Challenges in operationalizing the water–energy–food nexus

Liu, Junguo; Yang, Hong; Cudennec, Christophe; Gain, Animesh K.; Hoff, Holger; Lawford, R. G.; Qi, Jiaguo; Strasser, Lucia de; Yillia, Paul T.; Chen, Kewei

doi:10.1080/02626667.2017.1353695

Cited by 178 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Different research approaches to urban water supply mapped to the Urban Systems Abstraction Hierarchy including (a) Rauch et al (2017), (b) Tran (2016), (c) Liu et al (2017), and (d) Ali et al (2017). …”

Section: A City‐level Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Systems: Mapping Interdependencies and Outcomes to Support Systems Thinking

et al. 2020

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This paper argues that urban systems issues are design problems on a grand scale and that various disciplines aiming to address them can have only a partial view of the problem. It is necessary to draw boundaries around the detailed analyses of specific issues, but a way to map the wider system, to contextualize and more deeply understand how they are interrelated, is still lacking. Four complexity obstacles related to reasoning about complex systems are in our way, and to our knowledge no existing approach navigates them effectively. We propose a tool called the Abstraction Hierarchy as a way to do just this, in order to frame complex issues on a large scale, in a way accessible to all disciplines. To demonstrate the power of this systems model, the Abstraction Hierarchy is applied to an urban area. Through its application we demonstrate its capability to navigate all four obstacles and investigate previously unexplored space in urban systems research.

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Section: A City‐level Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Systems: Mapping Interdependencies and Outcomes to Support Systems Thinking

et al. 2020

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“…Considering any Nexus as complex socio-ecological systems, three major challenges emerge as fundamental to propose more comprehensive, integrated and encompassing analysis: the challenge of identifying and analysing the interlinkages, tradeoffs and synergies among the Nexus Systems (e.g., Liu et al, 2017); communicate that analysis across disciplines, sectors and cultures (e.g., Wichelns, 2017); and promote creativity (Ringler et al, 2013). More than improve modeling techniques (which has its merit, Kling et al, 2017;Veldhuis and Yang, 2017), arguably it is necessary to promote participation and dialogue (e.g., Mirzabaev et al, 2015;Howartha and Monasterolo, 2016;Kling et al, 2017;Veldhuis and Yang, 2017).…”

Section: Beyond the Nexus With The Nexus: Toward The Integrated And Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most relevant Nexus modeling drawbacks include the lack of (Kaddoura and El Khatib, 2017;Kling et al, 2017;Liu et al, 2017): data in quantity, quality and consistency; systematic identification, analysis and exploration of synergies, trade-offs and impacts simultaneously across scales and levels of detail; aggregation methods "sensitive" to local specificities; incorporation of human and systems adaptation and behavior; methods to evaluate and compare models. Another critique of the Nexus refers to the existence of institutional and communication barriers across sectors and disciplines that hinder dramatically the applicability in real institutional settings Endo et al, 2015;Leck et al, 2015;Wichelns, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nexusing Charcoal in South Mozambique: A Proposal To Integrate the Nexus Charcoal-Food-Water Analysis With a Participatory Analytical and Systemic Tool

Martins

2018

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Nexus analysis identifies and explores the synergies and trade-offs between energy, food and water systems, considered as interdependent systems interacting with contextual drivers (e.g., climate change, poverty). The nexus is, thus, a valuable analytical and policy design supporting tool to address the widely discussed links between bioenergy, food and water. In fact, the Nexus provides a more integrative and broad approach in relation to the single isolated system approach that characterizes many bioenergy analysis and policies of the last decades. In particular, for the South of Mozambique, charcoal production, food insecurity and water scarcity have been related in separated studies and, thus, it would be expected that Nexus analysis has the potential to provide the basis for integrated policies and strategies focused on charcoal as a development factor. However, to date there is no Nexus analysis focused on charcoal in Mozambique, neither is there an assessment of the comprehensiveness and relevance of Nexus analysis when applied to charcoal energy systems. To address these gaps, this work applies the Nexus to the charcoal-food-water system in Mozambique, integrating national, regional and international studies analysing the isolated, or pairs of, systems. This integration results in a novel Nexus analysis graphic for charcoal-food-water relationship. Then, to access the comprehensiveness and depth of analysis, this Nexus analysis is critically compared with the 2MBio-A, a systems analytical and design framework based on a design tool specifically developed for Bioenergy (the 2MBio). The results reveal that Nexus analysis is "blind" to specific fundamental social, ecological and socio-historical dynamics of charcoal energy systems. The critical comparison also suggests the need to integrate the high level systems analysis of Nexus with non-deterministic, non-prescriptive participatory analysis tools, like the 2MBio-A, as a means to increase sensitivity to the specifics of charcoal systems while keeping the practical benefits of Nexus as a high level policy design tool. In conceptual terms, this integration promotes open, participatory, integrated, comprehensive and creative analysis and exploration of the Nexus across scales, disciplines and sectors, providing thus, a strong base to design inclusive, sound and robust policies, projects and strategies relating/integrating charcoal, food and water security.

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“…Similarly, data assimilation among various system components in the modeling of hydroclimatology and hydrometeorology, and their interfaces with the land surface, ecological and social systems, and others is moving forwardincluding within the framework of the IAHS Panta Rhei initiative (Montanari et al 2013, Cudennec et al 2016, McMillan et al 2016, Di Baldassarre et al 2019. Moreover, the emerging nexus approaches, especially on the water-energy-food nexus, reflect the increasing demand not only for data within each sector, but for viable approaches to their integration that ensure water and food security, sustainable agriculture, and energy production worldwide (Young et al 2015, Ceola et al 2016, Liu et al 2017.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%