Life-Cycle Cost Analysis of Infrastructure Projects - Governing the Nexus: Water, Soil and Waste Resources Considering Global Change - page 102

drinking water services do not take source protection or system rehabilitation costs
into account. As a result slippage 2 of service levels has become a regular phe-
nomenon, i.e., service levels deteriorate or fluctuate between full coverage and
partial coverage or unsafe resource situations (Reddy and Batchelor 2012 ). It is
argued that unit costs are not only below the required levels but also the compo-
sition of costs is biased in favour of infrastructure to the neglect of source protection
or natural resource base.
Natural resources, especially water resources, play a critical role in the agri-
culture dependent economies of developing countries. The linkages between land,
water and energy need to be understood for enhancing the production ef

ciency of

each sector as well as the combined ef ciency for enhanced and sustainable food

security. In most cases, natural resource systems are being utilized in unsustainable
manner in most countries. Besides, their productivities, individually or combined,
are very low and vary widely across countries. As a result, these growing econo-
mies experience increasing environmental impacts. Fostering sustainable develop-
ment and mitigating environmental impacts could be possible through following a
nexus approach (i.e., water, energy and food security). Following the nexus
approach would pave the way for achieving green economy (Hoff 2011 ).
Green economy enhances welfare and equity while reducing environmental
impacts. This calls for recognizing the inter-sectoral linkages and adopting a nexus
approach for resource use efficiency and policy coherence rather than following
sectoral approaches (Hoff 2011 ). In the absence of such sectoral integration,
resource degradation has been the norm across the sectors, space and time. Besides,
socioeconomic inequalities have been perpetuated. Water sector is the most affected
in this regard. In the absence of integrated planning and policy coherence between
water, energy and food sector, water resources are being over exploited due to
distorted energy and food policies. On one hand, subsidies on power, fertilizers and
water encourage farmers to use beyond optimum levels (inef

cient allocation), on
the other distorted output pricing policies often favour high water intensive crops
(Reddy 2010 ). Similarly, subsidized inputs (fertilizer) have promoted intensive
agricultural practices resulting in extensive land degradation in India (Reddy 2003 ).
Promotion of water conservation technologies (WCTs) such as micro irrigation,
often takes only the farm level water use ef ciency in consideration rather than

looking at the watershed or basin scale. It is misleading to conclude that WCTs
result in water savings without considering the scale aspects (Batchelor et al. 2014 ).
Net water savings from WCTs at the basin level are much less than the observed
water savings at the farm level as the latter does not take the return flows down-
stream from flood irrigation. Crop or product pro tability needs to take its envi-

ronmental impacts within and outside their respective sectors. Apart from crop
water requirements, methane emissions and contribution to greenhouse gases

2 Slippage is used in the case of water, sanitation and hygiene services (WASH). WASH slippage
is de ned as the occurrence of a certain level of WASH services that has fallen back in a de ned
period of time to a lower level of services.