‘Opening up’ the governance of water-energy-food nexus: Towards a science-policy-society interface based on hybridity and humility

Urbinatti, Alberto Matenhauer; Fontana, Michele; Stirling, Andy; Giatti, Leandro Luiz

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140945

Cited by 35 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…We add to literature that calls for connecting material and social issues (Covarrubias, 2019), opening up the nexus governance (Urbinatti et al, 2020), and co-producing knowledge through inter-and transdisciplinary approaches (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2017;Wahl et al, 2021). Differently from other, more systematic, reviews of the nexus research (e.g., Albrecht et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2018), we present the literature in a way that explicitly aims to promote researchers' reflection and critical thinking, to foster the dialogue between academics from different scientific fields, and between academics and nonacademics, which has the production of actionable knowledge as ultimate objective.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Benefits can go beyond marketoriented logics and include, for example, gains from the learning process. Through social learning, the consideration of the interactions from society toward researchers and stakeholders and vice-versa can improve the collective dialogue throughout engagement processes in nexus discussions (Jasanoff, 2005;Urbinatti et al, 2020), mitigating a "nexus of exclusion" (Giatti et al, 2019). Then, the nexus becomes an important educational, conceptual, and political tool that goes beyond market-oriented logics, considering social and environmental justice issues, enhancing community-level empowerment (Urbinatti et al, 2020).…”

Section: Who Benefits From the Solutions?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Five Ws of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A Reflexive Approach to Enable the Production of Actionable Knowledge

et al. 2021

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The water-energy-food nexus is now a popular approach in the sustainability field. However, whereas the nexus calls for more holistic, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, the research produced over the past decade has been fragmented and specialized. Furthermore, there is still a gap between the nexus as a descriptive and analytical concept and its operationalization. Nexus research needs a shift from “thinking” to “action,” which we understand as the production of actionable knowledge. This paper delves into the literature and presents five “W” questions as an iterative heuristic for the nexus concept to encourage reflexivity and inter-and transdisciplinary dialogue, while aiming at the production of actionable knowledge. We draw on the literature to discuss the five “W” questions of the nexus, namely: (i) Why, in which we explore the purpose of nexus research for actionable knowledge; (ii) What, in which we explore the material aspect of the nexus and the interactions between water, energy and food systems; (iii) Where, in which we discuss issues of scale, interactions between scales, and the geographical context of the nexus; (iv) When, in which we consider temporal dimensions of nexus research with a particular emphasis on intergenerational trade-offs, and (v) Who, which focuses on nexus stakeholders and the importance of understanding issues of justice and equity. Finally, we discuss the connections and dependencies between the five Ws, reinforcing the importance for researchers to reflect on their decision-making and engage in inter- and transdisciplinary debate to enable nexus action.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Who Benefits From the Solutions?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Five Ws of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A Reflexive Approach to Enable the Production of Actionable Knowledge

et al. 2021

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“…This is not the place to discuss intricacies of opportunities and obstacles of a nexus approach, and if and how "(…) the nexus approach seeks to overcome the current lack of engagement between the systems of provisioning, that is, 'breaking down the silos' (…) to articulate governance practices in different sectors, which have historically been governed quite separately." [63]. My hopes are that we will before long be able to flesh out new systemic approaches which can lead to new supporting institutional settings to balance, in the words of Hamidov and Helming [64], the "(..) benefits and trade-offs across relevant sectors."…”

Section: Institutional Arrangements Towards a Systemic Approach To Environmental Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Looking beyond the horizon. A normative-institutional approach to sustainability science; getting onto ‘the balcony’

Heldeweg

2021

E3S Web Conf.

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This contribution is based upon an invited keynote to the CSS2020 Conference on Sustainability Science 2020 (Sustainability Science Post COVID-19; Social Distancing Life, Approaching Natural Life, October 8, 2020). Living in the ‘Anthropocene’ confronts us with major challenges regarding a sustainable and healthy planetary environment. Climate change and biodiversity degradation, but also the COVID-19 pandemic are testimony to this, and together they give cause to consider human responses to them. These responses come with several ‘tragic conditions’: on managing commons, on looking beyond our horizon, and on handling cognitive ambiguity. How can we institutionally safeguard against these conditions and have a better chance at avoiding disasters and recovering from them? This contribution points at some normative/legal arrangements establishing such safeguards, such as on a proper knowledge infrastructure, on guiding rights & principles, and on promoting resilience by taking a more system view. It is hoped that these examples will inspire thinking about how ‘to climb onto the balcony’, look beyond the horizon and act responsibly.

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“…Dimensioning reservoirs has stopped being the sole conceivable solution (Gleick, 2000), and water issues are now even starting to be considered within a broader set of interactions (e.g. nexus approaches, Biggs et al 2015; Urbinatti et al 2020) A key utility of the landscape scale is that it reveals, in practice, the systemic and social complexity of many sustainability issues (Allain, Plumecocq, and Leenhardt 2020). Systemic complexity refers to the theory of complex systems (Holland, 1992), here applied to landscapes (Chopin et al, 2014;Cumming et al, 2012;de Groot et al, 2010): many different entities and processes interact across time and space, leading to emerging functions that fulfill services to humans.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making differences legible: Incommensurability as a vehicle for sustainable landscape management

Allain

Salliou

2022

Ecological Economics

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Landscape management involves tackling both systemic and social complexity: the former due to multiple interacting entities, the latter due to incommensurable knowledge and value systems of stakeholders. Current practice in landscape management makes wide use of participatory methods, which helps increase the breadth of our understanding of sustainability problems, e.g. biodiversity loss, agricultural pest damages or water penury. However, this practice also often offers a flat, harmonized picture of the landscape, which precludes observing ambiguities and out-of-the-box arguments and ideas for overcoming problems. In this article, we analyzed two research settings that tended to surface and formalize incommensurability between stakeholders regarding the sustainable management of landscapes -one focused on quantitative water management, the other on agroecological pest control. The objective was to investigate if and to which extent these 'opening-up' exercises, based on a deliberative rationale, were beneficial to landscape sustainability. The results indicated that in both cases, participants strove to position their knowledge and values relative to others: this way, they delineated a negotiation and learning space to invest in, and enhanced the quality of their arguments, allowing new insights on the focus issues. These findings offer an operational counterpoint to the prevalence of 'closingdown' approaches in landscape approaches. In the general context of ecological crisis, these examples promote methodological options that offer space to disruptive narratives, as well as tools that allow a reflexive use of the scientific knowledge, models and indicators traditionally used in sustainability appraisals, without discarding them.

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‘Opening up’ the governance of water-energy-food nexus: Towards a science-policy-society interface based on hybridity and humility

Cited by 35 publications

References 52 publications

The Five Ws of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A Reflexive Approach to Enable the Production of Actionable Knowledge

The Five Ws of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A Reflexive Approach to Enable the Production of Actionable Knowledge

Looking beyond the horizon. A normative-institutional approach to sustainability science; getting onto ‘the balcony’

Making differences legible: Incommensurability as a vehicle for sustainable landscape management

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