The nexus between water, energy and food in cities: towards conceptualizing socio-material interconnections

Abstract

Sustainable use and supply of natural resources dedicated to feeding urban life are becoming increasingly complex in a time of rapid urbanization and climate change. Sustainable governance of Water-Energy-Food (WEF) requires innovative and cross-sectorial systems of provisioning. However, practitioners have often treated WEF as separate domains, while ignoring their interconnectedness. What is missing is an 'Urban Nexus' perspective, which assumes that environmental flows of WEF interact and relate to one another in achieving urban sustainable development. This paper contributes to theorizing the urban nexus and to understand its emergence and governance from a more socio-material perspective. It offers a conceptual framework that helps to shed light on the social and material flows shaping connections between the sectors of WEF, and the actors facilitating these connections. The paper suggests that switchers and programmers link and configure the socio-material flows of WEF facilitating the emergence of nexus governance networks and nexus programs. In doing so, the paper provides three examples of cities to test the conceptual framework by analyzing their main challenges and examples around the nexus. It demonstrates that material and social dimensions of WEF might not play an equal role in steering synergies or trade-offs-either material or social flows and their agents can be central in facilitating a nexus or in preventing it to take shape. The paper argues that material-focused methodologies need to be complemented with a social flows analysis that pays attention to the daily practice, policies, ideologies, networks or any kind of sociocultural meaning shaping WEF provisioning.

Assessment of Energy–Population–Urbanization Nexus with Changing Energy Industry Scenario in India

“…At the same time, there are several reasons for the decline of the population as people tend to live away from areas from energy industry due to environmental pollution and its hazardous effect on health. Also, the higher cost of living near to the energy industry as compared to that in rural areas may also contribute to a reduction in population in the neighborhood of the energy industry [14].…”

The making of a sustainable food city in Barcelona: insights from the water, energy, and food urban nexus

“…Effective and sustainable governance of urban food also requires attention to how it relates with energy and water in order to ensure a more integrated and informed food provisioning in cities (Covarrubias 2018). These urban-level cross-sectoral interactions have been defined by previous research as the Water, Energy and Food (WEF) urban nexus (Covarrubias 2018).…”

“…Effective and sustainable governance of urban food also requires attention to how it relates with energy and water in order to ensure a more integrated and informed food provisioning in cities (Covarrubias 2018). These urban-level cross-sectoral interactions have been defined by previous research as the Water, Energy and Food (WEF) urban nexus (Covarrubias 2018). The WEF urban nexus perspective is defined as a cross-sectorial policy-making approach which aims to overcome trade-offs between different flows and to stimulate synergies across and between networks that are important for sustainable urban development (Dubbeling 2013;Vogt et al 2014).…”

“…Bazilian et al 2011;Howells et al 2013;Nair et al 2014;Endo et al 2015;Daher and Mohtar 2015;Chen and Chen 2016;Smajgl et al 2016;Tevar et al 2016). Nevertheless, the urban level of the nexus has received less attention in the literature when compared to the regional and national levels (for recent calls see Artioli et al 2017;Covarrubias 2018;Covarrubias et al 2019), just as food in the city has received less attention as compared to water and energy domains (Morgan 2009;Sonnino 2009). Understanding the WEF urban nexus of flows in the city, therefore, deserves further exploration.…”

“…The different nodes within the network (food markets, producers, retailers, regulators, etcetera) organize the flows of urban food in particular ways. Flows are the continuous streams of materials, natural resources, information, or any other form that moves along between two or more nodes in the network (Covarrubias 2018). To deserve the title or brand of "proximity food" the network and its flows have to follow a particular programme or code, referring to the values and goals promoted by the network (see Section IV for details).…”