On October 21, Dr. AlexandreTaithe, research fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), delivered a conference at ICARE entitled “The Water/Energy/Agriculture Nexus Domestic and transboundary challenges”, mainly to talk about the relations of water management, agriculture, environmental policy, environmental & security (climate change, pollution and environmental degradation) and other issues, based on his experience when working in FRS.
This conference is one of series activities of French Water Festival in China, supported by French Embassy in China and French Consulate General in Wuhan. Former General Alain LAMBALLE, who is also Member of Asia 21 organization and regular contributor of the journal Futuribles, Mr. Eric MOLAY, Attaché for university cooperation at the French Consulate General in Wuhan, teachers and students from School of Hydropower and Information Engineering, ICARE and other schools attended the talk.
Mr. Eric MOLAY
Preliminary to the conference Mr. MOLAY made a short speech. He hoped that the conference will make more clear for everyone the high stakes of water resource utilization and water geopolitical dimension. He also quoted that it is very meaningful to hold this conference in Wuhan since this city is called “City of 100 Lakes” with rich freshwater.
Dr. AlexandreTaithe
Dr. Taithe’s conference, began with a presentation on energy consumption during water collection and transportation process, including pumping, treatment of drinking water, transportation, distribution, treatment of wastewater, seawater desalinations etc. He then compared the energy consumption in France, United States, India and China, and gave practical proposals such as utilization of seawater desalination, hydropower etc. What’s more, he analyzed problems caused by water resource utilization in industry and agriculture. On the one hand, the water availability is shrinking and on the other hand, due to the evolution of irrigation uses in agriculture, it induces a social, but also geopolitical dimension as some countries are deadlocked having no direct access to sea and no river sources on their soil. In the last part, he introduced some geopolitical issues about hydropower, interconnection of power grids, climatic change, flood’s prevention, transboundary aquifers, as well as the potential of regional cooperation, etc.
During the second part of the evening, the documentary “Oceans” was screened.
Biography of Alexandre TAITHE：
Dr. Alexandre Taithe is a research fellow at the Foundation for strategic research (FRS) since 2007. He focuses on the link between Environment and Security. He is especially working on freshwater management (domestic and interstates tensions, link among energy, agriculture and water) and Climate Change (geostrategic issues, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions). He was or is currently teaching in the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin, the University of “Pau et des Pays de l’Adour”, and in the Catholic University of Paris.
