The food water energy nexus in an urban context: Connecting theory and practice for nexus governance

Tye, Mari R.; Wilhelmi, Olga; Pierce, Andrea; Sharma, Saloni; Nichersu, Iuliana; Wróblewski, Michał; Goszczyński, Wojciech; Wendel, Jochen; Laborgne, Pia; Heyder, Monika; Nichersu, Iulian

doi:10.1016/j.esg.2022.100143

Cited by 11 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 123 publications

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“…With this globally growing awareness about sustainable use of resources, concepts about WEF Nexus were applied worldwide (e.g., [33][34][35][36]), and so also for the Danube River. A more detailed picture towards an integrative perspective of Danube River systems in the 21st century linked to water-energy-food nexus concept, the degradation of Danube River along up to 70 years, was elaborated in various studies in the context of ecosystem services, agriculture, and urban life ( [3,[37][38][39][40][41]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Energy Food Nexus in Urbanizing Wetlands: Challenges and Solutions Explored through Choremes and Focus Maps

BALAICAN,

Teubner,

Tudor

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Managing Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) resources within socio-environmental systems demands innovative strategies that provide decision-makers with actionable insights. This article explores the challenges and potential solutions of employing Focus Maps and choremes as a novel approach for assessing anthropogenic impacts and enhancing the visualization of the WEF Nexus in specific geographic areas. By integrating geospatial data, multi-criteria analysis, and involving stakeholders, our research aims to develop Choreomatic Focus Maps (CFMs) that offer a comprehensive spatial representation of the WEF Nexus, facilitating better-informed decision-making at the community level. Our current work outlines visualization of WEF Nexus, as an initial stages of creating CFMs through a detailed step-by-step process. This includes identifying the main drivers for WEF nexus, such as anthropogenic activities and their distribution, evaluating environmental factors, linking anthropogenic impact with environmental indicators over time, and conducting on-site validation. Our focus is on advancing through these crucial steps, particularly emphasizing field validation within the Local Decision-Makers Tools, visualized here by using Focus Maps. This phase is vital for ensuring our approach is grounded in reality and meets the needs of the communities within the Danube Delta region. By doing so, we aim to provide a visual summary of the WEF Nexus that not only captures the complexity of this fragile ecosystem but also incorporates local insights and priorities, identifying key areas where human activities have significant impacts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Energy Food Nexus in Urbanizing Wetlands: Challenges and Solutions Explored through Choremes and Focus Maps

BALAICAN,

Teubner,

Tudor

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…While our focus was on attaining an operational concept of equity in specific relation to the FEWS nexus, we were hindered by a lack of studies that effectively connect the systems-a common finding among reviews of the FEWS field (Endo et al, 2017;Albrecht et al, 2018;Newell et al, 2019). Nevertheless, our approach followed a similar methodology to that of Tye et al (2022) where we include nexus studies along with those focused on an individual sector with provisional relations to the other two. Including these individual system studies enabled a more comprehensive review of 49 studies, versus only six found for the overall nexus, and supports the identification of the most promising social equity integration methods across disciplines.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, spatial scale is often cited as a challenging yet critical component of FEWS governance because resource management typically occurs across several policy scales (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2021). One study focused on governance outlined the importance of scale, finding that large-scale FEWS analyses generally supported policies that contextualized system interconnections yet missed impacts on communities and individuals, while smaller-scale analyses had the opposite strength and limitation (Tye et al, 2022). Another analytical governance framework used the perspective of overlapping centers of control (polycentricity) to explore biophysical and institutional interlinkages that support organization across scales for effective FEWS governance (Srigiri and Dombrowsky, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A systematic review of social equity in FEWS analyses

Stone

Dickey

Summers

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Integrating social equity considerations into analyses of the food-energy-water systems nexus (FEWS) could improve understanding of how to meet increasing resource demands without impacting social vulnerabilities. Effective integration requires a robust definition of equity and an enhanced understanding of reliable FEWS analysis methods. By exploring how equity has been incorporated into FEWS research in the United States and countries with similar national development, this systematic literature review builds a knowledge base to address a critical research need. Our objectives were to 1) catalog analysis methods and metrics relevant to assessing FEWS equity at varying scales; 2) characterize current studies and interpret shared themes; and 3) identify opportunities for future research and the advancement of equitable FEWS governance. FEWS equity definitions and metrics were categorized by respective system (food, energy, water, overall nexus) and common governance scales (local, regional, national, global). Two central issues were climate change, which increases FEWS risks for vulnerable populations, and sustainable development, which offers a promising framework for integrating equity and FEWS in policy-making contexts. Social equity in FEWS was integrated into studies through affordability, access, and sociocultural elements. This framework could support researchers and practitioners to include equity in FEWS analysis tools based on study scale, purpose, and resource availability. Research gaps identified during the review included a lack of studies effectively integrating all three systems, a need for publicly available datasets, omission of issues related to energy conversion facilities, and opportunities for integration of environmental justice modalities into FEWS research. This paper synthesized how social equity has previously been incorporated into FEWS and outlines pathways for further consideration of equity within nexus studies. Our findings suggested that continued exploration of connections between FEWS, equity, and policy development across scales could reduce social risks and vulnerabilities associated with these systems.

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“…These barriers identified by the stakeholders included included the lack of institutional mechansims and resources to facilitated integrative planning, in addition to differences in planning horizons and lack of common goals, among others (Daher et al, 2019). Tye et al (2022) concluded that disaggregating the nexus into component systems could help to make more visible the existing connections. These researchers also indicated that mapping different urban actors and the interaction among the FEW elements could lead to identify common connections, overlapping interests, and shared knowledge, data or resources, which may lead to a more integrated FEW nexus governance.…”

Section: Water Footprintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban FEW Nexus Model for the Otun River Watershed

Torres

Gitau

Lara-Borrero

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The food-energy-water (FEW) nexus has emerged as an alternative to improve the management of the resources used in the food, energy, and water systems. However, there are limited case studies in the Latin American and Caribbean region where a FEW nexus methodology has been implemented. This region will greatly benefit from a FEW nexus approach since more than half of the electricity comes from hydropower, and even though the region has excess in water resources, these resources are not equally distributed and they are poor managed. In this study, an urban FEW nexus framework was used in the Otun River Watershed (ORW) to evaluate the changes in food, energy, and water demand for four scenarios (base scenario, year 2017; scenario 1, year 2035-population growth; scenario 2, year 2035-population growth and reduction in locally produced food; scenario 3, year 2035-population growth and increase in electricity generated locally). Additionally, regional climate models (RCMs) were used to estimate the water availability in the ORW from 2030-2039. The results show that water demand could increase by 16% and energy demand will increase roughly 15% for scenario 2, while water demand in scenario 3 will likely remain unchanged in relation to the current conditions (base scenario). As the Latin America and Caribbean region is the most urbanized region in the world, the modeling tool developed as part of this study may be implemented in other urban watersheds in the Andean Region.

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The food water energy nexus in an urban context: Connecting theory and practice for nexus governance

Cited by 11 publications

References 123 publications

Water Energy Food Nexus in Urbanizing Wetlands: Challenges and Solutions Explored through Choremes and Focus Maps

Water Energy Food Nexus in Urbanizing Wetlands: Challenges and Solutions Explored through Choremes and Focus Maps

A systematic review of social equity in FEWS analyses

Urban FEW Nexus Model for the Otun River Watershed

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