Abstract:The "nexus" is a potentially very appropriate approach to enhance resource efficiency and good governance in transboundary basins. Until now, however, evidence has been confined to isolated case studies and the nexus approach remains largely undefined. The methodology presented in this paper, developed for preparing a series of nexus assessments of selected river basins under the Water Convention of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), is a timely contribution to this ongoing debate. The nexus assessment of a transboundary basin has the objective of identifying trade-offs and impacts across sectors and countries and to propose possible policy measures and technical actions at national and transboundary levels to reduce intersectoral tensions. This is done jointly with policy makers and local experts. Compared to an Integrated Water Resource Management approach, the water energy food ecosystems nexus approach concurrently considers multiple sectors and their evolution. This offers the opportunity to better involve key economic sectors-energy and agriculture in particular-in the dialogue over transboundary water resource uses, protection and management.

2020 is the year of wildfire records. California experienced its three largest fires early in its fire season. The Pantanal, the largest wetland on the planet, burned over 20% of its surface. More than 18 million hectares of forest and bushland burned during the 2019-2020 fire season in Australia, killing 33 people, destroying nearly 2500 homes, and endangering many endemic species. The direct cost of damages is being counted in dozens of billion dollars, but the indirect costs on water-related ecosystem services and benefits could be equally expensive, with impacts lasting for decades. In Australia, the

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) challenge markets, regulators and practitioners to achieve multiple objectives on water, food and energy. This calls for responses that are coordinated and scaled appropriately. Learning from waterenergy-food nexus could support much-needed building of links between the separate SDGs. The concept has highlighted how risks manifest when blinkered development and management of water, food and energy reduce resource security across sectors and far-reaching scales. However, three under-studied dimensions of these risks must be better considered in order to identify leverage points for sustainable development: first, externalities and shared risks across multiple scales; second, innovative government mechanisms for shared risks; and third, negotiating the balance between silos, politics and power in addressing shared risks.

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The shi'ing territoriali/es of the Rhone River's transboundary governance A historical analysis of the evolu/on of the func/ons, uses and spa/ality of river basin governance

We assess possible modifications in the hydrological behaviour of the Rhone River and its tribu- taries at Lyon (France). We identify changes during the late-twentieth century based on observations and charac- terise potential impacts of climatic changes on river response by the end of the century. Different scenarios of the latest generation of IPCC AR5 CMIP5 and hydrological modelling were used and included two scenarios for future outlet discharge of Lake Geneva (Switzerland). We show that discharges in the Rhone basin are likely to decrease significantly by the end of the century and that the sea- sonality of run-off will change substantially as well. In addition, projections point to smaller discharge during low flows, but higher low flows in its sub-basins. Regarding floods, high flows exhibit a general tendency to decrease, whereas potential upwards can be observed for the more extreme floods (less frequent). The approach reported in this paper will help to reflect on the governance modalities of a transboundary river such as the Rhone, especially when water management depends on concession contracts, which are usually granted for several decades and typically last between 60 and 90 years

Participatory modeling is a potentially high-impact approach for catalyzing fundamental sustainability transformations. We test if participation in a group system dynamics modeling exercise increases participants' agency through a novel method to evaluate potential behavioral change using expectation measures. A water-energy-food nexus-a functionally interdependent but underconceptualized system with low consensus and high scientific uncertainty-was mapped, and its evolution simulated by 46 participants in three interventions in a region undergoing hydropower infrastructure development in Northeastern Cambodia. Participants' system-related expectations were measured before and after the interventions. Our results suggest that participants became significantly more optimistic about their individual agency to increase agricultural and fishing income and, interestingly, less likely to participate in local government development planning procedures. Findings also reveal how some uncertainties for multiple variables were reduced within and across the groups. Such converging expectations suggest that participatory modeling could contribute to making collective solutions and institutionalized agreements more likely. This research contributes to innovation in sustainability because it unpacks some underlying mechanics of how participatory processes can lead to new adaptive capacities, shared perspectives, and collective actions. Plain Language SummaryOur research contributes to understanding actionable knowledge for sustainability using a before-after intervention with fishing and farming community representatives in a situation of conflicting water, energy, food, and livelihoods priorities in rural Cambodia. We explain why reducing uncertainty and building consensus on action through participatory research could potentially catalyze new behavior that promotes sustainability and test how this happens in our intervention. The result is a new and much needed evaluation framework and method for behavioral change outcomes in sustainability interventions.

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