The water-energy-food nexus and process systems engineering: A new focus

Garcia, Daniel J.; You, Fengqi

doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2016.03.003

Cited by 250 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 157 publications

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“…He also recognizes that globalization carries the risk of transferring stress, through externalization, from the most powerful countries to the more marginal ones. This same message is found in many papers dealing with the nexus [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Examples are reported in Table 1.…”

Section: Return Of the Neo-malthusianssupporting

confidence: 66%

“…There is general consensus in the literature on the nexus that it is urgent to improve the quality of both the scientific inquiry about the nexus and the integration of policies and actions in the water, energy and food sectors [1,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][33][34][35]37]. This consensus flags a shared experience of a generalized failure of the process for generating and using scientific information for governance of the nexus.…”

Section: Governance Of the Resource Nexusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As to the question 'what is the effect of the nexus?' we find: inextricable links [19,24,26]; inseparable links [35]; interlinkages [23]; critical linkages [37]; interrelationships [18]; an interrelated nature [24]; an interdependency (17,26,31,32); highly interconnected [20,21,27,30]; high levels of interconnectivity [29]; and complex relationships [1]. However, no attempt is made to explain what generates these interlinkages, the interconnectivity or interdependence, and how.…”

Section: The Resource Nexus: the Nature Of The Entanglement Of Naturamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…. detailed process systems models for it do not yet exist at a level satisfactory for important decisions" [27] "nexus represents a multi-dimensional means of scientific enquiry which seeks to describe the complex and non-linear interactions between water, energy, and food, with the climate and further understand wider implications for society" [29] "A problem that is impossible to grasp or respond to adequately from within the partial framings of individual academic disciplines" . .…”

Section: Quotementioning

confidence: 99%

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Perception and Representation of the Resource Nexus at the Interface between Society and the Natural Environment

Giampietro

2018

Sustainability

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Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the resource nexus. This has created the co-existence of different understandings and uses of the concept. In this regard, experiences in the EU H2020 project 'Moving towards adaptive governance in complexity: Informing nexus security' are consistent with findings reported in the literature: (i) The inconvenient message of the nexus is difficult to get across, it being incompatible with the currently dominant rosy narratives about sustainability. Indeed, from a historic perspective, the nexus can be seen as a revival of the ideological fight between cornucopians and neo-Malthusians; (ii) Silo structures in existing institutions are a problem for the governance of the nexus, and so is the resulting reductionist strategy of addressing and fixing one issue at the time; (iii) Scientific inquiry is currently not providing the quality inputs needed for a meaningful discussion of the resource nexus. Entanglement of resource flows is rooted in the complex metabolic pattern of social-ecological systems, the analysis of which requires a complex systems approach and relational analysis. Contemporary reductionist models simply make the nexus invisible to the analyst.

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Section: Return Of the Neo-malthusianssupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Governance Of the Resource Nexusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Resource Nexus: the Nature Of The Entanglement Of Naturamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Quotementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Perception and Representation of the Resource Nexus at the Interface between Society and the Natural Environment

Giampietro

2018

Sustainability

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“…Remarkably, boundary setting is a highly subjective and political task (Ulrich, 2003;Chang et al, 2016), and what the system does not see (outside limits or vision) the system does not analyse. In fact, the definition of appropriate boundaries is critical, since the results will differ, depending on Garcia and You (2016): the number of systems considered; the combinations of systems chosen; the size, kind and number of spatial and temporal scales used; and the actors involved.…”

Section: Constructive Discussion: Proposal For An Integrated Design Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Nexusing Charcoal in South Mozambique: A Proposal To Integrate the Nexus Charcoal-Food-Water Analysis With a Participatory Analytical and Systemic Tool

Martins

2018

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Nexus analysis identifies and explores the synergies and trade-offs between energy, food and water systems, considered as interdependent systems interacting with contextual drivers (e.g., climate change, poverty). The nexus is, thus, a valuable analytical and policy design supporting tool to address the widely discussed links between bioenergy, food and water. In fact, the Nexus provides a more integrative and broad approach in relation to the single isolated system approach that characterizes many bioenergy analysis and policies of the last decades. In particular, for the South of Mozambique, charcoal production, food insecurity and water scarcity have been related in separated studies and, thus, it would be expected that Nexus analysis has the potential to provide the basis for integrated policies and strategies focused on charcoal as a development factor. However, to date there is no Nexus analysis focused on charcoal in Mozambique, neither is there an assessment of the comprehensiveness and relevance of Nexus analysis when applied to charcoal energy systems. To address these gaps, this work applies the Nexus to the charcoal-food-water system in Mozambique, integrating national, regional and international studies analysing the isolated, or pairs of, systems. This integration results in a novel Nexus analysis graphic for charcoal-food-water relationship. Then, to access the comprehensiveness and depth of analysis, this Nexus analysis is critically compared with the 2MBio-A, a systems analytical and design framework based on a design tool specifically developed for Bioenergy (the 2MBio). The results reveal that Nexus analysis is "blind" to specific fundamental social, ecological and socio-historical dynamics of charcoal energy systems. The critical comparison also suggests the need to integrate the high level systems analysis of Nexus with non-deterministic, non-prescriptive participatory analysis tools, like the 2MBio-A, as a means to increase sensitivity to the specifics of charcoal systems while keeping the practical benefits of Nexus as a high level policy design tool. In conceptual terms, this integration promotes open, participatory, integrated, comprehensive and creative analysis and exploration of the Nexus across scales, disciplines and sectors, providing thus, a strong base to design inclusive, sound and robust policies, projects and strategies relating/integrating charcoal, food and water security.

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Wastewater Treatment

2022

Hydrodynamic Cavitation

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The water-energy-food nexus and process systems engineering: A new focus

Cited by 250 publications

References 157 publications

Perception and Representation of the Resource Nexus at the Interface between Society and the Natural Environment

Perception and Representation of the Resource Nexus at the Interface between Society and the Natural Environment

Nexusing Charcoal in South Mozambique: A Proposal To Integrate the Nexus Charcoal-Food-Water Analysis With a Participatory Analytical and Systemic Tool

Wastewater Treatment

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