Sustainable development as the ultimate target of adopting a nexus approach to resources management

Abstract

Resource productivity and sustainable development: Challenges and limitations The United Nations' Agenda for Sustainable Development underlines 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets. The lack of holistic knowledge on the interdependency between the SDGs and an interpretation of cause-and-effect relationships that connect the SDGs enormously challenges national policymakers that must implement that are in charge of implementing the 2030 agenda at the national level and achieving the goals across environmental, economic, and social dimensions (Griggs et al. 2017; Dörgo et al. 2018). The international scientific community started to measure the trade-offs and synergies between SDGs. For this exercise, it proved helpful to make use of the concept of the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus, which showed that when addressing challenges like water, energy and food security, integrated approaches to resources management across these sectors should be used and dependent resources considered equally (Hoff 2011). The WEF nexus concept is now starting to be implemented and is recognised as an essential tool for achieving and monitoring progress towards SDGs (Bleischwitz et al. 2018; Hülsmann & Ardakanian 2018). Nevertheless, the WEF is still challenged by a few limitations, in particular concerning comprehensive coverage of the interlinkages between sectors and resources (Albrecht et al. 2018). Besides, nexus assessments are only starting to address all dimensions of sustainability, including the environmental aspect, one primary reason being that ecosystem services (WEF-E) are hardly reflected in nexus tools (Hülsmann et al. 2019). This chapter aims to highlight the necessity of including innovative tools in the assessment of the WEF nexus approach to adopt resources management to achieve Sustainable development. To effectively counteract the potential trade-offs across SDGs, holistic ecosystem management and sustainable practices are required to increase resource productivity. Sector-oriented resource management often neglects the potential impacts (trade-offs and synergies

Exploring Cross-Sectoral Implications of the Sustainable Development Goals: Towards a Framework for Integrating Health Equity Perspectives With the Land-Water-Energy Nexus

“…Figure 3 below depicts potential pathways [ 64 ] by which resource nexus projects can impinge on the health of humans [ 65 ] biodiversity [ 66 ], and natural ecosystems [ 67 ] as well as impact on determinants of health [ 60 , 68 ] through disrupting the ecosystem services of provisioning, regulating, supporting, and preserving culture [ 64 , 69 ].…”

“…The pollution chains reveal how nexus activities often follow ecosystem pathways in how they influence the social determinants of health. These connections between the resource nexus and the ecosystem service pathways which influence health and wellbeing have not been factored into nexus assessments [ 64 ].…”

“…Resource insecurities disproportionately impact rural and remote communities and impinge on Indigenous Peoples’ self-determining goals, socio-environmental values that connect land to health, and ways of knowing and being. In relation to the gaps grouped under decolonial perspectives and place-based contexts in Figure 4 , our analysis has highlighted ways in which literature focused on nexus approaches have not tended to be inclusive of theoretical perspectives grounded in decolonial scholarship [ 57 , 60 , 63 ], local and place-based approaches, and Indigenizing ideas [ 30 , 57 , 60 , 63 , 64 ]. Addressing these gaps and engaging meaningfully with these literatures could enhance options for the SDG’s to provide a basis from which to encourage effective cross-sectoral engagement, bridge epistemological divides and address the strengths and limitations of different knowledge domains and approaches [ 61 , 64 ].…”

“…Nexus tools are largely quantitative; thus, there is a need to consider qualitative, participatory approaches [ 30 , 55 ], which highlight socio-political nuances, such as power, politics, equity, distributional justice, identities, and emotions in nexus framing and conceptualization of challenges and solutions [ 55 , 57 , 61 , 71 ]. Moreover, as a result of a missing focus on social and environmental dimensions of sustainability within the nexus, there are significant gaps in understanding ecosystem service pathways of land, water and energy interactions that underlie health inequities [ 30 , 55 , 57 , 64 ]. However, the SDGs, which offer a way to address human-nature coupled systems, also offer the integrative capacity to redress these missing sustainability dimensions.…”

Barriers in Implementation of Wastewater Reuse: Identifying the Way Forward in Closing the Loop

“…Effective cooperation among the stakeholders enables an open and transparent process of information flow and exchange of concerns, which is crucial for the success of socially and environmentally sensitive projects, such as wastewater application in agriculture [62]. A representative example of such social concern is the perceptions of risk on human health from wastewater reuse.…”