the nexus.
• Developing smart resilient infrastructure for water, energy, and waste management can create efficiencies and improve overall sustainability.
• Critical supply chains and community lifelines that are urgently necessary during emergencies, including for the support of dependent community lifeline services.

Understanding the Water-Energy-Food Nexus is crucial for engineers to develop holistic solutions that ensure sustainable resource management, food security, and environmental protection for present and future generations. Engagement with relevant WEF stakeholders and WEF data are essential for formulation of integrated public policies and for coordinating design, implementation, operation, maintenance, retrofitting, and decommissioning of interconnected civil infrastructure systems that advance sustainability and resilience of services provided by the WEF sectors necessary for the prosperity of society.

This policy has worldwide application
ASCE Policy Statement 576 
First Approved in 2024