The Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A systematic review of methods for nexus assessment

Abstract

The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus is rapidly expanding in scholarly literature and policy settings as a novel way to address complex resource and development challenges. The nexus approach aims to identify tradeoffs and synergies of water, energy, and food systems, internalize social and environmental impacts, and guide development of cross-sectoral policies. However, while the WEF nexus offers a promising conceptual approach, the use of WEF nexus methods to systematically evaluate water, energy, and food interlinkages or support development of socially and politically-relevant resource policies has been limited.This paper reviews WEF nexus methods to provide a knowledge base of existing approaches and promote further development of analytical methods that align with nexus thinking. The systematic review of 245 journal articles and book chapters reveals that (a) use of specific and reproducible methods for nexus assessment is uncommon (less than one-third); (b) nexus methods frequently fall short of capturing interactions among water, energy, and food-the very linkages they conceptually purport to address; (c) assessments strongly favor quantitative approaches (nearly three-quarters); (d) use of social science methods is limited (approximately one-quarter); and (e) many nexus methods are confined to disciplinary silos-only about one-quarter combine methods from diverse disciplines and less than one-fifth utilize both quantitative and qualitative approaches.To help overcome these limitations, we derive four key features of nexus analytical tools and methods-innovation, context, collaboration, and implementation-from the literature that reflect WEF nexus thinking. By evaluating existing nexus analytical approaches based on these features, we highlight 18 studies that demonstrate promising advances to guide future research. This paper finds that to address complex resource and development challenges, mixed-methods and transdisciplinary approaches are needed that incorporate social and political dimensions of water, energy, and food; utilize multiple and interdisciplinary approaches; and engage stakeholders and decision-makers.Modeling the agricultural water-energy-food nexus in the Indus River Basin Pakistan.

A 40-year review of food–energy–water nexus literature and its application to the urban scale

“…In practice, social science was under-represented and there was a preference for quantitative (rather than qualitative) methods. This mirrors the findings of the FEW review by Albrecht et al (2018) which found that nearly three-quarters of the studies relied on quantitative approaches.…”

“…Open and participatory model development builds familiarity, confidence and acceptance in the models and enables a more diverse group of participants to engage (van den Belt 2004). Albrecht et al (2018) highlighted these 'digital sharing platforms' (e.g. Wolfe et al 2016) as promising means of communicating nexus complexity to diverse stakeholders.…”

“…Leck et al 2015), our literature review employs a quantitative and evidence-based approach. This approach follows some excellent recent reviews of the FEW nexus, such as the comprehensive evaluation of FEW methods by Albrecht et al (2018). We use bibliometric analysis to catalog FEW literature and identify important research communities, influential authors, and topical foci.…”

Prominent Influence of Socioeconomic and Governance Factors on the Food‐Energy‐Water Nexus in sub‐Saharan Africa

“…Although there is a consensus on the need for managing FEW resources as a FEW nexus, methods for doing so are relatively underdeveloped (Biggs et al, 2015;Mcgrane et al, 2018;Perrone & Hornberger, 2014). Statistical and data analysis techniques used to quantify some interrelationships of the FEW nexus have generally applied "black box" approaches (Ozturk, 2017;Zaman et al, 2017) and often did not include critical components such as social-economic factors leading to incomplete evaluation of nexus interactions (Albrecht et al, 2018). For example, Sušnik, (2015Sušnik, ( , 2018 used global data to regress the countries' gross domestic product (GDP) against total/sectoral water withdrawals, total/specific crop production, and electricity consumption/generation, finding strong correlations between GDP per capita and all three resources metrics.…”

Optimizing dynamics of integrated food–energy–water systems under the risk of climate change

“…Fundamental elements of integrated FEWS include uncertainty, the interdependence between sectors, risk and impact of climate change, and a generalized framework that enables scalability to a multitude of applications (Howarth andMonasterolo 2016, Cai et al 2018). A recent review paper by Albercht, Crootof, and Scott (2018) identifies two fundamental gaps in FEWS analysis: (1) the methods are generally not reproducible and are problem-specific; (2) they usually fall short of incorporating the interdependence across sectors as well as resource interdependence. More specifically, recent literature in FEWS management either focus on optimizing the food process and identifying optimal strategies for such management, or focus on the flow of information and resources among the different sectors involved in the operations, ignoring the optimization of the process due to computational complexity.…”