第109回地球研セミナー

Economic Analysis of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus

第109回地球研セミナーを開催いたします。

発表者は、招へい外国人研究者の Kimberly Burnett氏です。

どうぞふるってご参加ください。

開催日時
2015年3月23日(金)11:00 - 12:00
場  所
総合地球環境学研究所 セミナー室3&4(⇒アクセス)
発 表 者
  • Kimberly Burnett氏(ハワイ大学経済研究所)
  • 専門:経済学: 自然資源と環境経済学
  • 所属:WEFNプロジェクト・研究室11
  • 期間:平成27年1月4日-3月31日
担 当 者
WEFNプロジェクト 岡本 E-mail
要  旨

Synergies and tradeoffs among water, energy use, and food production should be considered by stakeholders and decision-makers looking to maximize the benefit from each resource. Economics can help to identify these tradeoffs by quantifying the benefits and costs of water, energy, and food-related projects over long planning horizons, as well as by optimizing allocations of these resources over multiple uses. This presentation will illustrate frameworks for economic analysis of the water-energy–food nexus using examples from three case studies in Japan: water allocation over multiple uses in Obama, renewable energy production in Beppu, and construction of a dike in Otsuchi. Each of these case studies involves choices that will affect inherent linkages between water, energy, and food in each system. Failing to recognize these tradeoffs can result in sub-optimal allocation of resources with respect to the economy, the ecology, society and culture.

Obama is a city on the Sea of Japan in Fukui Prefecture, where groundwater is an important resource for a variety of uses including domestic use, melting snow, and fishery production (via submarine groundwater discharge). Over-allocation of groundwater towards above ground uses has implications on the important fishery resource near shore. An economically efficient solution is characterized by groundwater utilization paths over time that maximize net benefits across uses, explicitly considering how using water for one purpose reduces the availability of water for other purposes. Aside from the direct tradeoff between groundwater and the fishery, a key variable in the model is the price of energy, which affects the costs of both groundwater pumping and alternative snow-melting techniques. This talk will discuss a bioeconomic optimization model that can be used to solve for optimal allocation of groundwater to each of these three uses over time.

Beppu is a city in Oita Prefecture best known for its high concentration of natural hot springs (“onsen”). Onsen are an important economic and cultural resource, whose use has significant implications on the surrounding society and ecology. Interest in small-scale renewable energy production using hot water and steam from the onsen (“onsen hatsuden”) has increased in recent years, especially following the Tokohu earthquake/ tsunami/ nuclear meltdown disaster of 2011. There are two primary types of onsen hatsuden being developed in Beppu: binary systems which are more productive but generate larger social and ecological damages, and the smaller scale yukemuri hatsuden which have a much lower production capacity but are less harmful to the surrounding ecosystem and society. This talk will discuss an economic approach to comparing the benefits and costs of each system.

Otsuchi is a small town in Iwate Prefecture in northern Honshu, one of the most impacted following the Tohoku disaster of 2011. Estimates of total economic losses from Tohoku range from $50-$210 billion USD. This talk will discuss an economic approach to assessing the benefits and costs of a government-financed dike being constructed with the intention of preventing similar losses following a natural disaster in the future. Benefits include the reduced risk of future losses, while costs include not only dike construction, operation and maintenance costs, but also loss of the groundwater connection between land and sea and the accompanying loss of mudflat habitat and associated oyster, abalone, and seaweed fisheries.

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