Water, Energy, and Food Nexus in Pakistan: Parametric and Non-Parametric Analysis

Majid Ali, Muhammad Naveed Anjum (), Donghui Shangguan () and Safdar Hussain
Additional contact information
Majid Ali: Department of Economics & Agri-Economics, PMAS Arid Agricultural University, Rawalpindi 46000, Pakistan
Muhammad Naveed Anjum: Department of Land and Water Conservation Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, PMAS Arid Agricultural University, Rawalpindi 46000, Pakistan
Donghui Shangguan: State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
Safdar Hussain: Department of Economics & Agri-Economics, PMAS Arid Agricultural University, Rawalpindi 46000, Pakistan

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-17

Abstract: Analyzing the efficiency of the water, energy, and food (WEF) nexus is critical for effective governance strategies. Therefore, three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to measure the efficiency level of WEF in the 36 districts of Punjab, Pakistan, for the period from 2015 to 2021. Furthermore, the stochastic frontier was used to analyze the effect of external environmental factors on these efficiency scores of the WEF nexus. The results of the DEA showed that the number of frontier efficiency districts decreased, and most districts experienced rank change over time. Overall, the performance of 50% of the districts declined over time. The relative decline in efficiency was found to be higher in districts Bahwalnaghar and Rahim Yar Khan. The performance of districts Multan and Sheikhupura increased over time, while districts Vehari and Sargodha were the most complete and efficient in actual performance. According to the SFA’s findings, the WEF nexus efficiency of South Punjab districts was negatively impacted by external environmental factors (urbanization rate, manufactured industry output, population), leading to severe stress across WEF sectors. Districts in central and southern Punjab, however, were more likely to have lower rankings because of the positive impact of external environmental factors on the efficiency of the WEF nexus. The substantial rise of external environmental variables focused on scale expansion rather than quality improvement, which created a wide gap in WEF inputs and, hence, reduced the efficiency of the WEF nexus in the districts. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for developing governance strategies based on external environmental factors and WEF resource endowment, and they complement the efficiency calculation of WEF nexus research. Future research should focus on the Baluchistan region, the most deprived area in terms of water, energy, and food.

Keywords: water–energy–food nexus; efficiency measurement; DEA; external environment factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/13784/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/13784/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:21:p:13784-:d:951782

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().