The energy-water-health nexus under climate change in the United Arab Emirates: Impacts and implications

Climate change poses serious energy, water, and health challenges for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While closely interconnected, the development of sustainable energy, water, and health policies has typically been viewed as independent, sector-specific planning challenges. However, changing demographics, a rapidly growing economy, dependence on desalination, and worsening air quality – all taking place as climate change unfolds – suggest a need for a more integrated approach to risk management. Accounting for the interactions between “energy, water, and health nexus” is one way to ensure that development strategies are considered within a framework that addresses the range of potential trade-offs, risks, and synergies. To address the energy-water-health nexus under a changing climate, research activities were undertaken as part of the Local, National, and Regional Climate Change Programme (LNRCCP) of the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI). Climate change modeling at the regional spatial scale (Arabian Peninsula; Arabian Gulf) was first carried out to establish the atmospheric and marine physical conditions that will underlie energy, water, and health challenges in the future. The results of this modeling were then used as inputs to an analysis of policies that account for linkages across the energy-water nexus on the one hand and the energy-health nexus on the other. The modeling results show that climate change will render an extreme hyper-arid climate even more so, while the waters of the Arabian Gulf will experience heightened salinity, changing circulation patterns, and higher temperatures as desalination activities intensify. The analysis of the energy-water-health nexus shows that energy efficiency and renewable energy can lead to significant reductions in annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at negative to modest societal cost while leading to substantial decreases in premature mortality and health-care facility visits in the urban environment.