Handbook on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus 9781839100543, 9781839100550

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Handbook on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Edited by

Floor Brouwer Senior Research Scholar, Wageningen Research, the Netherlands

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© Floor Brouwer 2022

With the exception of any material published open access under a Creative Commons licence (see www.elgaronline.com), all rights are reserved and no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Chapter 9 is available for free as Open Access from the individual product page at www. elgaronline.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) license. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2022938897 This book is available electronically in the Geography, Planning and Tourism subject collection http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781839100550

ISBN 978 1 83910 054 3 (cased) ISBN 978 1 83910 055 0 (eBook)

Contents

List of contributorsvii 1

Introduction to the water-energy-food nexus Floor Brouwer

PART I

1

UNDERSTANDING THE NEXUS

2

The nexus: concepts and frameworks Tamara Avellán and Mario Roidt

16

3

Global nexus relationships and trends Janez Sušnik

36

4

The theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the water-energy-food nexus Louise A. Gallagher

PART II

55

CONCEPTS OF THE NEXUS IN PRACTICE

5

Energy security and the energy transition Molly A. Walton

81

6

Exploring policy coherence in India’s electricity-water nexus Kangkanika Neog and Vaibhav Chaturvedi

96

7

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept Christos Makropoulos, Sandra Casas Garriga, Anne Kleyböcker, Charles-Xavier Sockeel, Clara Plata Rios, Heather Smith and Jos Frijns

113

8

Climate services and the nexus for smart resource management Mirabela Marin, Roger Cremades, Nicu Constantin Tudose, Șerban Octavian Davidescu, Cezar Ungurean, Hermine Mitter and Anabel Sanchez-Plaza

132

9

Capacity development and knowledge transfer on the climate, land, water and energy nexus Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells and Hans-Holger Rogner

10

A marine nexus approach for healthy ecosystems at sea Pietro Goglio and Sander van den Burg

178

11

Examining knowledge of the nexus at the urban scale Andrea L. Pierce, Monika Heyder, Grant Tregonning, Pia Laborgne, Olga Wilhelmi and Jochen Wendel

193

v

149

vi  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus PART III ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NEXUS: GOVERNANCE, POLICY AND BUSINESS 12

Water-energy-food nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa Michael Jacobson and Gracie Pekarcik

211

13

Agricultural development in the Andean countries and the nexus Oscar Melo, Lisbeth Naranjo, Dolores Rey, Gloria Salmoral, Oswaldo Viteri-Salazar and Eduardo Zegarra

231

14

Management of the nexus in Australia Jamie Pittock, Mark Howden and Paul Wyrwoll

250

15

Innovations on the nexus for development and growth in the south Mediterranean region 273 Sanaa Zebakh, Fadi Abdelradi, Essam Sh. Mohamed, Omar Amawi, Mohamed Sadiki and Ali Rhouma

16

The role of land in the water-energy-food nexus Jiaguo Qi, Steve Pueppke, Myung Sik Cho, Yachen Xie, Charlie Navanugraha and Tep Makathy

291

PART IV STRENGTHENING THE NEXUS: METHODS AND TOOLS 17

Leveraging the water-energy-food security nexus with a complex adaptive systems approach Afreen Siddiqi

18

An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar

19

A theoretical framework to address multi-level governance challenges of the water-energy-food nexus Giacomo Melloni, Ana Paula Dias Turetta, Katharina Löhr, Michelle Bonatti and Stefan Sieber

20

Ecosystem services and the nexus for achieving urban sustainability Jiangxiao Qiu, Hui Zhao, Deyong Yu and Jianguo Wu

PART V

308 329

346

364

OUTLOOK

21

Water-energy-food nexus in international law: a legal analysis Paolo Davide Farah and Imad Antoine Ibrahim

381

22

The relevance and challenges in communicating the nexus Guido Schmidt, Christine Matauschek, Maïté Fournier, Anna Saito, Bassel Daher and Rabi H. Mohtar

398

Index413

Contributors

Fadi Abdelradi is Associate Professor of agricultural economics at the Faculty of Agriculture at Cairo University. Fadi’s research focus lies within the field of agricultural value chain analysis, with a special emphasis on price volatility transmission across markets and production efficiency. Recently, Fadi completed a two-year project called ‘Improving the fresh produce supply chain network in Egypt’, financed by the American University in Cairo. Thomas Alfstad is an advisor for sustainable development strategies with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. For the past 10 years he has delivered guidance and training to government institutions in the use of quantitative analysis to inform national development planning and policy. Thomas previously worked in academia and as an analyst in Washington, DC, providing advice on energy and climate policy for the Obama and Bush administrations. Omar Amawi is a senior manager in the fields of scientific project management and building strategic partnerships, with more than 15 years of experience in the fields of science, technology and innovation policy development. This includes planning, implementation and support, international cooperation and building strategic networks and partnerships, commercialization, technology transfer and bridging science and business, capacity building and human resources management and development. Omar previously worked at the Higher Council for Science and Technology in Jordan for more than 10 years as the director of policies and scientific projects and international cooperation departments. Tamara Avellán holds a PhD in geography from the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich and an MSc in biology-limnology from Wayne State University, Detroit. Her research focuses on the overarching understanding of biophysical interlinkages between natural resources and of these with social, economic and institutional spaces. Her work in academic research as a freelancer and the United Nations intends to foster sustainable development and participatory processes. Working at this interface, learning and applying interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methods have been crucial. Currently, she is working on multiple European research projects on the sustainable use of environmental resources. Michelle Bonatti is Deputy Head of the department ‘Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries’ at Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research. Her research focuses on the co-design of innovations and social learning for sustainable land use. She holds a master in rural development from Buenos Aires University and a PhD from the Humboldt University of Berlin on community-based strategies for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)s. She is now a lecturer on environmental policy and works on research projects in Latin America and Africa. Floor Brouwer is an environmental economist at Wageningen Research in the Netherlands, working as a senior research scholar in the area of the green economy and land use. He holds a PhD in economics from the Free University in Amsterdam for a study on integrated economic-ecological modelling. Floor was the scientific co-ordinator of the H2020 project vii

viii  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus ‘Sustainable Integrated Management for the Nexus of Water-Land-Food-Energy-Climate for a Resource Efficient Europe’ (Research and Innovation Action, 2016–2020). He is also Adjunct Professor at the United Nations University Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources, where he collaborates on the advancement of the resource nexus. He leads the Nexus Project Cluster, a group of some 30 independent water/energy/food cross-sector research initiatives who team up for increased and more impacting communication and dissemination of the nexus. Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His main research interest is the role of the food-water-energy resource nexus for the socio-economic development of society. He works on the application of Multiscale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism to food systems in the European Union and Latin America. Sandra Casas Garriga is Head of Water Technology at Fundació EURECAT in the area of environmental sustainability. Sandra has a PhD in environmental engineering and has experience in water treatment technologies using both conventional and advanced systems, especially those involving membranes for water reclamation. She is involved in the coordination of the demonstration actions of the NextGen Project. Vaibhav Chaturvedi is a Fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, New Delhi and leads the Council’s ‘Low-Carbon Pathways’ research. His research focuses on Indian and global climate change mitigation policy issues through the integrated assessment modelling framework of the Global Change Assessment Model. He has a doctorate in economics from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and a master’s degree in forest management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal. Myung Sik Cho is a PhD student in the Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences and a research assistant in the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations at Michigan State University. He holds a BS and MS in geography from Kyung Hee University, Seoul. He studies the effects of dams on water resources and land systems using remote sensing and cutting-edge geospatial techniques. Roger Cremades is a scientist at the Climate Services Center Germany and a complex system scientist and heterodox global change economist. He operates at the edge of economics and environmental sciences and has developed various modelling tools. In his research Roger is mainly focused on climate change, natural resources, the nexus approach for policy and decision making and a cross-sectoral approach for environmental sustainability. He holds a PhD from Hamburg University for a study assessing the impact of policy and climate variability on water, energy and food in the Asian monsoon region. He is a pioneer of the economics of the nexus. Bassel Daher is Assistant Research Scientist at the Texas A&M Energy Institute, where he leads its Convergence Research Incubator. Daher builds on systems thinking to develop analytics that catalyses an evidence-based, multistakeholder dialogue around trade-offs associated with technological, policy and social interventions to address the interconnected water, energy and food security challenges. He also focuses on water-energy-food governance, academic– stakeholder convergence and the implementation of the SDGs.

Contributors  ix Șerban Octavian Davidescu is Director of the National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry ‘Marin Dracea’, Romania. He holds a PhD in torrential watershed management. His research is mainly focused on assessing the behaviour of the torrential watershed management works, promoting ecological solutions and enhancing resilience of ecosystems under climate change adopting the concept of climate services. Paolo Davide Farah is Associate Professor at West Virginia University, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, John D. Rockefeller IV School of Policy and Politics and Member of the West Virginia University, Institute of Water Security and Science. He is also Founder, President, Director, Principal Investigator and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development. Maïté Fournier is an engineer and senior project manager at ACTeon Environment. She assists local communities in the design, implementation and evaluation of their environmental policies with a focus on integrated water resources management, water scarcity or pollution issues, nature-based-solutions and climate change adaptation. She creates and fosters links between research or technical studies and policy, facilitates stakeholder engagement in natural resources management and advises on strategic planning. Jos Frijns is Resilience Management and Governance Team Leader at KWR Water Research Institute. Jos has an MSc in environmental engineering and is a senior researcher in water governance. He works on sustainability themes such as water reuse, the water-energy nexus and circular water solutions, with an emphasis on governance processes, stakeholder collaboration, citizen participation, scenario studies and strategy and knowledge development. Jos is Coordinator of the EU H2020 project NextGen on water in the circular economy (2018–2022). In 2019, Jos was appointed Visiting Fellow at Cranfield Water Science Institute. Louise A. Gallagher is an environmental economist intent on sustainability transformations and curious about how participatory processes contribute to positive change. She co-leads the LIVES project research into water-energy-food indicators at the University of Geneva. She is Scientific Coordinator at UNEP/GRID-Geneva and has worked at UN Environment and WWF. She holds a PhD in environmental policy from University College Dublin. Francesco Gardumi is Researcher at the KTH dES. His main research interest lies in coding and applying open-source energy and integrated assessment modelling tools for capacity development. He works on developing interoperable data structures, open-access teaching material and modelling tools linking methodologies towards structured capacity development projects. He holds a PhD in energy and nuclear science and technology. Mario Giampietro is ICREA Research Professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His main research interests are complex systems theory, societal metabolism theory, natural resource nexus, post-normal science, and science for governance. He developed the analytical framework Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism. Pietro Goglio is Senior Researcher in Life Cycle Assessment at Wageningen Economic Research. He obtained an agricultural science degree from the University of Pisa and joint PhD from AgroParisTech and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Environmental Sciences. He has been working for more than 15 years in conducting and developing lifecycle assessments

x  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus in different fields which include fish farming and agribiosystems. He has been involved in several European Union projects as project leader, partner and contributor. In the projects, he has been mostly involved with lifecycle assessment and method development for marine and land-based systems. Monika Heyder works at the European Institute for Energy Research, Germany. In recent years, she has focused on community participation to support sustainable development in cities and communities as well as on the development and implementation of digital decision support systems in local energy planning. Chairing the German mirror committee of ISO/ TC 268 and CEN/TC 465 Sustainable Cities and Communities allows her to bridge the gap between research and implementation. Mark Howden is Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University. He is Honorary Professor at Melbourne University and also Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Mark has worked on climate variability, climate change, innovation and adoption issues for over 30 years in partnership with many industry, community and policy groups via both research and science policy roles. Issues he has addressed include agriculture and food security, the natural resource base, ecosystems and biodiversity, energy, water and urban systems. Mark Howells is Professor at Loughborough University and Principal Research Fellow at Imperial College. He leads the Climate Compatible Growth consortium. Mark led the development of some of the world’s premier open-source energy, resource and spatial electrification planning tools. He is a key contributor to the OpTIMUS community of practice that aims to improve the rigour, ease of use and ecosystem needed to strengthen evidence-based policy making. Imad Antoine Ibrahim is Research Assistant Professor, Center for Law and Development, Qatar University, Doha. He is also Research Associate at the Global Law Initiative for Sustainable Development in the United Kingdom. He has been working on global environmental issues from a legal perspective and their interplay with emerging technologies for the last decade. Michael Jacobson is Professor of Forest Resources in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at Penn State University. He received his PhD at North Carolina State University in 1997. He has worked at the World Bank and Tropical Forest Foundation and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho. He is currently a Global Fellow at Penn State and Director of the Water-Energy-Food Initiative in Africa. He is very active in international agroforestry associations and is well recognized globally for his expertise in agroforestry. His courses Global Agricultural Systems, International Forestry and Agroforestry have strong international components. Anne Kleyböcker is a scientist and project manager at the Center of Competence for Water, Berlin. She studied civil engineering and has a PhD in process engineering. She is the cross-cutting technology group leader for material and energy recovery in the H2020 projects NextGen and Ultimate and coordinates nine case studies to demonstrate and foster circular economy solutions.

Contributors  xi Pia Laborgne is a sociologist and researcher at the European Institute for Energy Research, Germany, focusing on urban energy, climate and sustainability strategies, especially regarding local governance, participation, knowledge co-creation and transdisciplinary research. Since 2018 she has coordinated the SUGI FWE Nexus project Creating Interfaces. Katharina Löhr is Deputy Head of the department Sustainable Land Use in Developing countries (Focus Region: Africa) at Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research and is a guest researcher and lecturer at the Humboldt University of Berlin. She holds a PhD in agricultural sciences and an MSc in peace and development studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, UK. Her research focuses on the nexus of natural resource management, social cohesion and peacebuilding, sustainability impact assessment and co-design of innovations. Tep Makathy is an architect planner, graduating from Tokyo University. He has been working as an environmental specialist for the World Bank Group since 2010 and is accredited for the Bank’s safeguard policies in the East Asia and Pacific region. He is Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Pannasastra University, Cambodia. Makathy has engaged with projects including the water-energy-food nexus since 2015. Christos Makropoulos is Professor at the School of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens, Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Principal Scientist for KWR, the Water Research Institute in the Netherlands. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Urban Water Journal, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Hydroinformatics and Water. Makropoulos is an expert in hydro-informatic tools and methods for urban water management. His work addresses issues of resilience, risk and security analysis, uncertainty quantification, decision support, long-term policy scenario development and system stress testing. Mirabela Marin is a researcher at the National Institute of Research and Development in Forestry ‘Marin Dracea’, Romania and a PhD student at the Transilvania University of Brasov. She investigates the hydrological impacts of climate and land use changes in the context of afforested watershed. She explores hydrological processes (discharges, surface run-off and sediments), with a view to identifying appropriate measures to cope with trade-offs between hydrology, climate and land use at regional scale. Christine Matauschek is a researcher at Fresh Thoughts Consulting, Austria and holds a BSc in environment and bioresources management from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. She is part of the communication team of the H2020 project SIM4NEXUS (2016–2020). She is responsible for the communication-monitoring process. Giacomo Melloni is consultant in the Accounting and Corporate governance division of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with a master’s degree in economics and development from the University of Florence. He collaborates with EMBRAPA Solos in Brazil in the implementation of Projeto Nexus focusing on stakeholder participation and engagement and governance analysis. In collaboration with the Leibniz Centre of Agricultural Landscape, he collaborates on research focused on water-energy-food nexus governance.

xii  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Oscar Melo is Associate Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and holds a PhD in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Maryland. His areas of research are water management and climate change economics, food trade and sustainable development. He is a principal investigator in the Nexus Thinking for Sustainable Agricultural Development in Andean Countries project researching the water-food-energy-environment nexus in Peru and Ecuador. Hermine Mitter is Senior Scientist at the Institute for Sustainable Economic Development, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. She works on integrated assessment frameworks to better understand the climate-land-water-energy nexus in the context of global climate change. She is also active on policy assessments towards the efficient management of land, water and energy resources management. Essam Sh. Mohamed is with the Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology at the American University in Cairo and Technical Advisor at the Center of Excellence for Water. He obtained his PhD from the Agricultural University of Athens. Since 2002, Mohamed has been active in several research and development projects financed by national and European Union funds. Rabi H. Mohtar is Dean, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, American University of Beirut and Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M University. His interest is in quantifying the interlinkages of the water-energy-food-health nexus as constrained by climate change, social, political and technological pressures. He seeks discovery, learning and impact in environmental and natural resources conservation. Lisbeth Naranjo has a master’s degree in agricultural and environmental economics. She is a researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Consultant at the Natural Resources Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Her recent work focuses on the water-energy-food nexus in Latin America and in her previous research she evaluated a programme with payments for ecosystem services and the impacts on social capital in the Indigenous communities of Ecuador. Charlie Navanugraha is a soil and environmental scientist at the Center of Excellence on Soil Research in Asia and holds a PhD in soil science from the University of the Philippines at Los Banos. He is an academic advisor to the Land Development Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative and the Faculty of Environment and Resource Studies, Mahidol University. He is a member of Mekong international working group on the Land Water Energy and Food Nexus Project. Kangkanika Neog is Programme Associate at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water and works on water resource management, governance and policy. In recent years, Kangkanika has also worked extensively on circular economy solutions for wastewater management, urban water and the energy-water nexus, among others. She holds a master’s degree in environmental studies and resource management from TERI University, New Delhi. Taco Niet is Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at the Simon Fraser University School of Sustainable Energy Engineering. He applies energy systems models to assess the feasibility of technological development pathways. Focus areas include energy storage, integration of renewable/variable energy resources, climate change and integrated nexus

Contributors  xiii modelling. He applies this work to address systemic challenges in sustainable development in countries worldwide to build a more equitable future. Ioannis Pappis is a doctoral student at the KTH Division of Energy Systems. As part of his studies, Ioannis has developed national energy systems models (Africa, Greece, Paraguay) to investigate medium- to long-term energy strategies for the sector. He has also been an instructor in several capacity-building activities to use energy modelling tools to inform sustainable development. Ioannis holds an MSc in sustainable energy engineering and a diploma in mechanical engineering. Gracie Pekarcik is a graduate research assistant with the Smith Center for International Sustainable Agriculture in the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication at the University of Tennessee. She received her degree in community, environment and development at the Pennsylvania State University. At Penn State, she served as an undergraduate research assistant for the Water-Energy-Food Initiative in Africa. In her graduate research position, she serves as Student Platform and Project Coordinator for the Food-Energy-Water for Sustainable Urban Systems project. Eunice Pereira Ramos completed her doctoral studies at the Division of Energy Systems, KTH. She collaborated in several nexus assessments at national and transboundary levels, including the SIM4NEXUS project. Eunice is active in capacity development activities to support nexus dialogues and in using modelling tools. She holds a diploma in physics and chemistry and an MSc in sustainable energy systems. Andrea L. Pierce is a policy scholar at the University of Delaware’s Biden School of Public Policy and Administration. Her work focuses on comparative urban policy and governance of energy and climate, with a focus on public participation and citizen engagement. She serves as Co-Principal Investigator in the Creating Interfaces project investigating nexus governance and project lead for the Wilmington, Delaware study case. Jamie Pittock is Professor in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University. Jamie works on better governance of the interlinked issues of water management, energy and food supply, responding to climate change and conserving biodiversity. He leads research programmes on irrigation and water management in Africa, and on hydropower, food and water in Asia and Australia. Jamie advises a number of non-government environmental organizations. Clara Plata Rios works on project management at the University of Malaga, having worked on topics such as smart campuses, innovation, entrepreneurship and the circular economy. Currently Clara combines this work with the development of circular economy projects and research activities as Operations and Technology Manager in the company IPStar SEMiLLA, linked to the European Space Agency. Clara has a PhD in physics from the University of Granada. Steve Pueppke holds a PhD from Cornell University and is a long-time university administrator with expertise in agriculture, the environment and cross-disciplinary research within the global context. He is Section Editor for water, agriculture and aquaculture for the journal Water and is Associate Director of the Nanjing Agricultural University-Michigan State University Asia Hub for Water, Energy, and Food.

xiv  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Jiaguo Qi is Environmental Geographer at Michigan State University and holds a PhD in soil and water science from the University of Arizona in Tucson. He was the Monsoon Asia Integrated Research for Sustainability-Future Earth Project Scientist of the NASA Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Program (2007–2016) and has been Chair of the Nexus Knowledge-Action Network Steering Committee since 2018. He is Principal Investigator of a number of WEF nexus projects in the Lower Mekong River Basin and Central Asia, focusing on the nexus role of land use in the water, energy and food systems under climate change. Jiangxiao Qiu is Assistant Professor in the School of Forest Resources and Conservation at the University of Florida. His research broadly falls into landscape ecology, ecosystem services, global change ecology and sustainability sciences. Ansel Renner is Researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His main research interest is accounting methodology for social-ecological system assessment from the perspective of societal metabolism theory and complex systems theory. Dolores Rey is Lecturer in Water Policy and Economics at Cranfield University. She has over eight years of research experience in water availability risks and water economics in the agricultural sector. Her current research seeks to understand farmer decision-making processes regarding water management during drought events. She has also worked addressing the use of water markets to cope with water shortages, drought and flood policies related to the agricultural sector. Ali Rhouma is a senior project officer at PRIMA Foundation responsible for the water-energy-food-ecosystems nexus and farming systems. He holds an agricultural engineering degree from the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia, a master’s in environment from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and a PhD in plant production and protection from the Claude Bernard University Lyon and the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia. He has more than 20 years of experience in agricultural research in Tunisia and the Mediterranean region and has led several research and innovation projects. He is a co-author and author of 70 publications and four national patents. Hans-Holger Rogner holds an MSc in industrial engineering and a PhD in energy economics. For most of his career, he has been engaged in comprehensive energy system analysis, energy-environment-economy modelling and integrated resource planning. He has served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in various capacities since 1995. After his retirement, he rejoined the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. Mario Roidt is a portfolio manager at KfW Development Bank and focuses on water infrastructure projects in the Middle East. By training he is a water resources engineer and a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Rottenburg. He has researched the water-energy-food nexus and worked particularly on increasing energy efficiency and reducing non-revenue water in water systems of developing countries. Mohamed Sadiki is Minister of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development and Water and Forests in Morocco, following his previous position as General Secretary at the same ministry from 2012. He holds a PhD from Minnesota University in genetics and

Contributors  xv plant breeding. He started his career in 1984 as a professor at the Hassan II Agronomic and Veterinary Institute in Rabat and occupied the position of director from 2009 to 2012. He has been an expert at the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome since 2000 and at the French National Research Agency, Paris since 2010. Sadiki has been President of CIHEAM since 2018. Anna Saito is a project officer specialised in natural resource governance and communication at the French environmental consultancy ACTeon environment. She works on a variety of topics both at the European and regional scale. Within her work, she is particularly interested in knowledge exchange, stakeholder mobilisation and co-creation. Gloria Salmoral is Technical Project Manager and Group Manager at the University of Manchester. She holds a PhD from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and is engaged in working on integrated water and land resource assessments under changing climatic, policy and societal conditions. Her research covers both drought and floods, including agricultural drought risk management and institutional and organizational arrangements for using drones to provide assistance with flood responses. Anabel Sanchez-Plaza is a researcher at the Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications, Cerdanyola del Valles, Spain. She is involved in research identifying adaptive forest management strategies, working closely with forest-sector stakeholders. Her research focuses on the vulnerability of water resources to global change, including adaptive water management practices. Guido Schmidt has a PhD in environmental engineering and 25 years of experience in better understanding, preventing and solving water and environmental problems and conflicts. He is Senior Expert at Fresh Thoughts Consulting GmbH, working on water policy and governance, climate change adaptation, the water-energy-food nexus, freshwater biodiversity, water scarcity, drought and floods management, water risk analysis and others in the European Union, the Mediterranean, Asia and Latin America. Abhishek Shivakumar is a researcher and consultant in energy systems modelling. He works for the United Nations to build integrated resource models for long-term planning and the United Kingdom’s Climate Compatible Growth Programme. In the past, Abhishek managed INSIGHT_E, a multidisciplinary energy think-tank informing the European Commission. He completed his PhD in energy systems from KTH and is an administrator of OSeMOSYS. Afreen Siddiqi is Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Adjunct Lecturer of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. She has led several projects on the water-energy-food nexus and has authored over 100 publications on technology, policy, and international development. She is an expert in quantitative systems analysis. She engages widely in international policy forums on environment, sustainability, and technology. Afreen has an S.B. in Mechanical Engineering, an S.M. in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a PhD in Aerospace Systems, all from MIT. Stefan Sieber is Associate Professor and leads the department Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research. His domains are nutrition-sensitive agriculture, climate change and bioenergy and policy and governance analysis in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. He finished his doc-

xvi  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus torate in agricultural economy with a focus on resource and environmental economics at the University of Bonn. He is a lecturer of the master’s programme ‘Environmental Sociology and Environmental Policy’ at Humboldt University Berlin. Heather Smith is Senior Lecturer in Water Governance at Cranfield University. She studied water science, policy and management and has a PhD in geography and environment. Heather’s research explores the societal dimensions of the water sector. Her research interests include public perceptions and behaviour towards new technologies and approaches, such as water recycling and water-saving devices. She has a particular interest in the boundary between social science and engineering. Heather is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Higher Education Academy. She also sits on the Customer Panel for South Staffs and Cambridge Water. Charles-Xavier Sockeel is a circular economy project manager and technical business engineer at Strane Innovation. He studied industrial supply chains in an engineering school and has a second degree in industrial processes and materials engineering. Charles-Xavier is in charge of the exploitation work package of several European projects and contributed to start-up development in the circular economy. He supports companies, researchers and technology providers to set new circular business models to deploy good practices and circular technologies in Europe. Vignesh Sridharan is Research Associate at Imperial College London. His work focuses on integrated assessments and the modelling of interlinked resource systems. He has over eight years of experience building optimization models for long-term electricity sector planning and the linking of energy and water management models. He completed his PhD at KTH, focusing on the interactions between resource systems in the East African context. Lucia de Strasser is an energy and environmental policy analyst. She works for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe at the Water Convention Secretariat. Lucia was a researcher at Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, where she focused on energy access and the energy transition of Sub-Saharan African countries. At KTH, she modelled integrated energy and water systems. She holds an MSc in energy and environmental engineering and a BSc in mechanical engineering. Janez Sušnik is Senior Lecturer in Water Resources at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education. His field of expertise is quantitative water-energy-food nexus assessment and modelling. He has investigated nexus systems at scales from sub-national to global. He is particularly interested in how policy can be better harmonized and formulated to achieve multiple nexus and SDG targets and on the potential long-run future trajectories of the Earth nexus system. He gained his BSc from Lancaster University and his PhD from the University of East Anglia. Grant Tregonning is a Research Associate based at the University of Glasgow and a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. Grant is a geospatial scientist with a particular interest in climate change, sustainability, inequalities and citizen science. He uses geospatial analytical methods and visualisation tools to understand issues associated with urban sustainability and liveability. Grant also uses community based participatory methods as a means to decolonise geospatial and visualisation research and encourage the co-creation of knowledge amongst various stakeholders and civil society members.

Contributors  xvii Nicu Constantin Tudose is a researcher at the National Institute of Research and Development in Forestry ‘Marin Dracea’, Romania. His research is mainly targeted at environmentally beneficial solutions to manage torrential riverbeds in protected areas. The research includes evaluation and monitoring activities to protect forests on degraded land, especially under climate change. The work is targeted at increasing human and environmental resilience under climate change, developing climate services at local and regional scales. Ana Paula Dias Turetta is a geographer with a degree in soil sciences from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro and a doctorate from the University of Wageningen. She is currently a researcher at the Brazilian Agriculture Research Cooperation, Professor in the master’s programme in territorial development of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro and the Latin America representative in the Ecosystem Services Partnership Steering Committee. Her research topic includes the evaluation of food-water-energy nexus security in Brazil. Cezar Ungurean is a researcher at the National Institute of Research and Development in Forestry ‘Marin Dracea’, Romania. He works in forestry ecology and seeks for ecological solutions, especially in degraded land areas, adopting the nexus approach in the provision of climate services. He is involved in land reclamation programmes in the forest steppe regions of Romania. Sander van den Burg is a senior researcher on blue growth at Wageningen Economic Research. He studied environmental sciences and obtained a PhD at the Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University. Since 2011, Sander has been a project leader on maritime projects, studying how sustainable use of seas and oceans can contribute to the achievement of SDGs 2 and 14. He is active in several European Union projects. In his projects various methods are applied, including but not restricted to cost-benefit analysis, value chain analysis, impact assessment, lifecycle assessment, multicriteria analysis and participatory design. Oswaldo Viteri-Salazar is Professor at Escuela Politécnica Nacional. He holds a PhD in environmental science and technology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He focuses on the analysis of societal metabolism in rural areas of Ecuador and his studies encompass agricultural activity, supply chains and public policies related to production and the environment. He has worked comparing production systems in countries like Colombia, Costa Rica, Vietnam, Côte d’Ivoire and Ecuador. Molly A. Walton is Energy and Transport Manager at the We Mean Business Coalition where she directs and coordinates the Coalition’s overall approach to these two systems, facilitating the journey to the deployment of the solutions that put us on a 1.5 degree trajectory and net-zero emissions. Prior to joining the Coalition, she worked for Breakthrough Energy, International Energy Agency, where she was head of the work stream on the water-energy nexus and co-author of several World Energy Outlooks, and the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC. She began her career as a reporter for Circle of Blue. Jochen Wendel holds a PhD in geography from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He has been working in the field of smart and sustainable cities since 2014 when he joined the European Institute for Energy Research, Germany. Since 2018, he has worked on the urban food-water-energy nexus and is a coordinator of the project Creating Interfaces.

xviii  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Olga Wilhelmi is a geographer with 20 years of experience studying human–environment interactions. Olga is a research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research where she conducts interdisciplinary research on societal risk and resilience to weather hazards and climate change and leads their Geographic Information Science programme. She serves as a Co-Principal Investigator of the Creating Interfaces project, focusing on urban food-water-energy nexus governance. Jianguo (Jingle) Wu is Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Sustainability Science in the School of Life Sciences and the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. His research areas include landscape ecology, urban ecology and sustainability science. Paul Wyrwoll is a research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Institute for Water Futures and Crawford School of Public Policy. He works on the economics and governance of water systems in Australia and the Asia-Pacific. Paul is an environmental and resources economist whose previous research has encompassed modelling the regulation of multipurpose hydropower reservoirs, the design and application of water pricing and the resilience of social-ecological systems under risks and uncertainty. A central focus of his applied research is integrating technical analysis into decision making. Yachen Xie is an environmental researcher working on his PhD at Michigan State University. Deyong Yu is Professor at Beijing Normal University interested in landscape ecology, landscape sustainability, urbanization and remote sensing. Sanaa Zebakh is the actual Director of cooperation & partnership within the Moroccan Ministry of Higher education, scientific research and innovation. She acted as Deputy Director of Cooperation, Partnership and Development at IAV Hassan II, from 2010 to 2022. She was also responsible for the Moroccan–European Union partnership in science and technology within the Moroccan Ministry of Higher Education and Research. She has participated in several European projects (Erasmus+, FP6, FP7) aiming to reinforce science and technology policy dialogue in the Euro-Mediterranean region, supporting capacity building and networking. She operated the ARIMNET calls for proposals from 2011 to 2017 enabling the funding of 48 projects in the field of agriculture, water and the nexus. She has a particular interest in Moroccan research and development metrics in the agricultural field. Eduardo Zegarra works as a senior researcher at the Group for the Analysis of Development in Lima. He holds a PhD in agricultural and applied agriculture from the University of Madison-Wisconsin. His research is focused on water markets and tariffs, water issues in the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, impact evaluation of irrigation projects, assessment of water sanitation and hygiene programmes and risk evaluation in countries such as Chile, Peru, Nicaragua and Panama. Hui Zhao is a PhD candidate at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Florida. Her dissertation research is focused on understanding contributions of urban agriculture to urban sustainability.

1. Introduction to the water-energy-food nexus Floor Brouwer

1.1

THE NEED TO MANAGE OUR NATURAL RESOURCES SUSTAINABLY

The world increasingly runs up against the physical constraints of resources, including availability of water, energy, land and food, which are exacerbated by climate change (Zhang et al., 2018). The emergence of such constraints largely depends on growth in the global population, welfare trends, increased urbanization and changes in consumption patterns. By 2050, the world’s population is expected to have increased by up to 2 billion, with an emerging middle class and demand for improved water services, as well as increasing demand for energy services (De Laurentiis et al., 2016). Achieving food security is one of the biggest challenges of the twenty-first century (De Laurentiis et al., 2016). Projections conclude there is a need to produce 70 per cent more food, and at current rates of water productivity, water demand would therefore increase substantially. Demands for water, energy and food are estimated to increase by 40, 50 and 35 per cent, respectively, by 2030 (United States National Intelligence Council, 2012). Mitigation measures are sought by governance approaches, as well as technological and social innovations (Wiegleb and Bruns, 2018). Such global challenges indicate that action from science, policy, business and civil society is needed to prevent conflicts and arrive at smart innovations that effectively deal with trade-offs between these resources (e.g. Hoff, 2011). Moreover, there is a need for policies to reduce environmental pressures without adversely affecting prosperity. Sectoral approaches will likely be insufficient to address such challenges. In order to address this effectively and manage our natural resources sustainably, an integrated approach is required (Rockström et al., 2009).

1.2

INTRODUCING THE NEXUS CONCEPT

The word ‘nexus’ is derived from the Latin verb ‘nectere’, meaning ‘to connect’ (De Laurentiis et al., 2016), and refers to ‘a connection or series of connections linking two or more things’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2018). Water, energy and food are interconnected, comprising a coherent system of these resources (the ‘nexus’), dominated by complexity and feedback. Putting pressure on one part of the nexus can create trade-offs on others. Global water risks, for example, are growing, especially in regions where water demand exceeds supply. Uncertainties and concerns regarding future security of water, energy and food have brought attention to the water-energy-food nexus (Zhang et al., 2018). Scarce water resources are part of the problem, and agriculture is the largest consumer of water. Solutions to reduce water demand are therefore also primarily searched for in agriculture. Ignoring interlinkages between the water, energy and food sectors may have adverse consequences (Zhang et al., 2018), for example with biofuels. 1

2  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus The nexus concept emerged under the influence of the World Economic Forum when business leaders in 2008 expressed engagement with nexus issues between economic growth and water, energy and food resource systems (Wiegleb and Bruns, 2018), followed by the release of a report on water security (World Economic Forum, 2011). An international conference organized by the German federal government was held later that year (Hoff, 2011). Since then, the nexus concept has been taken up by research and institutions including the World Economic Forum, the World Wildlife Fund, Institute of Mechanical Engineers (in the United Kingdom), World Bank, SAB Miller, Coca-Cola and other organizations (e.g. Cairns and Krzywoszynska, 2016). This wide interest around the nexus among public and private agents (and not only academics) shows there is momentum to review the state of the art and assess the potential of this concept in practice. Endo et al. (2017) reviewed and analysed 37 projects on the water, energy and food nexus and concluded that many of them focused on biofuel production, with trade-offs among water and food. Bioenergy was largely promoted to mitigate climate change by shifting away from fossil fuels, which potentially has adverse effects on food production and water use. Also, if society could reduce water demand from agriculture, more water could be available for metropolitan areas. Similarly, water treatment is a major concern for metropolitan areas. The water-energy-food nexus is not only about saving water, but also how the benefits from such triangular interactions could be increased by changing the production and processing of food. The use of resources should be considered as a whole and not be looked at separately. While some literature refer to the water-energy-food security nexus (e.g. Liu et al., 2017), the concept of the resource nexus is also observed, including water, energy, land, climate and the built environment (e.g. Laspidou et al., 2020). The nexus is multi-centric (Liu et al., 2017) with other integrated resource management approaches (e.g. integrated water resources management), mainly originating from a particular resource sector.

1.3

METHODS AND TOOLS FOR NEXUS ASSESSMENT

The concept of the water-energy-food nexus is relatively new. It is an approach to operationalize systems thinking, to create a discourse about it and support the policy process. The nexus concept is focused on two main features (Brouwer et al., 2018a, 2018b). First, interlinkages between natural resources (i.e. water, energy, food and land) are taken into account, trade-offs among them are made explicit and potential synergies are exploited. In light of this, natural resources are managed sustainably and in an integrated manner. Such an approach will require a focus on biophysical, socio-economic and policy interactions. Second, governance processes are an explicit part of the nexus concept, including policy coherence. There is always a risk of ignoring some parts of the system. Institutionalizing the nexus in policy processes might be too much of a top-down approach. Policy coherence is an attribute of policy-reducing conflicts and exploiting synergies within and across policy areas at different spatial scales. A lack of policy coherence has the risk of trade-offs from inadequate decision making. Optimizing food production, for example, might cause trade-offs with other natural resources (e.g. water and land). The nexus concept allows us to seek synergies and overcome trade-offs. A nexus approach includes both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dimensions (Endo et al., 2020). The interdisciplinary part is targeted to address interlinkages between water, energy and food resources, systems and sectors, while the transdisciplinary part is targeted at the

Introduction to the water-energy-food nexus  3 involvement of practitioners (from business, policy and civil society organizations) working with the scientific community. Practitioners are recognized as co-producers of knowledge and as being an essential building block to implement the nexus concept. Several systematic reviews of the water-energy-food nexus literature have appeared since 2015. A review of methods for nexus assessment is presented by Albrecht et al. (2018), drawing from publications up to 2016, with some 80 per cent of them published in 2015 or 2016. The authors conclude that (1) the use of specific and reproducible methods for nexus assessment is uncommon and methods used often draw from existing disciplinary approaches; (2) the nexus methods frequently fall short of capturing interactions among water, energy and food; (3) assessments strongly favour quantitative approaches, with the majority of the studies reviewed primarily using quantitative methods; (4) the use of social science methods is limited; and (5) many nexus methods are confined to disciplinary silos. Albrecht et al. (2018) emphasize a nexus approach that (1) consists of interdisciplinary methods to study interactions between water, energy and food; (2) addresses the local context; (3) focuses on the engagement of stakeholders and decision makers, addressing policy needs; and (4) targets implementation in practice. Endo et al. (2020) reviewed methodologies and methods of the nexus, drawing from review articles published between 2017 and 2019. The water-energy nexus gained momentum during these years, among others because knowledge about the water requirements in the energy sector has improved. Endo et al. (2020) conclude with a well-established methodology of the water-energy-food nexus, integrating interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches that had not existed up to then. A more extensive review of the nexus literature is presented by Newell et al. (2019), including around 1400 academic publications on the nexus published in the period 1973–2017. The first publication appeared in 1988 (Cohen and Allsopp, 1988) and investigated a ‘what-if’ climate scenario and its impacts on natural resource use and resource-dependent activities (e.g. water flows, snow cover and socio-economic impacts including demand for hydroelectric power, shipping, agriculture, tourism and municipal water use). Climate mitigation actions not only relate to resource use but also compensatory strategies (e.g. irrigation) and substitution actions (e.g. new technologies). Newell et al. (2019) identified modelling tools (system dynamics, integrated assessment modelling and ecological network analysis), qualitative approaches and co-production strategies to capture interactions between the nexus components. Zhu et al. (2020) present a bibliometric mapping of nexus research, with a focus on studies conducted between 2003 and 2020. Literature about the water-energy-food nexus has been published in over 330 different journals, with the top 10 journals covering almost a third of the number of publications. The latter group of journals focus on sustainable development, resources and environmental research. Zhu et al. (2020) summarize some features of the nexus literature as follows: ● The academic research on the water-energy-food nexus is tightly linked with the international dimension of sustainable development practices. Research cases are concentrated in the Global South and the productive authors are mainly from Western countries. ● The core issues examined relate to interactions among water, energy and food systems and how they affect regional sustainable development. ● The mainstream research methods include quantitative analyses (e.g. econometric modelling, multi-system simulations).

4  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus On top of this, Zhu et al. (2020) conclude that important nexus topics of research include resource security, efficiency, sustainability and policy coherence. However, addressing synergies and trade-offs of the nexus remains challenging, because the water-energy-food nexus is also driven by economic development, urbanization, climate change and other economic, social and environmental factors. Dai et al. (2018) reviewed methods and tools for the assessment of the water-energy nexus. A total of 70 studies were identified and 35 were selected for review. The authors conclude that (1) the nexus research is extended over time in scale and scope and (2) that many studies remain focused on understanding the interlinkages between water and energy by using quantitative assessments without proper governance actions. The identification of stakeholders is often missing, and approaches to support governance and the implementation of technological solutions remain underdeveloped. The scope of the assessments is being extended over time and includes water, energy, food, land, climate and more. Wiegleb and Bruns (2018) emphasize that the main research on the nexus is driven by resource scarcity and the related risks to the economy and society as a whole. Methods from the natural sciences are employed to better understand interlinkages between water, energy and food resource systems, which are characterized by feedbacks and interdependencies. Such methods largely result from disciplinary fragmentation of knowledge development; achieving resource efficiency is a main driver of the nexus and is mainly achieved through innovation and market instruments. Beyond this leading nexus discourse the authors also suggest an alternative discourse on the nexus to challenge ignorance of ‘socio-political aspects of resource and allocation’ (Wiegleb and Bruns, 2018, p. 2). This alternative framing of the nexus is built on the allocation and distribution of resources in the context of unequal power and lack of transparency of public participation, highlighting the socio-political dimension of governing resource management (Wiegleb and Bruns, 2018, p. 10) and addressing what is driving the related trade-offs in the water-energy-food nexus.

1.4

THE WATER-ENERGY-FOOD NEXUS IN POLICY AND RESEARCH

The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Conference) was the first global conference about international environmental issues. This conference recognized that ‘man has acquired the power to transform his environment in countless ways and at an unprecedented scale’ (United Nations, 1972). Global water issues were high on the agenda of the United Nations Conference in 1977 (Mar del Plata, Argentina). Considerations to connect the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development date back to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (1992) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002). Boas et al. (2016) examine the nexus approach in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), arguing that the nexus should be taken into account while implementing the SDGs. The nexus approach is based on some sort of consensus between the parties involved from the water, energy and food sectors and aims to bring together these sectoral interests (Boas et al., 2016). More importantly, the nexus concept can account for the environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainable development and, with the nexus concept extended with gender, health, poverty and education, also the interconnections between the 17

Introduction to the water-energy-food nexus  5 SDGs. Boas et al. (2016, p. 455) therefore argue that the nexus is ‘well equipped to convey the message that all 17 Sustainable Development Goals are interlinked and must be addressed holistically’. Wichelns (2017) also considers whether or not the increasing interest on the water-energy-food nexus is warranted, from a research or policy perspective. ‘Policy coherence and intersectoral planning are desirable goals in some settings, but many developing countries might lack the requisite institutional capacity … to support inter-ministerial, intersectoral policy discussions’ (Wichelns, 2017, p. 120). The paper concludes there is a lack of agreement on the definition of the water-energy-food nexus and the supporting conceptual framework is labelled problematic as well. There are quite a number of frameworks and definitions of the nexus and its applications (for a selection of water-energy-food nexus frameworks and their main features see Purwanto et al., 2021). Zhang et al. (2018) concludes the water-energy-food nexus is ‘put forward to call for an integrated management of the three sectors by cross-sector coordination … reduce unexpected sectoral trade-offs and promote the sustainable development of each sector’. Purwanto et al. (2021) also propose some topics that require further research, including (1) making the nexus relevant for practitioners and policy making, (2) the need for reliable data and information, (3) establishing a framework with the flexibility to adapt to a diverse set of conditions and (4) moving beyond the concept of the nexus and entering a conceptual framework which brings benefits towards a more sustainable and integrated policy-making process. Research and policy analysis on the water-energy-food nexus is driven by multiple contexts. Wichelns (2017) concludes that land, labour and capital are three essential resources which are key to understanding the interlinkages between water, energy and food and are part of the nexus framework approach. Sarkodie and Owusu (2020), using a bibliometric analysis of 235 documents, conclude that several socio-economic factors (e.g. structural adjustments in economic development) are important drivers of environmental sustainability. Van den Heuvel et al. (2020) point to a lag between academic knowledge and policy implementation related to ecosystem services and their interactions within the water-energy-food-land-climate nexus. They argue that integrating the nexus concept with the ecosystem service concept may enhance the understanding of pressures and impacts related to a resource nexus and address trade-offs. Moreover, such integration of the nexus with the ecosystem service concept could support policy integration and coherence (Van den Heuvel et al., 2020). D’Odorico et al. (2018) present examples of trade-offs between the demand of water from the energy and food sectors, including the first generation of biofuels and the global food crisis of 2007/2008. They also conclude that synergies could be created from the linkages among water, energy and food systems with opportunities targeted at the sustainability of one system with their effects across other systems in place. Bielicki et al. (2019) examined the stakeholder perceptions of sustainability in the water-energy-food nexus. Over 70 per cent of the respondents from their survey assessed that all of the combinations of the physical components of the water-energy-food systems are interconnected. While respondents from academia favour research and data, representatives from policy and practice focus more on integrated policy towards the nexus. Mohtar et al. (2020) question whether achieving sustainability in the water-energy-food nexus is a science and data need and/or a need for integrated public policy. Drawing from a special issue comprising 25 papers, the authors conclude that ‘monitoring data, coordinated research, public policy and governance are needed at national and global scales’ (Mohtar et al., 2020; p. 5), not

6  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus only to support evidence-based decision making but also global public policy like sustainable development.

1.5

SYSTEMS APPROACHES TO THE WATER-ENERGY-FOOD NEXUS

Numerous methods are available to support nexus assessments, drawing from environmental management (e.g. life-cycle assessment), economics (e.g. cost-benefit analysis), statistics (e.g. regression statistics), social sciences (e.g. institutional analysis), integrated modelling, systems analysis (e.g. causal loop diagrams and system feedbacks), geospatial, hydrologic modelling, energy modelling and food systems (Albrecht et al., 2018). Cremades et al. (2019) present principles of the nexus, including a need to consider the nexus as a complex system, with feedback loops between its components. Related to this, case studies need to be defined through the relevant resources in place and the system boundaries (Cremades et al., 2019). Caron et al. (2018), for example, advance a food systems approach which is at the nexus linking food security, nutrition, human and ecosystems health, climate change and social justice. System dynamics modelling (SDM) is an important modelling approach based on causal feedback loops (Zhang et al., 2018) as an enabler to identify systems’ behaviour and make the feedback structure of the system explicit. Abstraction and simplification of the nexus system during the modelling process requires involvement of the relevant stakeholders and avoiding as much as possible any inconsistencies between reality and the system in place. SDM was developed by Jay Forrester at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960s and has a focus on feedback, interlinkages and complexity. SDMs have recently been developed and tested in different environments and scales. A major endorheic river system was investigated in Urmia Lake Basin in Ira (Bakhshianlamouki et al., 2020), starting with developing a qualitative causal loop diagram of the area and using this to develop a quantitative SDM. Such SDM enables us to explore trade-offs and possible mitigation measures over time to create synergies between resources of the water-energy-food nexus, including economic development, policy interventions and environmental impacts. Similarly, Sušnik et al. (2021) expand the water-energy-food nexus to also include land and climate and conduct SDM assessments for Latvia, with five sub-regions aggregated to national totals. The SDM offers a quantitative nexus modelling exercise towards a low-carbon development of the country, reducing energy dependency from imported fuels and expanding bioenergy sources from within the country. González-Rosell et al. (2020) develop a participatory SDM to assess the key interlinkages between water, energy and food at regional level and conclude this supports understanding the nexus synergies as well as the design of more coherent sustainability strategies. The analysis can be used to guide coherent nexus policy formulation. While adopting a systems approach on the nexus, Laspidou et al. (2020) conclude that an operational nexus approach could facilitate awareness by practitioners, but requires a strong focus on data availability and scale. Liu et al. (2017) also argue that the main scientific challenges are related to the lack of integrated data and knowledge on critical interlinkages. Moreover, an innovative visualization tool is available to showcase hotspots of the nexus, as well as strong interlinkages among sectors (Laspidou et al., 2020). Learning about more nexus-compliant practices is an important part of the nexus, requiring a better understanding of environmental challenges. This could be improved through the

Introduction to the water-energy-food nexus  7 active involvement of stakeholders, and the engagement and motivation of actors involved has beneficial effects on learning (Madani et al., 2017). Game-based learning has gained popularity involving practitioners and policy makers in active research and stimulating social learning (Mochizuki et al., 2021). Although serious games could also be entertaining for players, entertainment is not their primary purpose. They are used for purposes other than mere entertainment, e.g. for education, decision making and public policy making. Serious gaming is a means for understanding policies, resulting in acceptance, mitigating conflicts and avenues for compromise (Madani et al., 2017). An example of a serious game to explore flood mitigation options in urban-rural catchments comes from the village of Millbrook in the United Kingdom (Khoury et al., 2018). New local partnerships were initiated and the debriefing discussions helped to prioritize flood management measures in the region (Khoury et al., 2018). Sušnik et al. (2021) also propose using visual serious games for nexus performance assessment and stakeholder engagement, using selected indicators by decision makers.

1.6

UNDERSTANDING THE NEXUS

This Handbook, divided into five parts, offers a concise, critical and empirically well-founded overview of the water-energy-food nexus. The book includes contributions on cross-cutting themes and on specific angles and disciplinary perspectives of the nexus. There is a balanced mix of conceptual chapters and more grounded empirical studies. Part I aims to clarify the nexus concept and give proof of its needs. The main interlinkages between water, energy and food are presented as well as the different concepts of the nexus. The merit of applying the water-energy-food nexus is clarified relative to sustainable development and integrated natural resources management or other integrated resource management approaches. The key tenets of sustainable development include the principles of precaution, intergenerational and intra-generational equity, the polluter-pays principle and policy integration. Part I is comprised of three chapters. Chapter 2 presents the different concepts and frameworks adopted regarding the nexus. Tamara Avellán and Mario Roidt address concepts of the nexus, including its definitions, boundaries, the inclusion of resources and sectors, as well as the concepts of trade-offs, interlinkages and benefits of resource use and governance. Moreover, methodologies and frameworks target models and modelling in the biophysical realm and beyond. In order for the nexus concept to be successful and useful for decision makers, the authors conclude that all parts of the decision-making process need to be addressed. In addition, transdisciplinary research principles should be adopted. Chapter 3 presents a global overview of connections between water, energy and food. Janez Sušnik argues the demand for each of the three sectors is growing, which has implications for the other two sectors due to the coupling. The demand for the three resources is largely driven by population and socio-economic development, and has already put strain on resource availability and sustainability. The author shows interlinkages between the three sectors at global scale and concludes transition phases need to be much faster than what is currently observed for decoupling the connections. Promising examples are presented to improve resource efficiency and reduce losses in production and consumption. Chapter 4 presents the theory and practice of the design, management and implementation of transdisciplinary nexus science. Louise Gallagher outlines three main phases

8  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus for transdisciplinary research: (1) team building and problem framing; (2) co-creation of solution-oriented and transferable knowledge; and (3) reintegration and application of knowledge created. The chapter builds on a review of over 20 transdisciplinary science projects and an in-depth reflection on a particular project. The chapter also offers observations that could support scholar-practitioners who wish to consider adopting a transdisciplinary approach to water-energy-food nexus research.

1.7

CONCEPTS OF THE NEXUS IN PRACTICE

Part II presents different applications of the nexus. Adopting a nexus lens about water-energy-food in urban areas, is, by its nature, very different from using the nexus approach to support the global achievements to secure energy supplies. This part showcases the nexus concept applied in very specific contexts (e.g. climate services, ecosystem services, urban metabolism, SDGs and development). Therefore, flexibility and adaptability to different policy contexts are desirable features. The chapters shape the main features of adopting the nexus concept and show further evidence for enhancing water, energy and food security through its adoption. Part II includes seven chapters. Chapter 5 presents a range of emerging futures on the global energy transition. Molly Walton argues that the energy transition is targeted at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and meeting the SDGs, while ensuring energy remains affordable, reliable and secure. The author emphasizes this will require structural changes to the way we produce and consume energy. The chapter also provides an overview of how the energy transition could impact the energy-water nexus and energy security. The chapter argues water will remain an important input in the energy transition. Moreover, the water sector relies on energy to source, move and treat water. Among other key messages, the author argues that avoiding an integrated approach to water, energy and climate could put our energy transition goals at risk. A proper understanding of the water-energy nexus will therefore be critical in attempts towards a more secure and sustainable energy future. Chapter 6 applies a nexus framework to investigate coherence between policies for electricity production and related water use in India. Kangkanika Neog and Vaibhav Chaturvedi argue that integrated and coherent energy-water policies remain the exception and not the norm. Policy coherence is an approach to support fostering synergies across economic, social and environmental policies, identify trade-offs and address spill-overs of policies. The authors examine interlinkages between 12 policy solutions across eight policy objectives in India’s electricity and water sectors and conclude that progress on most of the objectives affects progress on the other objectives positively. Policies promoting solar and wind energy are most positive in terms of its nexus implications. Chapter 7 will adopt the nexus concept to investigate opportunities and manage challenges of a water-sensitive circular economy. Christos Makropoulos and co-authors present available evidence from circular management solutions (e.g. technologies, business models and policy instruments) that will be required to redesign and reconfigure nexus interdependencies within the context of a circular economy. The authors argue that the nexus concept could support actors representing the water, energy, food and environment sectors to identify new opportunities when redesigning economic sectors and to add value in a water-sensitive circular economy.

Introduction to the water-energy-food nexus  9 Chapter 8 presents the concept of climate services adopting the water-energy-food nexus approach. Mirabela Marin and co-authors examine climate services as co-produced actions between scientists and stakeholders that are delivered through customized information and based on the needs of end users. Knowledge about interlinkages between water, energy and food could evolve under climate change, and eventually improve decision making and societal resilience at large. The authors adopt an integrated modelling approach of the nexus for a comprehensive assessment of the management of water, energy and food resources and for achieving the Agenda 2030 targets in an integrated and smart manner. This approach will provide substantial knowledge to avoid maladaptation regarding unforeseen trade-offs. Chapter 9 examines the importance of transferring knowledge of the nexus among a variety of audiences. Eunice Pereira Ramos and co-authors discuss how knowledge is transferred, and learning is achieved, in different types of initiatives (e.g. summer schools, capacity development, nexus dialogues), and analyse how these contribute to building capacity on the nexus at individual, organizational and network levels and the enabling environment. Experience from the application of the climate, land, energy and water systems framework contextualizes the analysis. The chapter offers an overview of enablers, opportunities, barriers and challenges in transferring nexus knowledge and argues these aspects are interrelated. The authors conclude that a focus on interdisciplinarity should be encouraged among practitioners with mutual support towards science-based evidence in decision making. Chapter 10 presents a marine nexus approach and acknowledges that current assessments of marine socio-economic systems are insufficiently ‘nexus proof’. Pietro Goglio and Sander van den Burg argue that nexus assessments have primarily been used in land-based systems and are far less used in the marine environment. The chapter presents potential benefits of a water-energy-food nexus in the context of oceans and sea water. A better understanding of energy and food in marine spatial planning can advance our understanding of the interlinkages and trade-offs between water, energy and food. The steps are presented as to how a marine nexus approach could add value and inform decision making. Knowledge of the nexus is examined at the urban scale in Chapter 11. Andrea Pierce and co-authors argue the water-energy-food nexus remains relatively elusive despite the increasing interest in sustainable urban development. There is potential for the urban nexus concept and transdisciplinary work to facilitate cooperation and knowledge sharing among relevant stakeholders and citizens (for example, through visualization and participatory modelling). The chapter draws from three mid-sized cities in Poland, Romania and the United States.

1.8

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NEXUS: GOVERNANCE, POLICY AND BUSINESS

Part III focuses on governance, policy and business in the achievements of the nexus. Adopting a nexus lens means being able to identify critical objectives to pursue optimizing synergies and effectively manage trade-offs across sectors. Resource efficiency and the circular economy, for example, are major policy domains in Europe and elsewhere that, if addressed from a nexus perspective, could lead to far more results than if tackled with a sectoral approach. The governance dimension of the nexus is relevant to supporting policy making. Different cases on the nexus will review existing policies to make explicit where trade-offs or synergies may exist

10  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus and what the main drivers are. Where possible, the potential economic impacts of removing any trade-offs or adopting synergies are quantified. Part III includes five chapters. Chapter 12 reviews the water-energy-food nexus literature in Africa with a perspective to better understand its use and effectiveness on this continent. Michael Jacobson and Gracie Pekarcik reviewed 90 papers with a nexus content. Clusters of technology interventions are identified (e.g. irrigation, hydropower, renewable energy, water management and land management). The authors conclude that there is a dominance of the water sector (e.g. irrigation and hydropower) in the nexus literature, and reveal a lack of dominant food technological interventions or agricultural production systems nexus studies in Africa. Climate change is a cross-cutting theme in the literature, but the authors argue that climate change is not being viewed as a priority in the needs of food and water availability. Chapter 13 illustrates existing trade-offs on the water-energy-food nexus in the Andean countries. Case studies in Chile, Peru and Ecuador are reviewed in regions facing weak governance and high inequality. Oscar Melo and co-authors examine development in regions heavily dependent on the proper governance of land, water and energy. There are opportunities in agricultural and economic development to boost international trade. The potential for implementing a nexus governance approach in the region is explored, including implementation of coordinated resources and economic policies and overcoming the disconnection between national policies and their implementation at regional level. Chapter 14 offers lessons emerging from Australia for a coherent system of governance of the nexus of climate, energy, food and water. Jamie Pittock and his co-authors offer scope to better manage water, energy and food production. The management of scarce water, for example, is a major challenge in Australia, especially sustaining the environment and supporting agricultural and energy industries. Among others, this includes user-pays policies to avoid subsidizing low-value developments with sectoral interests and also to avoid some sectors being exempted from the water cap. Moreover, agricultural policies largely ignore interlinkages with climate and energy. The chapter concludes that a ‘coherent’ system of governance is needed to link climate change with scarce water resources, agricultural development and the exploitation of Australia’s abundance of renewable energy resources. Chapter 15 examines whether innovations along the water-energy-food nexus could mitigate societal challenges and be an engine of development and growth. Sanaa Zebakh and co-authors focus on innovations in the Mediterranean region with a view to overcoming sectoral fragmentation in policy. The Southern Mediterranean countries face a population increase and securing food supplies is particularly fragile, with dependence on food imports to increase. The chapter presents cases with research and innovation to be a key factor in improving agriculture and enhancing resilience to existing and future climate change. It is foreseen that increasing awareness on the nexus in research will explore options to reinforce policies and eventually also encourage entrepreneurship along these emerging sectors integrating water, energy and food. Chapter 16 considers land as an integral part of the water-energy-food nexus system and accounts for the spatial heterogeneity at the level of watersheds. Jiaguo Qi and co-authors argue that land is embedded in every vertex of the interlinkages between water, energy and food. Land use change can lead to trade-offs, including risks to secure water, energy and food supplies. The authors also, however, conclude that land use changes can play a significant role in achieving synergies among water, energy and food systems. The proper management of land resources is an important prerequisite for achieving this.

Introduction to the water-energy-food nexus  11

1.9

STRENGTHENING THE NEXUS: METHODS AND TOOLS

Part IV presents a state-of-the-art overview on the methodologies and tools in the field of the water-energy-food nexus. Some unifying research frameworks of the water-energy-food nexus are presented, enabling us to share common goals and search for agreed outcomes, reducing trade-offs and increasing synergies. Part IV includes four chapters. Chapter 17 examines the water-energy-food nexus from the perspective of complex adaptive systems (CAS). Afreen Siddiqi adopts the CAS approach focusing on interactions and adaptations, and resource security is presented as an emergent property resulting from component interactions governed by physical laws and institutions (including policies, rules and norms). A CAS is a system of interacting components recognized as bidirectional rather than unidirectional, and the system boundary defines which components are included. A CAS approach is adopted for investigating the water-energy-food nexus in Pakistan. Here, resource security is linked to irrigation-based agriculture in a large agrarian society. The chapter concludes that finding suitable configurations for the interaction of components, allowing for closing the gap between goals and level of resources through timely monitoring and adequate corrective action, would not only meet water, energy and food security goals, but also enable the necessary adaptations for future change, including climate change. Chapter 18 presents a structured approach to quantitative analysis of the water-energy-food resource nexus, using the multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism accounting framework. Mario Giampietro and co-authors, through consideration of a social-ecological system of interest, address aspects of (1) system size and state, (2) environmental pressures associated with a particular size and state, (3) system openness and (4) ecological impacts resulting from a localized contextualization of environmental pressures. The framework used focuses in large part on the state-pressure relation of socio-ecological systems and aims to enable useful quantitative characterizations of system states, quantitative characterizations of the state-pressure relation of systems with their environments, and quantitative assessments of the degree to which state-pressure relations are altered by trade. It encompasses four sustainability concerns, namely, feasibility, viability, desirability and openness. A fundamentally relational accounting framework, as presented in this chapter, can help analysts relocate the nexus concept to the centre of the sustainability debate, offering robust and relevant information on the science-policy interface. Chapter 19 offers a theoretical framework to address multi-level governance challenges of the water-energy-food nexus. Giacomo Melloni and co-authors are challenged by a lack of problematization around the concept of nexus governance, and argue that critical aspects for its implementation are overlooked. Multi-level governance challenges, for example, arise from the need for coordination across sectors and scales. A framework is designed for an ex ante assessment of governing the water-energy-food nexus through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development structure of multi-level governance gaps and principles for water governance. The authors distinguish between (1) accountability gaps, (2) administrative gaps, (3) policy gaps, (4) capacity gaps and (5) data and information gaps. They identify 43 indicators that can help researchers and decision makers to identify major causes of governance gaps. The authors conclude that policy coherence and successful nexus practices could be improved by detecting governance gaps well in advance. Chapter 20 offers a framework to link the water-energy-food nexus with the provision of ecosystem goods and services, resilience and cross-scale dynamics. This ‘desirable operating

12  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus space’ framework is operationalized for the nexus in an urban environment and its linkages with ecosystem services. Jiangxiao Qiu and co-authors argue the framework has the potential for application to other resource and service sectors, including climate, health and waste and their interactions. Such a framework could support explicit trade-offs and synergies across different resource sectors and spatial scales, and also strengthen resilience and sustainable development in decision making.

1.10 OUTLOOK Part V offers an outlook perspective on two emerging topics on the water-energy-food nexus which gain importance in nexus assessments. Chapter 21 presents the water-energy-food nexus from a perspective of law. The authors only recently started analysing the nexus concept. Paolo Davide Farah and Imad Antoine Ibrahim examine whether it is possible and helpful to regulate the water-energy-food nexus from the perspective of international law. The authors highlight that global regulatory framework is ideal and would be effective. Such a legal framework needs to be linked with transboundary water agreements. Different factors affect the successful implementation of the nexus in international law, including that fragmentation of international law is inevitable and actually needed to enable attention on all international areas of legislation. In conclusion, the authors propose that a provision is made on the nexus within transboundary water agreements. Although such an inclusion would not guarantee compliance, it would enable a more specific and efficient legal approach at basin and regional level. Chapter 22 addresses the main reasons for communicating the nexus, and argues that its association with ‘complexity’ hampers the uptake in solution-oriented and sector-specific planning and management. Guido Schmidt and his co-authors emphasize that proper communication about the nexus is needed to enable meaningful discourse and discussions about trade-offs and synergies, with the people who hold power to change management across sectors and silos and to engage stakeholders. The authors recommend that communication is put on the forefront to contribute to transformational change.

REFERENCES Albrecht, T.R., A. Crootof and C.A. Scott (2018), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: A systematic review of methods for nexus assessment’, Environmental Research Letters, 13, 043002. Bakhshianlamouki, E., S. Masia, P. Karimi, P. van der Zaag and J. Sušnik (2020), ‘A system dynamics model to quantify the impacts of restoration measures on the water-energy-food nexus in the Urmia lake Basin, Iran’, Science of The Total Environment, 708, 134874. Bielicki, J.M., M.A. Beetstra, J.B. Kast, Y. Wang and S. Tang (2019), ‘Stakeholder perspectives on sustainability in the food-energy-water nexus’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7 (7). Boas, I., F. Biermann and N. Kanie (2016), ‘Cross-sectoral strategies in global sustainability governance: Towards a nexus approach’, International Environmental Agreements, 16, 449–464. Brouwer, F., G. Avgerinopoulos, D. Fazekas, C. Laspidou, J.-F. Mercure, H. Pollitt, E.P. Ramos and M. Howells (2018a), ‘Energy modelling and the nexus concept’, Energy Strategy Reviews, 19, 1–6. Brouwer, F., L. Vamvakeridou-Lyroudia, E. Alexandri, I. Bremere, M. Griffey and V. Linderhof (2018b), ‘The nexus concept integrating energy and resource efficiency for policy assessments: A comparative approach from three cases’, Sustainability, 10 (12), 4860.

Introduction to the water-energy-food nexus  13 Cairns, R. and A. Krzywoszynska (2016), ‘Anatomy of a buzzword: The emergence of “the water-energy-food nexus” in UK natural resource debates’, Environmental Science and Policy, 64, 164–170. Caron, P., G. Ferrero y de Loma-Osorio, D. Nabarro, E. Hainzelin, M. Guillou, I. Andersen et al. (2018), ‘Food systems for sustainable development: Proposals for a profound four-part transformation’, Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 38 (41), 1–12. Cohen, S.J. and T.R. Allsopp (1988), ‘The potential impacts of a scenario of CO2-induced climatic change on Ontario, Canada’, Journal of Climate, 1, 669–681. Cremades, R., H. Mitter, N. Constantin Tudose, A. Sanchez-Plaza, A. Graves, A. Broekman et al. (2019), ‘Ten principles to integrate the water-energy-land nexus with climate services for co-producing local and regional integrated assessments’, Science of The Total Environment, 693, 133662. D’Odorico, P., K.F. Davis, L. Rosa, J.A. Carr, D. Chiarelli, J. Dell’Angelo et al. (2018), ‘The global food-energy-water nexus’, Reviews of Geophysics, 56, 456–531. Dai, J., S. Wu, G. Han, J. Weinberg, X. Xie, X. Wu et al. (2018), ‘Water-energy nexus: A review of methods and tools for macro-assessment’, Applied Energy, 210, 393–408. De Laurentiis, V., D.V.L. Hunt and C.D.F. Rogers (2016), ‘Overcoming food security challenges within an energy/water/food nexus (EWFN) approach’, Sustainability, 8, 95. Endo, A., I. Tsurita, K. Burnett and P.M. Orencio (2017), ‘A review of the current state of research on the water, energy, and food nexus’, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 11, 20–30. Endo, A., M. Yamada, Y. Miyashita, R. Sugimoto, A. Ishii, J. Nishijima et al. (2020), ‘Dynamics of water-energy-food nexus methodology, methods, and tools’, Current Opinion in Environmental Science and Health, 13, 46–60. González-Rosell, A., M. Blanco and I. Arfa (2020), ‘Integrating stakeholder views and system dynamics to assess the water-energy-food nexus in Andalusia’, Water, 12, 3172. Hoff, H. (2011), Understanding the nexus. Background Paper for the Bonn2011 Conference: The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus. Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute, https://​bit​.ly/​ 2LTNJxW (accessed 25 March 2021). Khoury, M., M.J. Gibson, D. Savic, A.S. Chen, L. Vamvakeridou-Lyroudia, H. Langford and S. Wigley (2018), ‘A serious game designed to explore and understand the complexities of flood mitigation options in urban–rural catchments’, Water, 10, 1885. Laspidou, C.S., N.K. Mellios, A.E. Spyropoulou, D.Th. Kofinas and M.P. Papadopoulou (2020), ‘Systems thinking on the resource nexus: Modeling and visualisation tools to identify critical interlinkages for resilient and sustainable societies and institutions’, Science of the Total Environment, 717, 137264. Liu, J., H. Yang, C. Cudennec, A.K. Gain, H. Hoff, R. Lawford et al. (2017), ‘Challenges in operationalizing the water-energy-food nexus’, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 62 (11), 1714–1720. Madani, K., T.W. Pierce and A. Mirchi (2017), ‘Serious games on environmental management’, Sustainable Cities and Society, 29, 1–11. Mochizuki, J., P. Magnuszewski, M. Pajak, K. Krolikowska, L. Jarzabek and M. Kulakowska (2021), ‘Simulation games as a catalyst for social learning: The case of the water-food-energy nexus game’, Global Environmental Change, 66, e102204. Mohtar, R., R.G. Lawford and J.A. Engel-Cox (2020), ‘Editorial: Achieving water-energy-food nexus sustainability: A science and data need or a need for integrated public policy?’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 8 (132), 1–5. Newell, J.P., B. Goldstein and A. Foster (2019), ‘A 40-year review of food-energy-water nexus literature and its application to the urban scale’, Environmental Research Letters, 14, 073003. en​ .oxforddictionaries​ .com/​ definition/​ nexus (accessed 15 Oxford Dictionary (2018), ‘Nexus’, https://​ April 2021). Purwanto, A., J. Sušnik, F.X. Suryadi and C. de Fraiture (2021), ‘Water-energy-food nexus: Critical review, practical applications, and prospects for future research’, Sustainability, 13, 1919. Rockström, J., W. Steffen, K. Noone, Å. Persson, F.S. Chapin, E.F. Lambin et al. (2009), ‘A safe operating space for humanity’, Nature, 461, 472–475. Sarkodie, S.A. and P.A. Owusu (2020), ‘Bibliometric analysis of water-energy-food nexus: Sustainability assessment of renewable energy’, Current Opinion in Environmental Science and Health, 13, 29–34.

14  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Sušnik, J., S. Masia, D. Indriksone, I. Brēmere and L. Vamvakeridou-Lydroudia (2021), ‘System dynamics modelling to explore the impacts of policies on the water-energy-food-land-climate nexus in Latvia’, Science of the Total Environment, 775, 145827. United Nations (1972), Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 5–16 June 1972, New York: United Nations. United States National Intelligence Council (2012), ‘Global trends 2030: Alternative worlds’, Washington, DC: US NIC. Van den Heuvel, L., M. Blicharska, S. Masia, J. Sušnik and C. Teutschbein (2020), ‘Ecosystem services in the Swedish water-energy-food-land-climate nexus: Anthropogenic pressures and physical interactions’, Ecosystem Services, 44, 101141. Wichelns, D. (2017), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: Is the increasing attention warranted, from either a research or policy perspective?’, Environmental Science and Policy, 69, 113–123. Wiegleb, V. and A. Bruns (2018), ‘What is driving the water-energy-food nexus? Discourses, knowledge, and politics of an emerging resource governance concept’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 6 (128), 1–15. World Economic Forum (2011), Water Security: The Water-Food-Energy-Climate Nexus, edited by Dominic Waughray, Washington, DC: Island Press, https://​bit​.ly/​1Ra7s6A (accessed 25 March 2021). Zhang, C., X. Chen, Y. Li, W. Ding and G. Fu (2018), ‘Water-energy-food nexus: Concepts, questions and methodologies’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 195, 625–639. Zhu, J., S. Kang, W. Zhao, Q. Li, X. Xie and X. Hu (2020), ‘A bibliometric analysis of food-energy-water nexus: Progress and prospects’, Land, 9, 504.

PART I UNDERSTANDING THE NEXUS

2. The nexus: concepts and frameworks Tamara Avellán and Mario Roidt

2.1 INTRODUCTION Knowledge on the interlinkages between different sectors and resources such as water, land, food and energy has always been there. Especially in local settings, nexus-like interlinkages must have long been known. Farmers in irrigated agriculture who stored and developed water resources or craftspeople who developed hydropower over centuries would not be surprised by the nexus notion. A connection between energy and food, however, appeared in a more general sense when the increasing oil prices during the 1970s suddenly hindered the poor to cook food (Schwärzel et al., 2014). A decade later, the notion of a nexus in the context of food and energy emerged when the United Nations University launched the Food-Energy Nexus Programme (see Figure 2.1 for a timeline). The university developed an analytical framework to tackle food and energy-related challenges (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017; Kurian and Ardakanian, 2014, 2015; Schwärzel et al., 2014). Even though the nexus notion had not yet gained ground, the World Summit in Johannesburg in 2002 implicitly recognized the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus by placing water and sanitation, agricultural productivity and energy among its priority areas (Herath, 2014).

Source:

Updated from Roidt (2017).

Figure 2.1

A rough timeline of key events in the nexus concept evolution

In research the concept of virtual water influenced the emergence of the nexus in the 2000s (Allan, 2003). The concept tackles the interlinkages between water scarcity and food trade. It received support in the Third World Water Forum in Tokyo (2003), and Allan’s advice to 16

The nexus: concepts and frameworks  17 the Water Advisory Committee of the World Economic Forum influenced the theme and outcomes of its annual meeting in 2008 (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017; Allan, 2003; Muller, 2015). In the years between 2008 and 2011, the development of the WEF Nexus culminated in different important milestones (see also table 2 in Leck et al., 2015 and timeline in UNECE, 2018). The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in 2008 called for an increased understanding of linkages between energy, water and food (Wichelns, 2017). In 2011 the World Economic Forum’s Report Water Security: The Water-Energy-Food-Climate Nexus emphasized this point again and connected the nexus to the simultaneous achievement of water, energy and food security (see also Bazilian et al., 2011; Leck et al., 2015). In the same year, Holger Hoff from the Stockholm Environment Institute published the article ‘Understanding the nexus’ (Hoff, 2011). He outlined the benefits of the WEF nexus approach and placed it within the green economy (Lawford et al., 2013; Leck et al., 2015; Schwärzel et al., 2014). This served as a background paper for the subsequent nexus conference in Bonn. The conference marked the emergence of the WEF nexus as part of the solution to a green economy (see different representations in Figure 2.1). The Bonn conference served as a contribution to the Rio+20 conferences. Rio+20 emphasized the importance of address energy, food and water security in a sustainable manner. The nexus discussions continued with a second large conference in Chapel Hill, United States in 2014. There, a nexus declaration was authored and handed to the United Nations Secretary General as input for formulating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Leck et al., 2015).

Source:

Author, with thanks to Serena Caucci, Sabrina Kirschke, Angela Hahn and Andrea Müller.

Figure 2.2

Elements to take into consideration when beginning nexus work, to be thought of in a circular manner

18  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus The nexus has thus come a long way. But what is the nexus actually? How has it been tackled in the past years? And what are some of the tools and methodologies that nexus research is using? Figure 2.2 provides an overview of the three core elements that we believe to be of essence when setting out to do nexus (research) work. As a first step, the scope of the issue needs to be delineated by (a) determining entry points for key constraint(s), (b) defining the boundaries of analysis (including that of social space) and (c) defining the end goal (most often to achieve a sustainable state of affairs). This should naturally lead to define which kind of nexus will be applied (resource versus sector nexus, WEF or other, etc.). The choice of the methodology for the assessment should follow a mixed-method approach that allows for knowledge generation in a transdisciplinary setting. Last but not least, the impact of the applied approach needs to be evaluated. In this chapter, for each of these elements, we intend to (a) show the current diversity and to some degree lack of clarity and (b) offer some subjective suggestions towards a common set of working modalities.

2.2

OVERVIEW OF NEXUS CONCEPTS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS

Nexus concepts abound. This section intends to give a brief overview of the WEF nexus as the centrepiece of nexus work, different variations of it, definitions and descriptions of nexus in nexus projects, and challenges with diversity. For a good visual overview of how nexus frameworks and their representations evolved please refer to chapter 2 of Simpson et al. (2020). 2.2.1

Water-Energy-Food Nexus

The WEF nexus establishes that the water, food and energy sectors are interrelated and interdependent (Hoff, 2011). Hoff’s definition states: The nexus approach highlights the interdependence of water, energy and food security and the natural resources that underpin that security – water, soil and land. Based on a better understanding of the interdependence of water, energy and climate policy, this new approach identifies mutually beneficial responses and provides an informed and transparent framework for determining trade-offs and synergies that meet demand without compromising sustainability.

Most articles and research projects base their work on the above definition to some degree. For the WEF nexus, the transition to a green economy is key and intended to be reached through greater policy coherence and increased resource efficiency (Hoff, 2011). By reducing trade-offs and enhancing synergies, the WEF nexus aims to augment simultaneously water, energy and food securities (Hoff, 2011). Three aspects are of relevance here: (1) ‘investing to sustain ecosystem services’ as they form the basis of our natural capital; (2) ‘creating more with less’, as increased resource efficiency alleviates resource scarcity; and (3) ‘accelerating access, integrating the poorest’, accelerating development and sustainability while reducing poverty (Hoff, 2011: 14f.).

The nexus: concepts and frameworks  19 2.2.2

Learning from Integrated Management

The rationale for the WEF nexus results in large part from the concept of integrated water resource management (IWRM). While some authors argue that the nexus has been established on the track records of previous integrated management approaches (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017; Kurian, 2017), others see the nexus as a response to the perceived failure of IWRM (de Loe and Patterson, 2017; Muller, 2015). IWRM was born out of the idea that water cannot be managed in a siloed approach. It was understood that water users as diverse as domestic water suppliers, energy producers, agriculture or the ecosystem need to be considered when managing water resources. Hydrologists and water engineers familiar with systems analysis put forward the IWRM approach (Allouche, 2016) as a systems approach to the study of water resources (Wichelns, 2017) and an interdisciplinary and holistic way of managing them. The definition of IWRM that is most widely accepted and of relevance today was given by the Technical Committee (former Technical Advisory Committee) of the Global Water Partnership. It states that IWRM is ‘a process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems’ (GWP, 2000: 22).Today, IWRM is the leading and most widely accepted paradigm of water management (Jeffrey and Gearey, 2006). Even though controversially discussed and criticized, the aim to implement IWRM around the globe is ongoing. The dedication of SDG 6.5 to IWRM shows that it is high on the agenda in today’s approaches to managing water resources (United Nations, 2015). To better assess the arguments for the perceived failures of IWRM and mistakes that should not be repeated in nexus thinking, Roidt (2017) conducted a literature analysis on the elements of criticism towards IWRM (and two further integrated management approaches). From the analysis the following aspects emerged as key: ● The approach is ambiguously defined – IWRM seems to be a mindset rather than a policy. ● Operationalization is difficult or even impossible – there are perceived problems in the translation from research into practice. ● Implementation is difficult or even impossible – case evidence shows no clear achievement of the outcomes aimed for. ● IWRM is in the dichotomy between holism and reductionism – there is the a priori assumption that holistic approaches will achieve better results. ● Some assessment and scrutiny on the IWRM has yet to be conducted – effects of IWRM versus non-IWRM have not been thoroughly assessed. These issues clearly need to be taken into account when establishing a new holistic concept such as the nexus, where the ambition of integration extends far beyond the water sector. The question then becomes how to overcome the vagueness of the nexus to deliver tangible results without losing the complexity which the concept inherently has. In addition to the general challenges listed above, a key element for implementation refers to the setting of boundaries. IWRM is bound to the watershed and critics suggest that it overlooks the importance of administrative boundaries as relevant for implementation (de Loe and Patterson, 2017; Graefe, 2011; Kurian, 2017). Defining relevant scales of analysis determines the accuracy of diagnosis and the effectiveness of the implementation (Alcamo et al., 2003; Kissinger and Rees, 2010). Spatial resolution determines the visibility of objects and

20  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus relations. If systems boundaries are too small, important factors influencing the system may be missed, whereas if they are too large, detail on the specific process may be lost. By mixing in and contrasting different spatial perspectives, a multi-scalar approach could provide for more comprehensive analyses. At the same time, care must be taken to not be generic, unspecific, or overly ambitious in tackling scales of analysis. Nexus literature call for tackling multiple scales, including those of resources, sectors, governance, etc., but remain vague about how to reconcile those. Avellán et al. (2017) argue that system boundaries for nexus implementations should be ‘clear, wide and flexible’. Here, the system boundary is defined as the geographic overlap of at least two resource system boundaries. Thus, when considering for instance water and soil resource systems (soil as one of the biophysical resources needed for food production), the geographic boundary would be drawn at the overlap of the (farm) land in question and the respective (sub-)surface watersheds. The idea is to assess the nexus resource flows across those sub-systems only in the area where they overlap, treating assessments of resource flows and balances within each sub-system as external input values to the nexus system. This system is therefore adaptable to the circumstance in question but is limited to the geographic system perspective. The respective social, legal, economic, or governance system(s) can be linked to this in a multi-scale manner as was for instance done in a nexus project that determined the sustainability of wastewater treatment systems (Avellán et al., 2019). 2.2.3

Aims of the ‘Nexus’ in the Scientific Literature

Since the publication of Hoff’s seminal paper nexus literature have taken off. In the past 10 years several thousands of publications have been published in peer-reviewed journal articles, quadrupling the yearly production since 2010 to roughly 2000 publications in 2019 (Figure 2.3). Aspects of energy, water and food can predominantly be found, but also climate, land and waste are considered in these publications, without being specific enough about the particular interlinkages that were assessed. Curiously, the food-energy-water nexus is more commonly found in searches than the WEF nexus (water-energy-food). However, this is only the view through the perspective of ScienceDirect and could be different when considering other search engines. Roidt and Avellán (2019) in their analysis of the goals and features of integrated resource management approaches as well as nexus approaches showed that all concepts strive towards sustainability and that the literature defined the goals of the WEF nexus with the following elements (see Roidt and Avellán, 2019, table 2): ● ● ● ● ● ●

achieve water, energy and food security; support sustainable development and the SDGs; increase resource efficiency and optimization; inform resource governance and promote rational decision making; enhance policy coherence and cooperation within and between sectors; and shift from integration within the sector to cross-sectoral integration.

The nexus: concepts and frameworks  21

Figure 2.3a

Number of nexus publications per year (not cumulative)

Note: The search was performed in September 2019 in ScienceDirect for articles published between 2010 and 2019 containing the terms ‘nexus’ and ‘energy’, ‘water’, ‘food’, ‘climate’, ‘land’, or ‘waste’ in the title.

Figure 2.3b 2.2.4

Related to each of the aspects

Evolution Since? Nexus Definition in Projects

Not only have publications expanded, but also a number of (research) projects have also seen the light of day. Many nexus projects in Europe and across the globe have since been financed and implemented. Several authors have underscored the need for a (more) coherent conceptual framework for nexus projects and assessments (Endo et al., 2017) without it ‘become[ing]

22  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus a rigid concept’ (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017). Table 2.1 summarizes 22 projects and their definitions that were easily accessible online in an attempt to roughly characterize the definitions proposed there. Similar to the distribution of keywords in academic publications, water (36 mentions), energy (32) and food (24) are, in those projects, the most prominent words used in the definitions of their nexus, but also climate, ecosystem, land and waste are sectors or resources that can be found. ‘Water energy food’ is used 17 times throughout the project definitions. ‘Security’ is mentioned six times and four times in conjunction with ‘food’, which is in contrast to Galaitsi et al. (2018) who demonstrated that water security is the main motivator for WEF nexus studies, rather than food or energy security. ‘Resources’ (12) is used more frequently than ‘sectors’ (8), and ‘between’ (11) is employed more frequently than ‘across’ (7). Concepts like ‘trade-off(s)’, ‘synergy(ies)’, ‘interconnection(s)/interconnected’, ‘interlinkage(s)/interlinked’, or ‘interdependence(ies)’ can each be found less than three times throughout the definitions, however, most definitions make use of those concepts in one way or another. This analysis simply shows (1) the predominance of the WEF nexus, (2) the importance of security for food and others, (3) the relevance of resources over sectors, and most critically (4) how dispersed the terminology is when defining the connections/interlinkages/ interrelations of the nexus. While in principle attempts for narrowing the framework could be misleading and actually counterproductive (Hoff, 2018) and the lack of consistent definitions across projects and initiatives may not be a problem, it could lead to the erosion of confidence in the approach as well as an overall lack of understanding across projects. Building an ontology of nexus concepts could be useful to improve clarity and create a common understanding (Kumazawa et al., 2017). Roidt and Avellán (2019) showed that the lack of definitions and thus understanding of the word ‘integration’ in different communities of integrated resources management pose a challenge to overcome disciplinary divides. To overcome this lack of definition for the nexus they suggest the following for the definition of ‘integration’: to describe integration with the concept of the category of integration and the term aspect which includes systems, subsystems and other aspects alike. Different aspects of an approach have to be integrated. An aspect is defined as ‘[a] particular part or feature of something’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2017, paragraph 1). In this case, something would refer to the approach. Examples are the integration of different systems (e.g. water-land), subsystems (e.g. surface water-groundwater) or even other aspects such as waste types-treatment or upstream-downstream. To grasp this issue, the concept of the category of integration is suggested here. Such a category of integration describes the connection between two aspects of the integrated approach. A category may consist of many interlinkages which connect the two aspects. (Roidt and Avellán, 2019)

2.3

NEXUS METHODOLOGIES AND TOOLS: EFFECTIVE DECISION MAKING FOR THE NEXUS

The sections above show the diversity in which the nexus (research) landscape is operating. The flexibility of the nexus approach that allows for assessing the biophysical interlinkages at the same time as economic, social, governance and policy interventions is also its curse. Galaitsi et al. (2018) identified that empirical nexus research has used different rationales to address nexus questions (key constraints), used multiple entry points to assess nexus problems (intervention points) and pursued different goals with their interventions (potential outcomes).

management framework across the three sectors. The water-energy-food security nexus framework is particularly suited to the

food nexus domains, where urgent matters such as the ‘energy trilemma’, loss of biodiversity, climate change, poverty and

Nexus), www​.cecan​.ac​.uk/​

interconnections between these different resource sectors, to determine the effects changes in one sector might have on the others, and identify counterintuitive feedbacks in these integrated systems.

the Nexus), www​.kth​.se/​en/​itm/​inst/​energiteknik/​forskning/​desa/​

researchareas/​clews​-climate​-land​-energy​-and​-water​-strategies​-to​

that security – water, soil and land. Based on a better understanding of the interdependence of water, energy and climate policy, this new approach identifies mutually beneficial responses and provides an informed and transparent framework for determining trade-offs and synergies that meet demand without compromising sustainability. The circular economy is defined as one in which maximum value is extracted from resources during use, avoidable waste is

DAFNE (Decision Analytic Framework to Explore the

Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Complex Trans-Boundary Water

Resource Systems of Fast-Developing Countries), http://​dafne​

-project​.eu/​

Food and the Circular Economy, www​.circularfood​.net/​

_Solutions​.html

www​.iiasa​.ac​.at/​web/​home/​research/​researchProjects/​Nexus​

objectives.

IS-WEL (Integrated Solutions for Water, Energy and Land Project), The water-energy-land nexus is characterized both through trade-offs as well as multiple co-benefits across distinct policy

concept is gaining traction in many countries and industries.

consumption and disposal. A continuous improvement process, driving innovation and competitiveness, the circular economy

the circular economy is thought preferable to the traditional linear business model of resource exploitation, manufacture,

eliminated and unavoidable waste reused or recycled. Given the planet’s finite capacity to provide resources and absorb waste,

management and policy convergence across sectors. The nexus approach highlights the interdependence of water, energy and food security and the natural resources that underpin

www​.jpi​-climate​.eu/​nl/​25223443​-CLISWELN​.html

CLISWELN (Climate Services for the Water-Energy-Land Nexus), The water-energy-food nexus is a conceptual framework that presents opportunities for greater resource coordination,

-navigate​-the​-nexus​-1​.432255

The research on climate, land use, energy and water strategies develops an integrated systems approach. It investigates

CLEWs (Climate, Land, Energy and Water Strategies to Navigate

challenges to health and well-being are entangled in complex ways.

‘What works in practice’ can be very difficult to ascertain, especially with policies that cut across the energy, environment and

CECAN (Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity across the

.uk/​research/​the​-bridge​-project

Complexity across Scales in Brazil), www​.ceenrg​.landecon​.cam​.ac​ understood.

A complex system involving many interactions between social and natural components, of which future behaviour is not well

Arab region given the stressors, constraints and strong interdependencies between sectors.

The nexus highlights the interdependencies between the water, energy and food sectors, and the need to pursue an integrated

Neighbourhood), www​.5toi​.eu/​

BRIDGE (Building Resilience in a Dynamic Global Economy –

Nexus definition

5TOI (Energy, Water and Agriculture in the South Mediterranean

Overview of nexus definitions in nexus projects

Project

Table 2.1

The nexus: concepts and frameworks  23

Nexus a: When the term nexus is used in relation to biophysical events taking place in the external world, the nexus refers to the entanglement over biophysical flows (water, energy and food) determined by the expected characteristics of the metabolic

MAGIC (Moving towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity:

Informing Nexus Security), http://​magic​-nexus​.eu/​

The water-energy-food nexus approach was introduced in the global natural resources management agenda to facilitate the enhancement of water, energy and food security while preserving ecosystems and their functions, including under conditions

Preparation of the Nexus Assessment in South East Europe, www​

.gwp​.org/​en/​GWP​-Mediterranean/​

complexity and feedback. Putting pressure on one part of the nexus can create pressure on the others. Management of the nexus is critical to securing the efficient use of our scarce resources. The ‘water-energy-food nexus’ describes the interactions between the water, energy and food systems. Although regulated in

Europe), www​.sim4nexus​.eu

STEPPING UP (Sustainability for Water, Energy and Food)

environmental resources and their transitions and fluxes across spatial scales and between compartments. Instead of

Management of Environmental Resources, www​.flores​.unu​.edu

consideration.

just looking at individual components, the functioning, productivity and management of a complex system is taken into

The nexus approach to environmental resources management examines the inter-relatedness and interdependencies of

United Nations University: Nexus Approach to the Sustainable

silos, none are truly independent.

Water, land, food, energy and climate are interconnected, comprising a coherent system (the ‘nexus’), dominated by

Water-Land-Food-Energy-Climate for a Resource-Efficient

for hydropower, biofuels and the cooling water needs of thermoelectric power plants.

sectors. In the agricultural sector, we focus mostly on irrigated water demands and within the energy sector we focus on water

on how future changes in water systems affect the competition for water between the energy, agricultural and environmental

Aspects of global change that we highlighted are changes in water demand, land use and climate. Currently we are working

across sectors.

more sustainable consumption patterns and improving demand management, building synergies and improving governance

SIM4NEXUS (Sustainable Integrated Management of

Scaling and Governance in the Water-Food-Energy Nexus

of fresh water: energy and food production.

-food​-2/​

of climate variability and change, by increasing efficiency and productivity of resources, reducing trade-offs, shifting towards

The water-energy-food nexus centres on the interaction between the two factors that have the most impact on the availability

Nexus in Deltares, www​.deltares​.nl/​en/​issues/​nexus​-water​-energy​

information for dealing with it.

complexity of the nexus. At the moment, we do not have effective analytical tools capable of generating useful scientific

of the existence of an elephant in the room – i.e. the Cartesian dream of prediction and control is smashing against the

Nexus c: When the term nexus is used in relation to the problem of scientific inquiry, the nexus refers to the acknowledgement

requirement of water, energy and food inputs against the deterioration of ecosystems’ health all over the planet.

this is a reason of concern when considering existing trends of population growth, consumption per capita and the aggregate

coherence and integrations) in relation to the three securities (water, energy and food). At the moment this is not achieved and

acknowledgement that existing institutions should be capable of expressing an effective system of governance (policy

Nexus b: When the term nexus is used in relation to the process of governance and policy making, the nexus refers to the

pattern of sociological systems.

Nexus definition

Project

24  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Interdependencies between water, energy and food systems, which is known as the water-energy-food nexus.

Vaccinating the Nexus: Learning from Crisis in Cities, www​

soil and land – that underpin that security. The nexus approach identifies mutually beneficial responses that are based on

The interconnection of water, energy and food resources is highly complex and the availability of these resources is

WEF Nexus Research Group, https://​wefnexus​.tamu​.edu/​

interactions define the water-food-energy-ecosystem nexus. Our water, energy, food and waste systems are interconnected, and impacted by climate and demographic change. The nexus

workshop/​workshop​-water​-nexus​-mediterranean

WEFWEBs, www​.gla​.ac​.uk/​research/​az/​wefwebs/​

-water​.eu/​WIRE managed under drought.

water reuse should be efficient in irrigation, energy should be saved in irrigation, and integrated agricultural water should be

WIRE (Water and Irrigated Agriculture Resilient Europe), www​.eip​ WIRE will facilitate innovation uptake in the complex, multi-faceted irrigated agriculture reality and market. Accordingly,

temporally.

political (individual, regulatory and policy), ecological and digital at multiple, nested scales (local, regional and national) and

and interlinked interdependencies across the nexus networks which are physical (water, waste, energy and food), social and

seeks to define the interdependencies between the different systems and improve our understanding. There are dynamic

Water use is indispensably related to food production, energy generation and the functioning of ecosystems. Such complex

WEFE Nexus Flagship Project, https://​ec​.europa​.eu/​jrc/​en/​event/​

and will lead to a more equitable allocation and improved management of them.

addressing these challenges requires a better understanding of the nexus formed by the interconnections between the resources

increasingly stressed by climatic, social, political, economic, demographic, technologic and other pressures. Sustainably

actions in one area commonly have impacts on the others, as well as on ecosystems.

nexus

Water-Food-Energy-Ecosystem Nexus, www​.unece​.org/​env/​water/​ The nexus term in the context of water, food (agriculture) and energy refers to these sectors being inextricably linked so that

understanding the synergies of water, energy and agricultural policies.

The nexus approach highlights the interdependence of water, energy and food security and the natural resources – water,

Water, Energy and Food Security Resource Platform, www​.water​

-energy​-food​.org/​start/​

.cityleadership​.net/​vaccinating​-the​-nexus

Nexus definition

Project

The nexus: concepts and frameworks  25

26  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Despite this seeming chaos, we postulate that all nexus efforts strive towards better decision making. Decision making aims at maximizing the gains, benefits, or achievement of defined interests (Edwards, 1954; Tversky and Kahneman, 1986), thus minimizing the maximum losses or maximizing the minimal gain. In general, there are common aspects that result in a final decision or choice: (1) identification of the interest, goal, or aim; (2) framing and decomposing; and (3) an evaluation (Müller et al., 2020). Transdisciplinary research principles have been argued to be of use to work on sustainability problems (Brandt et al., 2013) and could therefore be of use also for addressing nexus issues. Adopting transdisciplinary research principles in nexus (research) could thus follow these three broad levels: (1) gaining a better understanding of the current system (system knowledge); (2) shaping an understanding of the desired aim (target knowledge); and (3) discovering pathways of how to get from the current system to the future target state (transformation knowledge). We argue that these two thought systems of decision making and transdisciplinary levels can very much work together, since obtaining system knowledge is required to identify interests, goals and aims as well as to frame and decompose the issues; obtaining target knowledge is mandatory to understand the standard against which one is evaluating the current system; and transformation knowledge is helpful towards the implementation of the decisions. The sub-sections below give a subjective perspective on the current state of affairs in nexus research with respect to knowledge generation for decision making. 2.3.1

Framing and Decomposing Information

A variety of authors argue that, in nexus literature, a strong focus is laid on gaining system knowledge through the understanding of sector or resource interlinkages and determining ‘critical’ interlinkages (e.g. Dai et al., 2018) ‘understanding the nexus’ (Dargin et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2018). Models often borrowed from disciplinary approaches to support nexus research are used (see Table 2.2 and Roidt, 2017). Some studies ask for new tools and methods to better describe and understand nexus issues (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017; Kurian, 2017). To avoid ‘paralysis by analysis’, it seems useful to identify those interactions that are key in specific situations (de Loe and Patterson, 2017). This may reduce the overwhelming complexity that the nexus implies. Nevertheless, innovative analysis tools need to be developed to understand the nexus system and inform about trade-offs and synergies of current but also potential future states. Several studies point to the need for appropriate nexus tools which would enable an integrative assessment of the considered nexus components under study (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017; Albrecht et al., 2018; Daher et al. 2017). However, care must be taken in providing clarity as to what ‘integration’ entails, as the term is, in fact, poorly defined in the literature on integrated resource management approaches (Roidt and Avellán, 2019). The following studies highlight the lack of integration that most nexus methods exhibit. Zhang et al. (2018) conducted a comprehensive analysis of methods used in nexus research. This led to three categories of increasing complexity: (1) internal relationship analysis, which assesses the unilateral or bilateral interlinkage between two or more aspects; (2) external impact analysis, which further includes external factors that influence nexus relationships such as population growth or climate change; and (3) the evaluation of the coupled system with a focus on overall system resilience or sustainability. Most methods used relate to analyses that assess the current state of resource use concerning one or more nexus aspects (e.g. litres

The nexus: concepts and frameworks  27 Table 2.2

Top five models used in integrated water resource management

Rank

Name

NoP

Description

1

SWAT

54

‘predict the impact of management on water, sediment, and agricultural chemical yields in

2

WEAP

30

3

Modflow

26

4

ACRU

14

5

CROPWAT

13

ungauged watersheds’ (Gassman et al., 2007: 1212) ‘place … water supply projects in the context of demand-side issues, as well as issues of water quality and ecosystem preservation’ (Sieber and Purkey, 2015: 1) simulate groundwater flow ‘associated with external stresses, such as wells, areal recharge, evapotranspiration, drains, and rivers’ (Harbaugh, 2005: 1) ‘integrate … the various water budgeting and runoff producing components of the terrestrial hydrological system’ (Smithers and Schulze, 1995: 1–2) Calculate reference evapotranspiration, crop water and irrigation requirements, water supply and irrigation schedules under different management conditions (FAO, 1992)

Note: Source:

NoP = number of nexus publications in which the model was mentioned. Roidt (2017).

of water used for irrigation of a particular crop in a particular place and/or of energy needed to abstract this water). Dai et al. (2018) identified a number of used nexus tools. All of them, however, had serious limitations in terms of applicability, ease of use and feasibility due to data limitations. Dai et al. (2018) showed that for the water-energy nexus, most tools focus on the first level of nexus research (i.e. understanding the nexus) but less so in implementing the nexus. Moreover, virtually all of them were targeting mainly the scientific community, aiming at increasing systems understanding, while tools applicable for governance and implementation were hardly available. Similarly, Albrecht et al. (2018) found that modelling tools applied in nexus studies performed poorly with regard to the representation of interlinkages of resources sectors. Dargin et al. (2019) identified the need for determining the complexity of a model to be able to choose the one that best fits the local context and needs. Here, the tools can be used for three levels of interventions: (1) integration (similar to Zhang et al., 2018); (2) last mile (centred on supporting stakeholder needs); and (3) risk-informed planning (to reduce risks and enhance prevention). As with the findings above, the authors found that most models deal with integration, and the least with last-mile issues to support stakeholder needs on the ground. Making use of readily available tools does imply in most cases that those tools have not been developed to represent a nexus mindset. Instead, their model structure typically reflects a more sectoral view on the respective resource. Integrated management approaches such as IWRM, integrated solid waste management and integrated natural resource management have developed their own models over time. The Nexus Tools Platform describes and can help select from over 300 models with a focus on water, soil and waste resources (Mannschatz et al., 2016). An analysis by Roidt (2017) showed that far more of these models have been developed for the purpose of IWRM (86), integrated solid waste management (22), or integrated natural resource management (5), and with the majority (228) not being linked to any of these approaches. The top five most cited models under IWRM also mostly focus on describing and quantifying interlinkages and resource flows (Table 2.2). Hence, the use of models from an integrated management approach may help in describing resource flows within their sectoral aspects but may not be placed so well to describe interlinkages with other aspects, e.g. food, land, or energy. In general, it does not seem feasible to develop a comprehensive nexus tool which considers all processes related to resources including the required (case-specific) level of detail and

28  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus spatial and temporal resolution. Instead, each single nexus study develops or applies the most appropriate (suite of) modelling tool(s) from available tools in a context-specific manner. The selection criteria need to be defined in a systematic manner, starting with defining the specific research question (Daher et al. 2017), paying particular attention to the respective system boundary (Avellán et al. 2017), and considering also tool complexity (Dargin et al., 2019). 2.3.2

Evaluating the Aspects of Interest

As highlighted by Dai et al. (2018) and Dargin et al. (2019), few models exist that help move beyond the ‘understanding the nexus’ phase, i.e. systems knowledge. To be able to provide those pathways an evaluation of the status quo with respect to the desired target state needs to be undertaken, e.g. through sustainability assessments or other similar tools. To overcome these challenges, nexus work therefore does not exclusively rely on quantitative methods to assess interlinkages but to a certain degree also on qualitative methods in particular for describing and understanding the context. They also consider the intervention of stakeholders in selecting the most appropriate indicators and interlinkages as crucial. A main challenge in nexus assessments resides in the multiple entry points under which a situation can be analysed and evaluated. Depending on the stakeholder mix the type and quality of information available can vary drastically; and so can the goal. Avellán et al. (2019) highlight the importance of consciously choosing and actively encouraging the participation of stakeholders; especially those that hold information, can contribute to the solution and are involved in decision making on the particular (research) question. They further show that by conducting a thorough stakeholder analysis new critical stakeholders can be unearthed that would otherwise not be considered, such as local community leaders in decision-making processes. A recommended methodology to undertake stakeholder identification can be found in Reed et al. (2009), where the main aim is to describe ‘Who is related to the problem and how’. Stakeholders here are defined as: ‘Social actors, organization, institutions, community, individuals, groups, who can be affected by or can affect a phenomenon’. This selection is based on the assumption that ‘Only by understanding who has a stake in an initiative, and through understanding the nature of their claims and inter-relationships with each other, can the appropriate stakeholders be effectively involved in environmental decision-making’ (Reed et al., 2009). Indicator selection is also done through a variety of processes and is often comprised of context indicators (often qualitative) and specific indicators (often quantitative). As such, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe uses both national indicators and basin indicators as screening, perspectives and assessment-specific indicators. The term indicator is often used interchangeably with parameter or variable, where the term parameter or variable describes the actual value of something (e.g. the pH value of water), and the term indicator is often used when that value can be set into context with a certain threshold value (e.g. pH7 is good for aquatic life). Flammini et al. (2014) developed an extensive catalogue of potential nexus parameters and indicators that relate to nexus interlinkages (e.g. energy consumed versus amount of desalinated water). In other cases, the dimensions of sustainability – environmental, economic, social – were used to determine critical indicators (Benavides et al., 2019). While indicator selection may not be deemed too challenging, the identification of critical interlinkages may be more difficult. In the Transboundary Basin Nexus Assessment, this is done in interactive sessions with the stakeholders using printed nexus diagrams. Flammini

The nexus: concepts and frameworks  29 et al. (2014) provide a set of predetermined generic nexus interlinkages (both synergistic and antagonistic) which are for instance derived from biophysical realities. Through a two-pronged approach of stakeholder/expert input and a set of ex ante assumptions of what may be important interlinkages based on the development status of the country, site-specific interlinkages can be contrasted with national priorities. 2.3.3

Choosing a Way Forward

While indicator selection and identification of interlinkages is important, few approaches consider methodologies to foster transformation knowledge and to thus determine pathways to achieve the desired solution. As such Avellán et al. (2019) suggest a multi-method, interdisciplinary approach that considers a sustainability assessment, a wickedness analysis and a stakeholder network analysis to find pathways towards sustainable wastewater management systems (Figure 2.4). While all three methods describe the status quo of the situation (sustainable or not, degree of wickedness of the problem, strong versus weak tie stakeholder network) they also show entry points and pathways towards a more sustainable situation (investing in human resources to gather, share and communicate information, in particular that of a social and economic nature). Serious gaming can also be an option to explore pathways towards more sustainable solutions. Games can help show visually the impacts that certain policy measures in one sector/ resource use can have on another sector/available resource. The Nexus Game (https://​nexus​ .socialsimulations​.org/​) gives players the chance to develop their countries as ministers of water, energy, agriculture, etc. During the game players intuitively understand the trade-offs and synergies between the WEF nexus sectors (Roidt, 2019).

Figure 2.4

Multi-method interdisciplinary research approach towards sustainable wastewater management

30  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus seriousgame​ .sim4nexus​ .eu/​ ), where SIM4NEXUS has developed such a game (http://​ policy cards such as changes in carbon sequestration measures can be used. These policies have a direct impact on the model information running in the background of the game. After a five-year cycle the effect of the policies can be seen in the level of ‘Nexus Health’ indicators such as the share of renewable energy being used. The aim of the game is to ‘explore how policies impact on different Nexus components’ (www​.sim4nexus​.eu/​page​.php​?wert​=​ SeriousGame). Similar to the concept of ‘Nexus Health’, a few researchers have proposed an all-encompassing nexus index. The idea here is to obtain a metric with which to assess the state of ‘nexusness’ of one case, to compare different cases, or to assess the evolution of the same case over time. Simpson et al. (2020) provided a global WEF nexus ranking based on a set of 21 indicators that are available in virtually all countries. They showed that developed countries generally score higher in the WEF nexus ranking than economies of transition or developing countries.

2.4

EVALUATING THE NEXUS

Some of the criticism of the nexus as well as that towards integrated management approaches was towards the lack of evidence-based improvement or success. Was it really worth the effort of conducting these complicated activities? Was impact being achieved? What has changed? And how is success defined and eventually measured? An ‘easy’ answer could be that the level of ‘nexusness’ has increased, i.e. the Nexus Index as mentioned above is higher. Other authors have developed ‘full-scale nexus assessment methodologies’. Their primary intention is to support implementation at specific levels or scales but to a certain degree they can also help set criteria for the evaluation of success. In Avellán et al. (2018), a five-step nexus approach is presented that is based on a project management cycle. For national-level assessments, the methodology developed by Flammini et al. (2014) seems useful. It describes a three-phase approach embedded in a stakeholder dialogue

Source:

Adapted from Avellán et al. (2018).

Figure 2.5

Revised nexus process description

The nexus: concepts and frameworks  31 Table 2.3

Details of indicators for each new step

Step

Indicator

1. Define scope

● Number and type of stakeholders impacted by the sustainable development issue ● Category and number of integration(s) across aspectsa and type of interlinkage between resources, between resources and services and across sectors ● Level of transdisciplinarity in project design (number of partners and level of involvement)

2. Define research approach

● Type of boundary definition (multi-scalar, depending on disciplinary methods applied) ● Degree and type of interdisciplinary research methods applied (number of disciplinary methods and degree of interdisciplinarity achieved)

3. Identify nexus orientations for action

● Level of transdisciplinarity in project implementation (number of partners and level of involvement) ● Degree of reduced trade-offs and increased synergies

4. Introduce ‘socially accepted’ nexus orientations

● Degree of enhanced capacity in decision making ● Level of potential for out and upscaling

5. Evaluate the impact

● Degree of social acceptance ● Degree of enhanced sustainability

Note: a See Roidt and Avellán (2019) for the definition of categories of integration.

with an extensive indicator list. For transboundary assessments, UNECE (2015) developed an approach which focuses on determining the increased sharing of benefits when applying a nexus approach. For local studies, Terrapon-Pfaff et al. (2018) developed a four-step system for small-scale interactions. The steps are: (1) qualitative mapping of the links between the water, food and energy sub-systems; (2) quantification of WEF nexus links; (3) identification of critical links; and (4) leverage of results. Albeit not perfect, the nexus process in Figure 2.5 and Table 2.3 could be used to guide the nexus work and its criteria could be used to evaluate nexus (research) projects on a step-by-step basis. As such it serves not only as a framework to measure ultimate success but to a certain degree also as a quality control mechanism to check if the project is adhering to ‘nexus principles’.

2.5 CONCLUSION The nexus concept to achieve simultaneous water, energy and food security and thus move towards sustainability has received significant attention by researchers in the past 10 years. Noteworthy progress has been made in defining nexus concepts, applying tools and methods to assess the interlinkages and material flows between nexus aspects, and on selecting key interlinkages. However, less attention has been paid so far on determining the methods and tools to characterize pathways to achieve a sustainable or more efficient resource use to achieve that triple security. While scenario assessments can help to do so in part the complexity of the nexus requires the integration of new information such as policy impacts or stakeholder network relations that are so far absent from integrated resource management models and tools. Particularly striking is the lack of methods and strategies to evaluate the nexus.

32  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Disciplinary approaches, e.g. from an engineering perspective, are not enough to grasp the difficult challenges of social and political realities that often hamper a sustainable and sustained solution. Scholz and Steiner (2015) propose to use transdisciplinary approaches to address real-world problems and their respective sustainable solutions. Overcoming the predominant fragmented disciplinary approaches by moving through interdisciplinary methods to transdisciplinary modalities may lead to more robust results. As such Scholz and Steiner argue that ‘In a world of globalized challenges such as pollution, social injustice, migration and resource use, sustainable transitioning is a multidimensional and multiscale issue. Mastering these challenges calls for including experiential knowledge from multiple scales such as disciplinary knowledge related to a specific challenge’ (Scholz and Steiner, 2015). Building on this definition, Brandt et al. (2013) propose three types of knowledge to be shared between all stakeholders: ‘(i) “system knowledge” the observation of the system, (ii) “target knowledge” the knowledge of the desired target state, and (iii) “transformation knowledge” the knowledge necessary for fostering transformation processes’. Roidt (2017) provides the following set of recommendations to further develop nexus research: ● acknowledge the importance of synergistically increasing holistic and reductionistic knowledge; ● profit from specificity when operationalizing the approach; ● develop a specific language to facilitate interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research in the nexus; ● be modest and focus on key interlinkages; and ● profit from clear indicators. In conclusion, we argue that, for the nexus concept to be successful and useful for policy makers, all steps in the decision-making process need to receive equal attention and well-established transdisciplinary research principles should be taken into consideration. The whole approach should be deeply embedded in a thought-through stakeholder engagement plan in which these become active actors of change. Last but not least, the degree of change towards sustainability needs to be assessed to provide meaningful evidence that these complex undertakings are relevant.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This chapter is a knowledge product from a collaborative research project of the United Nations University Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES). We wish to thank UNU-FLORES, whose institutionally arranged research made this work possible. Nevertheless, the opinions expressed here are those of the authors alone and not of UNU-FLORES.

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The nexus: concepts and frameworks  33 Albrecht, T., A. Crootof and C. Scott (2018), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: A systematic review of methods for nexus assessment’, Environmental Research Letters, 13 (4), 043002. Alcamo, J., N. Ash, C. Butler, J. Baird Callicott, D. Capistrano, S. Carpenter et al. (2003), Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: A Framework for Assessment, Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Allan, J.A. (2003), ‘Virtual water – the water, food, and trade nexus: Useful concept or misleading metaphor?’, Water International, 28 (1), 106–113. Allouche, J. (2016), ‘The birth and spread of IWRM: A case study of global policy diffusion and translation’, Water Alternatives, 9 (3), 412–33. Avellán, T., M. Roidt, A. Emmer, J. Von Koerber, P. Schneider and W. Raber (2017), ‘Making the water-soil-waste nexus work: Framing the boundaries of resource flows’, Sustainability, 9 (10), 1881. Avellán, T., R. Ardakanian, S.R. Perret, R. Ragab, W. Vlotman, H. Zainal, S. Im and H.A. Gany (2018), ‘Considering resources beyond water: Irrigation and drainage management in the context of the water-energy-food nexus’, Irrigation and Drainage, 67 (1), 12–21. Avellán, T., L. Benavides, S. Caucci, A. Hahn, S. Kirschke and A. Müller (2019), Towards Sustainable Wastewater Treatment Systems: Implementing a Nexus Approach in Two Cases in Latin America, Dresden: United Nations University Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources. Bazilian, M., H. Rogner, M. Howells, S. Hermann, D. Arent, D. Gielenet al. (2011), ‘Considering the energy, water and food nexus: Towards an integrated modelling approach’, Energy Policy, 39 (12), 7896–7906. Benavides, L., T. Avellán, S. Caucci, A. Hahn, S. Kirschke and A. Müller (2019), ‘Assessing sustainability of wastewater management systems in a multi-scalar, transdisciplinary manner in Latin America’, Water, 11 (2), 249. Brandt, P., A. Ernst, F. Gralla, C. Luederitz, D.J. Lang, J. Newig et al. (2013), ‘A review of transdisciplinary research in sustainability science’, Ecological Economics, 92, 1–15. Daher, B., W. Saad, S.A. Pierce, S. Hülsmann and R.H. Mohtar (2017), ‘Trade-offs and decision support tools for FEW nexus-oriented management’, Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports, 1–7. Dai, J., S. Wu, G. Han, J. Weinberg, X. Xie, X. Wu et al. (2018), ‘Water-energy nexus: A review of methods and tools for macro-assessment’, Applied Energy, 210, 393–408. Dargin, J., B. Daher and R.H. Mohtar (2019), ‘Complexity versus simplicity in water energy food nexus (WEF) assessment tools’, Science of the Total Environment, 650, 1566–1575. de Loe, R. C. and J. J. Patterson (2017), ‘Rethinking water governance: Moving beyond water-centric perspectives in a connected and changing world’, Natural Resources Journal, 57, 75–100. Edwards, W. (1954), ‘The theory of decision making’, Psychological Bulletin, 51 (4), 380–417. Endo, A., I. Tsurita, K. Burnett and P.M. Orencio (2017), ‘A review of the current state of research on the water, energy, and food nexus’, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​ j​.ejrh​.2015​.11​.010. FAO (1992), CROPWAT: A Computer Program for Irrigation Planning and Management, Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization. Flammini, A., M. Puri, L. Pluschke and O. Dubois (2014), Walking the Nexus Talk: Assessing the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in the Context of the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative, Rome: Climate, Energy and Tenure Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Galaitsi, S., J. Veysey and A. Huber-Lee (2018), Where Is the Added Value? A Review of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Literature, Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute, www​.sei​.org/​ publications/​added​-value​-review​-water​-energy​-food​-nexus​-literature/​ (accessed 4 October 2019). Gassman, P.W., M.R. Reyes, C.H. Green and J.G. Arnold (2007), ‘The soil and water assessment tool: Historical development, applications, and future research directions’, Transactions of the ASABE, 50 (4), 1211–1250. Graefe, O. (2011), ‘River basins as new environmental regions? The depolitization of water management’, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 14, 24–27. GWP (2000), Integrated Water Resources Management, Stockholm: Global Water Partnership. Harbaugh, A.W. (2005), MODFLOW-2005, The U.S. Geological Survey Modular Ground-Water Model: The Ground-Water Flow Process, Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey, p. 253.

34  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Herath, S. (2014), ‘Nexus approach and sustainability: Opportunities and challenges’, in S. Huelsmann and R. Ardakanian (eds), White Book on Advancing a Nexus Approach to the Sustainable Management of Water, Soil and Waste, Dresden: UNU-FLORES, pp. 8–18. Hoff, H. (2011), Understanding the Nexus: Background Paper for the Bonn 2011 Conference: The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus, Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute. Hoff, H. (2018), ‘Integrated SDG implementation: How a cross-scale (vertical) and cross-regional nexus approach can complement cross-sectoral (horizontal) integration’, Managing Water, Soil and Waste Resources to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals, 149–163. Jeffrey, P. and M. Gearey (2006), ‘Integrated water resources management: Lost on the road from ambition to realisation?’, Water Science and Technology, 53 (1), 1–8. Kissinger, M. and W.E. Rees (2010), ‘An interregional ecological approach for modelling sustainability in a globalizing world: Reviewing existing approaches and emerging directions’, Ecological Modelling, 221 (21), 2615–2623. Kumazawa, T., K. Hara, A. Endo and M. Taniguchi (2017), ‘Supporting collaboration in interdisciplinary research of water-energy-food nexus by means of ontology engineering’, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 11, 31–43. Kurian, M. (2017), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: Trade-offs, thresholds and transdisciplinary approaches to sustainable development’, Environmental Science and Policy, 68, 97–106. Kurian, M. and R. Ardakanian (2014), ‘Institutional arrangements and governance structures that advance the nexus approach to management of environmental resources’, in S. Hülsmann and R. Ardakanian (eds), White Book on Advancing a Nexus Approach to the Sustainable Management of Water, Soil and Waste, Dresden: UNU-FLORES, pp. 57–68. Kurian, M. and R. Ardakanian (eds) (2015), Governing the Nexus, Cham: Springer International Publishing. Lawford, R., J. Bogardi, S. Marx, S. Jain, C. P. Wostl, K. Knüppe et al. (2013), ‘Basin perspectives on the water-energy-food security nexus’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 5 (6), 607–616. Leck, H., D. Conway, M. Bradshaw and J. Rees (2015), ‘Tracing the water-energy-food nexus: Description, theory and practice’, Geography Compass, 9 (8), 445–460. Mannschatz, T., T. Wolf and S. Hülsmann (2016), ‘Nexus tools platform: Web-based comparison of modelling tools for analysis of water-soil-waste nexus’, Environmental Modelling and Software, 76, 137–153. Müller, A.B., T. Avellán and J. Schanze (2020), ‘Risk and sustainability assessment framework for decision support in “water scarcity – water reuse” situations’, Journal of Hydrology, 125424. Muller, M. (2015), ‘The “nexus” as a step back towards a more coherent water resource management paradigm’, Water Altern, 8 (1), 675–694. Reed, M.S., A. Graves, N. Dandy, H. Posthumus, K. Hubacek, J. Morris et al. (2009), ‘Who’s in and why? A typology of stakeholder analysis methods for natural resource management’, Journal of Environmental Management, 90 (5), 1933–1949. Roidt, M. (2017), Comparing Integrated Management Approaches to Advance the Water-Soil-Waste Nexus, Master thesis, Dresden: TU Dresden. Roidt, M. (2019), ‘Der Water-Energy-Food Nexus und seine Einbindung in die Hochschullehre’, Ressourcenmanagement Wasser – Aktuelle Bedeutung, Trends und Herausforderungen, 1, 343. Roidt, M. and T. Avellán (2019), ‘Learning from integrated management approaches to implement the nexus’, Journal of Environmental Management, 237, 609–616. Scholz, R.W. and G. Steiner (2015), ‘Transdisciplinarity at the crossroads’, Sustainability Science, 10 (4), 521–526. Schwärzel, K., S. Huelsmann and R. Ardakanian (2014), ‘UNU-FLORES: Advancing a nexus approach to the sustainable management of water, soil and waste’, in S. Huelsmann and R. Ardakanian (eds), White Book on Advancing a Nexus Approach to the Sustainable Management of Water, Soil and Waste, Dresden: UNU-FLORES, pp. 3–7. Sieber, J. and D. Purkey (2015), WEAP User Guide, Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute. Simpson, G., G. Jewitt and J. Badenhorst (2020), Development of Water-Energy-Food Nexus Index and Its Application to South Africa and the Southern African Development Community, Report to the Water Research Commission by Jones & Wagener.

The nexus: concepts and frameworks  35 Smithers, J. and R. Schulze (1995), ACRU Agrohydrological Modelling System User Manual Version 3.00, Pretoria: Water Research Commission. Terrapon-Pfaff, J., W. Ortiz, C. Dienst and M.-C. Gröne (2018), ‘Energising the WEF nexus to enhance sustainable development at local level’, Journal of Environmental Management, 223, 409–416. Tversky, A. and D. Kahneman (1986), ‘Rational choice and the framing of decisions’, Journal of Business, 59 (4), S251–S278. UNECE (2015), Reconciling Resource Uses in Transboundary Basins: Assessment of the Water-Food-Energy-Ecosystems Nexus, New York: United Nations. UNECE (2018), Methodology for Assessing the Water-Food-Energy-Ecosystems Nexus in Transboundary Basins and Experiences from Its Application: Synthesis, Geneva: UNECE, www​.unece​.org/​fileadmin/​ DAM/​env/​water/​publications/​WAT​_55​_NexusSynthesis/​ECE​-MP​-WAT​-55​_NexusSynthesis​_Final​ -for​-Web​.pdf (accessed 30 March 2022). United Nations (2015), Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, New York: United Nations. Wichelns, D. (2017), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: Is the increasing attention warranted, from either a research or policy perspective?’, Environmental Science and Policy, 69, 113–123. Zhang, C., X. Chen, Y. Li, W. Ding and G. Fu (2018), ‘Water-energy-food nexus: Concepts, questions and methodologies’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 195, 625–639.

3. Global nexus relationships and trends Janez Sušnik

3.1

INTRODUCTION TO THE WATER-ENERGY-FOOD NEXUS SECTORS

Water, energy, and food are three of the sectors most critical for life on Earth. Each sector provides humans with the resources necessary for life, economic activities and development. Energy is required to power machines, computers and to accelerate work, making processes faster and more efficient. Food is required to fuel humans and animals, and land is used to produce this food. Water is essential for life, and is abstracted and moved in significant quantities in order to supply human needs while also being essential for good ecosystem functioning. Yet each of these sectors has been put under increasing pressure in recent decades due to climate change, population growth and socio-economic developments, with many reports noting the worrying increase in pressure in the near- to mid-term future (Moe and Rheingans, 2006; RAEng, 2010; WEF, 2020; World Hunger, 2013). In this regard, the purpose of this chapter is to chart the evolution of these sectors individually to provide context to the challenges being faced by each. The subsequent sections show how interlinked these sectors are, greatly exacerbating the challenges being faced and complicating the holistic management and policy design that is required to meet the demands of multiple competing users and manage this very complex system that is operational at scales from local to global. Finally, a section is included considering current estimates for water, energy and food resource pathways. 3.1.1 Water Water is a basic human need, and a United Nations-mandated human right (UN, 2010). Water is increasingly abstracted, treated, moved, used, cleaned and returned to the environment at different quality (Figure 3.1). Recent data show that approximately 4000 km3 of water was withdrawn in 2014, with about 2500 km3 actually consumed (the difference being returned to the environment), with this value being approximately stable over the last 10–15 years. This use needs to be placed in the context of so-called ‘planetary boundaries’ (Steffan et al., 2015) which places sustainable global limits or thresholds on various parameters, which if exceeded may lead to serious and potentially irreversible environmental degradation. For water consumption, the safe planetary boundary has been proposed as 4000 km3 yr−1, suggesting that current levels of consumption are already close to the proposed safe boundary. As the global population is expected to reach 10–11 billion by the end of the century (www​.population​ .un​.org/​wpp), water demand is expected to increase by 20–30 per cent (Burek et al., 2016; WWAP, 2019), and the safe planetary boundary is likely to be exceeded (Sušnik, 2018), with unknown consequences. Due to the unprecedented growth in urban population, much of this water demand increase is expected to take place in cities, which may see increases in demand of up to 80–90 per cent by 2050. Much of this increase is likely to happen in developing cities least equipped to deal 36

Global nexus relationships and trends  37

Source:

Data from Alcamo et al. (2003); aus der Beek et al. (2010); Flörke et al. (2013).

Figure 3.1

Global water use, 1900–2014

with the demand increases, potentially leading to ever larger quantities of water being physically moved between catchments, which is already substantial (Flörke et al., 2018; McDonald et al., 2014), and which merely transfers water shortage issues to other places and causes significant ecological damage. The growth in city water demand is concerning. Recent research demonstrates the extent of existing water supply-demand deficits in 12 megacities (Ahmadi et al., 2020). One area of concern, but also offering huge opportunity, is the volume of water lost due to leaks in supply networks. In the cities analysed by Ahmadi et al. (2020), water losses amounted to at least 4.7 billion m3 yr−1, sufficient to supply an additional 100 million people annually. Even small efficiency improvements have the potential to improve the lives of millions. This is particularly pressing when it is considered that 2.1 billion people lack access to a clean, safe freshwater supply (WWAP, 2019). Meeting universal access to water for all is enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6.1). One option currently underutilised, but drawing more attention, is the use of ‘alternative’ water supplies to augment and diversify existing water supplies (Memon and Ward, 2015). Alternative water sources such as rainwater and stormwater harvesting, and the treatment and reuse of wastewater, have been shown to potentially offer significant contributions to urban water supply, however, there are also non-trivial barriers to their implementation, from financial to institutional and social/cultural challenges (Jussah et al., 2018). Alternative water sources give the opportunity to use water more efficiently, at a quality appropriate to the end use. For example, collected rain/stormwater can be used to water municipal parks or for car washing, while treated wastewater can be reused for agriculture. Such targeted uses of water of varying quality would reduce pressure on existing traditional supplies that are necessary for drinking water supply, but as mentioned, there are obstacles to widespread implementation of such measures. In addition to the direct human demand for water, an increasing population implies a greater demand from the agricultural sector in order to supply more people with sufficient food. By 2020, agricultural water demand accounted for about 70 per cent of all global water use.

38  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Efficiencies in agricultural water use (e.g. moving from flood irrigation to drip irrigation techniques) and improvement in agricultural management practices therefore have the potential to offer significant global water demand reductions. A change in diet to those demanding less meat would also result in a considerably lower agricultural water demand, as well as having benefits concerning a reduction in agricultural-related climate emissions and biodiversity and ecosystems. 3.1.2 Food The sustainable production and consumption of food, closely related to land use which in some regions is converted from sensitive ecosystems to arable land for agricultural production, leading to ecosystem and biodiversity loss, is also a growing concern as populations rise and as socio-economic shifts change dietary habits and expectations (i.e. a general trend towards a more meat-intensive ‘Western’ diet). It is expected that global food demand (and production) will increase by 70 per cent by 2050 (FAO, 2009). Such an increase must be met either through yield increases without expanding agricultural land area significantly, expanding agricultural land area to accommodate the extra demand (at the expense of other land use types and ecosystems) and/or decreasing food waste which is substantial (about 90Mt in 2006 in the EU27 countries alone) (EC, 2011), and about 30 percent of global food production (FAO, 2011). In terms of food production, in 2013 it was estimated that 5000 x 109 kg food was produced globally, and this is expected to reach 7500 x 109 kg in 2050 (Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012; FAO, 2017). If agricultural land extent increases significantly, recent studies have shown the potential production increases related to this expansion, as well as the impacts on the climate system and water availability as a result of this expansion. De Vrese et al. (2018) demonstrate that total cropland could be significantly expanded as a result of expected climate change impacts, especially in South America and sub-Saharan Africa. However, in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, cropland areas are expected to be limited and/or shrink due to climate and/or water-imposed limits. In addition, significant expansion would likely come at the expense of other land use types, particularly vulnerable forests. Taking various constraints into account (climate, water availability, the minimum food/calorie production necessary), Heck et al. (2018) give suggestions on possible land use patterns that are feasible while addressing such constraints. Perhaps most concerning is that to meet minimum human calorie intake requirements, current productivity rates globally are unable to meet the demand of 9.1 billion people under the scenarios modelled, suggesting productivity improvements are essential. At the same time, Henry et al. (2018) argue that no more than 15 per cent of the ice-free land surface should be converted to cropland. Using a global cropland and food production model, Henry et al. (2018) suggest that producing sufficient food for 9 billion people is possible within safe planetary boundaries. However, agricultural productivity must increase substantially, especially in developing countries, and the global yield gap must be reduced. If additional energy crops are to be produced to meet expected demand increases for ‘clean’ bioenergy, significant cropland expansion is required, suggesting a trade-off between land for food and land for energy crops, and with land preserved for ecosystems. As with the water sector, the challenge is significant. There are nonetheless considerable opportunities, of which reducing food waste and improving efficiencies and productivity are the most promising without recourse to vast expansion of croplands at the expense of vulnerable ecosystems.

Global nexus relationships and trends  39 3.1.3 Energy The final of the three sectors is energy, both in terms of production and consumption. As with water and food, the demand for, and consequent production of energy (primary energy, electricity, heat, fuel for transport) has increased significantly in the last few decades (Figures 3.2 and 3.3), with no sign of this trend decreasing or slowing down. It is expected that primary energy demand could increase by a third relative to 2017 levels (BP, 2019). At present, much energy is produced using finite fossil fuel resources with concomitant climate impacts. The challenge is supplying this increasing energy demand in a sustainable way that is less reliant on finite fossil fuel energy sources and more reliant on various abundant clean energy sources including wind, solar (thermal and photovoltaic (PV)), tidal and geothermal sources. The 2014 percentage of renewable energy sources (e.g. wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower) in total global electricity production is about 34 per cent (www​.data​.worldbank​.org/​ indicator). This has remained roughly constant since 1990 despite repeated calls for increases in the renewable energy share. Of the renewable energy mix, biofuels make up the vast majority (> 60 per cent in terms of consumption) leading to specific trade-offs and conflicts related to competition for land for food production and competition for water resources, followed by hydropower (about 23 per cent). Wind, solar PV and other sources make up the remainder. Wind and solar energy are vastly underutilised, especially when considering their significant global potential to supply power (Deng et al., 2015). A major global challenge is supplying energy to the rapidly growing population, with generally improving lifestyles increasingly living in cities in a sustainable way (i.e. not exhausting finite supplies of fossil fuels). This is especially in the context of the Paris Agreement (www​ .unfccc​.int/​sites/​default/​files/​english​_paris​_agreement​.pdf) which aims to limit the level of global warming to 2 °C, and preferably below 1.5 °C by 2050 compared to pre-industrial levels. Such a limit implies a sudden and dramatic shift away from ‘traditional’ fossil fuel-based energy, which has evident climate consequences. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations

Source:

Data from www​.bp​.com/​en/​global/​corporate/​energy​-economics/​statistical​-review​-of​-world​-energy​.html.

Figure 3.2

Primary energy consumption in different global regions, 1965–2015

40  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Source:

www​.bp​.com/​en/​global/​corporate/​energy​-economics/​statistical​-review​-of​-world​-energy​.html.

Figure 3.3

Total global electricity production, 1990–2018

have risen from about 320 ppm in the 1960s to over 410 ppm in 2019. The common consensus is that human activities (fossil fuel burning for electricity generation and in transport, agricultural emissions) have contributed to this rise. Indeed, emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs, measured in units of CO2−e) have risen from about 23 GtCO2−e in the 1970s to about 45 GtCO2−e in 2017 (UNEP, 2018). Placing limits on emissions and reducing GHGs significantly is critical to limiting the amount of global warming. Wind, solar, tidal, hydropower, geothermal and bioenergy are seen as ways to maintain energy production and meet demand while reducing the climate impact. Deng et al. (2015) show the significant potential of wind and solar electric power globally, in principle sufficient to meet all demand. Overcoming reliability of supply from such sources is a major current challenge, however, recent experience in the east of Germany shows that reliable power can be supplied from a variable grid composed primarily of renewable energy sources for a substantial length of time (Gielen et al., 2019).

3.2

NEXUS INTERLINKAGES

3.2.1

Towards the Nexus

The water, energy and food sectors described above do not exist in isolation as hinted at in some of the conflicts. Rather, they form a complex system of inter-relations defined by feedbacks, many of which are not well understood. This system is often referred to as the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus (cf. Bleischwitz et al., 2018; Hoff, 2011; WEF, 2020). Rapid global development over the last half century has strengthened these connections and made them much more obvious, and it can be argued that each can no longer be considered in isolation from the others. This is a paradigm shift towards so-called nexus or systems thinking (Capra and Luisi, 2014). For example, when considering water supply and heating in the home, the corresponding energy demand of that water supply should be considered, especially in urban settings. Likewise, when energy is produced, the required water demand to help generate that energy (e.g. for thermal power station cooling) should be accounted for and con-

Global nexus relationships and trends  41 sidered in the context of additional competing water users (agriculture, domestic households). This section gives an insight into how the water, energy and food sectors are connected, and will show how recent research is starting to demonstrate the complexity of the system and the implications for policy making in a nexus context. The rest of this chapter explores these connections and potential future pathways for this critical global system. 3.2.2

Water for Energy

Water is an essential component in the production of energy. It is used in the extraction of raw materials, processing and in electricity, fuel and heat production. At present, it is estimated that 1500 km3 of water is withdrawn and 300 km3 consumed annually for global energy production, and that these numbers could reach 2500 km3 withdrawals and 600 km3 consumed by 2100 (Bijl et al., 2016). The current withdrawal volume forms a significant proportion (about 35 per cent) of total global water withdrawals, emphasising the importance of water in the energy sector, and also hinting at the potential conflict with the agricultural sector, another major water user, and a growing urban demand. Indeed, it could be argued that, given the current global energy mix, water and energy can be thought of as one and the same. In terms of primary energy production, water is used in raw material extraction (e.g. in mining and fracking), in refining and processing (e.g. oil refining, biofuels, diesel production) and in the transport and storage of solid and liquid fuels. In an average Western society, given current total energy use per capita and an average fuel mix to produce that energy, the freshwater required in the production of that energy demand amounts to c. 35 m3 per person per day (Olsson, 2012). Although biofuels are often seen as a renewable energy source, they take land away from food production, and are very water intensive, with the water demand depending on factors such as crop type, farming practices, climate and soil conditions and local topography (Lampert et al., 2016; Mielke et al., 2010). One potentially promising alternative is the use of algae-based biofuel, which although consuming about 190 m3 GJ−1 has the advantage of not requiring land for production (Gerbens-Leenes et al., 2014) and would not necessarily compete for the same water resources as agriculture. In terms of water in electricity generation (currently about 25 000 TWh annually; Figure 3.3), while the water-withdrawn volumes are very high, the water-consumed volumes (i.e. the volume of water ‘lost’ or not available for immediate reuse by downstream users, e.g. evaporation) are significantly lower. For example, for nuclear electricity generation, water withdrawal is in the range 100–230 l kWh−1, while consumption is 3–7 l kWh−1 and for coal-fired electricity generation withdrawals are 75–190 l kWh−1, with consumption of 2–6 l kWh−1 (Olsson, 2012). Similarly, Macknick et al. (2012) show the significant differences between operational water withdrawals and consumption, including the range for both (Table 3.1). It is shown that bio-based electricity generation has very high levels of water consumption, while solar PV and wind have amongst the lowest water consumption values (Macknick et al., 2012). It has been estimated that electricity-related water consumption could increase substantially unless there is a global shift in electricity-generating technology (e.g. from once-through to wet-tower systems) and/or a change in the energy mix used to generate electricity (Davies et al., 2013). Hydropower is often ignored in such discussions, as it too consumes water via evaporation from reservoir surfaces. Indeed, the consumption of water can be significant. Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2012a) demonstrate that for a small sample of 35 sites, the aggregated water footprint was 90 Gm3 yr−1, equal to 10 per cent of the blue water footprint of global crop production

42  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Table 3.1

Water withdrawal and consumption values for a variety of energy sources

Energy source

Water withdrawal (l kWh−1)

Water consumption (l kWh−1)

Thermoelectric fossil steam – open system

80–200

0.8–1.2

Thermoelectric fossil steam – closed system

1.2–2.4

1.2–2.0

Nuclear steam – open system

100–240

1.6

Nuclear steam – closed system

2–4.4

1.6–2.9

Natural gas – open system

30–80

0.4

Natural gas – closed system

0.9

0.7

Geothermal steam

8

2–5.5

Concentrating solar

3

2.9

Wind and solar PV

–

0

Source:

Data adapted from Macknick et al. (2012); Olsson (2012).

in 2000. Given the small sample size, the global total must be significantly larger, illustrating the water-related contribution to energy produced from hydropower. Given the additional hydrological, ecosystem, socio-economic and cultural impacts of large hydropower dams, their sustainability and claims to be ‘green’ or sustainable can be questioned. In an urbanising world, water and energy are increasingly interconnected. This can be demonstrated with two examples. First, in wastewater treatment plants, waste heat is increasingly being scavenged for energy (co-)generation (Meggers and Leibundgut, 2011; Cipolla and Maglionico, 2014). Second, energy can be generated within the water supply system, using in-stream micro-generation techniques (Du et al., 2017). As water demands increase across different sectors, water-related efficiency gains in the energy sectors will prove essential in ensuring sufficient resources are available for other uses (agriculture, direct human consumption). A shift to renewable energy generation, especially wind and solar, with less emphasis on biofuels, will contribute to this reduction in energy-related water demand, as will retrofitting of existing power plants to become more water efficient, utilising water-recirculating technologies. Novel energy generation techniques such as waste heat scavenging and micro-generation within water supply networks can also contribute to efficiency improvements and power generation. In summary, the challenge is to continue to supply global energy requirements while limiting the increase in energy-related water demand. 3.2.3

Energy for Water

This section continues to demonstrate the inseparability of energy and water, describing how energy is consumed in the water sector. Energy is required in almost every aspect of the water sector to different degrees. The water system can be roughly split into three main areas: water supply, wastewater treatment and the end user demand. Globally, about 4 per cent of electricity consumption is used in water supply and wastewater treatment (IEA, 2018), which does not include energy consumed by the end user of water. Energy is required to pump raw water from the source, treat it to potable standards, and then to pump it again to end users (Plappally and Lienhard, 2012). Following the end user-related water and energy use, any wastewater produced must be pumped to a wastewater treatment plant, treated according to national standards and legislation and then appropriately returned to the environment or back into a supply network for reuse. It is clear that energy is critically embedded throughout the water system.

Global nexus relationships and trends  43 To produce clean water, the energy demand varies depending on the source and quality of the raw water. Supplying surface water resources consumes 0.5–4 kWh m−3, recycled water consumes 1–6 kWh m−3 and desalination of salt and brackish water requires about 4–8 kWh m−3 (WssTP, 2011). By comparison, 1 m3 of bottled water consumes about 1000–4000 kWh energy, mainly related to the production of the plastic bottle itself. Treating this supplied raw water consumes further energy. There are few statistics on the energy demand of water treatment, however, Lingsten et al. (2008) show that in Sweden, the average of water treatment plants sampled had an energy demand of 0.12 kWh m−3, with a range from 0.01 to 0.72 kWh m−3. It is likely that most water treatment plants globally fall within this range, or close to it. Regarding the pumping and movement of water, the amount of energy required is governed by the following equation: P=Q*H*g*ρ

where P is the energy required (W), Q is the flow rate (m3 s−1), H is the head to be overcome (m), g is the gravitational acceleration (= 9.81 m s−2) and ρ is the density of water (= 1000 kg m−3). Because g and ρ are constants, the energy requirement is dependent on the amount of water being moved and on the height of any barrier that must be overcome. Pump efficiencies must also be accounted for in such estimations, as must water losses in the network. To overcome losses and leaks in distribution networks, more water must be pumped through a system, implying a greater energy demand (CRS, 2014). Treating wastewater generally requires more energy than for raw water treatment, but there is great variability depending on the level of treatment required and the initial quality of the wastewater. For example, in Australia, primary wastewater treatment requires 0.1–0.4 kWh m−3, biological C removal requires 0.26–0.82 kWh m−3 and advanced treatment options require 0.39–11 kWh m−3 (Kenway et al., 2008), while in the United States, wastewater utilities consume 0.43 kWh m−3 on average (Chini and Stillwell, 2018). However, some locations prove counter to this general situation. For example, in Mexico City, it was shown that about 90 per cent of all water system-related energy consumption (excluding residential end uses) is in the water supply part of the system, and of that, the vast majority is used to deliver surface water resources from considerable distance and over a topographic barrier of over 1000 m elevation (Valek et al., 2017). This was largely due to the lack of wastewater treatment facilities at the time the research was carried out. One often overlooked energy-for-water link is related to the production of freshwater in desalination plants. According to fundamental principles based on the second law of thermodynamics, the minimum energy required to produce 1 m3 of freshwater from seawater (at 20 °C) is 0.79 kWh m−3. This suggests an absolute lowest limit beyond which further gains cannot be made. Brackish water requires lower energy demand due to the lower salt content. At present, total energy consumption in most reverse-osmosis (RO) desalination plants is in the range 2.0–4.0 kWh m−3 (Shemer and Semiat, 2017; Voutchkov, 2018). Several areas are suggested to improve energy efficiency in RO plants, including membrane improvements, energy recovery, more efficient pumps, optimisation of the RO process itself and use of renewable energy sources to power the plant (Shemer and Semiat, 2017). Despite the energy consumption in the water supply and wastewater sectors, end user (i.e. homeowner, consumer) water-related energy use dominates water sector energy consumption, consuming up to 80–90 per cent of total water sector energy demand. This energy is

44  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus mostly associated with the heating of water, especially for showers, hot tap water and home heating. The reason for this large energy demand is related to the heat capacity of water, defined informally as the amount of heat energy required to raise a unit volume of material by 1 degree Kelvin (around 4.18 kJ kg−1 K−1, while land has a value around 1 kJ kg−1 K−1). As such, domestic hot water accounts for 14–18 per cent of all residential energy consumption (Perez-Lombard et al., 2008). Therefore, water savings and efficiency gains in domestic (water) heating systems have the potential to save significant amounts of energy production and GHG emissions (assuming current energy mix portfolios) that are related to the entire water system, especially in cities. 3.2.4

Water for Food

Water is essential for the production of food, with agricultural production currently consuming about 70 per cent of total global water demand (FAO, 2014). Table 3.2 gives an overview of the water withdrawals for agriculture in different parts of the world. Despite current pressures, global food production is expected to increase by as much as 60 per cent by 2050 in order to feed a growing population (Zhang et al., 2018), with potentially large implications for water demand. At present, about 33 per cent of Earth’s surface is used for cropland (OECD, 2017), with conflicting views on how much more could or should be converted to supply additional food (e.g. de Vrese et al., 2018; Henry et al., 2018). Water for food comes from two sources: green water (i.e. rainfed agriculture with no impact of so-called blue water resources) and blue water (i.e. water abstracted from rivers, lakes, groundwater, etc. for the purposes of irrigation). To meet growing food demand, it is expected that more rainfed land will be converted to irrigated land with generally corresponding higher yields. This will lead to higher water demand unless water efficiency gains are made throughout the food chain (cf. HLPE, 2014) and food waste and loss, currently about 30 per cent of all food produced, is significantly decreased (HLPE, 2014). At present about 7100 km3 water is consumed by crop production annually (including green and blue water combined; de Fraiture et al., 2018). Given recent estimates and projections on food production increases, this could rise up to 13 500 km3 by 2050 (de Fraiture et al., 2018). At present about 20 per cent of the water derives from blue sources (c. 1600 km3), however, 2600 km3 is withdrawn to meet this consumptive demand. Efficiency increases in this regard could also therefore lower the water withdrawal volume, freeing up water for other users and slowing ecosystem degradation. The amount of water required for food is influenced by both supply- and demand-side factors. On the production (supply) side, the water demand of crops varies widely depending on variety and local climate and ground conditions (Allen et al., 1998; Hoekstra, 2005; IAASTD, 2009), irrigation efficiency (WWAP, 2012) and water losses in irrigation networks. On the demand side, factors include diet (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2012b), demand for local or imported food and food waste (see Section 3.2.5). It is estimated that up to one third (1.3 billion tons per year) of food is wasted annually (HLPE, 2014). Losses occur at all points along the food chain, from production and harvesting, during storage and in transport and with end users (e.g. buying more food than is required). The report by HLPE (2014) suggests many ways to reduce loss and waste throughout the food chain. In turn, each food waste saving implies a reduced water demand as water is used in every step during the food chain. While agriculture will continue to dominate global water

Global nexus relationships and trends  45 Table 3.2 Region

Overview of agricultural water withdrawal (km3 and in percentage share of total freshwater withdrawal) in different parts of the world Renewable freshwater

Total freshwater

Agricultural freshwater

resources (km3)

withdrawal (km3)

withdrawal (km3) [%]

Africa

3936

217

186 [86]

Asia

11594

2378

1936 [81]

Latin America

13477

252

178 [71]

Caribbean

93

13

9 [68]

North America

6253

525

203 [39]

Oceania

1703

26

19 [72]

Europe

6603

418

132 [32]

World

43659

3830

2664 [70]

Source:

Data from FAO (2006).

demand, improvements in cropping, agricultural techniques, irrigation efficiencies and reductions in food waste will contribute to minimising potential water demand increases. 3.2.5

Energy for Food

Energy is used in the production of food, however, this nexus link is often overlooked. For example, it has been shown that there is a strong link between the composition of diets and the energy requirement to produce the food to sustain those diets (Eshel and Martin, 2006). Linked to this, as developing nations increasingly demand Western-style diets, and as calorie intake from animal products increases, there is a concomitant increase in the energy requirement of food production (Rosenheck, 2008). Western diets tend to include greater levels of food processing, which has considerable energy demand. In addition to the energy in processing is the energy in the transport of food (Pimentel and Pimentel, 2007). Regarding food waste as noted above (HLPE, 2014), food loss represents an implicit energy wastage, leading to food system inefficiencies. This means unnecessary use of energy, and therefore potentially fewer GHG emissions if processes become more efficient and less food is lost and/or wasted. For example, it was recently shown that in the food sector in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2014, food waste in food manufacturing led to the unnecessary use of 106 GWh of energy (Sheppard and Rahimifard, 2019). In another recent study, Lahda-Sabur et al. (2019) show the considerable energy consumption in food manufacturing in the UK, and demonstrate that highly processed foods such as instant coffee, French fries and crisps are the most energy intensive of the food groups assessed. In addition, it was shown that 98 per cent of UK food is transported by road, and that the distances transported are increasing. It is suggested that increasing efficiency in manufacturing plants, dietary changes towards those with a lower intake of processed foods and decentralised manufacturing and supply centres could all contribute to lower energy demand in the UK food manufacturing sector. In addition to the above issues is the increasing use of fertilisers and pesticides in food production, both of which require energy to produce. Fertilisers and pesticides are used to reduce the risk of crop failures and to increase yields, thereby increasing reliability of supply. While some increase in crop productivity can be put down to better on-farm management techniques and potential to the impact of climate change (cf. Parry et al., 2004), much of the recent pro-

46  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus ductivity increase can be explained by the increasing use of fertilisers and pesticides, both of which require energy to produce (Gellings and Parmenter, 2009). Another use of energy for food is in the pumping of (ground)water for irrigated agriculture, which is rapidly expanding globally. Studies show that irrigated agriculture has higher yields than rainfed crops and greater reliability (e.g. Pei et al., 2017). More cultivated areas globally make use of irrigation for watering to help with yield improvement and reliability. The globally irrigated land surface area has increased from about 140 million ha in 1960 to 275 million ha in 2008 (FAOSTAT database, www​.fao​.org/​faostat/​en/​#home). Many irrigated areas pump water to fields, either from distant surface water sources such as rivers or reservoirs or from groundwater sources. Pumping of water from such sources requires a considerable amount of energy. As more areas are cultivated and as irrigated land area increases, the energy required to pump water to these areas will increase. The use of desalinated water for irrigation is a practice gaining momentum, especially in some Middle East states. Converting seawater to potable water is a very energy-intensive process (Shemer and Semiat, 2017; Voutchkov, 2018) and when used for food production (irrigation) it can lead to large increases in energy consumption (e.g. Siddiqi and Anadon, 2011). 3.2.6

Food for Energy

Food crops (e.g. corn, maize) or the land that food crops could be grown on are increasingly being used either in the production of biofuel crops instead of food for human consumption (in the case of food crops normally for human consumption) or for the growth of crops to produce biofuels (in the case of land acquisition) (cf. Gielen et al., 2019). A recent study suggests it is not possible to supply sufficient food for a growing population and produce significant biofuel volumes without cropland expansion into fragile ecosystems (Henry et al., 2018). Biofuels for transport and energy generation generally have a lower GHG impact than fossil fuels, making them seem at first glance a sustainable alternative. However, the crops grown for biofuel production use land that could be used to grow food, often require very high amounts of water, usually provided by irrigation systems (Gerbens-Leenes et al., 2009), lead to increased levels of runoff pollution due to extensive use of fertilisers and pesticides (Correa et al., 2017; Ghosh and Bakshi, 2019) and may be superseded in the near future by rapidly developing battery and electric grid technology. It is possible that the role of biofuels will decrease, though this depends strongly on the role of policy directions and technological development. It is noted that the debate surrounding biofuel produced from some crops such as algae (cf. Gerbens-Leenes et al., 2014) is not as critical as for land due to the lower competition for resources (land and water). Currently, most if not all scenarios of climate change mitigation that reach the 2 °C climate target make use of significant bioenergy (IPCC, 2014), suggesting it will likely form a key part of the transition to a more climate-sustainable future. In transport, it does not currently appear feasible to reach current emissions reduction goals in time without biomass and biofuels acting as a bridging technology until electrification is rolled out on a large scale. The effectiveness of biofuels-based emissions reductions are highly controversial, however (Havlik et al., 2011), especially when considering the trade-offs with land and water resources. Strongly related to biofuels, biodiesel production using waste oil and grease has recently become increasingly attractive, especially when it is considered that the competition with land and water resources is significantly lower than using crops to produce biofuels. Ethanol production also presents

Global nexus relationships and trends  47 high potential as a renewable energy source in the future, and can contribute to transport fuels as well (cf. the case of Brazil; de Andrade Junior et al., 2019; Moncada et al., 2018). Food-processing wastes with high contents of hydrocarbons, such as brewery wastes and potato chip wastes, are good sources of ethanol. Food waste is a potentially very useful contributor to energy generation. Anaerobic decomposition of food waste produces methane. Due to the climate impact of methane, there is growing interest in collecting the excess gas and burning it to generate energy, or in moving unused food to composting facilities or anaerobic digesters to produce power. Anaerobic digestion has been used for years in wastewater treatment plants (a potential co-benefit is that as water is treated, the methane gas can be captured and used as an energy source). Digesters capture methane, pipe it to a generator and convert it into electrical power or heat. Such biogas can be burned onsite or processed into natural gas or liquid transportation fuel. A second end product is a residual digestate, a solid nutrient-rich substance that can be used as fertiliser, reducing the need for energy-intensive synthetic fertilisers, representing a synergistic nexus connection that should be exploited. Biodigesters may form part of future (semi-)decentralised power infrastructure, replacing the current model of large, centralised facilities. 3.2.7

Correlation and Causality in the Nexus

The WEF nexus as described above is extraordinarily complex. The links described all connect to form a mutually interacting system of resources, driven by changes in population, lifestyle, socio-economic conditions and the climate (Figure 3.4). It is possible that some of these sectors co-evolve, with one sector closely following the development of another, sometimes so closely that determining which factor is the cause of change and which is the effect may be intractable. Recent studies have shown that some nexus sector pairs (e.g. water and electricity consumption) are well correlated to each other, while other sectors (e.g. food production

Figure 3.4

Schematic showing nexus interconnections across the whole system, and some global drivers of resource demand and exploitation

48  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus and electricity consumption) show lower levels of correlation (Sušnik, 2015). Sušnik (2015) showed that in the WEF nexus, growth in most sectors also appears to be strongly correlated with gross domestic product (GDP) growth, implying that resource exploitation is closely linked to economic development. As a result of this strong correlation, it is suggested that resource use, especially in the non-renewable energy sector, must urgently be ‘decoupled’ from economic growth to sustain economic development (the currently most popular indicator of ‘development’) without continually overexploiting finite resources. Decoupling is when economic growth continues while resource demand either levels off or even falls. Tentative evidence for such decoupling in water withdrawals is suggested for very high GDP nations (Duarte et al., 2013). However, it is well known that ‘correlation does not imply causality’. In a follow-up study (Sušnik, 2018), it was shown that some sectors’ co-development is very strong and very strongly causally related in both directions, making it extremely difficult to determine cause from effect (e.g. between electricity consumption and GDP, both sectors’ development is strongly correlated and the causality is hard to untangle – does GDP growth lead to greater electricity consumption, or vice versa?), while in other sectors, the causal relationships are much more asymmetric or are weaker, suggesting that one or the other may not be such a strong determinant of change (e.g. between electricity consumption and food production where changes in electricity consumption appear to drive changes in food production much more strongly than the other way round). As a result of these findings, and following from earlier messages, it was suggested that especially for non-renewable energy use, decoupling from economic growth is an urgent concern. Sušnik (2018) hinted at the complexity of the WEF nexus and the link to economic development. Still, the study only considered global resolution results and implications without addressing national-level variability, and only looked into direct nexus connections (e.g. water to energy, and not water to energy and subsequently to climate emissions). Even so, there is considerable uncertainty about the processes and the system response to change and shocks. Indirect (or higher-order) nexus relationships have barely been studied, and the impacts at these levels are almost unknown. As an example, a change to the water sector (possibly itself caused by a change to the climate or lifestyles) may cause a change in food production, which then forces a change in land cover. This land cover change may have a climate impact, which feeds back to change the water sector, and so on. Such nexus system changes, operating and/ or becoming apparent only over long time periods and at different spatial scales, may act to change human behaviour (e.g. policy formulation, diets), which itself will impact on the nexus system. This remarkable complexity is only just beginning to be realised, and how the system may respond in the medium to long term is not known. To help constrain resource exploitation thereby limiting potentially deleterious impacts to society, a number of ‘safe planetary boundaries’ have been proposed which should not be exceeded (Steffan et al., 2015), and nexus-wide indicators are being developed to report on nexus-wide performance and response (Simpson and Jewitt, 2019; Simpson et al., 2019). Despite the progress made, unravelling and fully understanding correlation, causality, and high-order impacts in the nexus is still at an early stage, with much advance yet to be made, especially at national or sub-national levels which are more relevant for operational policy making.

Global nexus relationships and trends  49

3.3

PATHWAYS FOR GLOBAL NEXUS RESOURCES

The demand for all three interconnected resources in the WEF nexus is already placing huge strain on resource availability and sustainability. Despite the current pressures, it is expected that under population growth, expected to reach 10–11 billion people by the end of the century (Figure 3.5; www​.un​.org/​en/​development/​desa/​population/​index​.asp), demand for all three resources will increase dramatically, with unknown impacts across the nexus, and on supporting ecosystems and their services. Ecosystems are currently under-represented in nexus assessments (Hülsmann et al., 2019), although van den Heuvel et al. (2020) demonstrate how anthropogenic pressures affect both the WEF nexus and ecosystem services, being a valuable contribution to showing how ecosystems and the nexus are mutually dependent. For example, by 2050 freshwater demand is expected to increase by 40 per cent, energy demand by 90 per cent and food demand by 35 per cent compared with the early 2000s (RAEng, 2010). Such increases in demand, coupled with reductions in the security, reliability and sustainability of the raw resources, is likely to result in an increase in competition between users for those resources, something that is already increasingly being felt worldwide. This could lead to system-wide shocks and transitions, with potentially transformational impacts to society, yet the nature of those impacts is not known.

Source:

Data from United Nations (2015).

Figure 3.5

Projected global population to 2100

As hinted at in the previous sections, decoupling resource demand from economic growth is essential to live within the planetary ‘safe operating spaces’ (cf. Steffan et al., 2015) while maintaining (economic) growth. For water, low- or no-water appliances (e.g. low-flush toilets, low water-using shower heads), coupled with efficiency gains in supply networks and alternative water supplies offer promising solutions. In the energy sector, a dramatic shift to renewable energy sources, of which there is ample potential to satisfy demand (Deng et al., 2015), is urgently required in a transition phase much faster than is currently observed for meaningful decoupling. In the food sector, widespread dietary changes away from Western levels of meat

50  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus consumption are suggested, along with yield increases globally (Henry et al., 2018) and reductions in food waste. In addition, there is generally a greater need to move towards a circular economy, where instead of resources being extracted, used and discarded in a linear fashion, they are recycled and reintroduced into the economy over multiple cycles, greatly increasing efficiency and reducing the demand for raw resources. Despite the obvious advantages in a circular economy, currently the global economy is only 8.6 per cent circular, with this number actually decreasing in recent years (de Wit et al., 2019). Much greater improvements in efficiency are required in the global resource production and consumption systems, and in societal use. Despite the need for efficiency gains and a reduction in gross resource exploitation, recent studies have suggested that under current rates of demand increase, humanity is expected to exceed at least some of the planetary resource boundaries (Sušnik, 2018) with unknown global consequences. Despite the unknowns, recent studies suggest that the 2 °C global warming threshold may now be impossible to achieve (Rogelj et al., 2016; Wollenberg et al., 2016), just one consequence of global water, energy and food resource overexploitation. A final major knowledge gap relates to policy making and the nexus. Due to the vast complexity and feedback of the nexus system, the impacts of implementing a policy in any given sector (e.g. a water-related policy) on other nexus sectors, including potential feedback to the original sector itself, is only just starting to be researched (e.g. www​.sim4nexus​.eu; Munaretto et al., 2017, 2018). Part of the uncertainty relates to the current incomplete understanding of the biophysical connections in the nexus itself, separate from the impacts of the introduction of policies. However, by starting to get an idea of where and how in the nexus policy responses happen and the impacts of those policies on the nexus, policy design and formulation can be adjusted so that trade-offs are reduced and potential synergies are exploited. There is still considerable effort required in this regard, and general advice for policy making is yet to be derived.

3.4 CONCLUSION It is increasingly apparent that the water, energy and food sectors are connected in a global system, commonly referred to as the WEF nexus. The sectors are closely linked to each other, with demand, resource availability and exploitation trends in one having an impact on the other two. Population growth and socio-economic trends drive the demand for each of the resources (e.g. energy, water). This pressure not only impacts the three sectors, but also has concomitant impacts on other Earth systems such as the climate system, an impact related to GHG emissions from energy production and agriculture. There are global targets set to minimise damage to the Earth system and to enhance human wellbeing (e.g. the SDGs and climate targets). However, given current water, energy and food demand trends and conflicting policy formulation, it appears that meeting all SDGs simultaneously may not be possible. In this regard, more research is needed to improve understanding of the entire global WEF nexus, including likely nexus system trajectories and their impact on other Earth systems along with the feedback impacts on society. It is likely that certain global measures will be needed to try to meet multiple SDGs and climate targets including, but not limited to: releasing funding for developing countries to make the transitions needed to support sustainable growth and development across sectors; a rapid switch to renewable energy sources, with a concomitantly rapid drop-off in fossil-based energy; a global reduction in livestock-based food consumption;

Global nexus relationships and trends  51 better ways to define ‘development’, moving away from financial and economic metrics; and promoting ‘decoupling’ of resource demand from economic growth. What is apparent is that current knowledge, understanding and management of the WEF nexus is insufficient. In this regard, a few core recommendations are made to pave the way towards closing these gaps: (1) improved understanding of the behaviour and trajectories of the WEF nexus from a holistic modelling approach; (2) better understanding of the impact of policies on nexus trajectories, including assessment of how to ensure policies in different sectors are increasingly coherent, offering opportunities to meet multiple targets simultaneously while minimising detrimental trade-offs; and (3) ensuring that the vast contribution of ecosystems and their services to supporting society are properly accounted for in nexus assessments. By addressing these issues, and promoting the measures suggested above, better WEF nexus understanding will be gained, including how to best manage it, which in the long run could lead to more sustainable global development within our safe operating space.

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Global nexus relationships and trends  53 Hülsmann, S., J. Sušnik, K. Rinke, S. Langan, D. van Wijk, A.B.G. Janssen and M.W. Mooij (2019), ‘Integrated modelling of water resources: The ecosystem perspective on the nexus approach’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 40, 14–20. IAASTD (2009), ‘Agriculture at a crossroads: The global report’, in International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology, Washington, DC: Island Press. IEA (2018), ‘World energy outlook 2018’, www​.iea​.org. IPCC (2014), ‘Climate change: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability’, www​.ipcc​.ch/​report/​ar5/​wg2/​. Jussah, O., M.O.M. Orabi, J. Sušnik, F. Bichai and C. Zevenbergen (2018), ‘Assessment of the potential contribution of alternative water supply systems in two contrasting locations: Lilongwe, Malawi, and Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt’, Journal of Water and Climate Change, 11, 130–149. Kenway, S.J., A. Priestley, S. Cook, S. Seo, M. Inman, A. Gregory and M. Hall (2008), ‘Energy use in the provision and consumption of urban water in Australia and New Zealand’, CSRIO: Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship, Canberra: CSIRO Australia and Water Services Association of Australia. Lahda-Sabur, A., S. Bakalis, P.J. Fryer and E. Lopez-Quiroga (2019), ‘Mapping energy consumption in food manufacturing’, Trends in Food Science and Technology, 86, 270–280. Lampert, D., H. Cai and A. Elgowainy (2016), ‘Wells to wheels: Water consumption for transportation fuels in the United States’, Energy and Environmental Science, London: Royal Society of Chemistry. Lingsten, A., M. Lundqvist, D. Hellström and P. Balmer (2008), ‘Description of the current energy use in water and wastewater systems in Sweden’, Stockholm: Swedish Water and Wastewater Association. Macknick, J., R. Newmark, G. Heath and K.C. Hallett (2012), ‘Operational water consumption and withdrawal factors for electricity generating technologies: A review of existing literature’, Environmental Research Letters, 7, 045802. McDonald, R.I., K. Weber, J. Padowski, M. Florke, C. Schneider, P.A. Green et al. (2014), ‘Water on an urban planet: Urbanization and the reach of urban water infrastructure’, Global Environmental Change, 27, 96–105. Meggers, F. and H. Leibundgut (2011), ‘The potential of wastewater heat and exergy: Decentralised high-temperature recovery with a heat pump’, Energy and Buildings, 43, 879–886. Mekonnen, M.M. and A.Y. Hoekstra (2012a), ‘The blue water footprint of electricity from hydropower’, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 16, 179–187. Mekonnen, M.M. and A.Y. Hoekstra (2012b), ‘A global assessment of the water footprint of farm animal products’, Ecosystems, 15, 401–415. Memon, F.A. and S. Ward (eds) (2015), Alternative Water Supply Systems, London: IWA Publishing. Mielke, E., L. Diaz Anadon and V. Narayanamurti (2010), ‘Water consumption of energy resource extraction, processing, and conversion: A review of the literature for estimates of water intensity of energy-resource extraction, processing to fuels, and conversion to electricity’, Energy Technology Innovation Policy Discussion Paper No. 2010-15, Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, http://​belfercenter​.ksg​.harvard​.edu/​files/​ETIP​-DP​ -2010​-15​-final​-4​.pdf. Moe, C.L. and R.D. Rheingans (2006), ‘Global challenges in water, sanitation and health’, Journal of Water and Health, 4, 41–57. Moncada, J.A., J.A. Verstegen, J.A. Posada, M. Junginger, Z. Lukszo, A. Faaij, A. and M. Weijnen (2018), ‘Exploring policy options to spur the expansion of ethanol production and consumption in Brazil: An agent-based modelling approach’, Energy Policy, 123, 619–641. Munaretto, S., M. Witmer, J. Sušnik, C. Teutschbein, M. Sartori, A. Hanus et al. (2017), ‘Water-land-energy-food-climate nexus: Policies and policy coherence at European and international scale’, SIM4NEXUS Deliverable 2.1, www​.sim4nexus​.eu. Munaretto, S., K. Negacz and M. Witmer (2018), ‘Nexus‐relevant policies in the transboundary, national and regional case studies’, SIM4NEXUS Deliverable 2.2, www​.sim4nexus​.eu. OECD (2017), The Land-Water-Energy Nexus: Biophysical and Economic Consequences, Paris: OECD Publishing. Olsson, G. (ed.) (2012), Water and Energy: Threats and Opportunities, London: IWA Publishing. Parry, M.L., C. Rosenzweig, A. Iglesias, M. Livermore and G. Fischer (2004), ‘Effects of climate change on global food production under SRES emissions and socio-economic scenarios’, Global Environmental Change, 14 (1), 53–67.

54  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Pei, H., L. Min, Y. Qi, X. Liu, Y. Jia, Y. Shen and C. Liu (2017), ‘Impacts of varied irrigation on field water budgets and crop yields in the North China Plain: Rainfed vs. irrigated double cropping system’, Agricultural Water Management, 190, 42–54. Perez-Lombard, L., J. Ortiz and C. Pout (2008), ‘A review on buildings energy consumption information’, Energy and Buildings, 40, 394–398. Pimentel, D. and M.H. Pimentel (eds) (2007), Food, Energy, and Society, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Plappally, A.K. and J.H. Lienhard (2012), ‘Energy requirements for water production, treatment, end use, reclamation, and disposal’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 16, 4818–4848. RAEng (Royal Academy of Engineering) (2010), Global Water Security: An Engineering Perspective, London: RAEng. Rogelj, J., M. den Elzen, N. Höhne, T. Fransen, H. Fekete, H. Winkler et al. (2016), ‘Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 ̊C’, Nature, 534, 631–639. Rosenheck, R. (2008), ‘Fast food consumption and increased caloric intake: A systematic review of a trajectory towards weight gain and obesity risk’, Obesity Reviews, 9 (6), 535–547. Shemer, H. and R. Semiat (2017), ‘Sustainable RO desalination: Energy demand and environmental impact’, Desalination, 424, 10–16. Sheppard, P. and S. Rahimifard (2019), ‘Embodied energy in preventable food manufacturing waste in the United Kingdom’, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 146, 549–559. Siddiqi, A. and L.D. Anadon (2011), ‘The water-energy nexus in Middle East and North Africa’, Energy Policy, 39 (8), 4529–4540. Simpson, G.B. and G.P.W. Jewitt (2019), ‘The development of the water-energy-food nexus as a framework for achieving resource security: A review’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7, 8. Simpson, G.B., J. Badenhorst, G.P.W. Jewitt, M. Berchner and E. Davies (2019), ‘Competition for land: The water-energy-food nexus and coal mining in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7, 86. Steffan, W., K. Richardson, J. Rockstrom, S.E. Cornell, I. Fetzer, E.M. Bennett et al. (2015), ‘Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet’, Science, 347 (6223). Sušnik, J. (2015), ‘Economic metrics to estimate current and future resource use, with a focus on water withdrawals’, Sustainable Production and Consumption, 2, 109–127. Sušnik, J. (2018), ‘Data-driven quantification of the global water-energy-food system’, Resources, Recycling and Conservation, 133, 179–190. United Nations (2010), ‘Resolution A/RES/64/292, United Nations General Assembly’, July, https://​ undocs​.org/​E/​A/​RES/​64/​292. United Nations (2015), ‘Demographic components of future population growth: 2015 revision’, New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) (2018), ‘Emission gap report 2018’, Nairobi: UNEP. Valek, A.M., J. Sušnik and S. Grafakos (2017), ‘Quantification of the urban water-energy nexus in Mexico City, Mexico, with an assessment of water-system related carbon emissions’, Science of the Total Environment, 590–591, 258–268. van den Heuvel, L., M. Blicharska, S. Masia, J. Sušnik and C. Teutschbein (2020), ‘Ecosystem services in the Swedish water-energy-food-land-climate nexus: Anthropogenic pressures and physical interactions’, Ecosystem Services, 44, 101141. Voutchkov, N. (2018), ‘Energy use for membrane seawater desalination: Current status and trends’, Desalination, 431, 2–14. WEF (World Economic Forum) (2020), The Global Risks Report 2020, 15th edition, Cologny: WEF. Wollenberg, E., M. Richards, P. Smith, P. Havlik, M. Obersteiner, F.N. Tubiello et al. (2016), ‘Reducing emissions from agriculture to meet the 2 ̊C target’, Global Change Biology, 22 (12), 3859–3864. World Hunger (2013), www​.wfp​.org/​hunger. WssTP (2011), ‘Water and energy: Strategic vision and research needs’, September, www​.wsstp​.eu. WWAP (UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme) (2012), World Water Development Report 4, Paris: UNESCO Publishing. WWAP (UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme) (2019), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2019: Leaving No One Behind, Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Zhang, C., X. Chen, Y. Li, W. Ding and G. Fu (2018), ‘Water-energy-food nexus: Concepts, questions and methodologies’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 195, 625–639.

4. The theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the water-energy-food nexus Louise A. Gallagher

4.1 INTRODUCTION A decade after the 2011 Bonn Nexus Conference water-energy-food nexus research is rooting itself more firmly as a form of sustainability science. Many researchers in the field are striving to produce new knowledge making systems fit for the multicentric governance and decision context realities of the nexus and with adaptive and anticipative stances (Allouche et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2017; Ardakanian and Hülsmann, 2018; Yung et al., 2019, Daher et al., 2020; Urbinatti et al., 2020a, 2020b). This is a fundamental innovation in the way we produce science in support of nexus governance that goes well beyond where the nexus research field has focussed to date (e.g. Albrecht et al., 2018). This chapter contributes to this effort by exploring the role transdisciplinary science can play in intertwining nexus knowledge making and governance. Leading scholars in nexus research have argued for increased transdisciplinarity in nexus research designs and methods (Stirling, 2015; Mohtar and Lawford, 2016; Hoolohan et al., 2018; Ghodsvali et al., 2019). A relatively small number of case applications have been completed in recent years. Most advance the case for continuing nexus research in this direction, however – given that the core literature in transdisciplinary science has not converged on definitions, empirical strategies, implementation and impact frameworks after 40 years (e.g. Thompson et al., 2017; Schäfer et al., 2020) – the nexus research community likely has a way to go to define what these methods mean for our field. This chapter specifically addresses those scholar-practitioners who are curious about the promises and perils of transdisciplinary work and for that reason gives concrete details from ‘behind the scenes’ of transdisciplinary nexus science design, management and implementation. First, I provide an interpretation of the value that transdisciplinary science might offer to nexus governance performance, based on reviews of recent literature in both nexus governance and transdisciplinary research impact assessment. Second, I discuss these principles using a case of one transdisciplinary project I was deeply engaged with that designed and implemented in line with transdisciplinary science theory and best practices in field conditions in Cambodia. This is an individual reflection exercise and so comes from my own perspective. However, I build on information generated through project documentation from an internal collaborative monitoring, evaluation and learning process, two external evaluation reports that were conducted for donor reporting and our scientific papers published to date (Bassi and Gallagher, 2016; Gallagher et al., 2016, 2020; Bréthaut et al., 2019; Kimmich et al., 2019; Yung et al., 2019) and so the discussion reflects learning from the project co-leads, partners, participants and observers. Finally, I discuss our project lessons in the context of 23 other peer-reviewed research papers detailing transdisciplinary efforts in the nexus. 55

56  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus The contribution I aim to make is to support others contemplating this approach to understand transdisciplinary science as a complement to existing research strands in nexus research and show that, while relatively new, there is a body of work available that lays good foundations on which to build.

4.2

THE MATURING GOALS OF NEXUS RESEARCH

The water-energy-food nexus emerged as a response to global sustainability challenges with a goal to better understand intersectoral dependencies and externalities, identify synergies and trade-offs, and to integrate multiple policy objectives and actor networks across different sectors of activity (Hoff, 2011). More recently, it is also discussed as an integrative governance approach (Weitz et al., 2017a; Urbinatti et al., 2020a) – a way to facilitate and implement sustainability agendas (Ardakanian and Hülsmann, 2018; Liu et al., 2018; Stephan et al., 2018). The social-ecological systems perspective is coming to the fore as a conceptual foundation in the field, and the call for integration across ‘silos’ of sectors, objectives and disciplines to cope with such complexity has been consistent in the science, policy and practice dimensions of the field (Mohtar and Lawford, 2016; Bréthaut et al., 2019; Mohtar and Daher, 2019). Yet, in truth, our theoretical, conceptual and methodological approaches in nexus research are not always grounded in systems thinking (Harwood, 2018). Multiple reviews in recent years (e.g. Albrecht et al., 2018) illustrate the enormous emphasis the field has placed on computational approaches to identifying ‘best’ outcomes in a search for scientific certainty about interdependencies and interactions that cannot realistically be fully anticipated or calculated (Mohtar and Lawford, 2016). Somewhat in contrast, more recent research clearly situates the water-energy-food nexus as an analytical approach belonging to sustainability science, the aim of which is to guide transformations towards sustainability and resilience outcomes (Kates et al., 2001; Miller et al., 2014). A maturing clarion call from this part of the nexus research community prioritises moving towards a nexus governance that can support such transformations (see Box 4.1).

BOX 4.1 ATTRIBUTES OF GOOD NEXUS GOVERNANCE IN THE NEXUS LITERATURE Using the objectives and attributes part of Bennett and Satterfield’s (2018) practical framework for governance analysis and evaluation, the following synthesis reviews the emerging understanding of nexus governance characteristics in institutions, structures and processes. 1.

Effective institutions, structures and processes that support: a. Updated prioritisation of problematic water, energy and food resource security hotspots and positive resource synergies across sectors, space and time. b. Opportunities for improved coherence/alignment, coordination and cooperation across policy and regulatory frameworks, supply chains, markets, etc. clarified so that water, energy and food security risks are reduced and synergies become more probable. c. Informed sectoral and cross-sectoral policy and other dialogues, deliberations and decision making (political economy).

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  57 d. Emergence of effective and implementable pathways or innovations (e.g. technical, social, policy) in different patterns of governing, cooperation. e. Reorganised power relations. 2. Equitable institutions, structures and processes that enable: a. Inclusive, fair multistakeholder participation in sectoral and cross-sectoral policy and other dialogues and deliberations (political economy). b. Mechanisms that recognise power distribution and dynamics, including both agency and structural factors determining these, in forming institutions, structures and processes, including in politics, policy and knowledge. 3. Responsive institutions, structures and processes that support: a. Future-oriented and integrated assessments of resource allocation strategies that anticipate expected and unexpected trade-offs over supply chains, space and time, engaging with politics, uncertainty and complexity. b. Holistic risk identification, sharing, allocation and mitigation over populations, space and time. c. Plural and democratic social learning that enable diverse problem framings, knowledge sharing and innovation (social, policy, institutional) of appropriately/ locally shaped solutions. d. Institutionalisation of foresight knowledge and knowledge processes. e. Enabling environment for innovation. 4. Robust institutions, structures and processes that are: a. Legitimate, functioning, formal or informal and persist over time within the understanding of the nexus as a political process. b. Balanced in representation across water, energy and food sectors and their actor networks, as well as other relevant policy actors, in a way that recognises structural barriers to coherence, coordination and cooperation. c. Able to support polycentric and semi-autonomous decision making and action at multiple levels towards shared goals. d. Able to support nested decision making at appropriate levels, with data and information tailored appropriately to the respective needs, including more ‘bottom-up’ and extra-governmental processes. e. Recognising that governance institutions and structures, and not necessarily resource availability also determine resource production and productivity. Source: Pahl-Wostl et al. (2012); Howells and Rogner (2014); Benson et al. (2015, 2017); Foran (2015); Gain et al. (2015); Kurian and Ardakanian (2015); Leck et al. (2015); Smajgl et al. (2015); de Strasser et al. (2016); Gallagher et al. (2016, 2020); Mohtar and Lawford (2016); Hagemann and Kirschke (2017); Kurian (2017); Liu et al. (2017); Scott (2017); Weitz et al. (2017a, 2017b); Giampietro (2018); Stein et al. (2018); Huckleberry and Potts (2019); Mohtar and Daher (2019); Pahl-Wostl (2019); Yung et al. (2019); Larkin et al. (2020); Urbinatti et al. (2020a, 2020b); van Gevelt (2020).

4.3

THE PROMISE OF TRANSDISCIPLINARITY FOR NEXUS GOVERNANCE

Transdisciplinary science is coming into focus as one form of inquiry into complex social-ecological system challenges (Brown et al., 2010) that is not only desirable (Ghodsvali et al., 2019) but also necessary for nexus governance (Stirling, 2015; Urbinatti et al., 2020a).

58  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus This form of knowledge production aims to address socially relevant problems in place-based and practice situations through collaboration and mutual learning among researchers from different disciplines and non-academic actors with equal respect for all domains of knowledge and experience (Lang et al., 2012; Brown, 2015; Polk, 2015). There are many methods in sustainability science but the following characteristics can help discern transdisciplinary perspectives from other approaches (distilled from Lang et al., 2012; Brandt et al., 2013; Brown, 2015; Polk, 2015, Brennan and Rondón-Sulbarán, 2019; Nagy et al., 2020; Schäfer et al., 2020). Transdisciplinary science has: ● a focus on societally relevant problems in political, social, economic and ecological contexts; ● multiple functions, accountabilities and intended outcomes deliberately designed into the process; ● clearly defined phases that allow for iteration and non-linear processes; ● genuine collaboration between researchers and actors from outside, facilitated by explicit forms of co-creation, co-production or co-design; and ● an acknowledged motivation of mutual learning. Some scholars have put forward transdisciplinarity for nexus research as a means to co-create new and more effective responses to nexus issues through a better treatment of contextual factors, overcoming data poverty and the value of including often unheard voices in identifying risks, problems and effective individual and collective actions to address these (e.g. Howarth and Monasterolo, 2017; Bréthaut et al., 2019). Though the empirical cases available of transdisciplinary research in the water-energy-food nexus are relatively few compared to the majority of methodological approaches applied to date (e.g. Albrecht et al., 2018), some excellent exploration is well under way. A non-systematic literature review for applied cases using transdisciplinary science methods to understand interactions between all three core sectors in Sciencedirect and GoogleScholar (search terms: ‘nexus’, ‘transdisciplinary’, ‘transdisciplinarity’, ‘water’, ‘energy’, ‘food’) identified 23 studies, some of which conduct multicase analysis (e.g. Smajgl et al., 2015; Hagemann and Kirschke, 2017; Wilsdon et al., 2017; Takaes Santos, 2020). This literature is mostly grounded in the established nexus action arena of water governance (e.g. Hagemann and Kirschke, 2017, Asia, Africa and European Union; Ferguson et al., 2018, United States; Daher et al., 2020, United States; Seidou et al., 2020, West Africa); but there are also some transdisciplinary nexus applications on institutional, social and technical innovation (Larkin et al., 2020, United Kingdom), circular economy strategies in industry (Bergendahl et al., 2018, United States), in urban planning (Madrid-Lopez et al., 2020) and urban food systems (Proksch and Baganz, 2020, European Union and United States), community-level interventions for food security (Schütt et al., 2019, Tanzania), biofuel policy (Takaes Santos, 2020, Brazil and Germany) and integrated planning for sustainable development (Smajgl et al., 2015, Mekong Basin; Kimmich et al., 2019; Gallagher et al., 2020, Cambodia). Many remark challenges but generally advance a case for working through transdisciplinary methods for at least part of the research process for reasons I summarise here under themes of effectiveness, equity, responsiveness and robustness.

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  59 4.3.1

Why Might Transdisciplinarity Support Effective Governance?

Effective nexus governance includes dialogue and deliberation, and steering and coordination with an open acknowledgement of how much is unknown (Benson et al., 2017; Scott, 2017; Urbinatti et al., 2020b). Yet, like many situations in global environmental change and sustainability governance, the water-energy-food nexus is fragmented with low consensus on problem definitions and individual, organisational and collective actions (Weitz et al., 2017a, 2017b). Identifying negotiating commonalities and differences in goals and capabilities while navigating a complex and fragmented actor landscape requires some degree of ‘seeing the system’ together. Transdisciplinary scientific practice has evolved methods and procedures to enable this (Brown, 2015; Ross and Mitchell, 2018; Baldwin, 2019; Belcher et al., 2019) and the joint construction of knowledge with respect for contextual factors can be an important precursor to joint action (Brown, 2015; van Kerkhoff and Pilbeam, 2017). 4.3.2

Why Might Transdisciplinary Science Support Equitable Governance?

A nexus perspective is, at its root, an attempt to correct a situation whereby decisions in public policy and private investment regarding water, energy and agricultural resource management are often made with a sectoral focus and fails to consider risks created for other sectors, geographies and stakeholders (Hoff, 2011). We want to analyse critical system thresholds – as well as options for adaptation, risk mitigation and enhanced synergies – in a way that considers how risks manifest differently for different stakeholders with varying tolerances and capacities to absorb or adapt to these (Gallagher et al., 2016). The quintessential transdisciplinary focus on collaboration as a means for empowerment, building trust and generating equity means that diverse views are included in problem framing and decision-making processes more fairly (Polk, 2015; Schmidt et al., 2020). 4.3.3

Why Might Transdisciplinary Science Support Responsive Governance?

Global environmental change trends and the mainstreaming of the sustainable development agenda has deeply modified our thinking about sustainability governance and the role of inclusive knowledge production. We now place an emphasis on flexibility and adaptive capacities for those circumstances where simple solutions are not likely to be viable (Brown et al., 2010; Head and Alford, 2015; Visseren-Hamakers, 2015). In the nexus this means anticipating risks, dynamic systems change and critical ecological and social thresholds (Walker et al., 2004; Scheffer et al., 2012), obliging us to loosen our grip on ‘predict and control’ thinking and move towards ‘sense and respond’ forms of science–policy relationships in governance and management (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2012). Transdisciplinary processes generate opportunities, providing a ‘meeting place’ (Vanderlinden et al., 2020) for anticipatory governance, and generate three interlinked categories of knowledge relevant for analysis in the nexus (Brandt et al., 2013; Brennan and Rondón-Sulbarán, 2019): system knowledge, target knowledge and transformation knowledge. They open up opportunities for understanding what different problems mean for different groups in society and what options are available to reduce or manage risks, or realise new synergies (e.g. Armitage et al., 2011). Ultimately, any new knowledge produced from such a procedure is thought to meet new standards for credibility, saliency and ‘fit’ for policy/practice decision uptake (Cash et al., 2003; Dunn and Laing, 2017).

60  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus 4.3.4

Why Might Transdisciplinary Science Support Robust Governance?

Robust governance and management shapes highly contextual, multilevel institutions, structures and processes with an anticipatory approach (Guston, 2014) and cycles of implementation, learning and adaptation (Armitage et al., 2011). This approach acknowledges the possibility of multiple futures and searches for pathways that are more likely to deliver the desirable ones (Marchau et al., 2019). This shift towards more adaptive, decentralised and democratised decision-making processes has important implications for measures that must constrain and structure the behaviour of many actors (Allouche et al., 2015; Daher et al., 2019). The vertical integration of policy, knowledge and networks and the horizontal integration across sectors driving or influencing water-energy-food production critical in the nexus can be facilitated by transdisciplinary approaches (Pohl, 2011; Märker et al., 2018). Moreover, knowledge co-production efforts promise to increase legitimacy, ownership and accountability for the problems identified and solutions proposed because, done well, the process engages with diverse values in political processes (Brown, 2015; van Kerkhoff and Pilbeam, 2017). If well conceived and executed, transdisciplinary research acknowledges power distributions and can even disrupt and reorganise power dynamics to some degree (Alonso-Yanez et al., 2019).

4.4

WATER-ENERGY-FOOD NEXUS TRANSDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE IN PRACTICE: THE LIVES PROJECT CASE

The ‘why’ of transdisciplinarity is compelling in theory but transdisciplinary research faces challenges in practice (Musch and von Streit, 2020). In this section I offer a personal reflexive analysis of one major water-energy-food nexus project with which I was deeply engaged for over five years to illustrate how our project team worked with transdisciplinary practices. The project (www​.livesproject21​.org) conducted fundamental research on mixed-methods approaches for indicators that reflect interdependencies between food, energy and water and the importance of these for effective policy making under changing conditions. The goal was to innovate a knowledge co-production method that enabled diverse stakeholders to get actively involved in creating a new understanding of risks, trade-offs and momentum for adaptive capacity changes. 4.4.1

What Were the Purposes, Accountabilities and Intended Outcomes?

The institutional context for a project is a key part of understanding power and politics in research design (Pohl et al., 2010). The project was conceived and incubated at the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Luc Hoffmann Institute, informed by the mission at that time to curate collaborative research projects with relevance to the WWF Global Network and its global goals on biodiversity conservation. Our primary funder prioritised cutting-edge research with clear scientific impact. Our co-funders wanted practical innovation and impacts in conservation effectiveness. An empirical research strategy delivered on all accountabilities. We would produce novel science contributions to a field where embedded case analysis of nexus thinking processes are rare while also testing our host institution’s theory of change on collaborative research and adding value to an ‘on-the-ground’ WWF conservation effort (see Figure 4.1 for a road map of the project).

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  61

Source:

LIVES project.

Figure 4.1

Schematic representation of overarching project accountabilities and road map

The Mekong River Basin in Southeast Asia was the testing site. Previous relationships secured the Secretariat to the National Council for Sustainable Development (Ministry of Environment, Government of Cambodia) and WWF Cambodia as local partners. This is a region where large-scale, uncoordinated hydropower development, climate and socio-economic change converge and impact on biodiversity, water and food security goals. In 2014/2015 an urgent situation was developing in an under-researched WWF conservation landscape. The transboundary Mekong Flooded Forest landscape includes two provinces in north-eastern Cambodia – Kratie and Stung Treng. Two major Cambodian hydropower projects – Stung Treng dam (Stung Treng province) and Sambor dam (Kratie province) were at proposal stage in 2015, with physical construction imminent for Stung Treng dam and little information being shared publicly. Both projects are currently on hold under the new moratorium on hydropower development in the central Mekong channel in Cambodia (Ratcliffe, 2020). It is important to state that preventing dam developments was never the project objective. That was not feasible, despite this goal being important for some project partners. Our national government partners warned that if we outwardly set such a goal, the research would be more

62  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus difficult for other national government line ministries and provincial government administrations to endorse. We agreed to ‘fly under the radar’ and see where it took us. 4.4.2

What Research Design Drove the Transdisciplinary Research Process?

We adopted the social ecological systems framework, best practices in sustainability science (Kates et al., 2001; Miller et al., 2014; Clark et al., 2016) and some pioneering work on the Mekong nexus (e.g. Foran, 2015; Smajgl et al., 2015) to create some design principles which guided the work from start to finish: ● flexibility to anticipate and respond adaptively to complex risks, synergies and trade-offs at multiple scales requires monitoring the natural, technical and social sources of complexity and uncertainty in a holistic way at different levels; ● an exploratory research approach for the goal of generating new fundamental science to understand the governance of interlinked water-energy-food resources; ● a transdisciplinary approach for the empirical research phase that was explicitly addressing multiple governance levels; ● a positivist approach to context framing, and a normative approach in promoting resilience and sustainability and recommending evidence-based directions for innovation in nexus research methods; ● a core method for the integration of multiple knowledge sources and viewpoints in a systems perspective that recognises system interactions, dynamics, transitions and allows participation and discussions on uncertainty; and ● a learning-oriented approach with an explicit theory of change and explicit assumptions made in the research design and tested is essential. Table 4.1 gives an overview of our research design and contextualises the transdisciplinary component in the whole research effort. We selected participatory model-based scenario analysis as the core method around which to build our prototype process for linking indicators (e.g. Gallagher et al., 2020), at that time an underutilised method in nexus analysis (Harwood, 2018). Reflexive analysis methods were applied for learning about the participatory process quality and types of analytical outputs to produce. From the beginning, we intended to conduct scenario analysis and run validation procedures with stakeholders. Over the course of the work we were able to add new capacities that brought futures thinking expertise (e.g. Yung et al., 2019), systems-informed evaluation techniques and narratives analysis (e.g. Bréthaut et al., 2019), experimental analysis (e.g. Kimmich et al., 2019) and resilience analysis (e.g. Gallagher et al., 2020) into the exploration of participatory system dynamics modelling and linked indicators for anticipatory and adaptive nexus governance. Lang et al. (2012) reference three main phases for transdisciplinary research processes: (A) team building and problem framing; (B) co-creation of solution-oriented and transferable knowledge; and (C) reintegration and application of created knowledge. Phase A: Team building and problem framing In addition to the leads’ expertise in environmental governance and ecosystem services valuation and international water policy, the initial project team included a knowledge co-production advisor and a system dynamics modeller with technical expertise in policy analysis for the energy, agricultural and water sectors. After initial background research was com-

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  63 Table 4.1

Source:

Project research design overview

LIVES project.

pleted (Bassi and Gallagher, 2016), WWF Cambodia national policy officer and their Mekong Flooded Forest landscape management team integrated into our core team within three months of project launch. The Secretariat to the National Council on Sustainable Development director and two core staff joined the project team in the same timeframe. These national partners created links to researchers with disciplinary knowledge in ecosystem service assessment and Cambodian agricultural systems. The partners agreed that an essential starting point was to begin with actors who had a stake in development planning processes at commune level and those emerging in the provincial government administrations (Bréthaut et al., 2019). Our starting problem definition was: Economic development imperatives at national level driving hydropower investment in the landscape were not considering that poverty reduction and livelihoods goals were likely to be adversely impacted by hydropower development in the central river channel. Local populations in the two provinces engage in agricultural and fishing activities that depend on ecological system quality and functions. One underlying reason is that development and investment planning processes are fragmented across several national line ministries. There are many questions about whether local views, including the subnational government administrations, were being adequately included in this process. Moreover, given new legal reform and poor performance to date, environmental impact

64  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus assessments are unlikely to create the balanced and robust evaluation needed for decision making with resilience and sustainability. The voices of many affected by this water-energy-food nexus were not going to be heard, nor their risks weighed in the balance, in hydropower investment decisions.

We set three objectives for our three-year transdisciplinary process in the landscape: (1) to elicit and integrate knowledge from diverse stakeholders in a process suitable to move vertically from landscape-level to national-level policy fora; (2) to assess direct and indirect, short- and long-term consequences of rapidly changing framework conditions relevant to subnational development planning by identifying major variables and interconnections and exploring dynamic complexity in the landscape with our partners; and (3) to learn together while learning how to enhance agency for individuals and teams who participated through training on systems thinking, facilitating participatory model-based scenario planning events and expanding their networks (Gallagher et al., 2020). As we prepared to go to the field, the WWF landscape team and national government partners started joint outreach to the provincial governments of Kratie and Stung Treng and national researchers undertook some preliminary informational interviews with representatives in these administrations. All local partners were trained in systems thinking and facilitation techniques for group model building called causal loop diagram (Luna-Reyes et al., 2006; Voinov et al., 2016). Training for co-leading was one method we used repeatedly, understanding that power dynamics and power distribution emerge in transdisciplinary processes (Pohl et al., 2010) and that these can influence information shared and how it is interpreted (Parkhurst, 2016). Phase B: Co-creation of solution-oriented and transferable knowledge Phase B ran from January 2015 to December 2016 and covered the majority of our field-work activities. The knowledge we wanted to elicit and integrate is listed in Table 4.2 (based on a typology of knowledge types in transdisciplinary research synthesised by Brennan and Rondón-Sulbarán, 2019). Stakeholder identification procedures were implemented iteratively and new types of stakeholders were included as we proceeded. We first chose to focus on the provincial administrations of Kratie and Stung Treng as these jurisdictional levels have an increasingly important role in local ecosystem, fisheries and water management. We increased engagement of representatives of the fisher and farming communities in these provinces over time. Stakeholders co-produced multiple causal loop diagrams, identifying major variables and interconnections that characterise the dynamic complexity of food, energy, water and ecosystems interlinkages under climate change in workshops (e.g. Gallagher et al., 2020). All the steps in Table 4.2 interacted non-linearly to co-produce the following new knowledge about the Mekong Flooded Forest water-energy-food nexus in phases B and C. System knowledge ● Multiple systems interpretations by different combinations of stakeholder groups characterising the water-energy-food nexus in the social-ecological system of the landscape. ● A merged causal loop diagram representing an integrated systems perspective of the Mekong Flooded Forest with hypothesised causal relationships between key variables and dominant feedback loops driving the behaviour of this system. ● The Mekong Flooded Forest system dynamics model.

April–December 2015

Phase B: Co-creation April 2015–June 2016

Informational interviews Peer review and grey literature reviews Regional workshop on the Mekong nexus

International and regional academics WWF colleagues from Cambodia, Vietnam, United States, Australia and the Freshwater Practice team National government officials from Peer review and grey literature reviews Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Informational interviews

assessment methods in use in the region

time

Seeking guidance on how to conceive

and realise impact for a three-year

transdisciplinary project in Cambodia A systems view of Mekong Flooded

knowledge about nexus assessment

Representatives from communes engaged in fishing and farming activities Local civil society organisations Technical experts in water, fishing and agricultural management in

infrastructure developments Most data collection in individual

government line ministries and their

provincial departments is not publicly

available

The development planning system is

opaque to many. There was a lot of

Formal scientific and policy knowledge

about the Mekong Flooded Forest

Both explicit and tacit knowledge

about rules of development planning at

Source:

LIVES project.

Phase C: Reintegration and application June 2016 to date

Complexity-informed evaluative processes Analysis and publication

Cambodia-located project partners

officials

project partners to provincial government

Data requests by national government

officials

partners and provincial government

between national government project

Informal exchanges at workshops

Landscape stakeholders

participatory systems modelling procedures International experts

effectiveness of the transdisciplinary

Experiential knowledgeof project partners Capture the perceptions about the

process was going to operate with changes society and academia to the provincial authorities

Cambodia from government, civil

mining and energy and agriculture

ecological conditions and planned

security

commune, provincial and national scales uncertainty around how and when this

Landscape indicator workshops (using

for planning, water resources,

systems interactions, current and expected

about risks to water, energy and food

causal loop diagrams)

Provincial line ministry departments Regional testing and validation for the Mekong Flooded Forest nexus workshop

Environment

formally, particularly of water and food

system functioning and local concerns

Mekong Flooded Forest social-ecological Forest landscape was undercharacterised

Context-specific knowledge about the

the Mekong region

Group model-building workshops

and problem framing

One-to-one meetings

partners

about the water-energy-food nexus

political and explicit methodological

procedures and indicators as they relate to and water-energy-water indicators at that

When? Phase A: Team building

How? Project concept pitch and discussions

Whose knowledge? Cambodian government project

Create a benchmark for what was known

Target knowledge types for integration Why this knowledge?

Summary of knowledge to be elicited and integrated in the transdisciplinary process

Scientific, formal practice, informal

Table 4.2

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  65

66  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Target knowledge ● A Mekong Flooded Forest landscape ‘report card’ with selected indicators representing the Kratie and Stung Treng provincial administrations and civil society view of a ‘healthy landscape’ and some of the hypothesised causal factors. ● Lists of stressors, risks and threats concerning local communities and provincial administrations in the landscape including fish stock condition and water availability under climate change. Transformation knowledge ● Qualitative scenarios for dam development. ● Mitigation and adaptation actions for different actors (personal, commune, provincial, national and international organisations) including scenarios of ‘no dam development’, environmental flows design in hydropower designs and agricultural productivity strategies. ● Scenario and resilience analyses for guiding landscape policy discussions. Phase C: Reintegration and application of created knowledge We established evaluative practices throughout the project lifecycle based on outcome mapping and contribution analysis (Earl et al., 2001; Forss et al., 2011) to explore whether the project delivered useful results for societal practices (Pohl, 2011; Lang et al., 2012) of non-academic stakeholders and partners in Cambodia. Acknowledging the challenges of defining and measuring impact in transdisciplinary research (e.g. Brennan and Rondón-Sulbarán, 2019; Schneider et al., 2019), we applied a custom-monitoring, evaluation and learning procedure (Patton, 2011) informed by the triple-loop learning framework (Argyris and Schön, 1978). We worked with some key assumptions. For example, (1) uptake of new knowledge is influenced by trust, clarity in objectives and a legitimate process and (2) it is possible to observe some demonstrated intention to use the knowledge produced (Cash et al., 2003; Sarkki et al., 2015; Hoffmann et al., 2019). For three years we captured perceptions of (purposively sampled) partners and stakeholders through a mixed-methods approach of participant questionnaires, group reflections with partners after each intervention, in-depth individual interviews inspired by the Most Significant Change method (Dart and Davies, 2003; see also Holzer et al., 2018), and supplementary semi-structured informational interviews with key stakeholders in Cambodia who had observed our work (e.g. Ministry of Interior, UNDP, and other international organisations working in Kratie and Stung Treng). We chose categories for ascertaining what constituted use of the new knowledge (adapted from Hezri, 2004; Vogel et al., 2013; Hoffmann et al., 2019). Table 4.3 presents these definitions and some examples of knowledge reintegration strategies reported by partners, observed in stakeholders and used by the project leads. In terms of reintegration of knowledge and results for scientific practices, the transdisciplinary knowledge produced was guaranteed to be used for new scientific knowledge production by its original research design. This was actioned by moving the project to the University of Geneva and establishing a two-year analysis of the knowledge outputs listed above and the evaluative practice data. To date, the project has produced a total of ten peer-reviewed publications (inclusive) targeting methodological innovation for nexus thinking in practice.

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  67 Table 4.3

Examples of reintegration of new knowledge by practice, policy and scientific communities

Use categories and definitions

Examples in stakeholder feedback questionnaires and partner Most Significant Change interviews for policy and practice uptake

Conceptual uses: use of nexus/systems thinking,

Observed

policy and research outputs, cases, etc. are

● Changes in mindsets about challenges to poverty reduction and food security.

referenced by partners and academic, practice and/or ● Invited to present project and preliminary results at a knowledge-sharing policy audiences in their work (citations, invitations to keynote or presentations at conferences, in policy statements).

event on Climate Change, Siem Reap (December 2017) by UNDP and the Ministry of Environment. ● Two of the junior policy officers at the national government partner institution went on to complete master degrees in South Korea and worked further with systems thinking concepts. ● Academic citations of empirical results published.

Instrumental uses:in practice, partners apply the

Observed

prototype LIVES process outside of our intervention ● Application of systems thinking and LIVES facilitation methods by national procedures. In policy, the LIVES results are used to promote a particular position. In research, results are used to add value to education and scientific activities.

government partners and WWF Cambodia partners in other strategic planning exercises in their institutions. ● Conceptual framework for the LIVES evaluative practice applied to evaluation of other nexus projects, project proposals and review of academic manuscripts and a proposed assessment of UNECE nexus assessment methodology. ● Knowledge on nexus thinking and innovation methods directly used in teaching programmes at Royal University of Phnom Penh, Royal University of Agriculture, University of Bergen, University of Montana and the University of Geneva.

Normative uses: project outputs have been/could

Observed

be used to prescribe pathways and standards for

● Provincial administration feedback, end-of-phase 1 landscape stakeholders

improved governance and management of nexus

workshop June 2016 called the outputs ‘a compass’ for future provincial and

linkages in real policy contexts.

landscape planning. ● Main modelling scenarios presented at a WWF national-level workshop in Phnom Penh, December 2017. ● Gallagher et al. (2020) reports a multilevel dynamic risk exploration through scenario and resilience analysis methods.

Strategic uses: learning and outputs are intended

Weakly observed

to be used or have been used to develop a mandate

● Despite acceptance of ‘nexus thinking’ methods, the process of changing

or gain additional mandates for policy bodies, civil

the mandate for the development planning process was not possible in

society organisations and/or academic research

the timeframe for the Cambodia field-work period. Bréthaut et al. (2019)

entities, etc. for nexus-related activities.

discusses this in depth. ● Scientific publications with final results have been too slowly produced for use in WWF Cambodia’s advocacy activities.

Catalytic uses: learning outcomes and project

Observed

outputs are put to use by the project team and others ● WWF Cambodia’s Mekong Flooded Forest landscape team successfully to fundraise for and kickstart new projects because

raised funds from WWF United States (Basin Report Card initiative)

of enhanced institutional capacity, relationships and

and IUCN/Dutch Government (Shared Resources, Joint Solutions) off the

joint actions developed.

LIVES project experience and results. ● Ongoing fundraising by University of Geneva team.

Note: IUCN = International Union for Conservation of Nature; UNDP = United Nations Development Programme; UNECE = United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Source: LIVES project.

68  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Major iterations throughout phases A, B and C All phases were implemented iteratively in practice because of our focus on learning how to produce actionable knowledge for nexus governance during the research process (Lux et al., 2019) and not just after publishing research outputs. Iteration is common in transdisciplinary work, and even desirable for impact (e.g. Sarkki et al., 2015). I share three key changes in our work, explaining what triggered the change, what we did to adapt and the implications for the project. A first iteration came when clarity in goals was lost after the first round of interventions in the landscape. The WWF partners became less certain about where the work was going beyond helpful dialogues with the provincial authorities. What analysis were we going to be able to produce given the data poverty we were encountering? This was the question. Our evaluative practice was instrumental in identifying problems and supporting corrective measures. We heard the concerns early on and refocussed on producing some practical policy outputs – a ‘report card’ containing the systems map of food-energy-water security interconnections and stakeholder-prioritised indicators that could guide future data collection efforts. A second major iteration was instigated by two independent evaluations conducted for our host institute and its theory of change on collaborative research (for which LIVES was a test case) and for the modelling produced through Phase B. The evaluations revealed that we needed to fully analyse and publish the Cambodia test case data before scaling further. We relocated the project to our primary academic partner at the University of Geneva and focussed on finalising the test case. A third iteration came when we returned to the landscape for a more stringent test of the real likelihood of participant behaviour change in 2018. The evaluations showed that we needed a stronger theory about what was happening for people in the process and more independent input from farming and fishing community representatives and more balanced gender perspectives. We hired an economist with expertise in behavioural economics and experimental design. Thanks to the capacity and connections already developed in 2015–2016, we conducted the necessary field work in just under six weeks. 4.4.3

What Are the Benefits for Nexus Governance? What Worked Less Well? What Factors Mattered?

Claiming any relationship between transdisciplinary knowledge co-creation and change is a challenge (Polk, 2015; Schneider et al., 2019), partly because of the complexity of social change, but also because evaluation is hard to do well during the process and difficult to continue robustly after it ends (Klein, 2008; Plummer et al., 2017; Hoffmann et al., 2019). With this caveat in mind, I share only the benefits and challenges substantiated through our research and cite the source article for further details. In terms of effectiveness, the participatory system dynamics modelling and key indicators changed mindsets and updated understanding and expectations for risks and priorities for action of people in the process (Kimmich et al., 2019). Critically, it could increase convergence within groups, which is an important precondition to effective cooperation and collective action (see also Thompson et al., 2017; Tobias et al., 2018). The feedback from landscape stakeholders celebrated the personal and professional opportunities created by connecting with colleagues in different line ministries, different organisations and the chance to interact with national government officials. We do not know if the informal cross-sectoral policy dialogues

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  69 resulted in better decisions in the various line departments in the provincial departments – but we do know that these exchanges were informed by a new systems perspective on the Mekong Flooded Forest and by voices that are not often heard in such procedures (Bréthaut et al., 2019). We strived for some degree of equity in our process, though we cannot claim fully balanced inclusion. For example, cultural factors mean the vast majority of Cambodian government officials – and our stakeholders as a result – are male. Local Indigenous communities are also quite marginalised in the landscape and were not a large enough population for local partners to identify them as critical stakeholders. Yet, some government officials mentioned this as being a gap. The group modelling process aimed to recognise that power dynamics disrupt these as much as possible given factors like hierarchy, seniority and gender imbalances. This worked sufficiently to generate new narratives around risk and priorities for action for hydropower development in Cambodia (Bréthaut et al., 2019) and prompt new planned responses by people who participated (Kimmich et al., 2019). Finally, the length of the process and time commitments involved also were a challenge to participation for certain groups at times. As with other cases (e.g. Restrepo et al., 2020), there was a lot of enthusiasm for collaboration and working together. The group modelling processes were cited by stakeholders and partners as enabling the individual and shared learning and revisiting problem framings (Bréthaut et al., 2019) that are hallmarks of a responsive process. Many partners credited the hypothesised causal links for bringing about rare open exchanges around future potential risks posed by dam developments (Yung et al., 2019). However, it was only as the co-produced knowledge was processed in the scientific analysis procedures that we produced supported insights relevant to adaptive policy and management discussions (Gallagher et al., 2020). For a while at least, we generated a robust process in a conservation landscape which had not previously been considered an important unit of operation for provincial government administrations, and for which there were no shared goals between the two jurisdictional authorities and local communities (Bréthaut et al., 2019). Our process and outputs brought together existing data and knowledge from landscape stakeholders that had never been synthesised before (Gallagher et al., 2020). This process strengthened informal networks in some key institutions for sustainable development in Cambodia that persist to this day with new capacity to work with nexus thinking. What worked less well? The language of ‘nexus’, ‘integration’ and ‘complexity’ was meaningless to many stakeholders when we started but the group model building showed that these are not empty concepts. However, it was a challenge to bring people on the journey. Somewhat related, our scientific objectives did not always match the policy and practice goals of our local partners. This can be a common feature of transdisciplinary research conflicts (e.g. Ferguson et al., 2018). While our policy partners in the national government bought into a time-intensive trial of a method for integrated assessment and future planning, the conservation partners were impatient for ‘results’. Insights came, but not in time for when WWF staff and others needed them for direct advocacy in 2017. Similarly, as the activities in Cambodia were ending in 2017/2018 we had an opportunity to explore the institutionalisation of ‘nexus thinking’ methods in national development-planning procedures (Bréthaut et al., 2019). Ultimately, this would have meant engaging in a reform process for structural factors in development-planning procedures that would have required more time and resources than we had available. We had an adaptive process, with intensive time contributions by all involved over three years, but a longer-term effort (one partner mentioned the timeframe of ten years)

70  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus would have had real possibilities for more concrete forms of transformation. This is a common issue in transdisciplinary research and one that requires further examination with respect to transdisciplinary science design and funding (Schneider et al., 2019). Our WWF partners were clear in their intention to continue this work, but since the evaluative procedures ended and the project has effectively been wound up we do not have the data to substantiate ‘what happened next’ currently.

4.5

DISCUSSION: THEORY TO PRACTICE OF TRANSDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE FOR THE NEXUS

At the heart of many transdisciplinary science projects is the question of how to create value for individuals and institutions that must improve planning and implementation for a resource-secure future, navigating great complexity and making choices under some uncertainties that can never be resolved (Beebeejaun et al., 2015; Durose et al., 2017; Djenontin and Meadows, 2018). The LIVES project shows that transdisciplinary processes can produce value for practice, policy and science once expectations are correctly and fairly calibrated and renegotiated throughout the project lifetime. It also illustrates how diffuse these benefits are and some challenges for their evaluation. This finding is broadly echoed in other empirical nexus transdisciplinary research studies. Commonalities with other empirical cases include benefits like stakeholder involvement and diversity in producing decision support or actionable knowledge for improved governance (e.g. Hoolohan et al., 2018; Schütt et al., 2019; Takaes Santos, 2020); network convergence effects (e.g. Ferguson et al., 2018; Daher et al., 2020); the role the research process provided new platforms for dialogue and potential cooperation (Daher et al., 2019); stakeholder value derived from engaging with complexity (e.g. Hoolohan et al., 2019) and social learning and skills sharing/knowledge (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2017). Some cases raise similar challenges to those experienced in the LIVES project: managing multiple accountabilities or different interests in the process (e.g. Ferguson et al., 2018); the need for institutionalised dialogue and collaboration over time for governance results (Hagemann and Kirschke, 2017); vague or tardy results that are difficult to explain to others outside the process (Hoolohan et al., 2019); and the intense time investments needed (Mohtar and Daher, 2019). The consensus emerging between researcher-practitioners who have directly engaged with transdisciplinary nexus science in real-world applications is that this approach is worth exploring further. However, if social change or governance outcomes are a desired goal for transdisciplinary science in the nexus, we will need to build on our case-level explorations to formulate a realistic ‘theory of action’ for this intervention. A more robust articulation is needed of research designs we think work for which nexus governance outcomes, and why, within the understanding of the nexus as a political process with power relations and dynamics (e.g. Bréthaut et al. 2019), contested values and conflicts to navigate (e.g. Schütt et al., 2019). What methods, enabling organisational arrangements, and strategies for institutionalisation and long-term commitment (e.g. Armitage et al., 2011) work under the real constraints of day-to-day community, policy and research endeavours? Without this, it is unclear that transdisciplinary science can scale to a sufficient level of quality and coverage for permanent improvement in nexus-related institutions, structures and processes.

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  71 This insight brought three observations to the fore that should be valuable for scholar-practitioners considering a transdisciplinary approach to water-energy-food nexus research. Observation 1: Actionable knowledge is a desirable goal for transdisciplinary nexus science but it is an ill-defined concept that needs to be delineated for the water-energy-food nexus. Is knowledge actionable because of the causal links it elucidates and hypotheses (e.g. Mach et al., 2020)? Or because of how it is produced, communicated and packaged for use, for example in nexus indicators (e.g. Hoolohan et al., 2018). Should the action be expected to take place inside the knowledge production process or as a direct result of the knowledge produced? And if this does not happen, do we deem the process to have failed? Should we content ourselves with using transdisciplinary science to ensure that learning and networks form for those people in the process? Or is the direct connection to important decision processes the only thing that counts? The ‘who’ matters considerably in the nexus and we are a long way from tailoring our research processes and outputs to polycentric decision contexts (e.g. Smajgl and Ward, 2013a; Kimmich et al., 2019). A common framing of ‘actionable knowledge’ for nexus governance would hone our understanding of what types of decisions are taken across a range of policy and practice fields that touch on water-energy-food security like urban planning, as one example (e.g. Madrid-Lopez et al., 2020), and what knowledge would support these processes. Observation 2: Participatory scenario modelling that has emerged as an effective method from a number of transdisciplinary empirical tests in water-energy-food nexus research. Appropriate methodological choices and ordering are a concern in transdisciplinary nexus science (Hagemann and Kirschke, 2017; Bergendahl et al., 2018). Participatory scenario and resilience modelling has now been applied in a number of well-developed cases from which we can learn. Provided they are framed with principles of uncertainty and complexity (Yung et al., 2019), participatory modelling offers opportunities for the deliberation, discussion and negotiation opportunities that we seek for nexus governance (Smajgl and Ward, 2013a, 2013b; Foran, 2015; Giampietro, 2018; Sušnik et al., 2018; Bai and Sarkis, 2019; Hoolohan et al., 2019; Kurian, 2020; Laspidou et al., 2020; Larkin et al., 2020), even with poor data availability (e.g. Seidou et al., 2020). Moreover, such approaches assist with balanced stakeholder representation, which can be a challenge in current water-energy-food nexus dialogue and analysis (Smajgl et al., 2016). Indigenous and local community knowledge is increasingly recognised as critical for guiding sustainability transitions and realising transformative progress though this is all too often omitted from traditional scientific enterprise (Latulippe and Klenk, 2020; Wheeler et al., 2020). Future applications to water-energy-food nexus analysis should consider ethics for a culturally sensitive transdisciplinary science (e.g. Schmidt and Neuburger, 2017) and seek to develop and test methods for including these knowledge holders effectively. We have a rich literature on group modelling procedures to learn from emerging in nexus research, along with substantial quantitative expertise more generally in the field. This combined experience is potentially valuable to a new consideration of quantitative modelling in mixed-methods approaches to adaptive and anticipatory governance research on social-ecological systems (e.g. Cumming et al., 2020). Some longitudinal and cross-case

72  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus analysis of model-based transdisciplinary science work already completed for the nexus would be a major contribution (Schneider et al., 2019). Observation 3: Evaluative practices are challenging but invaluable in connecting theory and practice in transdisciplinary science. The analysis in this chapter highlights a certain fuzziness about what impacts should be prioritised for which stakeholders, how permanent the contributions to change are, and whether just ‘doing no harm’ is sufficient when there is real opportunity to do some good (Lux et al., 2019; Schneider et al., 2019). Kurian (2017) talks about the need for cross-case learning in transdisciplinary nexus science. One focus for such an analysis or process could be to evaluative procedures and how to standardise these and explicitly include them when developing education and training programmes for water-energy-food nexus research and analysis (Rodríguez et al., 2019; Watkins et al., 2019; O’Donovan et al., 2020). Transdisciplinary scholars have already laid much of the groundwork on impact evaluation that can be shaped and refined for water-energy-food nexus situations (e.g. Mitchell et al., 2015). Practical and well-executed procedures like this would allow for more rigorous and comparable testing of what works and what does not across place-based investigations. This fits with a call for a transdisciplinary community of practice in the nexus made by Mohtar and Lawford (2016) and the need for flexible institutions and funding (Gaziulusoy et al., 2016; Wilsdon et al., 2017).

4.6 CONCLUSION Leading scholars in nexus research have argued for increased transdisciplinarity in nexus research designs and methods as one way of intertwining knowledge making and governance. This chapter set out to explore if the case has been made through empirical applications of transdisciplinary science for the nexus. Researchers with direct experience in designing and implementing transdisciplinary nexus science, including the case work shared in this chapter, find positive benefits for both the social contributions and quality of nexus analysis, as well as challenges for doing this work in practice. A fair conclusion is that these processes open up space in which good nexus governance can emerge and operate, but a myriad of contextual factors beyond the control of project partners ultimately determines the contributions to the goal of improved resource management across sectors and scales in the water-energy-food nexus as a solution to sustainability and resilience challenges in society. Institutional arrangements and incentives are needed for longer-term project processes, accelerating applications in diverse locations, standardising evaluative practices and supporting cross-case learning and synthesis to co-design possible futures for an effective practice and evolving theory of transdisciplinary research for the water-energy-food nexus. A welcome development would also be to improve capabilities in the nexus research community on this front for those researchers who are attracted by collaborative ways of working (e.g. Pohl, 2005; Guimarães et al., 2019).

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  73

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank University of Geneva, WWF Freshwater Practice, WWF Greater Mekong and Luc Hoffmann Institute colleagues for their inputs and support to the LIVES project. I gratefully acknowledge the funding support of the Nomis Foundation and the Mava Foundation.

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78  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Smajgl, A. and J. Ward (2013b), The Water-Food-Energy Nexus in the Mekong Region: Assessing Development Strategies Considering Cross-Sectoral and Transboundary Impacts, New York: Springer. Smajgl, A., J.R. Ward, T. Foran, J. Dore and S. Larson (2015), ‘Visions, beliefs, and transformation: Exploring cross-sector and transboundary dynamics in the wider Mekong region’, Ecology and Society, 20 (2), https://​doi​.org/​10​.5751/​ES​-07421​-200215. Smajgl, A., J. Ward and L. Pluschke (2016), ‘The water-food-energy nexus: Realising a new paradigm’, Journal of Hydrology, 533, 533–540. Stein, C., C. Pahl-Wostl and J. Barron (2018), ‘Towards a relational understanding of the water-energy-food nexus: An analysis of embeddedness and governance in the Upper Blue Nile region of Ethiopia’, Environmental Science and Policy, 90, 173–182. Stephan, R.M., R.H. Mohtar, B. Daher, A. Embid Irujo, A. Hillers, J.C. Ganter et al. (2018), ‘Water-energy-food nexus: A platform for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals’, Water International, 1–8. Stirling, A. (2015), Developing ‘Nexus Capabilities’: Towards Transdisciplinary Methodologies, Discussion paper, Science Policy Research Unit, Brighton. Sušnik, J., C. Chew, X. Domingo, S. Mereu, A. Trabucco, B. Evans et al. (2018), ‘Multi-stakeholder development of a serious game to explore the water-energy-food-land-climate nexus: The SIM4NEXUS approach’, Water, 10 (2), 139. Takaes Santos, I. (2020), ‘Confronting governance challenges of the resource nexus through reflexivity: A cross-case comparison of biofuels policies in Germany and Brazil’, Energy Research and Social Science, 65, 101464. Thompson, M.A., S. Owen, J.M. Lindsay, G.S. Leonard and S.J. Cronin (2017), ‘Scientist and stakeholder perspectives of transdisciplinary research: Early attitudes, expectations, and tensions’, Environmental Science and Policy, 74, 30–39. Tobias, S., M.F. Ströbele and T. Buser (2018), ‘How transdisciplinary projects influence participants’ ways of thinking: A case study on future landscape development’, Sustainability Science, 14, 405–419. Urbinatti, A.M., L.L. Benites-Lázaro, C.M. de Carvalho and L.L. Giatti (2020a), ‘The conceptual basis of water-energy-food nexus governance: Systematic literature review using network and discourse analysis’, Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, 1–23. Urbinatti, A.M., M. Dalla Fontana, A. Stirling and L.L. Giatti (2020b), ‘“Opening up” the governance of water-energy-food nexus: Towards a science-policy-society interface based on hybridity and humility’, Science of the Total Environment, 744, 140945. van Gevelt, T. (2020), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: Bridging the science–policy divide’, Current Opinion in Environmental Science and Health, 13, 6–10. van Kerkhoff, L. and V. Pilbeam (2017), ‘Understanding socio-cultural dimensions of environmental decision-making: A knowledge governance approach’, Environmental Science and Policy, 73, 29–37. Vanderlinden, J.-P., J. Baztan, O. Chouinard, M. Cordier, C. Da Cunha, J.-M. Huctin et al. (2020), ‘Meaning in the face of changing climate risks: Connecting agency, sensemaking and narratives of change through transdisciplinary research’, Climate Risk Management, 29, 100224. Visseren-Hamakers, I.J. (2015), ‘Integrative environmental governance: Enhancing governance in the era of synergies’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 14, 136–143. Vogel, A.L., K.L. Hall, S.M. Fiore, J.T. Klein, L. Michelle Bennett, H. Gadlin et al. (2013), ‘The team science toolkit’, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 45 (6), 787–789. Voinov, A., N. Kolagani, M.K. McCall, P.D. Glynn, M.E. Kragt, F.O. Ostermann, S.A. Pierce and P. Ramu (2016), ‘Modelling with stakeholders – next generation’, Environmental Modelling and Software, 77, 196–220. Walker, B., C.S. Holling, S.R. Carpenter and A.P. Kinzig (2004), ‘Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social-ecological systems’, Ecology and Society, 9 (2). Watkins, D., R. Schwom, C. Schelly, D.B. Agusdinata, K. Floress and K.E. Halvorsen (2019), ‘Understanding household conservation, climate change and the food-energy-water nexus from a transdisciplinary perspective’, in K. Halvorsen, C. Schelly, R. Handler, E. Pischke and J. Knowlton (eds), A Research Agenda for Environmental Management, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 145–158.

Theory and practice of transdisciplinary science in the WEF nexus  79 Weitz, N., C. Strambo, E. Kemp-Benedict and M. Nilsson (2017a), ‘Closing the governance gaps in the water-energy-food nexus: Insights from integrative governance’, Global Environmental Change, 45, 165–173. Weitz, N., C. Strambo, E. Kemp-Benedict and M. Nilsson (2017b), Governance in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Gaps and Future Research Needs, Working paper 2017-07, Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm University, July. Wheeler, H. C., F. Danielsen, M. Fidel, V. Hausner, T. Horstkotte, N. Johnson et al. (2020), ‘The need for transformative changes in the use of Indigenous knowledge along with science for environmental decision‐making in the Arctic’, People and Nature, 2 (3), 544–556. Wilsdon, J., R. Cairns and C. O’Donovan (2017), Sustainability in Turbulent Times: Lessons from the Nexus Network for Supporting Transdisciplinary Research, The Nexus Network, 16 March. Yung, L., E. Louder, L.A. Gallagher, K. Jones and C. Wyborn (2019), ‘How methods for navigating uncertainty connect science and policy at the water-energy-food nexus’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7, 37.

PART II CONCEPTS OF THE NEXUS IN PRACTICE

5. Energy security and the energy transition Molly A. Walton

5.1 INTRODUCTION It is obvious but worth repeating that energy underpins our daily life.1 It is crucial for our industrial processes, our transport, our food supply, our water and our health. Without a stable and reliable supply of energy, modern society as we know it would disappear. It is also true that billions of people still lack access to the very energy that enables our society to function. They, in the same way the countries who lack domestic energy resources, can be classified as energy insecure. While energy has always been the backbone of economic and social development, the type of energy used has shifted as government policies, consumer preferences, falling costs and comparative prices incentivise the introduction of new technologies as well as swings from one fuel to another. Throughout history, each transition was in answer to the need for a more efficient, affordable, secure and reliable energy service. As such, wood has given way to coal, which has given way to oil, which itself is giving way to natural gas and renewables. Electricity, which emerged in the twentieth century, completely transformed society. We are now in the midst of another transition, one that must occur more rapidly than all those that came before. Our understanding of the impact of fossil fuels on our environment and health has added another goal to that of providing secure, reliable and efficient energy sustainability. The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1992, was one of the earliest markers of this new transition, requiring industrialised economies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and for emerging economies to stabilise them (at 1990 levels) by 2000. The adoption of the Paris Agreement at the Twenty-First Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in 2015 represented another milestone in the transition to a low-carbon economy. More than 180 countries set forth national plans, called Nationally Determined Contributions, aimed at holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing actions that further limit the rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. These reduction targets are to be reviewed and updated every five years. In January 2016, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed upon by global leaders in the fall of 2015, officially came into force. Of the 17 goals laid out in this framework, several are directly or indirectly related to energy and Goal 13 specifically calls for urgent action to reduce global climate change. Goal 7, ensuring access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for all, also made clear that the energy transition needs to be inclusive. Meeting these energy transition ambitions is going to require a mix of policy, technology and behavioural change. The structure of the transition and the levers used to achieve it will be unique to each municipality, state, country and region. Where there has been a strong policy emphasis on reducing the environmental impacts of energy use, we have seen the energy mix transition to low-carbon sources. In 2010, Germany put in place Energiewende, which aimed to transition the country to a low-carbon, nuclear-free economy. In the decade since, the share of renewables in power generation grew to almost 38 per cent in 2018 (from 6 per cent in 81

82  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus 2000) (International Energy Agency, 2020a, p. 30). California put in place one of the largest multi-sectoral emissions-trading schemes in the world in 2013. The programme has helped it reach its ambitious GHG reduction goals, achieving its 2020 target to reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2016. But we have also seen that certain fuels are harder to leave behind, either due to their abundance, low comparative cost, the absence of meaningful alternatives or existing infrastructure. For example, we have yet to find a good substitute to the flexibility and accessibility that oil provides, and the methods used to extract it continue to become more economic and efficient. We have also seen that the emissions from certain sectors are harder to abate. The cost of cutting emissions is steeper in sectors like heavy industry (cement, chemicals and steel) and long-haul transport (trucking, aviation and shipping) that rely heavily on fossil fuels. As such, scaling up nascent innovations such as electric heavy-duty trucks and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) in cement and steel production is vital. Energy efficiency, one of the most cost-effective ways for policymakers to reduce energy consumption (even in hard-to-abate sectors), and thereby emissions, has increased in importance in recent years. As a result, and despite the groundswell of support and pressure to change the way we produce and consume energy, energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions increased by 1.9 per cent in 2018, the highest annual increase since 2013 (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 37). The five warmest years on record have all happened since 2015 (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2020). What’s more, 5.5 million people die every year from indoor and outdoor air pollution (International Energy Agency, 2019a). Despite myriad policies, pledges and long-term targets put in place, the world is far from on track to achieve the ambitions laid out in the Paris Agreement or many of the SDGs. Moreover, the emergence of a global health crisis, COVID-19, has redirected policy attention towards more immediate concerns such as saving human lives and securing and stimulating the economy. As such, while too early to write with certainty the impact that COVID-19 will have on the world’s long-term climate and energy goals, several questions loom large, including how and if governments will incorporate energy transitions into their recovery packages and what impact deferred investment in the energy sector will have on energy security. Every large transition from one dominant energy form to another in history has brought about new energy security concerns. Oil imports and trade can be upended by geopolitical events. Sun and wind are not ubiquitous 24/7, and supply chains for clean energy technologies could call into question the scarcity of key minerals and materials, which in themselves may spark geopolitical cleavages in the future. Bioenergy can compete with other land uses in some countries and is vulnerable to changes in weather. The concept of energy security in the twenty-first century has revolved around oil, but with the rise of natural gas and renewables, and the increased importance of electricity, the definition has broadened. Given the changing energy mix, the concept of energy security has come to include issues such as reliability, affordability, substitutability and system flexibility. New threats to energy security have also arisen from climate change and cybersecurity making it clear that no matter how the energy system evolves, energy security concerns will remain paramount. The provision of energy, and any transition, must, therefore, consider several metrics, including sustainability, affordability and security. Understanding how an energy system has transitioned, where it is today and how it might develop in the future is critical. Good policy rests on good data and an understanding of the implications of one choice over another. For example, the greater deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) is likely to reduce local

Energy security and the energy transition  83 air pollution, but if the grid from which these EVs receive power is not decarbonised, the carbon footprint of EVs may not be much different than combustion vehicles (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 82). Here a holistic approach, which takes into consideration well-to-wheel or lifecycle emissions, can help. Good policy also requires an understanding of the interconnectedness of energy with other resources, such as water, food and forests, to ensure that the policies and practices put in place don’t have unintended consequences. Assessing such cross-sectoral linkages can reveal opportunities and show that various energy and sustainability-related goals are compatible. For instance, the use of liquefied petroleum gas to improve access to clean cooking can reduce deforestation and emissions from biomass (International Energy Agency, 2017a, p. 106). Such synergies are evident along the entire water-energy-food nexus, but require attention to ensure they are capitalised on. This chapter will provide an overview of the energy system today and what it might take to achieve the energy transition, followed by an evaluation of how that transition could impact the energy-water nexus and energy security. It will conclude with a discussion on the actions needed to reach a near-term peak in emissions while also ensuring energy remains affordable, reliable, secure and sustainable.

5.2

ENERGY SYSTEM TODAY

According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), global energy demand has increased by more than 40 per cent since 2000 and the centre of this demand has increasingly turned eastward. The fuel mix has also evolved, albeit slowly. Renewables, particularly solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind, have experienced more rapid growth than all other forms of energy since 2010, however, the share of fossil fuels in total primary energy demand remains above 80 per cent in 2018 (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 38). While buildings account for the largest share of total final consumption (31 per cent) in 2018, industry has been the main driver of the rise in final consumption between 2000 and 2018, followed closely by transport (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 42). Mandatory energy efficiency policies covered 35 per cent of final consumption in 2018, however, momentum for energy efficiency has slowed, and in 2018 energy intensity improved at its slowest rate since 2010 (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 306, 325). Global electricity generation grew by around 70 per cent between 2000 and 2018 to reach over 26 600 TWh (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 44). Despite the rapid growth of electricity, 860 million people, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, remain without access to electricity today (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 83). Though coal’s share of generation remains largely stable at around 40 per cent, by 2018 renewables accounted for more than a quarter of power generation (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 44). The last decade has also seen dramatic changes to the landscape of fossil fuel production. Coal continues to be squeezed by economics and environmental regulations. Furthermore, the United States has emerged as a major producer of oil and natural gas. At the same time, there has been increasing pressure on energy companies to minimise the social and environmental externalities of production. Since 2000, global energy-related CO2 emissions have risen more than 40 per cent, with coal emissions accounting for more than half the increase (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 46). Today, the energy sector accounts for more than two-thirds of global GHG emissions. The power sector is responsible for 40 per cent of energy-related CO2 emissions, underscor-

84  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus ing that decarbonising electricity alone will not be enough to achieve the Paris Agreement (International Energy Agency, 2020b). Fossil fuels are also a significant source of methane, a short-lived but particularly potent GHG. Recognising the widening gap between the commitments made under the Paris Agreement and the actions and policies needed to ensure a quick peak followed by a steep decline in emissions, some countries have introduced more ambitious targets. By the fall of 2019, around 65 countries and the European Union (EU) had introduced or were considering targets to reach net-zero emissions (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 99). However, the move towards increased ambition is not universal. Several countries, including the United States, Japan and Australia, have signalled they will not update or strengthen the 2030 reduction targets they made under the Paris Agreement. And some countries, notably the United States, have formally pulled out of the Paris Agreement altogether. Beyond just national governments, cities, companies and investors are also setting forth commitments or increasing pressure to reduce their carbon footprints. In June 2020, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change announced a new campaign in the run-up to COP 26 called ‘Race to Zero’ which brings together a coalition of net-zero initiatives. It covers almost 1000 businesses, 21 regions, over 505 universities and 38 of the biggest investors (UNFCCC, 2020). Almost 400 cities have also announced commitments to reach net zero by 2050. As of 5 June 2020, net-zero commitments covered more than half of the world’s gross domestic product and almost a quarter of global CO2 emissions (Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, 2020). There is also increasing pressure by investors to account for and manage the risks to investments posed by climate change and the energy transition. The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), created in 2015, developed consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures that can be used by companies to provide more transparency to its stakeholders about the risks of climate change. According to the TCFD’s latest status report more than 370 investors, holding nearly $35 trillion in assets, are working with some of the largest corporate GHG emitters to use the TCFD recommendations to strengthen their climate-related disclosures (TCFD, 2019, p. 11). One of the challenges is the myriad of definitions and classifications of sustainable investment. To help address this, the EU, as part of its Green Deal, is putting in place an EU-wide common classification to define sustainable finance.

5.3

WHAT MIGHT THE ENERGY TRANSITION LOOK LIKE?

While a dose of humility is always vital when attempting to project the future, understanding what it might take to set the energy system on a sustainable pathway is useful. Here, scenarios such as those from the World Energy Outlook at the IEA can be useful markers of what such a trajectory might look like as well the attendant ramifications for energy security, affordability and sustainability. This is not to say this is the only pathway or even the right pathway,2 but it is to illustrate the scope of the challenges and the diversity of policy and technologies that will need to be deployed to reach our sustainability goals. The IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario,3 which takes into account existing and announced policies and looks at where they lead the energy sector, clearly shows that the commitments already made to advance the energy transition do not bring about a peak in emissions (Table 5.1). They also fail to meet other energy-related SDGs: over 600 million people lack access

Energy security and the energy transition  85 Table 5.1

World total primary energy demand by fuel and IEA scenario (Mtoe) Stated Policies Scenario

 

Sustainable Development Scenario

 

2000

2018

2030

2040

2030

2040

Coal

2317

3821

3848

3779

2430

1470

Oil

3665

4501

4872

4921

3995

3041

Natural gas

2083

3273

3889

4445

3513

3162

Nuclear

675

709

801

906

895

1149

Renewables

659

1391

2287

3127

2776

4381

638 10 037

620 14 314

613 16 311

546 17 723

140 13 750

75 13 279

80% 23.1

81% 33.2

77% 34.9

74% 35.6

72% 25.2

58% 15.8

Solid biomass Total Fossil fuel share CO2 emissions (Gt)

Note: Mtoe = million tonnes of oil equivalent. Gt = gigatonnes. Solid biomass includes its traditional use in three-stone fires and in improved cookstoves (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 38). Source: Modified from table 1.1 in International Energy Agency (2019), p. 38. All rights reserved.

to energy in 2030 in this scenario and the number of premature deaths linked to air pollution continues to rise. The IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario looks at how to bridge the gap between the policies already proposed (and that are captured in its Stated Policies Scenario) and what is required to ensure a rapid and deep decarbonisation of the energy sector. It underscores that there is no one solution to the climate crisis and that it will take a range of fuels and technologies to ensure we reach our goals while keeping energy services reliable and affordable for all. In addition to the focus on reducing emissions, the scenario also looks at what it would take to tackle two other pressing energy challenges: reducing local air pollution and providing energy for all. This scenario, which is fully aligned with the Paris Agreement,4 sees all sectors accelerating and prioritising the deployment of low-carbon technology (such as renewables, hydrogen, biomethane and CCUS) and energy efficiency. It also focuses on retrofitting existing stock assets and ensuring that new energy-dependent infrastructure contributes to the targets. As a result, global energy-related CO2 emissions fall sharply, reaching 25 Gt in 2030, less than 10 Gt by 2050 and on course for net zero by 2070 (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 80). The deployment of all economically viable energy efficiency opportunities, followed closely by renewables, delivers the largest decline in CO2 emissions in the Sustainable Development Scenario (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 79). Energy efficiency is cost-effective, and a good fit for many countries seeking to decarbonise. Energy demand is tempered by a greater deployment of energy efficiency, the electrification of end uses, in particular mobility and heating, and fuel switching (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 92). Coal and oil demand both peak immediately, while natural gas use, which offers greater flexibility than the others and lower emissions, increases to roughly 2030, after which it is replaced by less-polluting alternatives such as biomethane, hydrogen and electricity (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 92). By 2040, electricity accounts for more than 30 per cent of total final consumption, underscoring its importance in decarbonisation but also its limitations (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 42). By 2040, low-carbon sources account for 85 per cent of power generation (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 44). By 2040, the two largest shares of power generation belong to wind and solar (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 44). Battery

86  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus storage becomes increasingly important to help manage the intermittency of renewables. Targeted measures, such as carbon prices, help renewables to become more competitive with fossil fuels, while fuel-blending mandates and renewable energy quotas help renewables make inroads into the building and industrial sectors. Decarbonising the household, transport and industrial sectors is key to attaining the energy transition. In the Sustainable Development Scenario, the uptake of efficient appliances, building retrofits and increasing electrification help bring down emissions from the buildings sector. Meanwhile, fuel switching, increased material efficiency, CCUS and electrification lower industrial emissions. Vehicles become increasingly electrified in the Sustainable Development Scenario while conventional cars become more efficient (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 89). As electricity alone cannot bring about the total transformation required to reach the targets laid out in the Paris Agreement, ensuring an affordable and reliable supply of liquids and gases will remain important. In the short term this means bringing down the emissions intensity of oil and natural gas production, with a particular focus on reducing methane leaks. The oil and gas industry must also ramp up investment in fuels and gases (low-carbon hydrogen, biomethane and advanced biofuels) that provide the same services as hydrocarbons without the same emissions (International Energy Agency, 2020c, p. 9). Given the oil and gas industry’s experience with complex engineering projects, it can also play a vital role in the development of other key technologies, such as CCUS, offshore wind and low-carbon hydrogen, needed to reduce emissions in hard-to-abate sectors (International Energy Agency, 2020c, p. 94). To support the transition, the patterns of investment change drastically, shifting to favour investment in renewables, energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies. The IEA estimates that on average, $3.2 trillion a year will be needed up to 2040 to enable the transition (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 51). Power receives the lion’s share of the investment and within the power sector the focus is on renewables and nuclear, followed by spending on batteries and grids to enable the rise of variable renewables. Investment in oil and natural gas supply – while significantly less than today – is still required in this scenario to ensure sufficient balancing with demand. The Sustainable Development Scenario underscores the important role of governments in creating an environment in which investment, public and private, can flourish.

5.4

IMPACT OF THE ENERGY TRANSITION ON THE ENERGY-WATER NEXUS

A functioning energy sector is dependent on water. Water is important for the production of fossil fuels and biofuels and for power generation. Thus, no matter how the future of energy unfolds, water will remain an important input. On the other side of the nexus, the water sector relies on energy to source, move and treat water. This interdependency is set to strengthen in the coming years, and population and economic growth will heighten demand for each resource. How this nexus is managed will impact energy transitions, both energy and water security and the ability to attain the SDGs. According to the IEA, which has quantified both sides of the nexus, the energy sector withdrew5 around 340 bcm of freshwater6 in 2016 and consumed7 roughly 50 bcm (International Energy Agency, 2018b, p. 11). In 2016, the energy sector accounted for just 10 per cent of

Energy security and the energy transition  87 total global freshwater withdrawals and 3 per cent of total global freshwater consumption (International Energy Agency, 2018b, p. 10). While on aggregate the energy sector’s water use is comparatively low, its water needs can have important local and temporal implications. The power sector accounts for the majority of water withdrawals, primarily from thermal power plants. A range of factors influence how much water the power sector uses and its efficiency. These include the fuel mix, whether a plant is used for baseload or peaking, weather conditions, turbine design and the type of cooling technology deployed. There are three main categories of cooling systems: once-through cooling, which has the lowest capital cost and is the most efficient but which has the highest withdrawal rate; wet-tower cooling, which has lower levels of withdrawals but consumes more; and dry cooling, which requires very little water but has higher upfront capital costs and is less efficient. The type of cooling technology deployed depends heavily on policy and whether water is freely available. For example, India, classified by the World Resource Institute as highly water stressed, mandated in 2015 that all existing and new thermal power plants use or switch to tower cooling and placed a limit on consumption levels. However, globally, once-through cooling is the most prevalent, and roughly a third of energy-related water withdrawals in 2016 came from coal-fired power generation that uses once-through cooling (International Energy Agency, 2018b, p. 11). Meanwhile, primary energy production accounted for more than two-thirds of the energy sector’s water consumption, the largest share coming from biofuels (International Energy Agency, 2018b, p. 11). Of the fossil fuels, the production of coal requires the most water, primarily used in mining activities (International Energy Agency, 2017b, p. 17). Beyond just the amount of water used by the energy sector, there are concerns about the potential for surface and groundwater contamination from primary energy production and thermal pollution from power plants. Looking ahead, water could become a chokepoint for energy depending on the type of fuel and technology deployed. According to the IEA, while the energy transition can provide significant environmental benefits, the fuels or technologies used to decarbonise could worsen or cause water stress if not properly managed (International Energy Agency, 2020d). While some technologies, such as solar PV and wind, have very low water needs, renewable sources that require heat to drive a steam cycle, such as geothermal and concentrating solar power (CSP), often need water for cooling. CSP water withdrawals and consumption can, depending on the cooling technology used, be similar to those seen in conventional power plants. Given that the best sites for CSP are often in arid water-stressed areas, water could be a limiting factor to their deployment. CCUS, which is expected to play a key role in meeting the Paris Agreement, can have a significant impact on a power plant’s water needs. Depending on the cooling technology used, it can double water withdrawals and consumption. This could be especially problematic for power plants already situated in water-stressed areas. In fact, a recent study found that over 40 per cent of the world’s coal-fired power plants are already located in water-stressed areas, potentially limiting the ability to retrofit these plants with CCUS (Rosa et al., 2020). IEA analysis found that water withdrawals in its Sustainable Development Scenario are 20 per cent lower in 2030 compared to 2016 due to the increased deployment of solar PV and wind, greater focus on energy efficiency and the definitive shift away from coal-fired power generation (International Energy Agency, 2018b, p. 10). Water withdrawals in the Sustainable Development Scenario are also lower than in the Stated Policies Scenario in 2030 (−20 per cent), reflecting the shift in the energy mix.

88  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Water consumption in the Sustainable Development Scenario, on the other hand, rises by 50 per cent relative to 2016 and is 10 per cent higher than the levels of consumption seen in 2030 in the IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario (International Energy Agency, 2018b, pp. 10,11). The shift to more wet-tower cooling in the power sector, increased use of biofuels in the transport sector and the expansion of nuclear power in the Sustainable Development Scenario are a major driving force of the increase relative to today and to the Stated Policies Scenario. These findings underscore the criticality of factoring water use into all energy policies, including those aimed at advancing the energy transition. An energy transition that relies heavily on nuclear, CSP, biofuels and CCUS could negatively impact or be limited by water, requiring careful attention to the potential trade-offs that could arise between water use and climate change mitigation. Though water withdrawals are always the first limit for energy when water is scarce, water consumption is an important long-term metric for energy policies as it means there is less water available for all users. While these risks will not be universal, it will be important to understand the water needs of the energy sector in the context of water availability and competing users both today and in the future to ensure that the energy policies put in place don’t cause unintended consequences. While most of the attention understandably focuses on the energy sector’s role in the energy transition, it is important to highlight the role that the water sector, as a user of energy, can play in supporting energy transitions. In 2016, the water sector used roughly as much energy as Australia (International Energy Agency, 2018b, p. 3). Most of this was in the form of electricity (850 TWh) amounting to about 4 per cent of global electricity consumption (International Energy Agency, 2018b, p. 3). Desalination, water supply and wastewater treatment were the largest users of electricity in the water sector. The rest (50 mtoe) was used for desalination or diesel pumps. Given the expected increase in global water demand and demand for water services, the IEA projects that the water sector’s energy demand will more than double by 2040 (International Energy Agency, 2017b, p. 7). The largest increase comes from desalination, moving water from areas of plenty to areas with dwindling water supplies, and heightened demand for wastewater treatment and higher levels of treatment. While the fuel mix that underpins the rise in the water sector’s energy demand will vary depending on where a rise in services is required, the water sector presents several opportunities to bolster clean energy transition objectives. First, water can be used more efficiently. Tackling water losses from leaks, pipe bursts and theft would save both water and energy. Second, desalination can offer an opportunity for countries looking to increase the share of renewables in their energy mix. For example, the low cost of oil and gas has meant that around two-thirds of the water produced from seawater desalination in the Middle East in 2016 was fossil fuel based (International Energy Agency, 2019b). However, membrane technologies are increasingly being used in the region, and many countries are looking to tap into their renewables potential, solar in particular. Pairing co-generation plants with reverse osmosis technologies (instead of thermal technologies) could help provide the flexibility needed to balance variable renewables and could serve as energy storage during times of excess electricity production from solar, effectively acting as a demand response facility (International Energy Agency, 2019b). Finally, wastewater, which accounted for roughly a quarter of the electricity used by the water sector in 2016, contains a significant amount of embedded energy (International Energy Agency, 2017b, p. 30). Tapping this potential through energy recovery provides a significant opportunity to produce biogas, which is expected to play an important role in energy transitions. The energy generated from wastewater can be used to satisfy energy

Energy security and the energy transition  89 needs at the treatment plant, fed into a district heating network, turned into electricity or used to fuel buses and trucks. Under the right incentive schemes it is estimated that energy recovery could cover over 55 per cent of the electricity required for municipal wastewater treatment by 2040 (International Energy Agency, 2017b, p. 43). Already there exist utilities that, through a combination of energy recovery and energy efficiency, have made their operations energy neutral (where energy needs are entirely satisfied via own generation) or energy positive (producing more energy than is needed in-house).

5.5

ENERGY SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF THE ENERGY TRANSITION

Energy security will remain paramount even in the energy transition. The reliance on oil is expected to decline under energy transitions, even in the transportation sector, though it will not dissipate entirely. While natural gas demand is likely to remain robust in the near term, the deployment of renewables, energy efficiency and decarbonised gases (low-carbon hydrogen and biomethane) reduce its role over time. As such, the world will still need to pay continued attention to the varied energy security concerns related to fossil fuel production, trade and price even as it makes the transition to a low-carbon economy. Moreover, what is set to replace them will bring about new security challenges, raising questions about whether the matrix through which policymakers have often viewed energy security in the past – vulnerability (exposure to disruption), risk (probability of disruption), offsets (ability to deal with a disruption) – will need an update to fit a low-carbon future (Finley, 2019). Unlike fossil fuels, for many countries most renewable resources are domestically produced, reducing the potential risks that come with trade or geopolitics. However, the supply chains used to produce the technologies are concentrated in a handful of countries and susceptible to disruption. This is a particular concern when it comes to the minerals and critical materials that are vital in the production of many low-carbon technologies. For example, cobalt, lithium and manganese are essential inputs for batteries for energy storage and EVs, copper is vital for electricity, platinum is crucial for emissions control, among others. Two-thirds of global production of cobalt and half of the world’s reserves are located in the Democratic Republic of Congo while 70 per cent of the world’s platinum and a third of its manganese comes from South Africa (International Energy Agency, 2020e). China dominates the value chain of rare earth minerals, playing a central role in procuring and processing these minerals and producing the products that use them. On average, clean energy technologies use more minerals than fossil fuel-based technologies, though even fossil fuel technologies seeking to improve efficiency and reduce emissions require significant inputs of minerals (International Energy Agency, 2020e). As a result, it is likely that the energy transition will rapidly elevate the demand of these minerals. Such pressure, if not met by equal increases in supply capacity, is likely to increase the volatility of prices. Several events, including the dramatic spike in the price of cobalt between 2016 and 2018 and China’s efforts to reduce the export of rare earth minerals in 2010, have already underscored some of the potential energy security implications to governments and companies that rely on these minerals. The high concentration of minerals in select countries also means that changes in policies, taxation, trade restrictions or political instability can all impact the stability of the market. Moreover, new environmental and social standards will be necessary

90  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus to guide better practices in the mining industry as production ramps up in places where such protections heretofore have been weak. Beyond just the stability of the supply chain for the production of low-carbon technologies, the energy transition is likely to lead to the greater electrification of energy services and will largely be powered by renewables. Variable renewables, such as solar PV and wind, affect power system operation and design differently than other technologies and necessitate greater flexibility from other sources of electricity supply (International Energy Agency, 2018a, p. 292). As a result, more attention to, and investment in, grid design, storage and demand response will be essential. The availability of power plants that are able to adjust output or ramp up quickly during periods of high or low demand will be essential sources of flexibility and will help to ensure the security and reliability of a more diversified electricity mix. As regions will experience different challenges, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but rather a mix of solutions tailored to their systems. A failure by policymakers to keep pace with technological change and amend the existing technical, market and regulatory infrastructure of electricity systems to account for these new and different sources of generation could impair energy security (International Energy Agency, 2018a, p. 300). Increased digitalisation allows devices and systems to talk to one another in real time and for information and data to flow openly, enabling a more communicative and efficient energy system. Real-time analytics can quickly spot potential or real disruptions and smarter demand response can help better match supply and demand fluctuations. Though such integration is beneficial, it also raises new security challenges that will need to be addressed. The IEA identified three key risks of digitalisation to the energy sector: cybersecurity, privacy and economic disruption (International Energy Agency, 2017c, p. 123). Cyber attacks can target physical and digital infrastructure and processes, taking them offline. The interconnectedness of many systems means that the impact can be widespread. The attack on Ukraine’s power grid in 2015, which temporarily disrupted supply, highlights the importance of system-wide resilience and the development of best practices and policies that address the risks and adapt as cyber-attack risks evolve. Regulators will also need to strike the right balance between data privacy and other public policy objectives in regards to user-demand data. Parallels can be seen in the water sector as well, which must contend with the security ramifications of increasing digitalisation, cyber disruptions and data privacy concerns. The impacts of climate change are adding a new dimension to energy security, broadening the focus beyond just mitigation towards how to ensure the resilience of the energy sector. Changes in temperature, precipitation, sea and river levels and frequency of severe weather events will all impact how energy is produced, delivered and consumed. Hotter summers will elevate electricity demand for cooling while colder winters will boost heating demand. The IEA estimates one-fifth of the rise in energy demand seen in 2018 was related to extreme temperature and a greater reliance on cooling and heating (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 37). Meeting these peaks in demand may require more investment in generation and distribution infrastructure and to put a plan in place to manage the reliability of the system. Higher temperatures also affect the efficiency of thermal power generation. More frequent and intense storms can damage vital energy infrastructure, impairing import and export facilities and damaging electricity production and distribution infrastructure. Water and energy infrastructure will be affected by changes to the intensity, frequency, seasonality and amount of rainfall due to climate change. Water scarcity, which is already affecting energy production and reliability, will continue to impact the viability of existing and future projects. An inability to secure water

Energy security and the energy transition  91 for cooling due to drought can lead to shutdowns at power plants. Additionally, higher water temperatures can also curtail generation as they make it harder for power plants to comply with temperature regulations for water discharge. Between 2006 to 2013, about 35 coal-fired and nuclear power plants in the United States either shut down completely or curtailed power generation due to water (Davis and Clemmer, 2014, p. 7). In 2016, water shortages resulted in the loss of 14 TWh of thermal power generation in India (Luo et al., 2018, p. 3). Fluctuations in water availability can also significantly hamper the reliability of hydropower. Zambia’s largest hydropower plant has already experienced blackouts due to lower than expected capacity. Africa relies on hydropower, which accounts for 17 per cent of its power generation today (International Energy Agency, 2020f, p. 20). New analysis from the IEA has shown that Africa is expected to see a climate-related decrease in accumulated generation output over the remainder of the twenty-first century that is equal to the total output of all its hydropower plants today (International Energy Agency, 2020f, p. 7). For many countries, hydropower is a core piece of energy transition plans and provider of the system flexibility required to deploy higher shares of variable renewables. Thus a loss of hydropower capacity could have significant energy security consequences for some countries. Unpredictable changes in water availability, degrading water quality and rising water demand will increase the energy needed to pump, treat and move water. The increasing uncertainty of supply may lead countries to turn to more energy-intensive forms of water supply such as desalination, which can have significant ramifications for energy demand and energy security. Desalination accounts for 5 per cent of total final energy consumption in the Middle East; by 2040 this share increases to over 15 per cent as desalination is used to close the gap between available supply and demand (International Energy Agency, 2019b). Risk preparedness will remain vital, as climate change will impact the resilience of the energy system no matter its composition. The deployment of energy efficiency will play a critical role as it reduces the amount of energy that is required per dollar of economic input – thus reducing a nation’s vulnerability to sudden or long-term changes in energy supply (Finley, 2019). How the energy transition is managed can have knock-on security of supply effects on other resources as well, such as water and food, which inevitably results in a feedback loop that diminishes the security of energy.

5.6 CONCLUSIONS Dramatically reducing emissions while ensuring energy remains affordable, reliable and secure will require structural changes to the way we produce and consume energy and necessitate a shift in our economies, governance and social behaviour. As countries seek to address the challenges of climate change and build more resilient economies and societies, several key points are worth keeping in mind. There is no one simple solution. It is clear that it is going to take all fuels and technologies to bring about the quick peak in GHG emissions needed to meet the Paris Agreement while ensuring energy services remain secure, resilient and inclusive. This pathway will look different in each country. Many of the technologies we need to make deep reductions in emissions, such as renewables and energy efficiency, already exist. These alone, however, can’t get us all the way. Emission abatement in some sectors – such as shipping, aviation and heavy industry – is going to require new technologies not yet available or nascent ones not yet at scale.

92  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus We face an energy innovation challenge. Just 15 per cent of the clean energy technologies that are essential in achieving the trajectory seen in the IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario are on track today (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 118). While historically the adoption of new technologies has taken two to three decades, the scale and scope of our climate challenges does not afford the luxury of time. To meet emissions targets, the status of these clean energy technologies needs to accelerate. The IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario sees several technologies – such as heat pumps, methane leak detection, bioliquids, electric cars and trucks – rapidly increase their market penetration over the next ten years. Others, such as small modular nuclear reactors, battery storage, hydrogen-powered heavy trucks and heat pumps for industrial heat, move to commercialisation after 2030 (International Energy Agency, 2019a, p. 117). Technologies that currently have low market penetration will need to scale up quickly if the energy transition is to occur. Spurring the innovation needed to tackle our climate challenge will take a coordinated effort by a range of stakeholders, including research institutions, the private sector and importantly governments. Governments will guide the future. Policymakers set the priorities of a country and play a key role in directing energy investment. More than 70 per cent of all investment in the energy sector is driven by governments (International Energy Agency, 2018a, p. 28). As discussed earlier, the plans and policies that governments have put in place to date are not enough to put the world on a path to meeting the Paris Agreement. Increasing ambitions will necessitate government action to fast-track progress on clean-energy technologies. This will require that governments provide ample support via research development and demonstration, establish market frameworks and encourage entrepreneurs. This can also help encourage private actors to iterate on existing technologies, improving their functionality and lowering their costs. A forward-looking and stable regulatory environment can encourage investment flows to some of the more capital-intensive large complex projects – such as CCUS and hydrogen – that can take a while to shift from testing to commercialisation. These projects may also require governments to take on some of the early costs and risks if they are to thrive. COVID-19 presents both a risk and an opportunity to energy transitions. It will be up to governments to ensure that their recovery plans incorporate former sustainability goals. Governments will also need to be prepared to address the myriad of new security challenges that arise with energy transitions. Energy security challenges do not end with a reduction in fossil fuel use. As discussed, new technologies bring significant benefits but also new challenges that may require an update to the framework used to assess energy security. Increased connectivity brings with it data privacy concerns and the potential for disruption caused by cyber attacks or natural events such as geomagnetic storms. Supply chains for materials and minerals used in many clean energy technologies are poorly regulated and concentrated. A greater share of renewables will necessitate flexibility and storage to ensure reliable, sufficient and affordable supply. And climate change impacts will stress energy systems. Many of the climate risks manifest themselves through water, directly and indirectly affecting energy security. More intense temperature fluctuations and increasing water scarcity could put upward pressure on energy demand. Water scarcity is already having an impact on energy production and reliability – a risk that won’t automatically go away by switching to a low-carbon pathway. New energy security frameworks will need to account for these risks to ensure an uninterrupted and affordable energy supply. Avoiding an integrated approach to water, energy and climate could put our goals at risk. The more that a decarbonisation pathway relies on nuclear, CSP, biofuels and CCUS the more water it consumes. Thus, the ability to achieve the energy transition could, if not prop-

Energy security and the energy transition  93 erly managed, exacerbate water stress or be limited by it. This won’t be an issue in all areas depending on existing and future water availability. On the other side, the water sector can play an important role in meeting energy transition goals through GHG mitigation and clean-energy production. These contributions should be incorporated in energy transition plans. Each of these aspects underscores the importance of better understanding the water-energy nexus to anticipate stress points, avoid negative trade-offs and deploy the policies, technologies and practices that enable a more secure and sustainable energy future. Limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C will require dramatic changes and cannot be on the shoulders of the energy sector alone. Meeting the Paris Agreement goal to ‘pursue efforts towards 1.5°C’ will require net-negative CO2 emissions in the second half of this century. The IEA notes the four primary options that could deliver net-negative emissions:8 afforestation and reforestation, sequestration of biochar, bioenergy used with CCS and direct air capture (International Energy Agency, 2019a). There remains significant uncertainty around the feasibility, scalability, impact and cost of negative emissions, which has resulted in robust and lively debate on what the best pathway is for reaching 1.5°C. Additionally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes that these ‘measures could have significant impacts on land, energy, water or nutrients if deployed at large scale’ and ‘effective governance is needed to limit such trade-offs’ (IPCC, 2018, p. 17). No matter the pathway, it is clear that having a chance at limiting warming to 1.5°C will require sound governance and changes far beyond the energy sector, including a societal shift towards sustainable consumption patterns writ large, changes in land use and urban planning (IPCC, 2018). No matter how the transition unfolds, we need to ensure the transition is just. While not a new concept, there has been an increased focus in recent years on how to ensure that the benefits and risks of the energy transition are equally distributed. The 2015 Paris Agreement included just transitions language stating the importance of taking workers and communities into account and creating decent work and quality jobs as part of development priorities (UNFCC, 2015, p. 2). The Center for Strategic and International Studies has identified several key themes that should guide discussions around just transitions. These include putting a stronger emphasis on how energy transitions can occur in developing countries; ensuring capacity building at a local level; assessing the impact that energy transitions will have on the informal sector, gender and race; and the need to develop new financing mechanisms that account for social equity (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2020). Devising strategies that reduce GHG emissions and support and engage the workers and communities impacted by the transition is vital to ensure a more equitable transition. However, more work is needed to increase the resources available to help countries, investors and other stakeholders devise such strategies.

NOTES 1. All analysis, data and information contained in this chapter is as of August 2020. 2. A wide range of organisations, including BP, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Renewable Energy Agency, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the World Energy Council, have all published scenarios on the potential trajectory of the energy transition and its impact. 3. The IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario assesses where energy markets are going based on existing and announced policies and investment decisions and what impact this will have on energy markets,

94  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

security and emissions. This scenario is intended to highlight to policymakers where their stated policies will get them and the consequences of these choices. For more on the IEA’s Stated Policies and Sustainable Development Scenarios, visit www​.iea​.org/​commentaries/​understanding​-the​-world​ -energy​-outlook​-scenarios. According to the IEA, ‘This Sustainable Development Scenario is consistent with limiting the rise in average global temperatures to below 1.8 degrees Celsius (°C) at 66 per cent probability, or a 50 per cent probability of 1.65°C stabilisation’ without relying on large-scale net-negative emissions (International Energy Agency, 2019a). Water withdrawals are defined as the volume of water removed from a source; by definition withdrawals are always greater than or equal to consumption. Unless otherwise specified, the term water in the context of the energy sector refers to accessible renewable freshwater. Assessments of water use in the energy sector do not include hydropower. Water consumption is defined as the volume of water withdrawn that is not returned to the source (i.e. it is evaporated or transported to another location) and by definition is no longer available for other uses. According to the IEA ‘If negative emissions technologies were deployed in the second-half of the century at levels similar to those reported in the IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, then the Sustainable Development Scenario would provide a 50% chance of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°C’.

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Energy security and the energy transition  95 IPCC (2018), Summary for Policymakers: Global Warming of 1.5°C, edited by V. Masson-Delmotte, V. et al, www​.ipcc​.ch/​site/​assets/​uploads/​sites/​2/​2019/​05/​SR15​_SPM​_version​_report​_LR​.pdf (accessed 24 July 2020). Luo, T., D. Sriram Krishnan and S. Sen (2018), Parched Power: Water Demands, Risks, and Opportunities for India’s Power Sector, Washington, DC: World Resource Institute. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (2020), 2019 was 2nd hottest year on record for Earth says NOAA, NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, www​.noaa​.gov/​news/​2019​ -was​-2nd​-hottest​-year​-on​-record​-for​-earth​-say​-noaa​-nasa (accessed 27 July 2020). Rosa, L., J. Reimer, M. Went and P. D’Odorico (2020), ‘Hydrological limits to carbon capture and storage’, Nature Sustainability, 3 (61), 658–666. Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) (2019), Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures overview, www​.fsb​-tcfd​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2020/​03/​TCFD​_Booklet​ _FNL​_Digital​_March​-2020​.pdf (accessed 5 June 2020). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) (2015), Adoption of the Paris Agreement, 21st Conference of the Parties, Paris: United Nations. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) (2020), Cities, regions and businesses race to zero emissions, https://​unfccc​.int/​news/​cities​-regions​-and​-businesses​-race​-to​-zero​ -emissions (accessed 7 June 2020).

6. Exploring policy coherence in India’s electricity-water nexus Kangkanika Neog and Vaibhav Chaturvedi

6.1

INTRODUCTION: INDIA’S WATER RESOURCES AND THE ELECTRICITY SECTOR

India is home to around 17 percent of the world’s population but has only 4 percent of its water resources. The availability of adequate, good-quality water resources is intricately linked to the prosperity of India and is contingent on achieving the country’s economic and sustainable development goals (United Nations in India, 2020). Inland water resources like rivers, canals, reservoirs, tanks, lakes, ponds, derelict water and brackish water lie at the core of social and economic growth, and are crucial for supporting a large percentage of the population. India’s per capita water availability in 2010 was 1,545 m3, and therefore is under moderate water shortage1 (Ministry of Water Resources, 2012a; Kummu et al., 2016). This may further reduce to 1367 m3 in 2031 (Ministry of Jal Shakti, 2020), highlighting the growing water stress on India’s population and economy. Owing to the country’s size, India’s water resources are spatially and temporally quite varied. While India receives an average annual rainfall of around 1,105 mm, more than 80 percent of which is received between June and September, there are vast spatial and temporal variations in its distribution. More than half of India’s water resources are located in the basins of rivers originating from the Himalayan mountain range such as the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Indus. India’s inter-annual variability is also quite prominent (Kim et al., 2018). According to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology’s assessment of all-India summer monsoon rainfall (June–September) anomalies during 1871–2017, India had 19 major flood years and 26 major drought years in the period (IITM, 2017). India is also heavily dependent on its groundwater sources. Almost 60 percent of India’s irrigation potential comes from groundwater and about 85 percent and 50 percent of the total rural and urban domestic water needs respectively are met by it (CGWB, 2019). India is the world’s largest extractor of groundwater, followed by the United States, China, Iran and Pakistan. Together, these five countries account for 67 percent of total abstractions worldwide. It is rightfully considered a lifeline for India, however, it is depleting at an unprecedented rate. Water contamination is also an increasing concern due to large-scale, unplanned urbanization and the discharge of untreated effluents by industries. Sixty-two percent of the municipal sewage generated is left untreated. Similarly, only 62 percent of industrial effluents is treated in India (Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, 2019). As a result, surface-water bodies have a diminished capacity to perform their ecological function due to several reasons including the overabstraction of both surface and groundwater, leading to reduced river flows in the lean season and a large-scale release of sewage and effluents. In the case of groundwater, both geogenic and increasing anthropogenic contamination plague its quality. In India, groundwater in 45 and 21 percent of districts is contaminated with natu96

Exploring policy coherence in India’s electricity-water nexus  97 rally occurring geogenic contaminants like fluoride and arsenic, respectively, affecting 66.62 million people from 19 states (Ghosh, 2017; Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, 2018). Additionally, anthropogenic contamination of groundwater due to industrial discharges, landfills and diffused sources of pollution like fertilizers and pesticides from agricultural fields is common (CGWB, 2019). Overexploitation has, in fact, catalyzed the emergence of large-scale groundwater quality problems, increasing the risk of health threats to the people, those predominantly in rural India who use this resource and are heavily dependent on it. Salinity ingress in coastal regions and reduced river flows are also significant by-products of groundwater overexploitation in many parts of the country (Alfarrah and Walraevens, 2018). Change in monsoonal trends due to climate change is expected to only exacerbate the challenge. Researchers at Stanford University analyzed 60 years (1951–2011) of Indian monsoonal trends through a comprehensive statistical analysis of precipitation. Their findings showed that: (1) peak-season precipitation has decreased over the core monsoon region and daily-scale precipitation variability has increased; (2) frequency of dry spells and the intensity of wet spells has increased; and (3) 1981–2011 had more than twice as many years with three or more dry spells as compared to 1951–1980, and the dry spell frequency shows an increase by 27 percent (Singh et al., 2014). The intensification of such challenges, along with climate change, is poised to alter water supplies and intensify floods and drought in the future. In a scenario where population growth and climate change present unprecedented complications, challenges to sustainable water management are inevitable. Water and energy systems are highly interdependent. While water is used in all phases of energy production and electricity generation; energy is required to extract, convey and deliver water of appropriate quality for a variety of human uses such as irrigation, domestic use and industrial use, and then again to treat wastewater prior to their return to the environment. Impact on the availability of one affects the other. The strong nexus between these resources is increasingly being recognized. The International Energy Agency reports that the energy sector is set to become thirstier over the next decades, with energy-related water consumption increasing by nearly 60 percent between 2014 and 2040. While some technologies like wind and solar photovoltaic require very little water, others like biofuel production, concentrating solar power, carbon capture and storage and nuclear power could have more significant water demands. Therefore, even a conscious transition towards a lower-carbon pathway could exacerbate water stress or be limited by availability of water if it is not properly managed (IEA, 2017). India has witnessed a tremendous growth in electricity production, with a growth from 120 TWh in 1980 to 932 TWh in 2010 and 1614 TWh in 2019. Currently, India is the third largest producer and consumer of electricity after China and the United States (Enerdata, 2020). According to Central Electricity Authority, India’s national electricity grid has an installed capacity of 371 GW as of July 31, 2020. Thermal capacity (coal, lignite, gas, diesel) constitute 62 percent of India’s total installed capacity while renewable energy sources (RES)2 constitute 24 percent of the total. Hydro and nuclear power contributes to 12 and 2 percent of the total installed capacity, respectively (CEA, 2020). Historically, India’s electricity generation has been dominated by fossil fuels, particularly coal. In 1980, 51 percent of India’s generation of electricity was from coal, which increased to 65 percent in 2010. However, with the increase in penetration of renewable energy, in 2020, 54 percent of the electricity generation was from

98  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus coal (IEA, 2015). Water is required for energy production from almost all fuel sources. An IEA analysis found that in 2016, globally, the energy sector withdrawals were around 340 bcm of water (the volume of water removed from a source) and consumption was roughly 50 bcm (the volume of water withdrawn but not returned to the source) (IEA, 2020). Freshwater is a major source of water for electricity generation. In 2014, 91 percent of operational thermal power plants (TPPs) running on coal, 29 percent of capacity using gas and 51 percent of nuclear power plants consumed freshwater from dam reservoirs, rivers and canals (Chaturvedi et al., 2020). Most of the water used in TPPs is used in the cooling process. Large quantities of water are required in coal processing and handling, cooling and ash handling in TPPs, making them water guzzlers. Srinivasan et al. (2018) note that in India, the estimated total water withdrawals and total water consumption for electricity generation stands at 34 bcm and 4 bcm in 2010, respectively, with most of the withdrawals from coal power plants. In the absence of policies to curb water use, average water withdrawals could grow nine-fold to 224–356 bcm by 2050, while average water consumption could increase five-fold to 18–23 bcm (Srinivasan et al., 2018). The water-energy-food nexus thinking, even though it has been increasingly recognized in India’s irrigation sector – especially around the interaction of groundwater pumping, depletion of resources and food – the debate around pressure of thermal power generation on water resources only took off in the late 2000s. In the decade from 2010, the constraints of water shortage on power generation became more obvious. In early 2016, India experienced a water crisis which spilled into an energy crisis. It was estimated that nearly 7 BU of coal power generation, with an estimated potential revenue of USD 350 million, were lost in the first five months of 2016 due to lack of water for cooling (Fernandes and Krishna, 2016). Another study by the World Resources Institute indicates that 18 TPPs around the country faced shutdowns leading to a loss of 14 TWh in 2016, while over the last four years, water shortages led to a total loss of 30 TWh. These incidents happened from March through September during the period in which the monsoon is weak or delayed, and demand for electricity is high due to hot and dry conditions in most parts of the country. While all the 18 TPPs were affected for different periods of time, the 1380 MW Parli TPP in Maharashtra was shut down for 89 days and partially shut down (more than 50 percent capacity) for around 196 days in 2016. The World Resources Institute study estimates that such shutdowns have cost the Parli TPP severely in power production and revenue. Between 2013 to 2016, the TPP generated an average of only 38 percent of its capacity affecting an estimated 20.9 TWh in generation and USD 1.2 billion in revenue (Luo et al., 2018). The entire 2,100 MW Farakka plant in West Bengal was also shut down for 12 consecutive days due to water shortage. Raichur TPP in Karnataka and Chandrapur TPP in Maharashtra faced shutdowns due to water shortages (Kim et al., 2018). The power-generation sector also comes low in the order of priority of water allocation as defined by the National Water Policy 2012 and it will have to suffer if the water stress aggravates further. Unlike the older versions of National Water Policies which clearly outlined the order of the allocation, the latest policy (2012) only places drinking water and irrigation as a high priority and excludes the position of industries in the allocation list. It states: safe water for drinking and sanitation should be considered as pre-emptive needs, followed by high priority allocation for other basic domestic needs (including needs of animals), achieving food security, supporting sustenance agriculture and minimum eco-system needs. Available water, after meeting the above needs, should be allocated in a manner to promote its conservation and efficient use. (Ministry of Water Resources, 2012b)

Exploring policy coherence in India’s electricity-water nexus  99 The availability of water, particularly for emerging economies like India, could become an increasingly important issue. The demand for water for various uses is expected to increase, and so is water stress. Policies and technologies already exist that can help reduce water and energy demand, and ease the pressure in the water-energy nexus. Integrating energy and water policymaking, co-locating energy and water infrastructure, utilizing the energy embedded in wastewater, using alternative sources like wastewater for energy and improving the efficiency of both the energy and water sectors could go a long way in bringing about these changes. The key objective that we focus on in this chapter is to apply a nexus framework to investigate the coherence between existing policies for electricity production and related water use in India. Using this framework, we examine the interlinkages between 12 policy solutions across eight policy objectives existing in India’s electricity and water sectors, and bring insights to the nexus debate in India.

6.2

A FRAMEWORK TO STUDY POLICY COHERENCE IN INDIA’S ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION AND RELATED WATER USE

The water-energy-food nexus is defined as “a policy and planning approach designed to manage trade-offs and synergies in addressing the challenges of simultaneous demands for huge increase in water, energy and food supplies over the next decades” (FAO, 2018). However, challenges in its implementation lie in governance issues including a lack of policy coherence, institutional coordination and varied stakeholder needs at different levels. Policy coherence is an approach which helps foster synergies across economic, social and environmental policy areas, identify trade-offs and reconcile domestic policy objectives with internationally agreed objectives and address spillovers of domestic policies (OECD, 2015). A nexus approach promotes policy coherence by identifying optimal policy mixes and governance arrangements across the nexus sectors (Weitz et al., 2017). The United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, notes policy coherence as a target in its 17th goal – strengthening the means of implementation and revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development (United Nations, 2015). A framework-based approach for the governance of environmental nexus thinking has been attempted, more so in the last decade (Hoff, 2011; Nilsson et al., 2012; Howells et al., 2013; Al-Ansari et al., 2015; Daher and Mohtar, 2015; Villamayor-Tomas et al., 2015; Rasul, 2016; Weitz et al., 2017; Albrecht et al., 2018; Papadopoulou et al., 2020). However, Visseren-Hamakers (2015) notes that in the policy space, through the UN Environment Programme Governing Council in 2002, there have been attempts to enhance synergies and linkages by setting up different coordination mechanisms, for example, on energy, environment and water issues, and especially among the various UN conventions to enhance synergies (Visseren-Hamakers, 2015). Nilsson et al.’s (2016) scoring framework for policymakers attempts to show how particular interventions and policies help or hinder progress towards the SDGs (Nilsson et al., 2016). The frameworks aim to counter the siloed thinking of policymakers and planners, which is

100  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus a hindrance to coherent policymaking. The framework from Nilsson et al. (2016) identifies seven possible interactions from the most positive (+3) and most negative (−3), as follows: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

indivisible (+3) – inextricably linked to the achievement of another goal; reinforcing (+2) – aids the achievement of another goal; enabling (+1) – creates conditions that further another goal; consistent (0) – no significant positive or negative interactions; constraining (−1) – limits the options on another goal; counteracting (−2) – clashes with another goal; and cancelling (−3) – makes it impossible to reach another goal.

Papadopoulou et al. (2020) adopted this framework to study the nexus relationship for energy and water policies in Greece. They studied the coherence among policies on the water-land-energy-food-climate nexus in Greece. For this study, we adopted the framework developed by Nilsson et al. (2016) and the methodology developed by Papadopoulou et al. (2020) to understand the extent of policy coherence in the electricity production and water resources of India. For the purpose of this study, we first set out boundaries to cover electricity and related water use in India. As articulated earlier, nexus thinking for this linkage is fairly recent in India. The governance for nexus approach which calls for coherence among interdependent sectors like electricity and water is largely inconsistent and disaggregated in India. While there are some examples of integrated and coherent energy-water policies, these are the exception, not the rule. If planning for future electricity generation fails to integrate issues related to water availability, the constraints for future water availability for energy production, especially under climate change scenarios or scenarios of competing water use for sectors like irrigation, may be severe. In the next sections, we outline the key policies related to water use in electricity generation and apply the framework described above to capture the nexus interactions.

6.3

OUTLINING KEY POLICIES RELATED TO ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION AND RELATED WATER USE IN INDIA

We present a list of major policy solutions for India’s electricity sector and its related water use. These include policies related to energy mix diversification, energy efficiency in power generation, water use and its efficiency in power generation. The list of policy solutions studied here is not exhaustive. We also identify the major policy objective of these solutions. A detailed description of these policy solutions is discussed below. 6.3.1

Diversification of Energy Mix: Renewables, Nuclear and Bioenergy

On April 22, 2016, India signed the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the globe and became one of the 195 signatories of the treaty. India ratified the Paris Agreement on October 2, 2016, after which it came into force on November 4, 2016 (UNFCCC, 2016; United Nations, 2020). Reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity generation is one of the critical means to achieve a reduction in emission intensity. The agreement requires all countries to make major changes in the way that they produce

Exploring policy coherence in India’s electricity-water nexus  101 electricity, moving from high CO2-emitting coal and gas to increased use of some combination of renewable power (such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power), nuclear power and coal or natural gas with CO2 capture and storage. The Government of India (GoI) has set a target of installing 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by the year 2022, which includes 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from biopower and 5 GW from small hydropower (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, 2020). The implication these shifts will have on water demands is critical to understand. Srinivasan et al. (2018) note that changes in the electricity mix are an important driver for lower water use. The implications on water withdrawals and consumption under CO2 emissions reduction pathways will depend critically on the approach to these reductions. While focus on wind and solar power would reduce consumption and withdrawals, a focus on nuclear power increases both, and a focus on hydroelectric power could increase consumptive losses through evaporation (Srinivasan et al., 2018). Macknick et al. (2012) also highlight that water consumption can increase in several low-carbon scenarios due to increased deployment of nuclear facilities and coal and gas facilities with carbon capture and storage. Meanwhile, Wan et al. (2016) and Konadu et al. (2015) highlight the complementarity of low-carbon options as a strong driver for reducing water consumption and thereby water stress (Konadu et al., 2015; Wan et al., 2016). Chaturvedi et al. (2020), in their analyses of water withdrawal and consumption intensities of different power-generating technologies, note that bioenergy requires more water (in the range of 4.35 m3/MWh) than coal using cooling towers (3.8 m3/MWh). Therefore, water availability is touted to affect the extent to which bioenergy can contribute to the overall energy mix (Gheewala et al., 2011). 6.3.2

High-Capacity Power Projects like Ultra-Mega Power Projects and Large Hydro Projects

The GoI through the Ministry of Power launched Ultra-Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) in November 2005 as part of their “Power for All by 2022” program. These power projects of 4,000 MW capacity with super thermal (both pit head and imported coal based) were launched with the objective to develop large-capacity power projects in India and to deliver power at “competitive rates” (Sharda and Buckley, 2016; Ministry of Power, 2020b). These UMPPs use super-critical technology with a view to achieve higher thermal efficiency, which would result in fuel saving and lower greenhouse gas emissions. While the success of these projects remains a question with several projects being cancelled, these projects were seen to be a good alternative, especially in drought-prone areas and where availability of clean water is a predominant issue. Because of the large capacity of these projects, they are able to supply power to a large area, at times to several states. For instance, a functional UMPP in Mundra, Kutch supplies power to five states – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana. These plants use seawater through a desalination process in a once-through cooling system (Power Technology, 2020). Another crucial high-capacity initiative under the GoI’s purview is large hydroelectric projects. The hydropower potential of India is around 145 000 MW (excluding small hydro projects) and at 60 percent load factor, it can meet the demand of around 85 000 MW (Ministry of Power, 2020a). As of July 2020, installed capacity was about 45 700 MW. India’s hydropower potential is located mainly in the northern and north-eastern regions. Arunachal Pradesh has the largest unexploited hydropower potential of 47 GW, followed by Uttarakhand with 12

102  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus GW (Ministry of Power, 2020a; Verma, 2020). Due to the possibility of storing large quantities of water in its reservoirs, hydropower has the unique ability of restarting quickly thereby making it a good choice to meet peak load in the grid (Ministry of Power, 2020a). However, hydropower projects in India are saddled with a number of issues. With implementation issues related to acquisition of land, obtaining government approvals, particularly environmental and forest clearances, rehabilitation and resettlement of local habitats or population and availability of associated infrastructure development, the projects are faced with a whole range of financing and viability issues. There are also concerns regarding emissions from the reservoirs. While smaller run-of-the-river plants emit between 0.004 and 0.013 kg of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour, life-cycle global warming emissions from hydroelectric plants built in tropical areas (like in India) or temperate peatlands are much higher. After the area is flooded, the vegetation and soil in these areas decomposes and releases both CO2 and methane. While the exact amount of emissions depends greatly on site-specific characteristics, current estimates suggest that life-cycle emissions can be over 0.22 kg of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2013). Quite controversially, the GoI in early 2019, in an attempt to boost hydropower generation, approved renewable energy status to large hydropower thereby opening up avenues for newer funding mechanisms that could enable competitive tariffs for hydropower in India (Press Trust of India, 2019). 6.3.3

Adoption of Water-Efficient Cooling Technologies: Cooling Towers and Dry-Cooling Technology

The Central Electricity Authority noted that water use in old TPPs with cooling towers was as high as 7 m3/MWh without ash water recirculation and 5 m3/MWh with ash water recirculation (CEA, 2012). With improved technology, this has reduced significantly; Chaturvedi et al. (2020) find that average freshwater withdrawal in cooling tower-based sub-critical coal-based TPPs is 3.8 m3/MWh, as of 2014. Once-through cooling-based TPPs, on the other hand, have water withdrawals as high as 216 m3/MWh. In recognition of the problem of water scarcity in power generation, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in December 2015 (revised in 2018) issued an amended gazette notification which mandated that the existing TPPs should limit their specific water consumption to 3.5 m3/MWh by December 2017, while the plants commissioned after January 2017 should have a maximum water consumption of 3 m3/MWh. Moreover, they also directed TPPs to install closed-cycle recirculating-type cooling towers instead of once-through cooling systems with a specific water consumption limit on TPPs (Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, 2015, 2018). Srinivasan et. al. (2018) and Chaturvedi et al. (2020) studied the impact of this policy and found that significant reductions in water withdrawals can be achieved through the implementation of water-saving cooling technologies, as mandated by the GoI. In 2050, by completely phasing out once-through cooling technologies and the reduction of water consumption, India may reduce average water withdrawals to just 12–18 bcm, which is only 5 percent of withdrawals in 2010. Even if 50 percent of the power plants convert to cooling towers, water consumption could decrease by 7–28 percent from the baseline in 2050 and water withdrawals by 40–67 percent (Srinivasan et al., 2018; Chaturvedi et al., 2020). Another novel water-efficient technology for cooling – dry-cooling technology or air-cooled condensers – could have a significant reduction on water withdrawals. Dry cooling could result in zero water withdrawals, while water consumption could reduce to 0–5 percent

Exploring policy coherence in India’s electricity-water nexus  103 of cooling towers. However, this comes with a cost. Dry-cooling technology reduces the power production by 7–8 percent, and could also have other trade-offs like higher capital costs and lower plant efficiency (IEA, 2012; Zhang et al., 2014). Due to these trade-offs, dry-cooling systems are still not widely preferred. TPPs have been known to use dry-cooling systems only in situations of acute shortages of water. The earliest development of this technology started in Germany in the late 1930s and large-scale commercialization began in the early 2000s when a new generation of direct air cooling became popular. Currently, the use of this technology is limited to only a few countries. Eskom, which is a state-owned electricity-generating utility in South Africa committed to implementing innovative ways of reducing water use in TPPs, has both the largest direct dry-cooled and the largest indirect dry-cooled power stations in the world, in Matimba and Kendal, respectively. Both stations consume about 0.1 liters of water per unit of electricity produced (IBP Inc., 2014; Eskom, 2017). In China, 12–14 percent of total installed power capacity is based on dry-cooling technology, mainly spread in the northern region of China which is a water-scarce region. China has a huge power-generation capacity and its share of dry cooling is bound to increase in the future. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, SPX has the largest installed base worldwide, with air-cooled steam condensers installed in over 200 power plants representing in excess of 130 GW of global installed power-generation capacity. In India, the idea of dry-cooling installations, especially in areas with acute water stress, is recognized and its feasibility explored (CEA, 2012, 2014). Some small combined cycle plants, captive power plants and industrial units have already been provided with air-cooled condensers. 6.3.4

Use of Alternative Water Sources for Cooling in Thermal Power Plants

The use of wastewater for cooling in TPPs can be seen as an alternative option to move away from freshwater sources. Currently, 62 percent of the municipal sewage generated is left untreated. In January 2016, GoI’s Ministry of Power notified that TPPs located within a 50 km radius of sewage treatment plants of municipality/local bodies/similar organizations should mandatorily use treated sewage water produced by these bodies. The notification also stated that associated cost on this account should be factored into the fixed cost (Ministry of Power, 2016). In terms of cost, Sugam et al. (2017) found that direct benefits through recovered resources from wastewater could make an economically attractive case for practitioners to adopt circular economy pathways to manage wastewater. The cost of supplying treated wastewater was seen to be substantially lower than what Indian cities currently pay for freshwater for industrial use. While this policy was seen as an important precedent to finding alternative sources for cooling, a study found that only 8 percent of all coal plants in India would be able to completely meet their water needs in this way, while 5 percent of plants can only partially satisfy their water needs through treated sewage. The rest, almost 87 percent of TPPs, cannot follow the policy because they have no access to treated sewage water (Purvis, 2017). Seawater, as a coolant, constitutes roughly 16 percent of India’s coal-based thermal generation capacity, 17 percent of gas-based TPPs and almost half of nuclear-based TPPs (Chaturvedi et al., 2020). The use of seawater in UMPPs for high-capacity power generation supports the use of scarce freshwater for other productive purposes. However, it is critical to note that a small amount of evaporation occurs off-site due to the water being a few degrees warmer. In case of once-through cooling (which is mostly employed when seawater is used)

104  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus the impact upon organisms in the aquatic environment, particularly fish and crustaceans, is high. This increase in temperature of discharge water both kills due to impingement (trapping of larger fish on screens) and entrainment (drawing of smaller fish, eggs and larvae through cooling systems) and also changes ecosystem conditions. 6.3.5

Land Acquisition for Power Based on Water Availability

India’s energy production is highly dependent on freshwater, making power generation vulnerable to water stress. A study by the World Resources Institute in 2018 found that among all of India’s freshwater-cooled thermal utilities, 39 percent of the capacity is installed in high water-stress regions (Luo et al., 2018). The study also notes that different regions or states in India have different priorities when it comes to determining their cooling technologies for power projects. In Gujarat, which is very dry with long coastlines and has an abundance of seawater, once-through cooling is used more extensively. In contrast, West Bengal is much more water abundant, thus freshwater once-through plants are more feasible. Land requirements for thermal power projects depend on many factors like unit size and number of units; type of coal (indigenous or imported); location (pit head or coastal), etc. However, cognizance to site-specific issues like water storage capacity depend on sources of water and its availability also determines the land requirements (CEA, 2010). Land acquisition for power plants requires the availability of a water source within 10 to 15 km that can supply yearly water requirements (MarcepInc, 2018). However, in spite of such checks and balances, uncertainty of water stress has created problems for power plants. States in India have also started making major decisions to move away from coal. The states of Gujarat and Chhattisgarh made major announcements in late 2019 when they declared that no new coal power plants would be given permission (Sarkar, 2017). According to a report by Climate Trends, states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Rajasthan are also in a position to declare a “no new coal” policy due to high renewable energy potential. All these states currently have high thermal coal capacity (Climate Trends, 2019). 6.3.6

Adoption of Pollution-Control Measures

Along with specifying water use norms, the 2015 Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change notification also amended existing norms related to emissions of suspended particulate matter and introduced new norms for emissions of SOx, NOx and Mercury from TPPs (CEA, 2018). These reforms were brought about to bring down GHG emissions. Compliance with the new emission norms required retrofitting existing TPPs with auxiliaries such as flue gas desulfurization, selective catalytic reduction, electrostatic precipitation systems, etc. by 2022 (FICCI, 2019). Flue gas desulfurization is a process in which Sulphur compounds are removed from the exhaust emissions of fossil-fueled power stations. This is done by means of an industrial process through the addition of absorbents. While these measures are progressive and necessary, implementation is riddled with technology constraints, availability of limestone and water consumption, requirements of additional capital expenditures, total costs of operations and space constraints, among others.

Exploring policy coherence in India’s electricity-water nexus  105 6.3.7

Adoption of Super-Critical Technology

Most of the older TPPs operated on sub-critical technology. With the need to make greater efficiency gains, Indian TPPs are transitioning to super-critical and ultra-critical technology. A boiler operating at a pressure above critical point is called a “super-critical boiler.” Super-critical technology brings about reduced emissions for each KWh of electricity generated, with each 1 percent rise in efficiency contributing to a 2–3 percent reduction in CO2 emissions. The transition is one of the most economical ways of enhancing efficiency. Super-critical technology also generates fuel cost savings and is therefore an economic solution. This technology also leads to operational flexibility and requires smaller boiler size per MW (EEC Power India, n.d.).

6.4

EXAMINING POLICY COHERENCE FOR INDIA’S ELECTRICITY AND WATER NEXUS

As explained in the previous section, we identified 12 policy solutions across the electricity sector (seven policy solutions) and its related water use (five policy solutions) that are being discussed and implemented in India. For each of these solutions, we identified their major policy objectives. Through our review, we narrowed down on eight policy objectives (five for energy and three for water) which are critical across the range of policy solutions. Table 6.1 outlines the policy solutions and their objectives. It is important to note that these objectives may have overlaps with other solutions. For instance, an additional objective behind the adoption of RES solutions is not only to achieve India’s national goal but also to reduce GHG emissions and shift to a low-carbon economy. However, we selected only the major policy objective behind each solution. We then assigned policy objective codes for each policy objective. In order to study the interactions between each of these policy objectives, we developed a cross-matrix where each policy objective was mapped against each objective and assigned a score based on Nilsson et al.’s (2016) goal-scoring scale (range from −3 to +3). The main considerations while studying the objective–objective interactions was whether action on the first objective affects the other objective. This was based on the question “How does progress on the first objective (row) influence progress on the second (column)?” To answer the question, two issues were explored: (a) whether the interaction between two objectives was negative or positive and (b) the degree of interaction according to the values of the seven-point scale, as proposed by Papadopoulou et al. (2020). The considerations cross corresponding policy solutions, as well as involving solutions where these objectives appear as secondary. The results of the scoring are presented in an impact matrix (Table 6.2). Each cell of the matrix denotes the type of interaction between two objectives including the respective value. Negative values indicate divergences while positive values indicate convergences. The total influence that an objective (row) exerts on all other objectives is defined by the row sum. The column sum indicates the total influence that an objective receives from the rest. OB1–OB5 are policy objectives related to the energy sector, and OB6–OB8 are policy objectives related to the water sector. Overall, we saw that the majority of interactions are positive (indivisible, reinforcing, enabling), indicating that progress on most of the objectives affects progress on the other

106  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Table 6.1

Policy solutions and objectives for understanding nexus relations

Nexus

Policy objective code and major policy objectives

sector

for corresponding solutions

Policy solutions

Secondary objectives for corresponding solutions

OB1 – Achievement of national goal for increasing

Adoption of solar and wind power

OB3, OB4, OB5, OB6, OB7, OB8

RES penetration (175 GW RES of which 100 GW is solar)

Energy

OB2 – Exploiting the potential of water resources

Large hydroa

OB5, OB8

OB3 – Providing power at competitive prices

Ultra-mega power projects

OB4, OB5, OB8

OB4 – Reduction in GHG emissions and shift towards

Nuclear power plants

OB5

a low-carbon pathway

Adoption of flue gas

None

desulfurization OB5 – Promoting efficient use of energy

Bioenergy

OB1, OB5, OB6

Adoption of super-critical

OB4

technology OB6 – Promoting water efficiency

Adoption of cooling towers for

OB7, OB8

thermal power plants Adoption of dry-cooling

OB7, OB8

technology for thermal power plants Water

OB7 – Reduction in water pollution

Use of treated wastewater for

OB8

power production OB8 – Promoting sustainable and productive water

Land acquisition for power based

use for energy

on water availability Use of seawater for power

OB1, OB2, OB6 OB2, OB6

production a Note: In early 2019, the Government of India declared large hydroelectric power as renewable. However, the Central Electricity Authority in their reporting of installed capacity still considers large hydro as a separate category. In this analysis, we do not consider large hydro as RES, keeping in mind the controversial nature of the move and for consistency with global thought.

objectives positively. Objectives within energy are mostly positive, indicating a complementary nature, while objectives within water are all positive. Several cross-sectoral interactions are positive indicating synergy, while a few are negative (constraining, counteracting and canceling), indicating clashes. An example of canceling policy objectives is large hydro and its effect on GHG emissions (OB2-OB4). This is because reservoirs from large hydropower release significant GHGs. Similarly, OB6-OB4 shows a counteracting interaction as adoption of water-efficient technologies for thermal power like cooling towers and dry cooling could have higher emission effects. Several indivisible positive interactions exist for India’s electricity-water nexus. For instance, the adoption of solar and wind will lead to lower GHG emissions, higher water and energy efficiency (OB1-OB4, OB1-OB5, OB1-OB6). The objective to achieve higher RES penetration (OB1) therefore also exerts the most positive influence (row sum 15). This is followed by “Promoting sustainable and productive water use for energy – OB8” (row sum 11) and “Reduction in GHG emissions and shift towards a low-carbon pathway – OB4” (row sum 9). The objective exerting the least positive influence is “exploiting the potential of water resources – OB2” (row sum −2), followed by “Providing power at competitive prices – OB3” (row sum 0), “reduction in water pollution – OB7” (row sum 0) and “promoting water-efficiency – OB6” (row sum 1).

Exploring policy coherence in India’s electricity-water nexus  107 Table 6.2

Impact matrix for examining nexus policy coherence

 

OB1

OB2

OB3

OB4

OB5

OB6

OB7

OB8

OB1

NA

0

+2

+3

+3

+3

+1

+3

Row sum 15

OB2

0

NA

−1

−3

+2

−2

0

+2

−2 0

OB3

+2

−1

NA

+1

+1

0

−2

−1

OB4

+1

0

+2

NA

+3

+1

+1

+1

9

OB5

+1

0

0

+3

NA

+1

+1

+1

7

OB6

0

0

0

−2

−2

NA

+2

+3

1

OB7

0

0

0

0

0

0

NA

0

0

OB8

+1

+2

+2

0

0

+3

+3

NA

11

Column sum

5

1

5

2

7

6

6

9

Source: authors.

 

Authors’ analysis. Further details, including the rationale behind each interaction, are available from the

A high column sum indicates the degree to which an objective is influenced by the rest. In our analysis, “Promoting sustainable and productive water use for energy – OB8” (column sum 9) is most positively affected by other objectives. This is followed by “Promoting efficient use of energy – OB5” (column sum 7) and “Promoting water efficiency – OB6” and “Reduction in water pollution – OB7” (column sum 6). On the other hand, “exploiting the potential of water resources – OB2” is influenced the least by other policy objectives. Therefore, OB8 “Promoting sustainable and productive water use for energy” both exerts influence on others and also is influenced by the rest. All in all, even though India has not consciously and rigorously adopted the nexus approach for their water and electricity sector, there has been some progress with regard to this. The adoption of for example renewable energy has a positive influence on both the energy and water sectors. Going forward, India’s policymakers will have to take note of nexus implications more consciously to avert crisis for either sectors.

6.5 CONCLUSIONS Water and energy are two key resources necessary for achieving development objectives and ensuring that an economy achieves its full growth potential and minimizes resource conflict. Historically, in India and many other parts of the world, these two resources have been managed in silos. Increasingly, however, it is becoming clear that the historical approach to the management of these resources overlooks the strong interlinkages which lead to unintended and often undesirable consequences. India’s electricity sector and the water demands from this sector are a case in point. Most of the earlier power plants in India were based on once-through technology, which is a water guzzler, despite the fact that most parts of India have been water stressed for a long time. Moreover, the growth in India’s electricity generation is expected to be very high, given a rapidly growing economy and a low per capita electricity consumption base, which is expected to further exacerbate the pressure on India’s water resources. The GoI has taken cognizance of this critical issue and issued a directive to minimize the water footprint of India’s growing electricity generation sector. Studies have shown the significant positive impact of this directive in the long run on India’s electricity generation-related water demands.

108  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Within this context of India’s rapidly growing electricity generation and associated water demands, we examine the nexus implications of different associated policy objectives. The nexus thinking for this linkage is fairly recent in India. The governance for nexus approach, which calls for coherence among interdependent sectors like electricity and water, is largely inconsistent in India. Policy coherence is an approach which helps foster synergies across economic, social and environmental policy areas, identify trade-offs and reconcile domestic policy objectives with internationally agreed objectives and address the spill-overs of domestic policies. We use a framework that identifies seven possible interactions from the most positive (+3) and most negative (−3) impacts of climate policy to understand the extent of policy coherence in the electricity production and water resource sectors of India. The most positive score implies an indivisible linkage such that one policy goal is inextricably linked to the achievement of another goal, while the most negative score implies a linkage that makes it impossible to reach another goal. Using such a policy framework, we examine the interlinkages between eight different policy objectives – five in the energy sector and three in the water sector. The policy solutions are the adoption of solar and wind power, large hydro, UMPP, nuclear power plants and bioenergy, super-critical technology, dry-cooling and water-efficient cooling towers, wastewater use for power plants and use of seawater along with land acquisition based on water availability. The various policy objectives that these solutions aim to achieve range from the diversification of energy mix to a reduction in GHG emissions to promoting sustainable and productive uses of water. In order to study the interactions between each of these policy objectives, we present a cross-matrix where each policy objective is mapped against each objective and scores are assigned. We find that the majority of the interactions are positive (indivisible, reinforcing, enabling), indicating that progress on most of the objectives affects progress on the other objectives positively. However, some interactions are also constraining, counteracting and canceling. We find that the nexus impact of policies promoting solar and wind is most positive, while that of hydropower is negative. On the objectives that are influenced the most by other objectives, promoting sustainable and productive water use for energy is most positively affected by the other objectives. The matrix presented essentially gives a sense of trade-offs and synergies and the magnitudes of the same across key policy solutions and objectives. This information will help us in digging deep and finding ways to address the trade-offs and strengthening the synergies. While digging deep in each of these individually would require much more space and hence is outside the scope of this analysis, we present the framework to elucidate how one can approach the various elements of the nexus framing to think deeply about the various nexus elements and their interlinkages, and ultimately achieve the desired policy coherence required to attain the SDGs.

NOTES 1. Water shortage refers to the impact of low water availability per person. 2. Renewable energy sources include small hydro projects, biomass gasifiers, biomass power, urban and industrial waste power, solar and wind energy.

Exploring policy coherence in India’s electricity-water nexus  109

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7. A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept Christos Makropoulos, Sandra Casas Garriga, Anne Kleyböcker, Charles-Xavier Sockeel, Clara Plata Rios, Heather Smith and Jos Frijns

7.1

INTRODUCTION: CIRCULAR ECONOMY – WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

The notion of a circular economy (CE) has emerged in response to the drawbacks of conventional ‘take, make, consume and dispose’ models of growth, focusing on positive society-wide benefits. A CE keeps the value of products, materials and resources in use as long as possible, maximising their utility and minimising waste. Transition to a CE requires changes throughout whole value chains, from product design to new business and market models, from alternative ways of turning waste into a resource to drastic changes in consumer behaviour. In 2014, the European Commission adopted the Communication Paper ‘Towards a circular economy: A zero waste programme for Europe’ with the aim to establish a common and coherent European Union (EU) framework for promoting a CE (European Commission, 2014). In this context, CE approaches involve innovation throughout the value chain by reducing the quantity of materials required to deliver a particular service (light-weighting); lengthening products’ useful life (durability); reducing the use of energy in production and use phases (efficiency); incentivising and supporting waste reduction and high-quality separation by consumers (incentives); encouraging wider and better consumer choice; and so on. Since the use of water underpins most, if not all, industrial sectors and is at the heart of the water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) nexus, all sections of society and industry could in principle identify opportunities to create additional value by transitioning to a water-sensitive CE. We argue that such a transition should not limit itself to minor adjustments aimed at reducing the negative impacts of a linear economy (e.g., to the environment). It should rather represent a systemic shift that builds long-term resilience, generates business and economic opportunities and provides environmental and societal benefits. To steer this transition, it is important to set targets. Even though recent studies (Morseletto, 2020) have investigated both existing and new CE targets in a more systematic way, proposing a framework based on 10 common CE strategies (recover, recycling, repurpose, remanufacture, refurbish, repair, reuse, reduce, rethink, refuse), one can remark that circularity is still poorly defined and generally not adequately quantified. New targets are needed because existing ones only point towards a limited set of issues (for example, recycling, efficiency, improvement) and as such only cover limited arrays of CE solutions, such as recycling or efficiency (Ranta et al., 2018; Bjørn et al., 2017; Milios, 2016). Furthermore, targets are rarely analysed from a governance perspective. Governance targets help actors move forward from

113 Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

114  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus an existing state, while promoting a pragmatic view on what to reach. We further discuss this issue in Section 7.6. A CE toolbox, that could be used to reassess existing targets as well as evaluate and expand new targets for the transition to a CE would help reach higher circularity. An approach towards a toolbox and examples of such tools are discussed in Section 7.3. Empirical cases are also useful to verify simulations, assess the necessity of adjustments, fine-tune and re-elaborate targets. In this chapter we present a few examples of such real-world demonstrators of CE solutions for water (see Section 7.3). We further argue that beyond innovation (technological and analytics) an ‘economy’ is in need of a marketplace, where demand for CE products, solutions and services is met with corresponding supply. We discuss the key characteristics of such a marketplace in Section 7.5. In Section 7.2 we further discuss the relevance and direct connection of the CE with the subject matter of this book: that of the WEFE nexus.

7.2

CIRCULAR VERSUS NEXUS – WHAT’S IN A GEOMETRY?

The circular concept suggests a system where products and services are traded in closed cycles with the aim to retain as much value of resources and materials as possible. In turn, the nexus approach examines the interrelatedness and interdependencies of environmental resources and their transitions and fluxes across spatial scales and between compartments. In this section, a comparison of these two conceptual frameworks is attempted, in order to highlight links and synergies between them and argue for the need of more nexus-oriented thinking in delivering a circular economy. It could be argued that both nexus thinking as well as the concept of the CE first emerged in the 1980s with pioneers like Ad Lansink presenting his famous waste hierarchy ‘ladder’ in the Dutch parliament in 1980, while at the same time, the United Nations University was introducing its Food-Energy Nexus programme – the first of its kind (Sachs and Silk, 1990). Yet the nexus approach only gained real attention during the Bonn 2011 Conference on the ‘Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus’, where it was argued that such an approach can result in improved water, energy and food security by integrating ‘management and governance across sectors and scales’, reducing trade-offs and building synergies, overall promoting sustainability and a transition to a green economy (Hoff, 2011). CE started gaining more attention even later than that: in 2013 a report entitled ‘Towards the circular economy: Economic and business rationale for an accelerated transition’ by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation was released. This seminal report was the first of its kind to really consider the economic and business opportunity for the transition to a restorative circular model. In 2018, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation applied its CE principles to water systems advocating the following measures: avoid use, reduce use, reuse, recycle and replenish water (Tahir et al., 2018). Despite the wide literature on the two concepts individually, there is a lack of scientific articles explicitly promoting the use of CE principles and models to support WEF nexus reduction strategies. As illustrated in Del Borghi et al. (2020), CE principles, with the support of tools based on a life-cycle approach, can be applied to truly understand the interconnections within a nexus context.

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept  115 In fact, the proximity between the CE and the nexus as conceptual frameworks became evident relatively recently, when nexus thinking started to appreciate the importance of ‘waste’ (as a resource and flux). In general, waste is generated during the production, processing as well as the consumption of other resources. What was not immediately apparent at the beginning of the nexus conceptual journey is that waste produced by one resource could become raw material for another process within another resource sector (for example, resources recovered during the treatment of municipal wastewater could become market-grade fertilisers for agriculture (Kehrein et al., 2020)). Thus, ‘waste’ provided an excellent link between nexus thinking and the CE, whose whole philosophy is based on the importance of waste (re)utilisation. On the other hand, the basic conceptual framework of the nexus approach, that of looking at complex systems as a whole, with special attention to interactions and cascading effects, is a valuable framework to investigate opportunities and to manage challenges when rewiring the economy in a more circular fashion. Given the increasing connectivity between different sectors that a CE approach implies, the nexus perspective helps move beyond silos that preclude interdisciplinary solutions, thus increasing opportunities for mutually beneficial responses, building synergies across sectors and enhancing the potential for cooperation between and among sectors – a basic tenet of the CE. As such, we argue that the nexus perspective increases the understanding of interdependencies across the water, energy, food and environment sectors and hence the opportunities from redesigning these interdependencies in a CE context. An ongoing discussion is also taking place on how to best transfer these concepts from a theoretical framework into an integrated applicable approach and policy (Del Borghi et al., 2020). Within a nexus-based approach, adaptation to climate change as well as transition to resource efficiency, underpinned by greater policy coherence, can be better designed and implemented since a deeper understanding of interlinked systems is gained from the early stages of planning in a holistic manner. By embracing CE principles and supporting technological innovation, the linear model that assumes that resources are abundant, available and cheap to dispose of is abandoned and instead the focus shifts on preserving natural capital, increasing security of supply of scarce resources and reducing energy requirements by improving system efficiency. This closing of the loop leads, in turn, to a tighter nexus, adding interconnections that improve autonomy and resilience at the whole system level (Μakropoulos et al., 2018a). Public engagement and involvement of stakeholders is another area where these two concepts meet: the nexus approach allows decision makers to develop appropriate policies, strategies and investments, to explore and exploit synergies and to identify and mitigate trade-offs among the development goals related to water, energy and food security. A true nexus approach can only be achieved through close collaboration of all actors from all sectors. Europe is arguably at the leading edge of both conceptual frameworks and yet still significant challenges remain: an enabling framework that uses smart regulations, market-based instruments to practically adopt CE solutions, research and innovation incentives as well as information exchange and support of governance strategies are all steps in the right direction. In the following sections we will look into several aspects that underpin a transition towards a water-sensitive CE enriched with examples from state-of-the-art European research.

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Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

116  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

7.3

CE AS A CATALYST FOR INNOVATION

Shifting to a CE from the current linear model implies redesigning products, services and business models to minimise waste and to extend the value of products and materials. This new paradigm requires innovation to provide the necessary technological development as well as business development to catalyse the shift. Water is essential for survival and well-being and plays a significant role in sustainable development. If we continue our business as usual in freshwater consumption, the global demand for freshwater might exceed our viable resources by 40 per cent in 2030 (Tahir et al., 2018). Water reuse and recovery of embedded valuable products and energy are interesting options to achieve a more sustainable water management in the future. Thus, actions related to demonstrating and establishing CE strategies in the water sector based on these recoveries are of significant relevance and are being promoted through different innovations and initiatives. The NextGen initiative (www​.nextgenwater​ .eu) evaluates and champions innovative and transformational CE solutions and systems that challenge embedded thinking and practices around resource use in the water sector. NextGen is used as a catalyst to innovate strategies in water management and to promote circularity in the water sector. Ten demo cases all over Europe are being placed in this EU H2020 project, demonstrating different technological and management solutions to recover water, energy and materials from wastewater. 7.3.1

Transformational Circular Economy Innovative Solutions for the Water Sector

The CE transition encompasses a wide range of water-embedded resources: ● water itself: reuse at multiple scales supported by nature-based storage, optimal management strategies, advanced treatment technologies, engineered ecosystems and compact/ mobile/scalable systems. ● energy: combined water-energy management, treatment plants as energy factories, water-enabled heat transfer, storage and recovery for allied industries and commercial sectors. ● materials: nutrient mining and reuse, manufacturing new products from waste streams, regenerating and repurposing membranes to reduce water reuse costs and producing activated carbon from sludge to minimise costs of micropollutant removal. Services related to water can be clustered into three themes – water use as well as energy and materials recovery, as illustrated in Figure 7.1. Here the nexus between water, material/ nutrients and energy and its connection to other sectors such as agriculture, industry, housing and the energy sector are shown. Potential fields of application for CE solutions are described. Wastewater is a renewable source for ‘fit-for-purpose’ recycled water, but it also contains valuable nutrients, other materials and energy that can be recovered via various technologies. Typical nutrients in wastewater are nitrogen and phosphorus, which can be recovered as mineral salts such as struvite or as liquids such as ammonium sulphate solution. Depending on the source of the wastewater, high added-value products, certain minerals and/or sulphur can also be recovered. Those products are either reused in industry or agriculture. Pre-treated wastewater can even be used to grow purple bacteria and microalgae serving as a fodder additive.

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept  117

Source:

https://​nextgenwater​.eu/​.

Figure 7.1

The nexus between water, material and energy in the water sector showing options to apply circular economy technologies

Energy is contained in the wastewater in two forms: thermal energy and chemically bound energy in the form of biomass. From the organic content of the wastewater, biogas can be produced and utilised to supply energy for water treatment or other sectors. Another option is to recover low-grade heat from warm wastewater via heat exchangers and heat pumps. Furthermore, waste heat from horticulture and industry can be stored in the subsurface in an aquifer thermal energy storage and is recovered when it is needed. Besides wastewater as a source for water recovery, various technologies exist for a sustainable management of water such as for rainwater harvesting, surface water management and

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

118  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus groundwater recharging. The different types of water can be treated with various technologies until its required water quality is reached. 7.3.2

Innovative Circular Showcases

Innovations covering the water-energy-material nexus are being demonstrated at Spernal Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) in the United Kingdom by Cranfield University and Severn Trent within the NextGen initiative. Spernal WWTP is the home of Severn Trent’s Resource Recovery and Innovation Centre, built in 2020. This purpose-built facility has been designed to undertake large-scale wastewater demonstration trials. It is focused on developing and validating technologies and processes that will enable Severn Trent and the wider sector to transition from linear-based treatment designs to a more CE approach. Opportunities to recover energy, materials and water from wastewater will be maximised by demonstration at this facility. The Centre will incorporate an anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) with a capacity of up to 500 m3/d to treat urban wastewater, aiming to recover biogas and produce effluent suitable for nutrient recovery or potentially for reuse (Figure 7.2). The AnMBR is expected to be fully operational by summer 2021. AnMBR combines several benefits such as: no aeration energy for removal of chemical and biochemical oxygen demand, low sludge production and associated treatment efforts, biogas production (production of electricity/heat), pathogen and solids-free effluent which can be reused in a number of applications (for example farming and

Source:

Published with the permission of Severn Trent.

Figure 7.2

Units of the AnMBR being installed in Severn’s Trent Resource Recovery and Innovation Center, United Kingdom

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept  119 industrial use) (Dvořák et al., 2016). Although AnMBRs have been applied at industrial scale in some countries with mild temperatures (for example in South America), this configuration will be challenged at Spernal WWTP due to the minimum temperature of the inlet flows (as low as 10 °C) as is typical in northern European countries. Additionally, in order to maximise energy recovery, a membrane degassing unit will be installed to recover dissolved methane. An estimated average production of 11m3 CH4/d with a peak of 33m3 CH4/d is expected with 90 per cent chemical oxygen demand removal. Nutrient recovery from the treated effluent will be demonstrated via adsorption in a 10 m3/d pilot containing zeolites and ion exchange resins. Nitrogen will be adsorbed into zeolite columns and recovered from the regenerant effluent with stripping and membrane processes. Ammonia solution at 3–5 per cent or ammonium sulphate will be recovered as fertilisers. Phosphorus will be absorbed onto a hybrid anion exchange column and will be recovered from the spent regenerant by precipitation with CaOH. More than 0.22 Kg N/d and 0.03 kg P/d are expected to be recovered for local use. In Germany, the wastewater association Abwasserverband Braunschweig uses the nexus between water, energy and nutrients to recover biogas and secondary fertilisers from sewage sludge (Remy, 2012). The CE solutions are implemented at a municipal wastewater treatment plant for 350,000 population equivalents. In the mainline, the plant has primary and secondary treatments including nitrification, denitrification and enhanced biological phosphorus removal. Until 2019, the primary and excess sludge were digested as mixed sludge in three one-stage digesters. In 2019, the one-stage digestion system was changed to a two-stage digestion system consisting of one digester in the first stage and two digesters in the second stage. Between the two stages, a thermal pressure hydrolysis process (THP) was implemented (Figure 7.3), resulting in a digestion-lysis-digestion setup. Due to high temperatures between 130 °C and 180 °C during the THP and a rapid decompression from 6 bar to 0.2 bar, microbial cell walls of the waste-activated sludge are destroyed. Hence, the THP breaks down complex organic carbon compounds into soluble compounds and increases the substrate availability for anaerobic biodegradation. In the subsequent anaerobic digesters, micro-organisms degrade those soluble compounds resulting in an increase in the methane yield of about 15–25 per cent compared to one-stage anaerobic digestion without THP. The disintegration process in the THP enhances the performance of the anaerobic digestion process also resulting in a higher ammonium and phosphate release into the liquid phase. Due to the accumulation of ammonium and phosphate, the resulting liquor of the sludge-dewatering process is suitable for a subsequent nutrient recovery such as ammonium stripping or struvite production. Phosphate can be recovered in the form of struvite or more precisely magnesium ammonium phosphate (MgNH4PO4*6H2O). It is a slow release fertiliser (Kratz et al., 2019) and all three nutrients are as available for plants as from mineral fertilisers (Watson et al., 2019). Struvite is recovered from the phosphate and ammonium-rich liquor resulting from the sludge-dewatering process. To enable struvite precipitation, the pH has to be increased over 8 via CO2 stripping and an optional NaOH dosing. To induce struvite precipitation, MgCl2 is added as a magnesium source. This takes place in a reaction tank that is operated as a continuously stirred tank reactor. Crystal growth is promoted by mixing, sufficient retention time, optimal stoichiometric conditions and recirculation of formed microcrystals. As a last step, struvite is separated in a settling tank in the form of larger crystals. Then, the struvite is dried and processed, before it can be applied as a fertiliser.

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Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

120  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Source:

Published with the permission of KWB.

Figure 7.3

Units of the nutrient recovery system at the WWTP in Braunschweig: thermal pressure hydrolysis, struvite recovery unit and ammonium sulphate recovery unit; (top) thermal pressure hydrolysis, (left) struvite recovery and (right) ammonium sulphate recovery

The resulting liquor after the struvite recovery unit is still rich in ammonium, so that a second fertiliser is produced in the form of ammonium sulphate solution. Ammonium sulphate solution is a valuable nitrogen fertiliser (Szymańska et al., 2019). In an air-stripping unit, the ammoniacal nitrogen is stripped as ammonia gas at a temperature between 55 °C and 65 °C and a pH over 9, which is achieved by NaOH dosing. Subsequently, the ammonia

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

Christos Makropoulos

UWOT model for Athens Plant Nursery Figure 7.4

Source:

Published with the permission of NTUA.

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept  121

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

122  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus gas is scrubbed in sulfuric acid and reacts to ammonium sulphate solution. The ammonia-free air is reused and reinjected in the air stripper to recover heat. The ratio of air flow to liquor flow is around 500 in this unit. With both struvite precipitation and ammonia stripping, the Braunschweig scheme targets to recover around 35 t of phosphorus in the form of struvite and 180 t of nitrogen as ammonium sulphate per year. Not only novel treatment technologies can catalyse the transition to the CE framework, but management tools also play a critical role. The Urban Water Optioneering Tool (UWOT) is a decision-support tool that simulates the urban water cycle and allows users to compare different water management technologies (including water saving, recycling, treatment and drainage) at different scales. UWOT provides a range of technology combinations and focuses on the optimisation of the planning and assessment of distributed interventions in the urban water cycle. UWOT is used to assess the water flows of the sewer mining setup in Athens Plant Nursery, an innovative wastewater recycling technology that is gradually increasing in popularity due to its high treatment efficiency and the limited space required for installation (Makropoulos et al., 2018b). This configuration produces treated water from wastewater extracted from the local sewers and reuses it at the point of demand. The UWOT model is primarily used to simulate, assess and optimise the water flows of the sewer mining setup with a capacity of 25 m3/day, which covers part of the irrigation needs of the plant nursery (Figure 7.4). This simulation requires data concerning the quality characteristics of the inflow, the wastewater supply (provided by EYDAP, Athens’ water supply and sewerage company), time series for rainfall and temperature for a specific period of time and an estimation of the irrigation needs. UWOT is also used to assess the upscaling potential of the sewer-mining technology as well as to stress test these interventions (in combination with more traditional infrastructure) by exploring the extent to which these circular water technologies improve the overall resilience of Athens to water stress. Further research is focusing on the economic viability of this technology and the proposed investment through cost-benefit analysis (Liakopoulou et al., 2020). The UWOT simulation and economic evaluation results suggest that this technology is a viable and profitable scheme and can be an interesting alternative to conventional water sources within the urban water cycle.

7.4

NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN A CE CONTEXT, SEEN THROUGH A NEXUS LENS

A business model describes the rationale of how an organisation creates, delivers and captures value, in economic, social, cultural and other contexts. Understanding how circular and nexus approaches are affecting traditional business models is a good starting point for studying the new business opportunities that can emerge. The linear approach of business models focuses only on the organisation. Circularity requires the design of new business models that are based on using few resources for as long as possible, while extracting as much value as possible in processes. Some similarities and differences can be noticed between circular and nexus approaches. The circular business model is focused on resources, while the nexus approach is more systemic by studying all system components.

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept  123 In the CE, organisations that are willing to adopt a circular model need to implement new types of business models by rethinking value propositions and developing value chains that offer feasible cost efficiency, production effectiveness and business performance. Achieving greater sustainability or circularity requires changes in the way companies generate value, understand and do business. This transition calls for a rethink of the traditional business models as well, to allow the decoupling of value creation and resource consumption. Circular business models focus on the resource by incorporating and optimising each step of the resource life cycle to reduce the resource inputs and waste and emission leakage out of the organisational system which can be illustrated by the triple layered business canvas (Joyce and Paquin, 2016). The circular business model considers the following strategies (Bocken et al., 2016; Geissdoerfer et al., 2018a, 2018b): ● Cycling: materials and energy are recycled within the system, through reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recycling. ● Extending resource loops: the use phase of the product is extended, through long-lasting and timeless design, marketing that encourages long-use phases, maintenance and repair. ● Intensifying resource loops: the use phase of the product is intensified through solutions such as the sharing economy or public transport. ● Dematerialising resource loops: provision of product utility without hardware through substitution with service and software solutions. Through this new approach, the CE can integrate externalities within its business models while the linear economy cannot. These business models consider synergies between sectors that have not yet had interdependencies, consistent with a nexus approach lens to sector interdependencies. As such, it can inspire new business opportunities considering all components within the value chain. New ways of collaboration between actors emerge and new deposits of sustainable resources can compete with traditional supply chains. We argue that the water sector could be a cornerstone for circular business as it represents a significant source of materials, nutrients and energy for other sectors. At this moment, various value chains have been developed on the recovery and use of materials and nutrients. In municipal wastewater plants, for example, crystallisation of struvite is often observed. This is a nuisance for operators, since uncontrolled crystallisation leads to blockage of pipes and thus interruptions of the treatment process. Deblocking is expensive, as are prevention measures. The high N-, Mg and particular P-content make this crystal interesting for use as a fertiliser. Struvite is a slow-dissolving crystal, making it interesting for slow-realising use (e.g. fruit trees) or for further processing into more specific fertilisers. Depending on the regional situation and possibilities, the struvite is used directly on farmland, mixed into rational fertiliser or used as a specially developed fertiliser (corn production). Thanks to struvite reactors that treat this nutrient, the struvite that was once an inconvenience is now a by-product that can be sold and create new business activities. STOWA (2016) estimates the market price of the struvite in Netherlands at €55 per tonne based on fertiliser prices and its content of mineral N, soluble P and Mg. In the WWTP of Braunschweig (350,000 PE, see Section 7.3.2), a new reactor has recently been implemented and the annual struvite production could generate a potential new turnover for the plant. In the same plant, ammonium sulphate is also recovered and has a potential market price from €90 to 120 per tonne. These new by-products could theoretically generate an annual turnover of around €210,000 per year to the plant. This is very promising even though treatment costs and stream

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

124  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus management costs still have to be applied to ensure quality and create a connection between production and demand. The example highlights how new CE thinking creates new value chains that link the water sector to agriculture and/or other operational third parties. Such value chains and resulting business opportunities should be studied with a circular model which adopts the nexus framework that advocates systemic and multi-actor approaches.

7.5

A MARKETPLACE FOR THE CE AS AN ENABLER FOR NEW BUSINESS AND SERVICES

More often than not, the focus of the debate around the CE is on the technologies and innovations that turn waste into resources. However, the existence of a supply of reused, CE products and services and an equivalent demand for such products and services do not ensure that there is a functioning economy. The CE, as with any other economy, also needs a place where suppliers of products and services can meet willing buyers – in other words, a marketplace. As in any other marketplace, a marketplace for the CE must be a place where demand meets (and matches) supply. Demands for a product or a service come with constraints such as price limits, quality standards and temporal or spatial constraints. Products and services can be offered in competition with each other to try and meet the demand. A well-organised marketplace can allow for a healthy competition that could reduce the cost of products and therefore allow them to become more widely adopted by end users. From the perspective of stakeholders, there are three key players in the CE that should be represented in such a marketplace: problem owners are often utilities, authorities or industries, seeking to find the best solution to turn linear processes within their organisation into circular ones, reducing waste and reusing resources. Such a problem owner may be seeking advice on appropriate technology or may be interested in identifying suitable partners with which to transfer, adjust or upscale. Looking at the CE marketplace as a place where demand meets supply for resources that can be reused, a problem owner can be a buyer as well as a supplier. The first group needs a product with specific characteristics (price, quantity, quality and so on) and the latter has unused resources, which often result as a by-product of their main production line that under certain conditions can be used in the CE, increasing the added value of the product. Solution providers are usually commercial entities, offering a technology or a service as part of a CE-enabling portfolio. A third group of key stakeholders is investors, seeking opportunities to maximise investment revenues. Next to the above key players, there are other stakeholders that may have an interest in participating in a marketplace, each of them from their own perspective, such as representatives of regulatory bodies, non-governmental organisations and academics, to name a few. Fundamental to all marketplaces is enabling users to explore available technologies, tools, products and services, taking advantage of advanced search capabilities or wizards and other techniques, which can guide them through its content in a structured way. As a marketplace is constantly updated by its members, interested stakeholders might encounter new, innovative technologies that fit their needs. Moreover, one may find out that some technologies, which until recently were out of reach, perhaps because they were too costly, are now affordable. Interestingly, users do not need to spend much time and effort to reach their goals, even in large marketplaces (such as, for example, Amazon). A marketplace can incorporate smart

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept  125 technologies that enable users to perform targeted searches and assist them in many ways. Provided that marketplace users (experts, organisations, companies, utilities and so on) declare their offers, interests and needs regarding the CE, such a smart system would inform them in a user-defined way (for example a smartphone message or an email) as soon as a new piece of information that fits their needs has been recorded. Such information could be, for example, that a specific technology is offered by its provider at the quality and price that match exactly what a potential end user is searching for their production line. Even if both companies are unaware of such a possibility, the system can point it out and make both of them aware of a possible opportunity. In another example, an investor may identify new, innovative products offered by a start-up and express interest. Such a marketplace has been developed by the NextGen H2020 project in close collaboration with Water Europe. A particular way for motivating stakeholders to engage in business endeavours in the CE is to showcase success. The online marketplace in this example provides an exceptional platform to highlight best practice as it encapsulates a knowledge base that connects real-world projects and case studies with the technologies, products and services applied within them. Interested users can read where, when and how a successful CE project took place, under which conditions, what the limitations were, what lessons can be drawn and if and to what extent technologies and products are transferrable to their own situation. Although all essential information should be available within the platform, references leading to external information linked to products, services, case studies and projects complete the picture. Wherever information is georeferenced, it can be projected on a map to be explored using GIS functionality, so that geographical criteria can additionally be applied when deciding to engage with a project or collaborate in a business opportunity. The marketplace also aims to boost networking of users active in the community of the CE. It makes it easier for project partners, collaborators, clients, suppliers and technology providers to identify each other, connect and work together across the value chain. Taking advantage of advanced match-making functionality, the marketplace may bring together potential partners with common interests: a technology provider, which has invented a new product, can be brought together with a utility that has a use for this very product. A company can find project partners with the requested expertise in a segment of the CE. Next to the plethora of information around the CE and to-the-point information about specific technologies, potential partners and products, the marketplace facilitates contacts and may also support face-to-face or online meetings between several stakeholders (for example business-to-business meetings to form collaborations and partnerships). Supporting the organisation of events is not at the core of a typical online marketplace, however, we argue that this is very useful and can be easily accomplished, either by developing such functionality from scratch or by linking up to services via established event management systems. A big advantage of an online marketplace is that it is capable of providing personalised and to-the-point information to interested parties. It can utilise the results of recommender systems matching user profiles with their preferences and interests. Homepages and other personal pages of the marketplace can be adapted according to such an analysis, showing technologies, products and services of interest. The system can improve its recommendations taking advantage of sophisticated artificial intelligence techniques. Provided that a user consents, it can track user behaviour while browsing through the marketplace, record preferred pages and liked items and refine through machine-learning algorithms the information it presents.

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

126  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Finally, as pointed out earlier, a marketplace is an ideal place to promote and fund innovation. It provides a platform for new initiatives, such as start-up companies with novel business models to be funded by interested parties. The online marketplace is able to support promotional activities such as multimedia content (videos, screencasts and presentations) and hosting webinars. Further to single investors, the platform can also support crowdfunding initiatives or enable cooperation schemes with established crowdfunding portals. Thus, it can create traction around new companies and ideas, gauge interest from the user community and facilitate communication of the relevant networks. We argue that a marketplace for the CE, such as the NextGen marketplace, sits (by definition) in the nexus between government, business, finance, academia and the public and such a meeting place is sine qua non for creating and fostering the economy part of the CE.

7.6

THE CE: POLICY AND LEGISLATIVE BARRIERS AND OPPORTUNITIES – CAN A NEXUS THINKING/ METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH HELP THINGS ALONG?

One of the key requirements for the transition to a CE is a supportive regulatory framework. The new EU Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020) aims to streamline regulations made fit for a sustainable future. With relevance to the water sector, the Action Plan will facilitate water reuse and efficiency (including in industrial processes), with a review of directives on wastewater treatment and sewage sludge and the development of an Integrated Nutrient Management Plan to ensure more sustainable application of nutrients and stimulate the markets for recovered nutrients. Among the Action Plan priorities is the new Water Reuse Regulation to encourage circular approaches to water reuse in agriculture. The CE challenges embedded thinking beyond traditional sectoral governance paths. Indeed, the CE brings together a number of policy and regulatory regimes resulting in potential gaps and overlaps that affect the feasibility of circular water solutions. Tensions between different regulatory frameworks need to be reconciled as the CE is very much a transition from waste management and disposal towards value creation within and between sectors. Moreover, regulators face the challenge of meeting multiple objectives such as encouraging clean growth, protecting environmental quality and reducing risks to public health, while at the same time reducing the bureaucracy associated with regulation (Taylor et al., 2019). The Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD) has become an international reference case in the global effort to promote urban wastewater management, and the Sewage Sludge Directive (SSD) has performed well in its objective to encourage the safe use of sewage sludge in agriculture. However, both EU directives may no longer be fit for purpose in regard to the CE and exploitation of the value of water. Although the UWWTD states that ‘treated wastewater shall be reused whenever appropriate’, the directive contains no mechanism to support the implementation of this clause, and it is not addressed in the reporting requirements for member states. In other words, the reuse of treated wastewater was suggested but not encouraged. The new Water Reuse Regulation is a step forward as it aims to facilitate water reuse for agricultural purposes by creating an enabling framework with minimum water quality requirements. However, the effect of the regulation on the advancement of water reuse for agriculture remains uncertain, and it has been acknowledged that overly stringent quality standards can hinder water reuse schemes if

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept  127 they impose rigorous treatment or monitoring requirements (Dingemans et al., 2020). Water reuse for other (non-agricultural) applications, as well as the recovery of other products from wastewater (nutrients, materials, energy), have yet to be thoroughly addressed in the directive or the associated regulatory framework. The application of treated sewage sludge to agricultural land, as advocated in the SSD, is inherently a circular approach in that it is intended to capture the value of nutrients embedded in the biosolids. However, when looking at national legislation covering this activity, each country has different thresholds for sludge quality, complicating its application across Europe (Gherghel et al., 2019). Where sludge cannot be applied to agricultural land, the primary alternatives for disposal are incineration and landfill, both of which challenge the spirit of the waste management hierarchy and the achievement of carbon-neutral goals. Moreover, recent advancements in understanding around micropollutants and microplastics have raised additional concerns around the environmental and public health implications of applying sludge to agricultural land, although evidence around the fate of such contaminants is still unclear. In the transition to a CE, a revised SSD may need to strike a careful balance in order to ensure we can recognise the full inherent value of sludge and its potentially recoverable products (beyond biosolids applied to land). The extent to which national and European regulations may help or hinder the further application of circular water solutions has been examined within the research. Survey results show that policy and regulatory frameworks around discharge to the water environment and sludge management and procurement were ranked most helpful to the development of demo cases. For example, standards for sludge used in agriculture, as well as the aforementioned new regulation for water reuse in agriculture, helped set the parameters to develop the sewer-mining scheme at the Athens Plant Nursery (see Section 7.3). Having regulations that take into account both the capacity of the treatment unit and the capacity of the receiving wastewater system (related to concentrations and flow) would further benefit this kind of scheme (Makropoulos et al., 2018b). Policy and regulatory frameworks around agricultural land management as well as waste handling and certification and registration of products were ranked most hindering. For example, in the cases of Spernal and Braunschweig (see Section 7.3), the need to establish ‘end-of-waste’ status (under the banner of the Waste Framework Directive) is a severe hindrance to the marketability of products recovered from municipal wastewater and sludge. National authorities generally consider the recovery and reuse of such products as a means of waste handling. The establishment of ‘end-of-waste’ criteria – the legal point at which products are no longer considered waste materials – is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process and must be undertaken for each product individually. This acts as a significant bottleneck for the CE in this sector – e.g. in the United Kingdom, so far only two products derived from wastewater or sludge have achieved this status. One positive step has been the revision of the EU Fertilizer Regulation, which has extended its scope to nutrients from secondary and organic sources (Smol et al., 2020). While this does not overcome the need for ‘end-of-waste’ status, it does potentially smooth the pathway to market for some products. However, for non-agricultural products derived from wastewater and sludge (e.g. cellulose, polymers, etc.), significant barriers remain. Cipolletta et al. (2021) identified similar regulatory obstacles specific for the application of small-scale decentralised water technologies in Europe, stating that ‘the loop cannot be closed

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128  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus in most cases due to legislative barriers’. These examples call for greater policy coherence between water and other sectors such as energy, agriculture and construction. Next to better harmonisation, there is a need for specific incentive regulations for circular schemes. Such incentives may include simple reporting requirements – for example, requiring member states to report on the progress of water reuse schemes as part of their UWWTD reporting requirements. Incentives may also include financial measures such as a carbon tax and regional development funds to enhance circular energy initiatives, e.g. the recovery of biogas from wastewater. Public green procurement can further support the uptake of recovered energy and materials from water by other public sectors. In addition, a kind of CE label, equivalent to the European Eco Label system, would favour the market uptake of value-added recovered products from the water sector. Moreover, there is still scope for ‘linear’ regulations that restrict unsustainable activities and thus indirectly encourage circular initiatives. Regulations should go hand in hand with a supportive institutional framework. Circular water schemes often span the jurisdictions and responsibilities of multiple regulatory and administrative bodies. Fragmentation of responsibilities constrains the wider adoption of for example water reuse practices (Frijns et al., 2016). An efficient and adapted governance structure is needed. In a study on centralised and decentralised governance perspectives for different circular futures, Bauwens et al. (2020) concluded that ‘a preferable scenario would be a multi-level framework combining broad societal goals set and enforced at high levels, with autonomy for local actors to translate these goals into actions adapted to the local settings’. This corresponds to a multi-level, polycentric or hybrid governance structure. In relation to the NextGen demo case Braunschweig (see Section 7.3), an agricultural wastewater reuse scheme, Maaß and Grundmann (2018) pointed out that the interdependencies resulting from transactions between wastewater providers and farmers increase the need for hybrid and hierarchical elements in the governance structures for wastewater reuse. Another conclusion Maaß and Grundmann (2018) drew from their study is that interdependencies resulting from transactions increase the need for coordination between actors. Indeed, coordination and collaboration among stakeholders across sectors and governance levels is necessary, and adequate governance capacity is needed to ensure that this coordination and collaboration can occur (Ddiba et al., 2020). The inclusion of different perspectives and interests from involved stakeholders is an important requirement to upscale circular water solutions. Within NextGen, stakeholder engagement is organised through communities of practice at the demo cases. In these communities of practice the circular technologies are discussed within their institutional contexts through open dialogue and social learning among the stakeholders (Fulgenzi et al., 2020). It is important to include policy makers in these stakeholder meetings and work collaboratively on necessary regulative changes. An important stakeholder that should not be left out in the transition towards the CE is the general public. This is particularly relevant for circular water solutions as the people are end users of water and its recovered resources, both direct, e.g. drinking reclaimed water, or indirect, e.g. eating food grown with nutrients recovered from wastewater. Proper public engagement from the start will be needed to ensure public acceptance and to overcome the ‘yuck’ factor (Smith et al., 2018). In contrast to the general belief, most people are positive towards reclaimed water and recovered products. A large survey conducted in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Spain revealed a generally positive attitude, i.e. 60–70 per cent of the respondents indicated to (strongly or somewhat) support using recycled water for

Christos Makropoulos

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Charles-Xavier

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept  129 drinking purposes and eating food grown with recovered nutrients. Public acceptance can be further enhanced by legitimisation strategies such as the use of long-term narratives around the benefits of circular water solutions so that recycled water becomes ‘normalised’ (Smith et al., 2018).

7.7

EPILOGUE: NEXUS AND THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY – THE WAY FORWARD

In the transition to a CE, promising innovative technologies are being developed and practised in the water sector. CE principles such as waste re(utilisation) are applied to wastewater to recover clean water, energy and nutrients for a variety of users at a range of scales. A key challenge that remains to better capitalise on the opportunities these innovations entail is to improve the interconnections between producers and users and create new value chains from these water-embedded resources across sectors. This transition challenges embedded thinking. We argue that a nexus approach with concepts, frameworks, tools and stakeholder partnerships created specifically to look at complex systems as a whole can help water, energy, food and environment sector stakeholders to identify new opportunities when redesigning sectoral interdependencies and to create additional value by transitioning to a water-sensitive CE. Circular business models and supportive regulations are important preconditions for this transition as well. Here also, nexus thinking, in the sense of safe experimentation and negotiation spaces and ‘thinking’ platforms (Makropoulos, 2017) supporting multi-institutional and multi-stakeholder co-creation, will be instrumental. Last, but certainly not least, supportive regulatory and institutional frameworks are also important to this transition towards a CE-oriented redesign of the WEFE nexus.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This chapter is based on experiences and case studies from the NextGen project ‘Towards a next generation of water systems and services for the circular economy’. NextGen has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 776541 (https://​nextgenwater​.eu). The authors would like to thank Jonas Schneider, Christian Remy, Anders Nättorp, Klio Monokrousou, Stavroula Manouri, Amy Kim, Jan Hofman, Peter Vale, Ana Soares, Anna Serra, Dimitrios Bouziotas, George Karavokiros and Alec Walker-Love for their contributions to the chapter.

REFERENCES Bauwens, Th., M. Hekkert and J. Kirchherr (2020), ‘Circular futures: What will they look like?’, Ecological Economics, 175, 106703. Bjørn, A., N. Bey, S. Georg, I. Røpke and M.Z. Hauschild (2017), ‘Is Earth recognized as a finite system in corporate responsibility reporting?’ Journal of Cleaner Production, 163, 106–117.

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130  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Bocken, N.M.P, I. de Pauw, C. Bakker and B. van der Grinten (2016), ‘Product design and business model strategies for a circular economy’, Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering, 33 (5), 308–320. Cipolletta, G., E.G. Ozbayram, A.L. Eusebi, C. Akyol, S. Malamis, E. Mino and F. Fatone (2021), ‘Policy and legislative barriers to close water-related loops in innovative small water and wastewater systems in Europe: A critical analysis’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 288, 125604. Ddiba, D., Κ. Andersson, S.H.A. Koop, Ε. Ekener, G. Finnveden and S. Dickin (2020), ‘Governing the circular economy: Assessing the capacity to implement resource-oriented sanitation and waste management systems in low- and middle-income countries’, Earth System Governance, 4, 100063. Del Borghi, A., L. Moreschi and M. Gallo (2020), ‘Circular economy approach to reduce water-energy-food nexus’, Current Opinion in Environmental Science and Health, 13, 23–28. Dingemans, M.M.L., P.W.M.H. Smeets, G. Medema, J. Frijns, K.J. Raat, A.P. van Wezel and R.P. Bartholomeus (2020), ‘Responsible water reuse needs an interdisciplinary approach to balance risks and benefits’, Water, 12 (5), 1264. Dvořák, L., M. Gómez, J. Dolina and A. Černín (2016), ‘Anaerobic membrane bioreactors: A mini review with emphasis on industrial wastewater treatment: Applications, limitations and perspectives’, Desalination and Water Treatment, 57 (41), 19062–19076. Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013), Towards the Circular Economy: Economic and Business Rationale for an Accelerated Transition, London: Ellen MacArthur Foundation. European Commission (2014), ‘Towards a circular economy: A zero waste programme for Europe’, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. COM(2014) 398 final. Brussels: European Commission. European Commission (2020), ‘A new Circular Economy Action Plan for a cleaner and more competitive Europe’, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. COM(2020) 98 final. Brussels: European Commission. Frijns, J., H.M. Smith, S. Brouwer, K. Garnett, R. Elelman and P. Jeffrey (2016), ‘How governance regimes shape the implementation of water reuse schemes’, Water, 8, 605. Fulgenzi, A., S. Brouwer, K. Baker and J. Frijns (2020), ‘Communities of practice at the center of circular water solutions’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 7(4), e1450. Geissdoerfer, M., S.N. Morioka, M.M. de Carvalho and S. Evans (2018a), ‘Business models and supply chains for the circular economy’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 190, 712–721. Geissdoerfer, M., D. Vladimirova, S. Evans (2018b), ‘Sustainable business model innovation: A review’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 198, 401–416. Gherghel, A., C, Teodosiu and S. De Gisi (2019), ‘A review on wastewater sludge valorisation and its challenges in the context of circular economy’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 228, 244–263. Hoff H. (2011), ‘Understanding the nexus’, Background paper for the Bonn 2011 Conference: The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus. Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute. Joyce, A. and R.P. Paquin (2016), ‘The triple layered business model canvas: A tool to design more sustainable business models’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 135, 1474–1486. Kehrein, P., M. van Loosdrecht, P. Osseweijer, M. Garfí, J. Dewulf and J. Posada (2020), ‘A critical review of resource recovery from municipal wastewater treatment plants: Market supply potentials, technologies and bottlenecks’, Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology, 6(4), 877–910. Kratz, S., C. Vogel and C. Adam (2019), ‘Agronomic performance of P recycling fertilizers and methods to predict it: A review’, Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, 115, 1–39. Liakopoulou A., C. Makropoulos, D. Nikolopoulos, K. Monokrousou and G. Karakatsanis (2020), ‘An urban water simulation model for the design, testing and economic viability assessment of distributed water management systems for a circular economy’, Environmental Sciences Proceedings, 2 (1), 14. Maaß, O. and Ph. Grundmann (2018), ‘Governing transactions and interdependences between linked value chains in a circular economy: The case of wastewater reuse in Braunschweig (Germany)’, Sustainability 10 (4), 1–29.

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Charles-Xavier

A water-sensitive circular economy and the nexus concept  131 Makropoulos, C. (2017), ‘Thinking platforms for smarter urban water systems: Fusing technical and socio-economic models and tools’, Geological Society, London, Special Publications,  408 (1), 201–219. Μakropoulos, C., D. Nikolopoulos, L. Palmen, S. Kools, A. Segrave, D. Vries et al. (2018a), ‘A resilience assessment method for urban water systems’, Urban Water Journal, 15 (4), 316–328. Makropoulos, C., E. Rozos, I. Tsoukalas, A. Plevri, G. Karakatsanis, L. Karagiannidis et al. (2018b), ‘Sewer-mining: A water reuse option supporting circular economy, public service provision and entrepreneurship’, Journal of Environmental Management, 216, 285–298. Milios L. (2016), ‘Policies for resource efficient and effective solutions: A review of concepts, current policy landscape and future policy considerations for the transition to a circular economy’, Report under the Mistra REES Project. Morseletto, P. (2020), ‘Targets for a circular economy’, Resources, Conservation and Recycling’, 153, 104553. Ranta V., L. Aarikka-Stenroos, P. Ritala and S.J. Mäkinen (2018), ‘Exploring institutional drivers and barriers of the circular economy: A cross-regional comparison of China, the US, and Europe’, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 135, 70–82. Remy, C. (2012), ‘LCA study of Braunschweig wastewater scheme’, Final report of project CoDiGreen work package 2. Kompetenzzentrum Wasser Berlin gGmbH. Sachs, I. and D. Silk (1990), Food and Energy: Strategies for Sustainable Development, Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Smith, H.M., S. Brouwer, P. Jeffrey and J. Frijns (2018), ‘Public responses to water reuse: Understanding the evidence’, Journal of Environmental Management, 207, 43–50. Smol, M., Ch. Adam and M. Preisner (2020), ‘Circular economy model framework in the European water and wastewater sector’, Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management, 22 (3), 682–697. STOWA (2016), ‘Struviet en Struviethoudende Producten uit Communaal Afvalwater. Marktverkenning en Gewasonderzoek’. STOWA & Energie- en Grondstoffenfabriek, STOWA Rapport, 12, Amersfoort. Szymańska, M., T. Sosulski, E. Szara, A. Wąs, P. Sulewski, G. van Pruissen and R. Cornelissen (2019), ‘Ammonium sulphate from a bio-refinery system as a fertilizer: Agronomic and economic effectiveness on the farm scale’, Energies, 12 (4721), 1–15. Tahir, S., T. Steichan and M. Shouler (2018), Water and Circular Economy: A White Paper, Cowes: Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Arup, Antea Group. Taylor, Ch.M., E.A. Gallagher, S.J.T. Pollard, S.A. Rocks, H.M. Smith, P. Leinster and A.J. Angus (2019), ‘Environmental regulation in transition: Policy officials’ views of regulatory instruments and their mapping to environmental risks’, Science of the Total Environment, 646, 811–820. Watson, C., J. Clemens and F. Wichern (2019), ‘Plant availability of magnesium and phosphorus from struvite with concurrent nitrification inhibitor application’, Soil Use and Management, 35 (4), 675–682.

Christos Makropoulos

Sandra Casas Garriga

Anne Kleyböcker

Charles-Xavier

8. Climate services and the nexus for smart resource management Mirabela Marin, Roger Cremades, Nicu Constantin Tudose, Șerban Octavian Davidescu, Cezar Ungurean, Hermine Mitter and Anabel Sanchez-Plaza

8.1

INTRODUCTION TO CLIMATE SERVICES

Climate services (CS) is the process where climate information together with other relevant (socio-economic and environmental) data are converted into tailored products to support user groups in adapting to, and mitigating, climate change (Street et al., 2015). Products are co-produced among scientists and stakeholders, and targeted towards the needs of end users (Soares et al., 2018). The concept emerged after the 2006 World Climate Conference and has gained importance in recent years (Vincent et al., 2018). The concept also has been promoted and supported by organizations including the Global Framework for Climate Services and the European Research Area for Climate Services (Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016). The European Commission (2015) defined CS as ‘the transformation of climate-related data ‒ together with other relevant information ‒ into customized products such as projections, forecasts, information, trends … and any other service in relation to climate that may be of use for the society at large’. CS can support defining climate adaptation strategies and measures, as well as climate mitigation measures. The development of CS departs from certain principles (ECOMS-EUPORIAS, 2014): 1. A systematic identification of end users and their interests to be engaged. 2. A comprehensive survey of end users’ contributions and needs, as well as the ability of researchers to meet them. 3. Jointly conceiving the research purpose and jointly framing the research question in order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of envisioned activities and outputs. 4. Transparency regarding research methods, achievable results, and potential risks and barriers for their accomplishment. 5. Assessing potential benefits to be gained by end users and CS providers (i.e. researchers) and defining next steps for further improvements. 6. Flexibility to adapt planned timelines according to changes that may arise during the development of CS. 7. Assess the CS together with end users, gather feedback, and refine the CS accordingly. CS may increase the quality of decision-making processes of various organizations at different scales (e.g. local, regional, or national) (Hewitt et al., 2012) and sectors. Local conditions are considered a starting point for developing CS (Krauß, 2020), providing comprehensive information to maximize co-benefits and reduce trade-offs in decision-making processes (Vaughan 132

Mirabela Marin, Roger Cremades, Nicu Constantin Tudose, Șerban Octavian Davidescu Cezar Ungurean Hermine Mitter and Anabel Sanchez-Plaza -

Climate services and the nexus for smart resource management  133 and Dessai, 2014). The concept therefore converts ‘science-driven and user-informed’ knowledge to ‘demand-driven and science-informed’ knowledge (Lourenço et al., 2016). Brasseur and Gallardo (2016) mention the interdisciplinary nature of CS, largely achieved through collaborative efforts among scientists from different disciplines. This applies in particular to nexus research, including natural and social scientists delivering climate, socio-economic, and environmental data in a structured, consistent, and transparent way. Different sorts of CS exist (Cortekar et al., 2020), including (1) advisory services, (2) publications, (3) data management, and (4) processed data. CS include scientific and information tailored towards users, and therefore operate as a bridge to connect research with practice (Street, 2016; World Meteorological Organization, 2016). In this way, the interactions and partnerships among researchers and different institutional organizations are enhanced. Therefore, CS are considered a central pillar to inform adaptation as well as mitigation strategies, which are crucial for increasing societal resilience (Vaughan and Dessai, 2014) and the implementation of sustainable strategies focused on resilience under different threats (Juerges and Jahn, 2020). Long-lasting partnerships between stakeholders and researchers are a key factor for developing useful and usable CS (Falloon et al., 2018; Vincent et al., 2018). Such partnerships also aim to improve knowledge about impacts of climate change over time (short term, medium term, long term) and thus implement robust climate adaptation and mitigation strategies (Vaughan and Dessai, 2014). Schneider and Buser (2018) also recommend that stakeholders are actively involved in each research activity, to benefit from their knowledge about the case and possible access to data, thus enhancing the knowledge exchange process and the CS development and delivery (Clifford et al., 2020). Finally, CS can provide appropriate methods, strategies, and customized products for the sustainable development of society and also be tailored to societal needs. Therefore, CS could be viewed as a tool for integrated and cross-sectoral strategies to cope with extreme climatic events, meanwhile reducing trade-offs and supporting synergies. CS therefore includes insights about the evolution of climate parameters such as precipitation, temperature, as well as frequency and intensity of droughts over the next decades (World Meteorological Organization, 2016). Moreover, research actions that address the expectations and needs from local communities might increase trust (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2016; Pietrapertosa et al., 2018). Another advantage is represented by the information that they provide, raising in this way the quality of the research projects (Gesell et al., 2017). The chapter is aimed to clarify how decision making across the water, energy, and food sectors could be improved by using CS. In doing so, knowledge of the water-energy-land (WEL) nexus could evolve under climate change, make the trade-offs explicit, and seek for synergies.

8.2

INTEGRATING THE NEXUS APPROACH WITH CLIMATE SERVICES

So far, CS has mostly focused on stakeholders’ needs representing single resource sectors, e.g. water or energy or agriculture. The nexus literature points out that sectors are still being treated independently, in siloed sectoral policies (Hoff, 2011; Weitz et al., 2014; Cremades et al., 2016; Reinhard et al., 2017; Behnassi, 2019).

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134  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus A nexus approach will enable us to ensure the sustainable development of ecosystem services, including their drivers (Scott, 2017; Baulenas and Sotirov, 2020), and implies taking into account the long-term implications from multiple sectors (Taylor-Wood and Fuller, 2017). Integrating the nexus approach with CS could guide decision makers towards a sustainable management of multiple sectors, and adopt measures to increase resilience of society under climate change. Interlinked resources could be mutually reinforced and fragmented policies could be prevented by adopting a nexus approach in CS, with a perspective to improve policy coordination and policy integration (Cremades et al., 2019). A WEL nexus approach considers complex systems, defined as a multilayer network with interrelations between water, energy and land (Cremades et al., 2019) which requires effective management under changing climate and socio-economic conditions (Brouwer et al., 2018). Spill-over effects might result among ecosystems, including forests affecting their decarbonization capacity (Dimobe et al., 2018; Verkerk et al., 2020). Forest managers who consider such risks are able to adjust their management practices well in advance of these challenges (Caurla and Lobianco, 2020). Moreover, the nexus approach has proven useful to raise awareness of ‘close-to-nature’ management of forests providing proper measures to meet water quality standards (Tudose et al., 2019). Water is considered a driving force of the nexus (Cai et al., 2018), and its availability is critical towards other nexus resources, which again are exacerbated by climate change. Being a critical resource, water is associated with food production through irrigation, while the energy sector needs water for cooling. Water is also needed to produce and generate electricity thus conditioning hydroelectric production, while the land is connected through different management strategies (Bazilian et al., 2011; Altamirano et al., 2018; Behnassi, 2019). Food demand is expected to increase due to the projected increase in global population. Land use is foreseen to change in the short and medium term, including expanding agricultural land to match global food demand (Behnassi, 2019). Agricultural production could increase needs for irrigation, in particular if adapted to increases in temperature, evaporation and dry periods. In addition, increasing water consumption results in higher greenhouse gas emissions through an increase in energy demand for water pumping which contributes to the accentuation of climate change (Brouwer et al., 2018). At the same time, water resources condition food production and energy consumption (Altamirano et al., 2018), justifying an elaborated management strategy. A sustained development of renewable energy sources could improve climate change mitigation efforts (Behnassi, 2019). The nexus approach supports an integrated management of natural resources (e.g. water, energy and land), promoting sustainable development and increasing resilience (De Strasser et al., 2016). Thus, the nexus is a valuable approach to promote coherent decision and policy making, securing the future sustainability of ecosystems (Fürst et al., 2017; Albrecht et al., 2018), and is a major step towards the sustainable management of resources (Scott, 2017). The nexus approach also offers an integrated approach on how to deal with resource decline and resource scarcity (Behnassi, 2019). Multiple pathways could be explored to balance sectoral priorities, interest groups, targeted at a sustainable future by increasing engagement by the relevant sectors in the decision-making process (De Strasser et al., 2016). Such pathways need to search for synergies, reduce trade-offs and strengthen resilience to climate-related risks. Without a nexus approach the connections from different resources (sectors) may be ignored, opportunities for co-benefits overlooked as well as undesirable trade-offs among nexus resources (Howells et al., 2013). It could lead to environmental degradation (Bazilian et Mirabela Marin, Roger Cremades, Nicu Constantin Tudose, Șerban Octavian Davidescu Cezar Ungurean Hermine Mitter and Anabel Sanchez-Plaza -

Climate services and the nexus for smart resource management  135 al., 2011) through inappropriate sectoral policies (De Strasser et al., 2016) with endangering implications for all ecosystems by affecting the security of each resource in the following years (Cremades et al., 2019). At the same time, nexus resources assessments must be performed using methods characterized by innovation or novelty, context (at multilevel scale), diverse forms of collaboration and need to be easily implemented (Albrecht et al., 2018). The resources involved in the nexus are interconnected in multiple ways (Cai et al., 2018), which need to be considered when designing adequate climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies (Bazilian et al., 2011; Rasul and Sharma, 2016). Consequently, the projected climate change (IPCC, 2018; UNFCCC, 2019) could put a lot of pressure on natural resources, ecosystems and human societies (Hoff, 2011; Scott, 2017). Furthermore, securing the nexus resources is essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are interconnected with those resources (Scott, 2017; Liu et al., 2018), particularly SDG 2 (‘Zero hunger’), SDG 6 (‘Clean water and sanitation’), SDG 7 (‘Affordable and clean energy’) and SDG 13 (‘Climate action’) (United Nations, 2015).

8.3

INTEGRATED MODELLING OF THE NEXUS FOR CLIMATE SERVICE PROVISION

Integrated modelling is a state-of-the art approach for assessing the links between changes over time (e.g. climate change, socio-economic development and state of the environment) with the sustainable management of nexus resources. Methodological advancements are still needed (Albrecht et al., 2018), but is a valuable approach with knowledge and methods to examine interconnections and their consequences to support the policy process (Hisschemöller et al., 2001; Rotmans and van Asselt, 2001; van Ittersum et al., 2008; Laniak et al., 2013). Also, modelling activities are fundamental for providing system-based solutions for an integrated management of the nexus resources. Brouwer et al. (2018) mention that the modelling process requires considering the interlinkages between nexus resources to achieve an overview of the potential trade-offs of climate change and develop sustainable resources management. Integrated assessments focus either on climate change adaptation or on mitigation, whereas joint assessments remain limited (Zhao et al., 2018). Several projects mentioned in Table 8.1 focus on creating nexus awareness and societal resilience. They also foster an integrated management of multiple sectors through modelling activities, even if they are not directly addressing CS. Figure 8.1 highlights the main sectors addressed in those projects, giving proof of evidence that water, energy and food sectors receive the most attention. The focus on those sectors is justified considering that, at global level, their demand is forecasted to increase until 2030 with approximately 30–40 per cent for water, 40 per cent for energy and 50 per cent for food (WEF, 2011). Analysing the sectors’ usability in the projects discussed, we notice that, although the primary focus is on the first three sectors, namely water, energy and food, with the land component being embedded in the rest of the projects, partly coupled with the food component (Figure 8.2). However, considering the importance of the land sector in providing multiple ecosystem services (e.g. water, food, biodiversity) as well as current farming practices, future research should consider integrating land separately from the food sector in order to extend the nexus interlinkages that provide an outlook of manifold trade-offs and benefits and enable long-term sustainable management to be developed (Tudose et al., 2021). Mirabela Marin, Roger Cremades, Nicu Constantin Tudose, Șerban Octavian Davidescu Cezar Ungurean Hermine Mitter and Anabel Sanchez-Plaza -

136  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Table 8.1

Projects that integrate different sectors to foster sustainable development and resilience under climate change Targeted sectors

Project title, acronym and website Water

  Sustainable Integrated Management for the Nexus of

P

Energy P

Land P

Food P

Water-Land-Food-Energy-Climate for a Resource Efficient Europe (SIM4NEXUS) (www​.sim4nexus​.eu/​)a United Nations University – Institute for Integrated Management of Material

P

P

P

Fluxes and Resources (UNU-FLORES) (https://​flores​.unu​.edu/​en/​)a Moving towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing Nexus

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

Security (MAGIC) (http://​magic​-nexus​.eu/​) Climate Services for the Water-Energy-Land-Food Nexus (CLISWELN) (www​.hzg​.de/​ms/​clisweln/​index​.php​.en)a Climate-, Land-, Energy- and Water- Systems (CLEWS) (www​.osimosys​ .org/​)a Nexus Thinking for Sustainable Agricultural development in Andean countries (NEXT-AG) (https://​gtr​.ukri​.org/​projects​?ref​=​NE​%2FR015759​ %2F1)a Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems Nexus: Analysing Solutions for Securing Supply (WEFE-Nexus)a Assessing the Impact of Sustainable Land Management Practices on

P

P

Hydroelectricity Production in Malawia Building Capacity for Integrated Governance at the

P

P

P

P

P

P

Food-Water-Energy-Nexus in Cities on the Water (Creating Interfaces) (https://​creatinginterfaces​.eifer​.kit​.edu/​)a Water-Energy-Food-Health Renewable Resources Initiative (WEFRAH)a Quantifying Human and Climate Impacts on Wetland Ecosystems in the

P

P

Lower Mekong River Basin (Dam-Mekong) (https://​glp​.earth/​how​-we​-work/​ contributing​-projects/​quantifying​-human​-and​-climate​-impacts​-wetland​ -ecosystems​-lower)a Intelligent Urban Metabolomic Systems for Green Cities of Tomorrow: An

P

P

P

Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme (NRD Programme)a

P

P

P

Integrated Analysis and Modelling for the Management of Sustainable Urban

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

FWE Nexus-Based Approach (Metabolic) (https://​jpi​-urbaneurope​.eu/​project/​ metabolic/​)a

FWE ReSOURCEs2 (IN-SOURCE) (jpi​-urbaneurope​.eu/​project/​in​-source/​) Food Water Energy for Urban Sustainable Environments (FUSE) (https://​fuse​ .stanford​.edu/​)b Improving Security and Climate Resilience in a Fragile Context through the Water-Energy and Food Security Nexus (FREXUS)b Globally and Locally-Sustainable Food-Water-Energy Innovation in Urban Living Labs (GLOCULL) (jpi​-urbaneurope​.eu/​project/​glocull/​)b

Note: a www​.nexuscluster​.eu/​Projects​.aspx; b www​.water​-energy​-food​.org/​resources/​resources​-detail/​project​-in​ -source​-integrated​-analysis​-and​-modelling​-for​-the​-management​-of​-sustainable​-urban​-fwe​-resources/​.

Integrated modelling is aimed at describing, exploring and explaining interconnections between nexus resources, and also addressing interdependencies between policies. It is therefore considered to offer valuable information. On top of this, participatory modelling Mirabela Marin, Roger Cremades, Nicu Constantin Tudose, Șerban Octavian Davidescu Cezar Ungurean Hermine Mitter and Anabel Sanchez-Plaza -

Climate services and the nexus for smart resource management  137

Figure 8.1

The main target sectors in different nexus projects

Note: EL = energy, land; WEF = water, energy, food; WEL = water, energy, land; WELF = water, energy, land, food; WL = water, land; WLF = water, land, food.

Figure 8.2

The main coupled sectors under a nexus approach reported in different projects

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138  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus approaches engage stakeholders in research (Lubis et al., 2018). This may improve the understanding by stakeholders of cross-sectoral synergies and offer insights to identify more appropriate solutions for specific questions (Voinov and Bousquet, 2010). Integrated modelling may provide information on the efficient management of natural resources through the design and testing of adequate and integrated policies to offset the impact of climate change. Stakeholders might share important data at regional or local scales – an essential input into integrated modelling. The available datasets will be further integrated in decision-making processes to explore the interactions between nexus resources. Such decision-making processes offer a sound basis to develop coherent policies that are tailored to societal needs. At the same time, integrated modelling represents an important opportunity to develop CS (Cremades et al., 2019). Comparing modelling results from different projects could be used to develop factsheets and increase local awareness regarding the impacts of climate on societal resilience. This is also important to address the vulnerability of nexus resources in the context of climate change. Robust management plans may result that enable facing the changing climate. Such information could be obtained only using different models and scenarios. The modelling process has the role of providing high-quality data (e.g. climate, soil, topography, management) with a high spatial and temporal resolution that can be used for developing CS (Cremades et al., 2019). Relevant models (climate, hydrological or economic) are needed to match the end users’ needs. Such models serve to develop integrated systems solutions to endorse CS (Power et al., 2007; Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016; Brouwer et al., 2018). Together with the nexus approach, CS can promote cross-sectoral integrated management of local and regional resources to ensure their sustainable future use. Moreover, considering the nexus approach in integrated modelling may provide useful information that could considerably improve climate change mitigation and adaptation, for instance by making use of synergies and avoiding potential trade-offs (Hoff, 2011). Hence, integrated modelling may add value to the CS provision by exploring cross-sectoral synergies and by identifying efficient policies to reduce or overcome climate change trade-offs.

8.4

INTEGRATING THE NEXUS APPROACH WITH CS: AN URBAN EXAMPLE

CS includes both mitigation and adaptation to climate change, which are both strategies for achieving sustainability and resilience. Mitigation delays or avoids an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, thus minimizing changes in climate (IPCC, 2001; Bosello et al., 2016). Adaptation is aimed to reduce the impact of climate change, including pressure on ecosystems and society (IPCC, 2001; Bosello et al., 2016). Although both of them could be achieved at multiple levels, adaptation could be achieved through social and policy learning mechanisms (Adger and Kelly, 1999), with short-term effects and generating particularly local benefits (Locatelli, 2011). In contrast, mitigation underpins decarbonization technologies, strategies that capture and retain CO2 and technologies that pursue reducing and balancing temperature (Fawzy et al., 2020). Those strategies generate long-term effects and offer global benefits (Locatelli, 2011). In their efforts to design long-term and robust climate policies, decision makers therefore need to focus on synergies amongst these two strategies (Tubiello, 2012). Without integrating Mirabela Marin, Roger Cremades, Nicu Constantin Tudose, Șerban Octavian Davidescu Cezar Ungurean Hermine Mitter and Anabel Sanchez-Plaza -

Climate services and the nexus for smart resource management  139 climate change in decision-making processes, unsuitable management of natural resources in climate change context could be generated. CS provide data, information and products useful for public and private wellbeing (Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016). The information must be provided to end users in a ‘credible’, ‘legitimate’ and ‘salient’ manner (Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016; Clifford et al., 2020) combining a ‘top-down’ with a ‘bottom-up’ approach and using ‘nontechnical language’ (Voinov and Bousquet, 2010; Vaughan and Dessai, 2014). Credibility implies that information must be delivered from reliable sources, such as organizations that by their entity assure the quality of information provided. It also needs to be legitimate, which implies it is unbiased against possible hidden interests of end users, while the ‘salient’ feature underlines the awareness and relevance for stakeholders. Face-to-face meetings and workshops with stakeholder participation are essential parts of the knowledge process (Grove et al., 2015). A strong involvement from multiple sectors is a signal to secure the success of CS, including local or regional stakeholders (Clifford et al., 2020). Such involvement of different sectors, while adopting a nexus approach, offers potential to harmonize policies across sectors and avoid trade-offs (Bazilian et al., 2011). Recognition of climate-related risks by the decision makers empower them to adopt climate-smart strategies which will create the pathway towards sustainability (Cremades et al., 2018; Tudose et al., 2021). Such a transdisciplinary approach will also enable local expectations to be addressed from the very beginning (Juerges and Jahn, 2020). The integration of this information into cross-sectoral applications at regional and local scales offers an important opportunity to adopt the nexus approach with its cross-sectoral integration and improve the value delivered to stakeholders. Moreover, it creates opportunities to develop new research projects by the academic community and to create new partnerships among different stakeholders and researchers. CS may also lead to future investments for increasing societal resilience to climate change (Vaughan and Dessai, 2014). Knowledge regarding future climate change allows stakeholders to take action and to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner, adopting more accurate policies directed at certain issues and thus raising ecosystem resilience. 8.4.1

The Case of Brasov City and Tărlung River Basin

Siloed resources management is not appropriate to cope with the multiple challenges that society faces (Hudson et al., 2019), and single-sector approaches will likely lead to inappropriate management. A holistic management could be sustained by integrating a nexus approach into CS. We present an example integrating a WEL nexus approach in the concept of CS in Romania.1 The Tărlung river basin represents the main source of drinking and industrial water for Brasov city and surrounding settlements, including a total of approximately 400,000 inhabitants. Certain areas within the watershed are protected areas included in the European network Natura2000 site and a sustainable and integrated management of those areas is mandatory in the context of climate change. Every component of the WEL nexus interacts with each other, as follows: ● The land component is relevant because of a decline in forest area and conversion of forest land into pastures or built-up areas. The urbanized region also faces other pressures on land

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140  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus due to human activities (e.g. tourism). Stakeholders are keen to manage the available land in an integrated manner, essentially because of the major implications of human activities on the quality and quantity of water resources. Moreover, many settlements use firewood for heating and this puts increasing pressure on forest land. ● The water component is linked to the land component through irrigation of agricultural land. Water is also needed for cooling in energy production. Demand for water is foreseen to increase due to the rising potential for tourism in this region. Meanwhile, society may face risks of water availability due to increasing occurrence of extreme climatic events. In addition, water quality will be affected from an increasing amount of sediment across banks, which results from land use changes. More energy is needed for water treatment from the increased water turbidity. ● The energy component is conditioned by the water component through additional drilling. Flash floods are generated from excessive rainfall and water plant treatment could reach capacity to enable sufficient water for households and industry. Energy is needed to secure water quality standards to reach consumers. The increasing energy demand in turn increases greenhouse gas emissions. Energy from biomass production puts pressure on land availability through firewood needed for heating.

Source: Cremades et al. (2019); with two global climate models (GCM): ICHEC-EC-EARTH (European Community Earth System Model developed by the Irish Centre for High-End Computing) and MPI-ESM-LR (Low-Resolution Earth System Model developed by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology) and two regional climate models (RCM): CCLM4-8-17 (the standard version of the Climate Limited-Area Modelling Community) and REMO (currently maintained by the Climate Service Center Germany).

Figure 8.3

Opportunities provided by a cross-sectoral collaboration Mirabela Marin, Roger Cremades, Nicu Constantin Tudose, Șerban Octavian Davidescu Cezar Ungurean Hermine Mitter and Anabel Sanchez-Plaza -

Climate services and the nexus for smart resource management  141 A nexus approach enables each component to be integrated in the decision-making process, which is a basis to develop coherence of policies across sectors and achieve a more sustainable management of nexus resources over time. Many opportunities are derived from this cross-sectoral collaboration and CS provision as highlighted in Figure 8.3. The CS provided in the Tărlung river basin include three categories: (1) advisory services; (2) publications; and (3) processed data (Tudose et al., 2019): 1. Advisory services include thematic maps of soil erodibility factors that enable managers to increase the resilience of the exposed sub-watersheds. 2. Publications, including factsheets and academic working papers, aimed to raise awareness and support more informed decision making (Mitter et al., 2019). 3. Processed data and models include climate change scenarios at local level, and climate parameters to possibly adjust planning activities in response to changed patterns of the vegetation season or shifts in the forest vegetation structure. The data and models also include hydrological processes until 2100, which may inform decision makers to take measures to cope with extreme events. These outcomes were achieved after an integrated assessment tool, namely the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT model), that was exploited for the period 2020–2100. In this respect, we have customized the model databases in order to respond to the local conditions of the river basin. A high-resolution (10 m) digital elevation model and the soil and land use database at the forest management unit level allowed us to capture with better accuracy the hydrological river basin response. In the next step, the local climate projection, societal scenarios, land use scenarios and forest management scenarios were integrated into the calibrated and validated SWAT model. The climate scenarios were generated under two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) emissions scenarios bundled with the Irish Centre for HighEnd Computing, European Community, Earth System Model (ICHEC-EC-EARTH) and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Earth System Model, Low Resolution (MPI-ESM-LR) compounded with the Regional Model for Climate Modelling and Weather Forecast (REMO) and the Climate Limited-Area Modelling Community (CCLM4-8-17) ensemble downscaled and bias corrected at the local scale. The societal, land and forest scenarios were designed together with decision makers based on both their needs and co-benefits of integrated management of WEL. The model has been refined through embedding stakeholders’ feedback collected during several workshops. In doing this, we have assured that end users understand the premise of certain trade-offs in order to ensure the resilience of WEL. Using the tailored SWAT model allowed us to highlight the interlinkages and interactions across WEL components in the face of multiple challenges. This has contributed to an increased understanding of WEL nexus dynamics under multiple drivers, allowing the visualization of undesirable consequences on the related sectors and empowering end users to advance their skills and prevent multiple shortcomings through possible response options. Moreover, the model outcomes serve as useful products that could be further exploited in other studies beyond the project lifetime both by local decision makers and other researchers, to prevent various threats and thus reshape the decision process through reducing the disconnections between various entities.

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142  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus 8.4.2 Challenges Integrating the nexus approach into CS is a challenging process and likely requires adequate mechanisms to mitigate trade-offs across nexus resources, including financial resources. Many challenges relate to CS and the nexus approach. They result from the literature and were partly tested in the case study. Relevant end users need to be identified and commitment to their contribution is important (Falloon et al., 2018). Involvement by the relevant stakeholders is a basis to raise awareness in the community regarding the impacts of climate change, and provide consistent results (Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016; Rouillard and Spray, 2017). CS has potential to establish reliable partnerships between research and stakeholders and scientists, reducing the gap among them (Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016; Falloon et al., 2018). Moreover, it offers mechanisms to move toward cross-sectoral policy approaches (Behnassi, 2019) and knowledge and perceptions from stakeholders regarding how climate is embedded in the provision of CS (Clifford et al., 2020). Extending these collaborations beyond the project lifetime is not only challenging but also decisive for securing long-term adaptation processes (Conway and Mustelin, 2014). A proper time plan is important to avoid as much as possible under or overestimation of time needed for fulfilling every stage necessary for CS provision (Vincent et al., 2018). Commitment from stakeholders and their sustained contribution is essential for the success of a CS action. The involvement of stakeholders in this case study was based on the engagement framework recommended by Tudose et al. (2018). First, several stakeholders from various levels (local, regional, national) were contacted in advance of starting the project. It should be mentioned that obtaining a commitment from stakeholders coming from higher levels is often a challenging process which we also faced in our case study. This shortcoming can be overcome through the lobbying exercised by sub-national stakeholders responsible for conceiving and implementing management plans at local or regional levels, considering the fact that small-sized river basins are not included in the National Strategy for Flood Risk Management, which was conceived only for large watersheds (Tudose et al., 2020). Second, we targeted a selection of stakeholders who were closest to the research objectives and established agreements regarding their engagement in the research (e.g. verbal engagement, endorsement letter and collaboration agreement). Third, we identified the relevant stakeholders and developed a pairwise matrix considering multiple attributes (e.g. domains, expertise, interest, influence). By identifying the key stakeholders, we assured that we would benefit from their sustained commitment and contribution during the entire project lifetime. At the same time, involving a wide range of separate entities prevented the project team paying patchy attention that could generate an unbalanced approach in WEL nexus management (Tudose et al., 2020). In the past, there had been collaborations with certain stakeholders and this fact was reflected in an easier and simplified engagement process into the new project. Conflicts may arise from the various roles, interests and power levels of members of the community involved in research, and such conflicts also need to be managed (Behnassi, 2019). The case study has taken into account the needs of the community, first by involving key stakeholders who came from multiple domains (water, forestry and so on). In addition, stakeholders were involved who did not raise conflicting situations with the issue at stake. Previous collaborations with some of them prevented the onset of conflict situations alongside a consensus regarding compromises that should be accepted to reinforce the WEL nexus under multiple threats. This general agreement was gained from emphasizing the nexus interdependMirabela Marin, Roger Cremades, Nicu Constantin Tudose, Șerban Octavian Davidescu Cezar Ungurean Hermine Mitter and Anabel Sanchez-Plaza -

Climate services and the nexus for smart resource management  143 encies not only among its resources but also with components outside its boundaries such as road infrastructure (Tudose et al., 2020) compounded with accurate identification of synergies and trade-offs between WEL. That made stakeholders devote more attention to the side effects that a single-sector policy has on other related sectors and thus prevented or reduced unintended consequences. The communication process involved sharing outcomes of the research among local stakeholders and informing them about the importance of CS, and making explicit the interlinkages among the nexus approach and future climate-related risks (Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016). In our case study, stakeholders responded better during face-to-face meetings which enabled participants to build trust. Partnerships among researchers and stakeholders as well as between different stakeholders were based on mutual trust during the workshops. This enabled better cross-sectoral collaboration. The communication process was adapted towards the stakeholders who participated, and a common and non-technical language was used, where appropriate. In addition, uncertainty on climate projections was well explained to stakeholders and expressed in a careful manner by the researchers. The stakeholders became aware of its importance, and accepted the fact that even if the climate datasets were downscaled and bias corrected at local level, the outcomes provided were still characterized by a certain level of uncertainty. Factsheets were developed for information purposes, which were also published in a local newspaper. Limitations on the availability of advanced products could be a challenge for the successful implementation of a new project (Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016), and available data need to be delivered to stakeholders in a format suitable for them to understand and use the information (Falloon et al., 2018; Soares et al., 2018). Related to this, end users need to be made aware of the uncertainties of scientific information delivered (Soares et al., 2018), while long-term strategies with global objectives for important economic benefits need to be harmonized with natural resources security (Hoff, 2011; Buontempo and Hewitt, 2018). Similarly, capacity building is needed about using new products (Buontempo et al., 2018) or in appraising any projections from assessments (Manzanas et al., 2014; Falloon et al., 2018). New products also preferably are compatible with existing systems (Soares et al., 2018). Four related challenges are also important on CS (Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016): (1) accept the contributions from different stakeholders in CS; (2) address societal needs when shaping the project outcomes and CS; (3) match the information provided to societal needs; and (4) be aware of actions on funding activities or the research process. These challenges were addressed in the case study. Therefore, by involving stakeholders coming from multiple domains, including non-governmental organizations, we were able to identify their concerns. Furthermore, we developed forest management scenarios and societal scenarios together with key stakeholders in order to match their needs. The relevant stakeholders expressed their interest in sediment transport work, which received funding from the Ministry of Waters and Forests. Thus, any multiple economic, societal and environmental benefits that could emerge from the vulnerable sectors and major unbalances are prevented. Access to WEL resources are enhanced, including through orientation to green energy sources and appropriate measures to increase natural resources resilience (Tudose et al., 2020).

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144  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

8.5 CONCLUSION In this chapter, we pursued leveraging the effectiveness of CS in aiding and guiding end users to design response options through policies focused on minimizing and alleviating the effects of climate change. The integration of the WEL nexus in the CS arena represents the decisional support for the political factor and advocates for gathering and bridging different entities and thus encouraging proactive planning, particularly in urban environments that are highly vulnerable to climate change. A state-of-the-art approach to more firmly spot the vulnerable sectors are represented by integrated modelling that has proven to be very useful in describing, exploring and explaining resource interlinkages and also providing high-quality data in time and space. In doing so, sustainable and integrated management of nexus resources is promoted by highlighting the resource interconnections and uncovering synergies and trade-offs while ecosystem resilience under multiple threats is reinforced through robust policies. Furthermore, those policies will foster some targets and indicators of Agenda 2030. Nevertheless, it is necessary to overcome several challenging actions starting with proper identification of relevant end users or their perspectives, expectations and needs and finding pathways to extend the partnership with them beyond the life of the project. Once challenges have been overcome, the stakeholders will make progress and take on meaningful opportunities that arise through integrated management actions that enhance and secure a sustainable environment over time. Finally, we tried to provide an example for sustainable resources management generated from our experience in embedding nexus for CS provision and acknowledging its usefulness under current challenges that our society faces.

NOTE 1. The case study in Romania is part of the European research project Climate Services for the Water-Energy-Land Nexus (CLISWELN). The authors acknowledge financial support from the project CLISWELN funded by the European Research Area for Climate Services (ERA4CS). ERA4CS is an ERA-NET initiated by JPI Climate, and CLISWELN is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany and UEFISCDI in Romania, the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research and FFG in Austria and MINECO, with co-funding from the European Union (Grant 690462).

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Climate services and the nexus for smart resource management  147 Rasul, G. and B. Sharma (2016), ‘The nexus approach to water-energy-food security: An option for adaptation to climate change’, Climate Policy, 16 (6), 682–702. Reinhard, S., J. Verhagen, W. Wolters and R. Ruben (2017), ‘Water-food-energy nexus; A quick scan’, Wageningen: Wageningen Economic Research, 24. Rotmans, J. and M.B.A. van Asselt (2001), ‘Uncertainty management in integrated assessment modeling: Towards a pluralistic approach’, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 69 (2), 101–130. Rouillard, J. J. and C. J. Spray (2017), ‘Working across scales in integrated catchment management: Lessons learned for adaptive water governance from regional experiences’, Regional Environmental Change, 17 (7), 1869–1880. Schneider, F. and T. Buser (2018), ‘Promising degrees of stakeholder interaction in research for sustainable development’, Sustainability Science, 13 (1), 129–142. Scott, A. (2017), ‘Making governance work for water-energy-food nexus approaches’, accessed at https://​cdkn​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2017/​06/​Working​-paper​_CDKN​_Making​-governance​-work​-for​ -water​-energy​-food​-nexus​-approaches​.pdf. Soares, M.B., M. Alexander and S. Dessai (2018), ‘Sectoral use of climate information in Europe: A synoptic overview’, Climate Services, 9, 5–20. Street, R.B. (2016), ‘Towards a leading role on climate services in Europe: A research and innovation roadmap’, Climate Services, 1, 2–5. Street, R.B., M. Parry, J. Scott, D. Jacob and T. Runge (2015), ‘A European research and innovation roadmap for climate services’, accessed at https://​doi​.org/​10​.2777/​702151. Taylor-Wood, E. and D. Fuller (2017), ‘Nexus thinking for a secure and sustainable future’, Eco-Business, accessed 22 December 2020 at www​.eco​-business​.com/​opinion/​nexus​-thinking​-for​-a​ -secure​-and​-sustainable​-future/​. Tubiello, F. (2012), ‘Climate change adaptation and mitigation challenges and opportunities in the food sector’, accessed 26 August 2020 at www​.fao​.org/​foodclimate. Tudose, N., Ș.O. Davidescu, S. Cheval, V. Chendeș, C. Ungurean and M. Babătă (2018), Engagement and Societal Impact Plan. Deliverable 5.1. CLISWELN Project, pp. 1–30. Tudose, N., C. Ungurean, Ș Davidescu, S. Cheval and M. Marin (2019), Information Tailored to the Needs of Stakeholders in the Romanian Case Study. Deliverable 4.3. CLISWELN Project, p. 70. Tudose, N., R. Cremades, H. Mitter, A. Sanchez-Plaza, A. Broekman, C. Ungurean et al. (2020), Academic Working Paper ‘Climate Services for River Basins: Providing Robust Policy Recommendations through the WELFN’. Deliverable 5.3. CLISWELN Project, p. 47. Tudose, N.C., R. Cremades, A. Broekman, A. Sanchez-Plaza, H. Mitter and M. Marin (2021), ‘Mainstreaming the nexus approach in climate services will enable coherent local and regional climate policies’, Advances in Climate Change Research, 12 (5), 752–755. UNFCCC (2019), United Nations Climate Change Annual Report 2019, accessed at https://​unfccc​.int/​ sites/​default/​files/​resource/​unfccc​_annual​_report​_2019​.pdf. United Nations (2015), ‘Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: su​ stainabled​ Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform’, accessed 12 June 2020 at https://​ evelopment​.un​.org/​post2015/​transformingourworld. van Ittersum, M.K., F. Ewert, T. Heckelei, J. Wery, J. Alkan Olsson, E. Andersen et al. (2008), ‘Integrated assessment of agricultural systems: A component-based framework for the European Union (SEAMLESS)’, Agricultural Systems, 96 (1–3), 150–165. Vaughan, C. and S. Dessai (2014), ‘Climate services for society: Origins, institutional arrangements, and design elements for an evaluation framework’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5 (5), 587–603. Verkerk, P.J., R. Costanza, L. Hetemäki, I. Kubiszewski, P. Leskinen, G.J. Nabuurs, J. Potočnik and M. Palahí (2020), ‘Climate-smart forestry: The missing link’, Forest Policy and Economics, 115 (April), 102164. Vincent, K., M. Daly, C. Scannell and B. Leathes (2018), ‘What can climate services learn from theory and practice of co-production?’, Climate Services, 12, 48–58. Voinov, A. and F. Bousquet (2010), ‘Modelling with stakeholders’, Environmental Modelling and Software, 25 (11), 1268–1281. WEF (2011), World Economic Forum in Collaboration with: Global Risks 2011 Sixth Edition An Initiative of the Risk Response Network, accessed 10 March 2020 at www​.weforum​.org.

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148  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Weitz, N., M. Nilsson and M. Davis (2014), ‘A nexus approach to the post-2015 agenda: Formulating integrated water, energy, and food SDGs’, SAIS Review of International Affairs, 34 (2), 37–50. World Meteorological Organization (2016), Climate Services for Supporting Climate Change Adaptation: Supplement to the Technical Guidelines for The National Adaptation Plan Process. Zhao, C., Y. Yan, C. Wang, M. Tang, G. Wu, D. Ding and Y. Song (2018), ‘Adaptation and mitigation for combating climate change – from single to joint’, Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, 4 (4), 85–94.

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9. Capacity development and knowledge transfer on the climate, land, water and energy nexus Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells and Hans-Holger Rogner

9.1 INTRODUCTION Applying the concept of the nexus of climate, land, energy and water systems (CLEWs) to sustainable development requires the integration of knowledge from different disciplines to solve complicated multi-systems challenges.1 Such knowledge and expertise are not solely situated in scientific research’s theoretical realm (i.e. branch of knowledge). For the approach to be successful, integration is also required in a variety of decision spaces. The development of nexus knowledge, which we define as information related to systems’ physical, natural and socioeconomic interactions, broadly emerged from project-oriented research and case study applications, extending the system’s coverage to several resource systems, climate and governance. Discussions among the scientific community, particularly linking development challenges to the functioning of systems and management of resources, guided the agenda of nexus studies throughout the 2010s (Bazilian et al., 2011; Hoff, 2011; Ringler et al., 2013). In this context, knowledge creation happened informally, very much shaped by the teams’ expertise and experience conducting the nexus assessments, the stakeholders involved in the projects and their degree of participation. Nexus knowledge can be used for different purposes depending on the type of actors involved under a specific nexus context and the assessment’s aim. Several authors point to the need for interdisciplinary approaches to address complex challenges (Hicks et al., 2010; Reid et al., 2010; Smajgl and Ward, 2013; Wolfe et al., 2016), as opposed to the more conventional siloed approach to policy design and decision making. In the latter, sectoral policies have no or limited consideration for cross-system impacts and dependencies. The integrated approach considers such interrelations in the preparation of sectoral plans and strategies compatible with multi-sector development. Planning, especially policy-making, which is informed by a nexus approach, is an exercise in dealing with trade-offs between sectors. Knowledge of different systems beyond the sector of work and their requirements from other systems and sectors could facilitate communication and collaboration between institutions, leading to more sound, comprehensive and integrated policies and strategies. Learning about the nexus is unavoidably the first step in a nexus study for any new practitioners. Hardly a single specialist gathers interdisciplinary knowledge with an equivalent level of specialisation. Thus, achieving multi-disciplinarity for multi-system problem solving requires building baseline knowledge of the nexus across an ecosystem of systems and by a pool of cross-sectoral actors. This base Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

149

150  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus knowledge is necessary for communication between actors involved in the assessment and the successful dissemination of the approach within their (actors’) organisation and networks. Even for experienced nexus experts, learning is still present when engaged in a nexus assessment. On the one hand, knowledge is required to conduct nexus assessments, implicitly leading to learning opportunities; on the other, knowledge about the nexus is also generated. This new knowledge can later retro-feed into the initial nexus learning process. Hence, there is a continuous stock-taking of experiences across several projects such as nexus issues, examples of trade-offs, sets of solutions and the processual expertise gained from conducting an assessment, to list a few. This informally gathered body of knowledge is vast but specific. Thus, it needs to be transferred to raise awareness of nexus implications, leverage integrated systems analysis and facilitate the permeation into decision-making processes. The siloed approach to planning and decision making is still the standard approach (Howells et al., 2013). However, there is increasing evidence pointing to a shift towards more collaborative approaches at various decision levels. An example is the expansion of capacity-building activities in nexus modelling (UNDESA and UNDP, n.d.), or the number of research projects and calls related to the nexus (European Commission, 2020). Reconciling the two approaches (siloed and integrated) would confer flexibility to planning processes and sound decision making. Thus, nexus knowledge needs to be present in the planning environment as transversal and cross-cutting skills (e.g. systems-thinking, and integrated systems analysis). Several approaches exist to guide the examination of the interconnections between resource systems and services that aim to inform policy and decision-making processes. Examples of nexus assessment frameworks include the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Water-Energy-Food Nexus (Flammini et al., 2014), the transboundary nexus assessment methodology (de Strasser et al., 2016; UNECE, 2018b), the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Tool (Daher and Mohtar, 2015; Mohtar and Daher, 2016), the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (Giampietro, 2013), the SIM4NEXUS Nexus assessment framework (Ramos et al., 2020), the Nexus Solutions Tool (IIASA, 2020) and the CLEWs framework (Howells et al., 2013; Ramos et al., 2021). In this chapter, we focus on the latter because it has been applied in different learning contexts, from capacity-development activities to nexus dialogues and in academia. The CLEWs framework guides the analysis of interactions between climate, land, energy and water. CLEWs-type research is often supported by the quantitative study of systems interactions and the use of resources by different sectors. In CLEWs, systems are defined at a biophysical level. They contain the activities of the sectors that predominantly use or depend upon the resources available in a system (e.g. coal as a resource of the energy system used in the energy sector or in the sub-sectors of heating, cooking or electricity; or the use of diesel for the transportation or operation of water pumps in the agricultural sector, part of the land system). The majority of the CLEWs applications to date explore resource management, focusing on assessing sectoral policies and on the implications to (and of) the climate system (Ramos et al., 2021). In this chapter, we present and discuss different approaches to knowledge transfer and development in the nexus approach, as implemented in various applications of the CLEWs framework (Howells et al., 2013; Ramos et al., 2021). The chapter is organised as follows. We first illustrate the importance of learning about the nexus and identify existing channels and mechanisms to transfer nexus knowledge. The next section focuses on activities and initiatives related to the CLEWs framework by presenting examples of how these are structured and conducted and how learning is achieved. Next, enabling factors, opportunities, barriers Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  151 and challenges to disseminating nexus knowledge are presented and discussed. We conclude the chapter by summarising key lessons from the knowledge-transfer activities related to the CLEWS framework practice and suggest ways for further improvement.

9.2

LEARNING ABOUT THE NEXUS

Learning about the nexus can occur via different routes, namely through formal, non-formal or informal learning. Formal learning is structured, goal-oriented and instructed by a teacher or facilitator, and knowledge is organised in courses, webinars and educational resources to achieve specific learning goals. Such a practice is often associated with a formal certification of the knowledge acquired and found in traditional education settings, such as universities or online-certified courses. Other formal approaches include nexus-related courses (or projects and assignments) at academic and vocational levels in various disciplinary areas. For example, the nexus approach can be included in the curricula of many programmes with different foci (e.g. in hydrology and water management degrees, as it can be included in sustainable energy engineering programmes). Learning about the nexus outside specifically defined programmes that award a certification, such as online courses and summer schools, are other examples of formal learning in the nexus. Also, capacity-development initiatives can be considered formal learning activities. The development of capacity (by individuals, organisations or nations) is a process in which existing capacities are maintained, strengthened and/or expanded to attain development objectives (Ubels et al., 2010; UNDP, 2008). In this chapter, we opt to use the term ‘capacity development’ instead of ‘capacity building’. We assume that capacity already exists and is being developed further as part of an endogenous and continuous process, as opposed to the term ‘building’, which suggests that no capacity existed before the initiatives (UNDP, 2008). Learning can also be achieved through a non-formal approach. A learner takes the conscious decision to learn or master a particular topic and engages in activities or takes action towards learning about the subject. This type of learning does not follow a specific structure nor has an accreditation system. Such an approach can be followed when an expert decides to or is required to expand the knowledge on a certain topic, which can be (or related to) the nexus concept, and the individual defines the learning plan. As non-formal learning methods, we find tutorials, online courses (without accreditation or certification), participation in research and/or interinstitutional projects and nexus dialogues. Non-formal learning activities are structured and aimed at reaching specific goals; however, they are different from formal learning (Rogers, 2014). Learning occurs indirectly when the learner is not pursuing a particular purpose but where the participation in activities results in the acquirement or production of knowledge. In the context of the nexus, it can occur as a result of personal research, as a member of networks and communities of practice (CoPs), participation and/or attendance of conferences and meetings, as well as nexus dialogues. On the latter, and although the initiatives can have overarching goals linked to specific projects, learning can be accomplished indirectly through discussions and talks and stock-taking of current research and learnings from other projects (ongoing or finalised). When learning activities are unplanned, not framed around specific goals, and self-directed, the approach is known as informal learning. Since this approach is primarily focused on the individual level, its structure is determined by the learner’s actions. Thus, it can be more Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

152  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus structured (e.g. personal research online, books, articles, etc.) or less planned (e.g. as a member of a community, participation in forums and discussions). Informal learning is incidental – meaning that the understanding can be achieved coincidently. This can be the case of participating in conferences or discussions in meetings, workshops and nexus dialogues. This section explores how learning has been accomplished in different knowledge-transfer activities embedded in nexus assessments from the perspective of learning approaches. We start by discussing the importance of learning about the nexus and then analyse how it is processed in formal learning contexts and practice. 9.2.1

The Importance of Learning

An increasing number of examples of resource system nexus, and their interactions with the climate system, have been identified and investigated at different administrative and geographical scales. These include applications to transboundary watercourses (Lebel and Lebel, 2018; UNECE, 2015, 2018b), coherent management of land and water resources at the national level (Hermann et al., 2012; Howells et al., 2013; Martinez et al., 2018; Sridharan et al., 2020) and water and energy efficiency at urban level (Engström et al., 2017). The 2030 Agenda2 expanded the dimensions of system interconnectedness within the sustainable development context by introducing the ‘indivisible’ and ‘integrated’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to substitute the Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2015). The launch of the 2030 Agenda unfolded to many a dimension of systems interconnectedness in the context of sustainable development, manifested through the SDGs and their interlinkages. The SDGs and their simultaneous achievement embody the inherent and intrinsic need for integrated planning at multiple levels (Liu et al., 2018; Mohtar, 2016). Acknowledging the interconnectedness of systems is a critical step in understanding the nexus of systems. It paves the way for understanding context-specific system interdependencies and their implications and facilitates identifying study priorities. Moreover, it allows for understanding complex resource management problems, impacts to and from climate systems, the ramification or propagation that sectoral or system issues can pose to other systems and sectors and feedback mechanisms. Overall, one builds a conceptual understanding of systems and their interactions. Once one begins to internalise the concept of the nexus, the qualitative and/or quantitative interpretation of how linked systems perform and co-exist becomes more transparent and clearer (within the limitations of the detailed knowledge of the systems). Nexus knowledge also facilitates understanding systems’ representation in modelling tools, the importance of data for systems’ characterisation and the advantages of nexus information systems. Compatible data standards allow for an improved representation of connections between resources use (Howells et al., 2021). At the governance level, nexus knowledge could contribute, and is necessary, to the development of transversal and cross-institutional capacity in several systems. It can facilitate communication between institutions dealing with common resources or that are indirectly impacted by decisions that affect their management (e.g. commerce, finance, employment) (UNECE, 2017). Additionally, it creates opportunities to develop innovative and flexible governance mechanisms that can look into complex cross-system challenges (Gallagher et al., 2016), such as dealing with trade-offs across different institutional barriers. Several target audiences can be identified for nexus learning. Thus, it is vital to identify the possible entry points for the transfer and development of such knowledge in various contexts Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  153 in which the concept is being explored. In a nexus assessment, frequent entry points to knowledge transfer are the nexus system’s stakeholders participating in the assessment. Often, the study necessitates the involvement of a cross-sectoral multitude of actors (e.g. from the public sector, business or private sector, research and academia, international organisations, and civil society). These are engaged with the operation and function of the systems in different ways or levels. Some may be responsible for the decisions that influence system services, while others could affect the systems by means of their behaviour. Although we will not explore how different actors affect the systems, we observe their connectedness to strengthen the argument for learning about the nexus. One should not forget the individuals who can potentially become stakeholders in a nexus assessment context. Building the foundation of systems thinking and of the nexus concept during the different stages of academic studies could streamline the incorporation of the integrated systems approach in decision processes. 9.2.2

Learning about the Nexus in Formal Education Processes

Over time, nexus knowledge has been built from practice and research. An increasing effort exists in formal education contexts to organise and structure nexus knowledge for learning in academic and vocational education providers. Such work has motivated lectures and courses in these institutions and the organisation of summer schools. The retrospective and iterative process of creating nexus-related learning opportunities is based on reflective and functioning learning. This is so because learners are required to understand system interconnections and multi-system problems. Simultaneously, it is solidly grounded on declarative knowledge in the understanding of individual systems and sectors. Learning about the nexus can be achieved at different graduate levels. The typical approach is formal learning, characterised by structured, goal-oriented activities, with learning generally instructed by a facilitator or teacher. Using the Structure of Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy by Biggs and Tang (2011), we suggest how nexus knowledge can be presented and incorporated in the different degree levels. At the undergraduate level (first cycle), where students focus on building ground knowledge of specific topics (declarative knowledge), the introduction of the nexus concept could be inserted following an interdisciplinary approach. In this way, students would learn how their subject of study links to and interacts with other disciplines. This corresponds to the third SOLO level, ‘multi-structural’, in which students are presented with a concept and increase their knowledge quantitatively. However, more learning is required to understand it deeply. More in-depth knowledge could be achieved by developing undergraduate thesis projects on a topic related to the nexus. At the postgraduate level (second and third cycles), students have already consolidated their learning in specific subjects and topics. They are now equipped with essential skills over which they can expand their knowledge on other inter-related themes. Thus, courses at this level can focus on inter and cross-disciplinary perspectives and, for example, use problem-based learning for examining and solving simple multi-systems challenges. Learning at this level corresponds to the ‘relational’ SOLO taxonomy level, in which learners go beyond the ‘multi-structural’ level to acquire a deeper understanding of the concepts. Students engaged in a postgraduate programme often come from different scientific backgrounds. Teaching and learning about the nexus should take advantage of this characteristic. The development of projects, including theses, inspired or motivated by real-world challenges (e.g. related to ongoing Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

154  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus projects) could encourage learning and prepare a new generation of nexus practitioners and decision makers. In the particular case of doctoral studies (third cycle), learners have the opportunity to expand their understanding in a particular field and develop new knowledge. For the nexus concept and research field, it is an opportunity to advance the disciplinary area of the nexus approach. At this level, learning moves beyond the ‘relational’ to the ‘extended abstract’ level in the SOLO taxonomy. The experience and learning gained over these SOLO levels can retro-feed into the planning of courses, assessments and projects. Also, this process supports the continuous improvement of teaching/learning activities dedicated to the nexus and can motivate new nexus-oriented research. Summer schools are another means for nexus knowledge transfer at all academic and vocational levels. This is an interesting alternative to set programmes that can limit the flexibility in terms of formally recognised learning opportunities. Also, it enables the participation of students and teachers from different levels of education, backgrounds and expertise. The schools we describe even have a wider focus and can be attended by non-academics such as government officials. Such characteristics increase the likelihood of a multi-disciplinarity and enable a creative and innovative environment that could not have occurred in a conventional educational context. Incorporating the nexus approach as a topic or subject discipline in an academic institution is possible. How and which concepts to explore in each level requires planning for adequately matching ground knowledge (quantity) and complexity (quality, functional knowledge) with the programme outcomes in which it is being included. Participation in summer schools, or activities that enable sharing of knowledge (e.g. conferences, workshops), could provide the opportunity to enrich the knowledge portfolio of the students, provide consolidation with applications to new cases and contexts or even bridge possible gaps in existing programmes. 9.2.3

Learning about the Nexus in Professional Development and Practice

Outside formal education contexts, nexus learning occurs in a mix of formal, non-formal and informal approaches, resulting in a blend of discrete to incidental learning opportunities and skills expansion. In essence, the overall objective of nexus learning in any context will converge learning about systems interactions, assessing them, and incorporating the knowledge in planning processes in whichever context. A more formal approach enables the transfer of specific knowledge within a particular timeframe, as it is designed to achieve specific learning goals. However, learning in non-formal and informal ways can establish a ground for inter, multi- and transdisciplinary opportunities through the acknowledgement of systems interconnections, new associations, identification of trade-offs and/or innovative solutions thinking unexpected to the learner and/or to the community. In this section, we explore processes of knowledge transfer in the context of the practice of nexus assessments involving established cross-sectoral professionals and stakeholders. In such contexts, the understanding to be developed builds upon existing knowledge and experience. For this reason, we use the term ‘capacity’ to refer to the nexus knowledge being acquired and established in the context of practice. For such, ‘capacity’ is interpreted as the ability of people, organisations and society as a whole (or human system) to manage their affairs successfully (OECD, 2006), but also on their ‘ability to perform, sustain itself, and self-renew’ (Ubels et al., 2010). Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  155 When planning for and conducting capacity development involving nexus knowledge, it is important to examine what type of capacity is to be built, which learning approaches could be used, and its implications across the planning and decision-making ecosystem. Such thinking can help design more effective learning activities and programmes that are context-relevant and in line with the end goal of a specific project. In support of this exercise, it is worth looking at the broader role of capacity and its different implications depending on where it is developed. Types of learning and levels of capacity The development of capacity occurs differently at different levels. Learning is one of its fundamental principles (Ortiz and Taylor, 2019). Planning capacity-development activities stems from identified knowledge gaps or weaknesses, or the expected benefits that knowledge advancement can bring at individual and organisational levels or the policy environment. Thus, such activities support specific to broader learning agendas. In the late 1990s, a framework emerged to clarify the levels of capacity (Morgan, 1998), which can be targeted in capacity-development initiatives, which was then adopted by international organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The levels follow a hierarchy of capacity from the individual to organisational, sector/network and enabling environment. In combination, they form an integrated system (UNDP, 2008). All levels interact and interface with the previous and the next. The ‘capacity levels’ framework, depicted on the left-hand side of Figure 9.1, schematically illustrates the top-down and bottom-up relations that can serve as entry points for capacity development.

Source:

Based on Bolger (2000) and UNDP (2008).

Figure 9.1

CLEWs capacity development and nexus dialogues in the context of the levels of capacity Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

156  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus When planning a capacity-development programme for a specific entry level, planning teams should consider the implications to other levels of capacity from implementing the programme. They should also take into account the different ways that learning can be achieved. When capacity is built at the individual level or in small-scale organisations, it tends to be more technical and specific to tackle the lack of skills, enhance individuals’ knowledge on particular topics or be part of planned professional development. Here the learning approach is formal, with specific learning goals. The to-be-developed capacity is not always analysed from the organisation’s perspective, e.g. how the organisations will benefit from the new or upgraded knowledge and if conditions are gathered for professionals actually to make use of the new skill set. Such a type of exercise is needed for new capacity to be consolidated and benefit the organisation as a whole. At the organisational level, capacity development tends to focus more on the structural, resources and management levels; and this is a common entry point for donor agencies. Emphasis is given to technical assistance (which can then target individuals as part of the organisation), the establishment of cross-institutional connections and funding or infrastructural support. Similarly to the ‘individual’ level, the learning approach tends to be predominantly formal. Collaboration and coordination efforts within and across institutions characterise the sector/network capacity level. Due to its broader scope, initiatives can focus on sub-sector or sector levels or be framed under specific themes. Learning realised at this level is less easily measured and evaluated, and challenging to predict or plan for. Thus, non-formal and informal learning of the nexus dominates the knowledge-transfer processes since the learning is not actually planned but fulfilled as a consequence or indirectly requested from professionals in the network (who may carry out their research or be involved in activities that facilitate such knowledge transfer and creation). Targeting this level of capacity can enable the establishment of synergies and the utilisation of existing capacity, and the design of capacity-development initiatives that strengthen and expand capacity in a broader but strategic way. The enabling environment is the highest level of capacity and refers to the wider context where development processes occur. The enabling environment can be enabling, constraining or both (Bolger, 2000). Due to its high level, capacity actions in this context slowly reflect on other levels of capacity. These relate to policies, attitudes and values; bottom-up initiatives take time to affect them. Entry points to nexus learning Different entry points can be identified in CLEWs-type nexus activities linked to specific capacity dimensions. Correspondence between these activities and the levels of capacity is illustrated in Figure 9.1, on the right-hand side. Longer-term capacity-development interventions, such as in CLEWs training and workshops (identified with ‘A’ in Figure 9.1), aim at developing modelling and planning skills at the individual level. If participants are involved from an organisation’s perspective, such programmes envisage impacts and benefits at the organisational level. If different institutions are involved, the initiative acquires a network level where collaboration can be established. Developing similar capacity across different organisations and sectors can support a specific vision as a coordinated effort at the enabling environment level. It can also promote the design of a more ambitious vision. A less aligned enabling environment can counteract the capacity-development programme’s effects if opportunities for using the capacity developed are not created or supported. Examples of activities which typically target the ‘individual’ and the ‘organisational’ capacity dimensions include the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) Capacity Building Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  157 national-level initiatives (UNDESA and UNDP, n.d.), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) technical cooperation (IAEA, 2017) and the UNDP Asia-Pacific CLEWs training (UNDP and UNDESA, 2021). Nexus dialogues or short duration stakeholder workshops, identified with ‘B’ in Figure 9.1, frequently involve stakeholders from multiple sectors and organisations. Often stakeholders gather to discuss specific complex and cross-sectoral issues and implications. The aim is to foster and promote cooperation among different organisations in addressing such challenges. In this process, knowledge is transferred among actors and created if certain relationships have not been made before. Thus, this type of initiative, oriented towards developing nexus knowledge, operates at the level of interinstitutional cooperation. Examples of these activities include the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) transboundary nexus dialogues, FAO nexus dialogues or the stakeholder nexus workshops in the SIM4NEXUS project (Brouwer et al., 2020; FAO, 2020; UNECE, 2018a; UNECE, 2019). Another important initiative that contributes to nexus learning, which enables nexus capacity development but is not structured as a capacity-development programme and learning is achieved informally, from an educational viewpoint. This category represents conferences, expert (or thematic) meetings and winter/summer schools, identified with ‘C’ in Figure 9.1, targeting a wider community but gathering experts that relate directly or partially to interdisciplinarity practices. Examples of such initiatives include the Annual Meetings of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC, 2020), the Nexus Project Cluster (Nexus Cluster, 2018), the Nexus Task Force meetings of UNECE (UNECE, 2016) and the Dresden Nexus conference (UNU-FLORES, 2019), to mention a few. Participation in conferences and meetings allows the dissemination of new knowledge and for the experience to be shared. Moreover, such initiatives can inspire further research and/or promote new conceptual relationships, approaches and applications. These can also result in the forging of new collaborations. Under this view, these activities target the ‘sector/network’ capacity levels and contribute to the ‘enabling environment’. Additionally, personal knowledge is also developed at the ‘individual’ level from participation in the conference or meeting. The improved capacity can directly affect the individual’s work or represent additional expertise that the expert can provide, increasing the expert’s skills portfolio. Ideally, capacity-development interventions should consider the inter-relations between levels of capacity, effects and influences and at all entry levels. In integrated assessments or CLEWs-type analyses, such effort is critical to creating real opportunities to uptake the integrated approach to planning and decision making. Nexus knowledge created through practice is of great importance to the learning at all levels, and provide real-case examples and gap identification which can motivate new research. In sum, nexus knowledge intricately connects across the possible learning contexts and is reachable via all different learning types. Table 9.1 summarises the key points of this section by establishing the correspondence between approaches to learning, types of nexus and CLEWs knowledge-transfer activities, and the ‘capacity levels’ framework.

Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

initiatives and projects. Lack of capacity. Power relations, social norms and values.

policy reform, etc. Policies, legislation, power relations and social norms, all

organisations interact. 2008).

different parts of society (UNDP,

and civic engagement across

or facilitated by it. It defines how priorities, models of operation

function, which can be hampered of which govern mandates,

individuals and organisations

Informal

● Project dissemination

Lack of coordination among

interinstitutional collaboration,

workshops

● Project dissemination

● Expert group meetings

● Nexus dialogues

workshops

● Expert group meetings

priorities.

coordination, cross and

coherent strategies and policies.

sectors, and internal and external and programming frameworks,

● Conferences

workshops ● Nexus dialogues

Competing organisational

Non-formal and informal

organisational cultures.

Alliances and traditional

Policy coherence, strategies

● Project dissemination

● Expert group meetings

service delivery, cross-sectoral

priorities and work plans.

planning, systems thinking.

entities, for the development of

Coordination within and across

capacity-development

that enable the use of individual

of issues with an organisation.

● Conferences

● Nexus dialogues

Mismatch of

procedures and frameworks capacities, integrated approach to programmes and organisational

● Capacity-building programmes

Organisational culture.

Internal policies, arrangements,

and resources and management

● Nexus dialogues Formal, non-formal and informal ● Summer schools

Refers to structures, processes

Enabling environment Broader system within which

Sector/network

Organisational

● Webinars, online educational

and resources).

resources

● Credited courses

opportunities (e.g. time, funding Lack of infrastructure.

● Capacity-building programmes

Lack of access to training

tion institutions

demic and vocational educa● Summer schools

(other sectors); systems thinking. Skilled individuals leaving the organisation.

cross-disciplinary knowledge

(UNDP, 2008).

enable the use of new capacity.

Formal, non-formal and informal ● Courses and projects at aca-

Activities and projects which

Knowledge-transfer activities

Dominant type(s) of learning

Examples of challenges

vested in people (individuals)

Skills, experience and knowledge Technical knowledge; inter and

Type of capacities

Description

Individual

Nexus learning in the perspective of capacity levels, challenges to capacity development, learning approaches and knowledge-transfer activities

Level of capacity

Table 9.1

158  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  159

9.3

TRANSFERRING NEXUS KNOWLEDGE IN CLEWS-TYPE APPLICATIONS

The CLEWs framework has been used in several capacity-building programmes by a number of institutions (e.g. IAEA, UNDESA/UNDP, UNECA, UNECE, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden and Simon Fraser University in Canada). This section presents how knowledge transfer of the CLEWs framework has been accomplished over the past decade under different applications’ formats (or categories). In the overview of the initiatives, we consider the aim, duration, type of activities, engagement of actors and how these link to the capacity levels. The framework has been included in the course content of several undergraduate and graduate courses at KTH and motivated over 15 thesis projects (i.e. bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral level). The framework and its applications have also been featured in scientific conferences and/or presented at expert meetings. CLEWs training materials are available online as part of the outreach training course developed by UNDESA, UNDP and partners (UNDESA, 2016). The examples highlighted in this section correspond to knowledge-transfer activities linked to the CLEWs framework. More specifically, we describe an example of activities A, B and C, which were mapped against the levels of capacity framework and are illustrated in Figure 9.1. These include an example of type A (capacity development in CLEWs), B (nexus dialogues and workshops) and C (conferences and meetings) activities. 9.3.1

Example 1: Capacity-Development Programmes

The incorporation of CLEWs in capacity-development programmes started in the early 2010s in an effort led by the IAEA.3 From 2015, the Economic Affairs and Policy Division of UNDESA (UNDESA-EAPD), in partnership with the UNDP, started including the approach in their capacity-building projects. We describe here this most recent format, which kicked off with the pilot cases of Nicaragua and Uganda (KTH-dESA, 2017; UNDESA-EAPD, 2016). The programmes built on previous UNDESA initiatives, where capacity building in energy systems and economy-wide models had been conducted or was ongoing (KTH-dESA, 2015; UNDESA-EAPD, 2015). In both cases, some of the participants in the CLEWs training already had background knowledge of the Open Source energy Modelling System (OSeMOSYS).4 This modelling tool is currently used for the UNDESA/UNDP CLEWs capacity-development initiatives due to its versatility in terms of systems representation, for being open source and non-proprietary. Capacity developed in the capacity-building workshops of UNDESA-EAPD/UNDP is mainly of individual and organisational-level types, with the dissemination of the project findings contributing to capacity development at the sectoral/network level. The training format is discussed with country-level institutional counterparts and largely coincides with the description in continuation. The programme’s main purpose is to build capacity among an interministerial team of government officials to use quantitative tools in policy design. In the particular case of CLEWS, the aim is to promote the development and implementation of integrated planning approaches. A complete UNDESA/UNDP CLEWs capacity-building programme typically lasts about 6–12 months, throughout which three to five one-week workshops are conducted. In the first workshop, general concepts are introduced related to the role of modelling to inform policy Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

160  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus or answer policy questions, the CLEWs framework, basics of the modelling tool to be used (i.e. OSeMOSYS). It is in this first week that participants explore the energy systems module default representation in the OSEMOSYS-CLEWs model and work for its improvement. Data requirements, availability and use are also discussed. Water and land systems are the second workshop’s foci, where interlinkages between systems are identified and their representation is explored in the model. The third workshop is primarily dedicated to the improvement of the land systems’ characterisation, as well as conducting further modelling refinements. The time between workshops is key for gathering data and preparation; hence, data availability and accessibility are common topics throughout the training. In the fourth workshop, interactions continue to be studied but from a perspective of scenario development to investigate policy questions identified throughout the workshop. Model limitations are also discussed, as well as data requirements for future model refinement. In this workshop, a plan is laid out for scenario studies and elaborating policy notes from the quantitative analysis. The latter will continue to be developed in collaboration with participants until the last workshop (fifth), when the policy notes are finalised and presented. Several stakeholders are involved/implicated in the capacity-development CLEWs programme. The national counterparts, particularly the institution that requests the United Nations’ technical assistance and is responsible for coordinating the project at the national level and the participants5 (i.e. government officials) take part in the several training workshops and in the intermediate activities between training sessions. Lastly, a dissemination workshop is held with policy-makers and high-level decision makers from the institutions who have sent participants for training and other invited institutions. It is also a common practice that government officials, who took part in the training, present their learning and the training outcomes within their respective institutions, extending further or creating opportunities for further knowledge dissemination and buy-in of the approach. Policy notes can be used to discuss particular topics of interest in interministerial meetings or cabinet meetings, for example. Throughout the training, efforts are made to ensure the analyses are the most relevant to pressing and current policy and development questions. Model co-development may be possible, but it will likely be limited in terms of complexity (or it will be more straightforward) if different experts and stakeholders collaborate in the process (Voinov and Bousquet, 2010). A strong push exists for national ownership of the process, national modelling tools and the analysis – and this is the real issue. In particular, it can be hard to achieve within the timeframe of the activities and requires a continued effort and a strategic and integrated vision of the capacity-development initiatives. It is essential to build knowledge of the tool. It is also equally important to ensure the tools developed can answer relevant policy questions. 9.3.2

Example 2: Nexus Dialogues

Nexus dialogues, or stakeholder workshops, are a frequent stakeholder participatory approach used in nexus assessments. Such events also function as a means for nexus knowledge dissemination. Activities within this type of activity include short-term workshops (less than five days), which are part of a nexus assessment project. Depending on the scope of the dialogue, the audience can be quite diverse. In general, it is broad, including the public sector, private sector, non-governmental organisations, cross-country organisations, civil society and academic experts. The overall objective is to disseminate and advocate for specific topics, establish partnerships and collaboration and raise awareness. A certain degree of peer review and Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  161 discussion of ideas among peers is also present, as is the search for inputs from stakeholders, including the assessment of data availability. Thus, levels of capacity developed correspond predominantly to the organisational and network/sectoral levels. Capacity is also built at the individual level, from each participant’s individual learning in the workshop. Such a capacity can transpire at the network level. Take the example of professional mobility by stakeholders who participated in the dialogue. As mobility will likely happen within a network, such stakeholders will take the nexus learning to their new institutions. Nexus dialogues have a shorter-term duration (up to three days) and have a wide variety of stakeholders. Such dialogues could target a reasonably large number of participants (between 25 to 100) and also a factor of the number of institutions engaged and the number of countries sharing a basin or an aquifer system. Due to the time limitation and specificities that need to be accounted for, they tend to be rather short on the introduction to the nexus but include group sessions where participants are encouraged to engage in actual dialogues among themselves. In the particular case of the Transboundary Nexus Assessment Methodology (de Strasser et al., 2016; UNECE, 2015), the events (or nexus dialogues) usually take two to three days and are spread out throughout the duration of the project. In each country, the project team and national counterparts aim to engage actors from the government (e.g. ministries and institutions related to the transboundary nexus systems) and regional organisations (e.g. river basin authorities, non-governmental organisations, private companies, academia, etc.). The dialogues aim to engage the same actors and/or institutions across all events organised under the same project. Workshop sessions vary from plenary discussions to group sessions. Group sessions are often mediated by facilitators who are part of the project team. The dialogues are held in specific stages of the project, described as follows. A first dialogue follows from a desk study, which includes an initial analysis of the nexus context. When possible and as relevant, the systems are scrutinised in more detail on the area falling in the basin under study. This workshop aims to validate nexus interlinkages in the basin. It also informs on the central nexus (and country-level) challenges that affect the basin, and could be alleviated through transboundary cooperation. The analytical team uses inputs from the first workshop to build an analytical approach to investigate the challenges identified. A second dialogue is held after the quantitative and qualitative analysis phase to discuss the outputs up to then. Stakeholders comment on the results and provide feedback on the analytical approach, which often requires an update of the analysis. Not all nexus challenges can be investigated (for several reasons, including the project’s duration, number of experts involved, the expertise required, the specificity of the issues and capacity of modelling tools (or time to build or adapt the analysis), data availability and accessibility). Scenarios are usually discussed (and developed) between the first and second workshops. A third dialogue is held at a later stage of the project. This serves to communicate the findings from the updated analytical approach and to discuss possible solutions. Inputs from the last workshop are used to further improve the study and agree and clarify the project outcomes and main messages. A draft report of the nexus assessment is usually available before the workshop and is to be discussed during the event. This provides an excellent opportunity to review the findings, further validate the assessment and identify critical issues that need to be addressed. The participatory approach establishes cohesion between the countries that agree on a collective message that is relevant at the regional and national levels. For knowledge transfer, this is critical as the final report will serve to disseminate the case study, the approach and the solutions found. The report can also play a role in developing capacity in the enabling Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

162  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus environment and motivate capacity development across organisations and/or at the individual level. Nexus dialogues can go well beyond the analysis of nexus issues. In the experience of UNECE, for example, nexus dialogues become more and more focused on the joint elaboration of integrated (policy and technical) solutions (UNECE, 2020). They are also a way to discuss past experiences of implementing similar solutions in different countries – an important occasion for knowledge sharing and peer-to-peer capacity building. 9.3.3

Example 3: Summer Schools

Nexus-themed summer schools are examples of knowledge-transfer activities that are not linked to a particular project, unlike the previous examples, with participation motivated by (strategic) individual interest. Capacity and skills are developed mainly at the individual level, although the school’s purpose can expand towards the organisational level. Summer or winter schools are formal learning activities. They are structured and goal-oriented, require facilitators or trainers, happen in a specific timeframe and are accredited or certified. CLEWs summer schools have been held in the International Centre for Theoretical Physics and other institutions throughout the 2010s. The first schools were held over one week and focused on stock-taking CLEWs examples, modelling tools and quantitative approaches, and discussing policy coherence (ICTP and IAEA, 2012, 2013). Later in 2017 and 2018, learning and teaching activities expanded to three and four weeks, respectively (ICTP, 2017, 2018, 2019; OpTIMUS Community, 2019). In the latter events, audiences and scope were slightly different from those in the two previous schools. In 2017, the emphasis was on developing integrated CLEWs models using a single tool (OSeMOSYS). Country-level multi-disciplinary teams of government officials participated and developed the models. UNDESA and UNDP funded their participation. The 2021 edition (ICTP, 2021) and the UNDP Asia-Pacific training (UNDP and UNDESA, 2021) follow a similar approach, except these initiatives are organised in an online format. In 2018 and 2019, most participants were self-funded, and their work sector was more diverse, though academia was dominantly represented. The purpose of the 2018 summer school was to build and develop knowledge on the use of OSeMOSYS to build energy systems models. However, in this school’s edition, participants also learned how to use the modelling framework to represent water, land and climate systems. Common to all editions were knowledge transfer in scenario development and the investigation of policy, technological or resource-management questions. The 2017 edition targeted the development of individual and organisational capacity, as participants came from governmental institutions; whereas, in 2018 and 2019, the strengthening of capacity was promoted as a relatively recent field. In terms of learning activities of the latest format of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics summer schools, the school’s first week was dedicated to introducing general contents of energy systems analysis, planning and modelling, with a brief introduction to the CLEWs framework. In the second week, participants explored how to use OSeMOSYS to represent water, land and climate system elements. In the last week(s), sessions were dedicated to improving country models, developing scenarios and analysing results. The school activities closed with individual or group presentations of the analyses performed throughout the training and poster sessions. Although the primary learning approach was formal in this setting, Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  163 participants also had the opportunity to learn from their peers, contextual challenges and analyses approach and the unfolding discussions. In some cases, the knowledge transfer enabled the initiation of teaching activities led by participants in their respective country-universities, such as the University of Sierra Leone and Makarere University in Uganda. Additionally, participants’ new technical-analysis capacity and the consequent reporting at their respective institutions supported the dissemination of the integrated approach and its potential use to inform decision making. The increased interest has facilitated the request for specific in-country technical assistance from international organisations.

9.4

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER IN THE TRANSITION TO AN INTEGRATED PLANNING APPROACH

Due to its multi-disciplinary dimension, the nexus methodology is continuously evolving and changing. Community efforts exist to create knowledge-sharing opportunities (e.g. conferences, meetings, CoPs, academic journals’ special issues and research topics), engage public and private decision-makers or incorporate the nexus approach content in academic studies. This dynamic mobilisation and creation of nexus knowledge happen organically, many times shaped by the assessment necessities. Knowledge transfer is continually occurring between those involved in the assessment, independently of their involvement level and work area. In this process of nexus knowledge transfer, which aims to solve complex multi-systems challenges, one may find conditions that support the study’s development (and future applications) and the uptake of the integrated approach, and opportunities not foreseen initially. In this section, we highlight enabling conditions and opportunities that could support the knowledge-transfer process, and consequently, contribute to successful nexus assessments. Also discussed are aspects that can manifest as barriers and challenges to nexus knowledge transfer, for which we indicate possible strategies to overcome them. In this analysis, ‘challenges’ differ from ‘barriers’ as they do not necessarily impede the knowledge transfer but can delay or compromise it. Barriers are interpreted to be more practical aspects that could be overtaken. Key aspects are listed in Table 9.2. 9.4.1 Barriers The ‘barriers’ described in this section refer to obstacles that impede or prevent nexus learning and, consequently, successful nexus applications or the transference of the approach. They are more practical and relate to management and resources issues. The barriers indicated in Table 9.2 are described here. A common barrier to knowledge transfer is access to learning materials, including the stock-taking of practical examples. These resources can assist the knowledge-transfer process occurring in the different stages of a nexus assessment and the learning and teaching activities at the academic level. Moreover, they are critical elements for developing nexus-oriented capacity-development programmes, either for formal learning processes or to increase non-formal learning opportunities in contexts where information is not within reach of the learner. Coupled with CoP initiatives, we find an opportunity in the obstacle for the development of joint resources that can be disseminated to wider audiences (and made available in Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

164  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Table 9.2

Overview of enablers, opportunities, barriers and challenges in transferring nexus knowledge Barriers

Challenges

Access to learning materials and compilation of (practical) case

Siloed thinking

study examples

Unused capacity

Policy mandates and cycles

Sustain capacity

Data access, availability and retrievability

Experts’ professional mobility

Limited availability of resources (e.g. human, infrastructure)

Continued stakeholder engagement and uptake of the integrative

Individual beliefs and values

approach Assumptions of what is known Effective knowledge dissemination Monitoring and evaluation of an integrated approach Opportunities

Enablers Assessment of learning and capacity needs

Participatory processes

Formal learning processes

National and international development agendas

Levels of capacity framework

Curricula development for the nexus in support of sustainable

Recognition, validation and accreditation

development

Transfer/exchange of expert knowledge and communities of

Development of modelling tools and methods

practice

Policy learning

Partnerships and collaboration

Strengthening of the policy-science-society interface

Institutionalisation of interdisciplinary thinking and practices

Long-term knowledge and data collected by local experts

different languages). In this way, resources can be peer-reviewed, validated and improved by a community of experts and practitioners. Compilation efforts of applications and respective descriptions, including contact information, are increasing and can support the development of materials and their tailoring to specific contexts. Examples include the Nexus Platform knowledge Hub, managed by the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ, 2016), and the Penn State WEF-Nexus strategic initiative (Arenas et al., 2021). Policy mandates and cycles define and shape the use and management of resources and activities in the nexus systems. Also, investment decisions have medium- to long-term implications to the nexus context and external factors to decisions, such as consumer behaviour. The update of policies already in place, and linked regulations, could turn into a complicated process. Nexus assessment recommendations may not be implementable in the shorter term and, along with the multi-systems dimension, their implementation is challenging. The transition is even more cumbersome if interdisciplinary skills and technical capacities are missing. Even when capacity exists, required modifications at the governmental and decision levels can delay or block the integrated approach’s adoption. Suppose the stakeholders involved are not familiar with the concepts, or there is a lack of ownership. In that case, the assessment outcomes may be limited, and the transposition to policy narrows. Alternatively, if newer team members or the leadership are familiar with the nexus concept, the integrated approach is more likely to benefit from continued support. The enabling environment and organisation-level capacity are vital in overcoming challenges faced by policy cycles. Data access, availability and retrievability are known barriers to the development of nexus assessments. The lack of data or difficulties accessing it can affect the level of detail of a study, the coverage of nexus systems, provide limited insights from the quantitative analysis and ultimately affect the trust-building process with stakeholders. These limitations pose a challenge to prospective knowledge transfer and creation compared to the case in which the Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  165 data context was different. Capacity-development programmes could help overcome the data gap by including data-intensive cases in the training programme. In this way, the learning process promotes and underlines the importance of data availability. Open-access datasets and databases are increasingly common and provide information at the multi-system level (FAO, 2012, n.d.; JMP (WHO, UNICEF), 2017; NASA, 2019; Pekel et al., 2016; UNSD, n.d.; World Bank, 2017). Their use requires expertise and capacity that might need to be developed, not to mention physical infrastructure (e.g. computers, internet access). Although limitations to the use of open data may exist, these can be good starting points for analyses characterised by data constraints. Another barrier to knowledge transfer is the limited availability of human and infrastructure resources. We distinguish this barrier from limited access to educational resource materials due to its dependence on the local context, where it is necessary to develop capacity. This barrier highlights the importance of developing, expanding and maintaining local capacity (Ubels et al., 2010) to continue learning, applying and developing the new knowledge, and transferring it to other local authors. It is also essential to provide adequate infrastructure (e.g. computers, internet connection, reliable electricity supply, equipped rooms or buildings). Individual beliefs and values influence the decision-making process. They also affect the dynamics in the science–policy interface, especially when considering the number and diversity of actors involved and the complexity of the problems investigated. If knowledge for the nexus approach is non-existing or lacking, stakeholder engagement and participation are more challenging to establish. Another barrier is the potential lack of receptivity to the evidence-based decision-making approach, which can further complicate the adoption of the nexus approach. Overcoming this barrier requires the reconstruction of existing knowledge and learning and teaching strategies adapted to this challenge. The Challenge-and-Reconstruct Learning Framework proposed by Smajgl and Ward (2013) could be helpful in this context. Integrating nexus knowledge learning at academic and vocational education institutions can gradually broaden perspectives on the integrated approach. 9.4.2 Challenges ‘Challenges’ correspond to pre-existing conditions or new circumstances that can disturb the knowledge-transfer process. Here we briefly describe the challenges listed in Table 9.2. The first is the siloed approach in planning, referring to the planning and management of sectors dominantly from the perspective of the services provided (e.g. energy sector plans). Although this approach is necessary for the operation and functioning of sub-sectors, strategies and overarching plans benefit from the integrated nexus approach. Resource allocation and policy design can be performed from a cross-sectoral point of view, avoiding the elaboration of counterproductive plans and decisions. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of the approaches and their applicability is linked to the organisational, network and enabling environment capacity levels. A challenge in CLEWs capacity development relates to building capacity and capacity not being used (UNDP, 2008). If capacity developed is not mobilised or cross-linked to the organisation’s existing knowledge and activities, it should not be expected to improve performance and circumstances. Incentives, resources and work plans should accommodate the capacity developed, assuming the development programme is based on capacity ‘needs’ assessment. A capacity-development vision is designed with goals and priorities. It builds on a plan for Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

166  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus capacity development, which considers the capacity levels and supports overcoming unused capacity challenges. Coordination is required between institutions involved to promote and conduct such activities – an effort susceptible to obstacles. Vested interests, power dynamics and preconceptions on the capacity-development aims exist both internally and in external partners. Countries have a history of capacity-building activities performed under different formats and targeting different levels (individual, organisational, sector/network level, enabling environment). The long-term vision of capacity development requires an assessment of capacity developed at these different levels and an exercise of identifying the cross-level added value of such activities. The latter could then identify the needs for capacity development, which would benefit all levels comprehensively and soundly if adequately addressed. Sustaining capacity is also a challenge in the academic context, especially when funding is lacking to pursue nexus research or contrasting research priorities exist. Sustaining capacity and capacity-development activities is a complex challenge that links to many aspects referred to in this section: availability of resources (educational, human or infrastructure), the uncertainty generated by policy mandates, the inflexibility of policy cycles, unrooted development of capacity and reconstruction of learning. Thus, to address this challenge, action needs to be taken at different levels. A sound and integrated capacity-development strategy tackles issues related to the development of expertise and professionalisation. Moreover, it ensures that the capacity developed is the capacity needed and not dictated by ongoing trends (Ubels et al., 2010). Experts’ professional mobility and transition can be a downside, or even a rebound effect, of capacity development. Trained professionals tend to transition to different job positions, usually higher in the hierarchy level, due to improved expertise and skills. If not accounted for in the capacity-development plan (e.g. including several trainees from the same department) and effectively accommodating the use of the capacity in the work plan, capacity built ends up not remaining in the organisation, hampering the goal of strengthened institutions. Also, including the development of nexus-related capacity and skills in the professional development plan can work as an incentive for professionals to more actively engage in the activities while creating options for transition within the organisation or institution. Along with sustained capacity development at the organisation or institutional level, continued stakeholder engagement and uptake of the integrative approach is another challenge when incorporating the nexus approach. Transferring knowledge and sharing experiences across actors and sectors is critical for its implementation, consolidation and continued improvement (Miralles-Wilhelm, 2016). Nexus practitioners must ensure that, when nexus knowledge is transferred, it includes information relevant to the stakeholders. Besides, an environment of knowledge sharing among stakeholders must be fostered (within the nexus application conditions) and their contribution recognised by the organisation. In the context of stakeholder participation, actors involved in the assessment will need to handle the confronting relationship between flexibility and learning (perspective of research and the result-oriented approach, needed by decision-makers) (Ubels et al., 2010). Also related to stakeholder participation, but relevant to collaboration between all actors within nexus assessments, are the assumptions one (or a team) makes of what others may or may not know. This challenge can be reduced by planning capacity-development activities based on capacity needs assessments, improving communication methods and tools (Clarke et al., 2008) and evaluating and reassessing participatory events or other group interactions. Also, providing and sharing appropriate and concise reading materials (literature) before events is Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  167 advantageous for levelling base knowledge and clarifying terminology. Nexus-related educational resources and a nexus case inventory can be used if available. Ensuring effective knowledge dissemination to the diverse audience of nexus assessments, nexus research or less experienced practitioners is another challenge that requires attention. In a nexus assessment, consultation with stakeholders will always involve a learning experience. Different strategies are used to introduce systems thinking and understand the implications of sectoral decisions on other systems. In the UNECE nexus assessments, group interactions are implemented, with stakeholders grouped following different criteria in the separate workshop group discussion sessions. Groups then present their findings and analysis to the whole group. In the Integrated Solutions for Water, Energy and Land project (IIASA, 2019), a board game was developed for stakeholder nexus dialogues. Application of serious games to nexus cases (Brouwer et al., 2020) is another emerging strategy used to teach the nexus concept to stakeholders, groups of interest and academic and vocational education contexts. More and more, visualisation platforms are built to present results from nexus assessments. Some are used for education and training (Centre for Systems Solutions, 2018; UNDESA and UNDP, 2016). Others are case-specific and are used in nexus dialogues for scenario development (IIASA, 2018) or developed to present and discuss modelling results (Ramirez Gomez et al., 2020a, 2020b). More general types are visualisation dashboards for water-energy-food nexus indicators (Simpson et al., 2020) or for producing visualisations from integrated assessment model results (Gidden and Huppmann, 2019). Another challenge is the monitoring and evaluation of the benefits of following an integrated approach to planning and policy-making. This gap is identified by Hicks et al. (2010), who examined interdisciplinary approaches in environmental sciences to understand their implications, both at the level of specific subjects and as enablers for systematic and expanded practices. In the nexus approach, such a gap translates into a lack of solution implementation examples, which have been informed by nexus assessments or suggested by research. Evidence on the performance of nexus solutions is required for the uptake and advancement of the approach. 9.4.3 Enablers By ‘enablers’, we refer to existing methods, mechanisms and conditions or circumstances that already exist and that can be deployed, leveraged upon or expanded in the context of the nexus practice and applications. The enablers indicated in Table 9.2 are described in order. The assessment of learning needs is a common practice in capacity-development programmes. It is often a requirement when planning a nexus-related project, in particular when planning formal learning activities (i.e. courses, curricula, workshops and training). Applied to the nexus, such an approach requires a multi-systems perspective. Basic knowledge of how nexus studies can be conducted (i.e. nexus frameworks) is critical to this stage and can identify opportunities to mobilise existing expertise. Effective nexus learning could benefit from understanding how best to conceptually organise and teach the topic. A formal learning process could support this effort. The endeavour can be more challenging when facilitators are less familiar with a specific dimension of the nexus. Thus, the learning and teaching should be designed considering the transdisciplinarity of the fields and the facilitators involved. It would be necessary to have a repository of methods and educational resources available or to be developed. The knowledge bank could include strucEunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

168  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus tured educational resources, training materials, clarification on terminology, a compilation of initiatives and practical examples and course literature. All should be organised in terms of level, topic and an indication of the intended learning objectives. A similar approach can be followed for the planning of capacity-development events. In this case, formal learning activities would be related to the project context and aim, institutions involved and learning objectives. Critical for capacity development in the nexus is a sound understanding of the implications of the capacity developed across all its levels (i.e. individual, organisational, sector/network and enabling environment). The use of the levels of capacity framework can support nexus practitioners involved in knowledge transfer in planning robust and adequately framed training activities within all capacity levels. Besides, its adoption could strengthen the links between local-, regional- and national-level policies and programmes (Ubels et al., 2010). Planners need to ensure that the learning (or capacity) needs, the capacity-level entry points and the training characteristics (e.g. activities and contents) are compatible and feasible to implement in achieving the overall learning objectives. The proposed comprehensive and integrated approach could result in capacity expansion within institutions (transversally) via in-house knowledge-transfer events, which has happened in the national CLEWs studies of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Another benefit of the approach is its incorporation in work plans, creating multi-institutional teams or committees, and including nexus capacity in the professional development plan. When included in all academic and vocational education programmes, nexus-dedicated courses (or where it has been included as content) already contemplate learning accreditation. The application of recognition, validation and accreditation to informal and non-formal education is not as straightforward due to the learning approach’s nature. However, it is important that the learning can be acknowledged and the individual (and the organisations facilitating the learning process) can formalise the knowledge transfer. Educational and socioeconomic contexts vary worldwide, and the general learning approach can differ significantly (e.g. North–South) (Singh, 2015). The implementation of recognition, validation and accreditation could synergistically benefit the integration of capacity-development levels when planning capacity-development activities, assist or feed on the capacity assessment or individuals in an organisation and contribute to better learning activities. It could also provide experts with developing knowledge through informal and non-formal methods to have their knowledge and skills recognised and made comparable. The latter is particularly relevant to the next point (although not a determinant) and the development of pools of nexus experts. With experts involved in nexus assessments, the iterative learning process refines their skills, both in terms of quantity (e.g. more examples and cases) and quality (e.g. results analysis, interaction with stakeholders, exploring alternative solutions). Combined, this leads to knowledge that is not easy to transfer yet significantly contributes to the nexus practice’s advancement across all project stages (including planning and implementation). CoPs, as practitioner networks, enable some of the knowledge to be transferred. Such communities also encourage exchanges between various stakeholders, such as modelling tools (Miralles-Wilhelm, 2016). Additionally, CoPs create a space for discussion of all aspects in analysis, from methodological steps, modelling tools and approaches, findings, etc. However, CoPs are characterised by specific expert networks and information permeating out of these groups is not always easily accessible. Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  169 Transfer of expert knowledge could be facilitated by establishing pools of practitioners, interactions between CoPs and developing a knowledge bank of case studies linked to the respective contact person(s). In formal education processes, interdisciplinarity should be introduced early in the curricula for this skill to be embedded in future professionals’ education. Another aspect of this enabling condition is its prospect of establishing support services for capacity development (Ubels et al., 2010). Partnerships and collaborations enable capacity development and capacity transfer between the sides of the ‘partnership’. When different sectors and levels of decision are involved, transdisciplinarity is achieved, which is crucial for solving complex problems. For balanced collaborations, partners need to consider the political and ideological preconceptions brought to the table that may influence the dynamics of the relationships, negotiations and decisions — such influence can ultimately enable or hinder effective collaboration and learning opportunities. External organisations (international organisations) can play an important role as facilitators for active and long-lasting partnerships (UNDP, 2008) and in reaching compromises that involve questions of power and politics (Ubels et al., 2010). Although ‘partnerships and collaborations’ are identified here as enablers, they can also be regarded as opportunities through the establishment of new contacts or mobilisation of expertise in new assessments and/or research activities. Another enabler to knowledge transfer is the institutionalisation of interdisciplinary thinking and practices. Incorporating interdisciplinarity in organisations requires officials to develop capacity on the topic, promote collaboration across institutions and sectors and promote exchange within the policy–science interface (Miralles-Wilhelm, 2016). Additionally, the sectoral expert knowledge residing in each institution will be mobilised and poured through other areas of work, structures and working cultures. Such contribution could confer credibility to the project or assessment by building the necessary buy-in and trust required to successfully apply the nexus approach in decision making (Ubels et al., 2010). Integrating interdisciplinarity across and between institutions could come with challenges related to communication between different actors and overwhelming expectations for finding integrated solutions when nexus capacity is still under development. The establishment of interinstitutional (and transparent) databases, through which nexus systems and related information would be accessible, contributes to meeting this challenge. 9.4.4 Opportunities As ‘opportunities’, we consider existing aspects or sets of conditions that can facilitate or assimilate knowledge-transfer activities. The enhancement of such elements can improve learning and implementation. Here we describe the opportunities listed in Table 9.2. Participatory methods and approaches, including in the nexus, are widely covered in the literature. These include, for example, nexus dialogues and scenario developments (Bazilian et al., 2012; Graham et al., 2018; Kok et al., 2006; Martinez et al., 2018; Mohtar and Daher, 2016; Parkinson et al., 2018; Wada et al., 2019), group modelling exercises and engagement (Smajgl, 2010; Voinov and Bousquet, 2010) and others. Participatory processes are vital for nexus studies’ success when the aim is to inform policy- and decision making. In terms of knowledge transfer, they are unique opportunities to disseminate nexus knowledge to individuals and organisations. They support building networks, collaboration and partnerships and, notably, they ensure significance to the study and its outcomes. Stakeholders are the entry Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

170  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus point of the nexus science to policy and practical applications of the nexus approach. There are, however, several challenges in this process that should be accounted for: the engagement of relevant actors; the diversity of stakeholders involved and their continued involvement (Lundgren and McMakin, 2009; Smajgl and Ward, 2013); the reconciliation of interests; and trust-building (Smajgl and Ward, 2013), to name a few. The momentum created by national and international development agendas can play a part in disseminating the nexus approach, increasing the opportunities for nexus knowledge transfer in various contexts. Concern over the integrated sustainable development and policy coherence are important entry points for the nexus approach. The analysis of impacts, trade-offs, opportunities and synergies is a common element of CLEW assessments. This requires understanding how systems and sectors operate and how they affect or are affected by other systems. Stakeholders involved in nexus assessments are required to see their sector’s interests and ambitions from other sectors’ perspectives. As an outcome, integrated and coherent policies and strategies can be produced. The 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement are excellent examples of the drive that international agendas can proportionate to advance the nexus approach and all the associated learning. The expertise built over participatory processes and lessons learned in nexus assessments are much-needed examples for continued uptake of the nexus approach and important content for curricula development in formal education contexts. The advancement of teaching about the nexus can then retro-feed participatory processes, support dissemination and sharing of experiences and contribute to new research ideas. From a teaching perspective, it aids the production of versatile educational resources and the testing and development of teaching methods best aligned with the nexus approach. Also, it strengthens the nexus research and the production of scientific literature, which contributes to knowledge transfer and the education and training of future nexus practitioners and stakeholders. The nexus challenges how to investigate case studies, including policy ambitions, ‘resource’ use contexts, knowledge exchange and interactions with stakeholders. They all contribute to the development of modelling tools and new methods for the nexus. Knowledge creation at this level includes, for example, the fast diffusion of open-source tools; new communication techniques for making systems thinking easier and more accessible; and data visualisation, of which geospatially explicit data are an emblematic example. Data availability and accessibility, as well as the tools and expertise available, shape the quantitative approach. Not all methods are transferable, and understanding limitations is vital. This is only achievable if knowledge is shared. Developing tools that are easily transferable and applicable in various contexts would certainly support the uptake of the nexus approach in practice. The integrated modelling framework for CLEWs developed in OSeMOSYS and used for capacity development by UNDESA and the UNDP is an example of the transference of methods. While nexus knowledge is used, it is also continuously advanced. Simultaneously, the science–policy interface is strengthened. Workshops, training and meetings in which nexus issues and analyses are discussed are great policy-learning opportunities for decision and policy-makers and other stakeholders involved in the process. Stakeholder participation throughout the development of a nexus assessment, or even on fewer occasions, can result in knowledge expansion and multi-disciplinary thinking, which decision-makers can tacitly embed in their practice. In the particular case of public policy, nexus-related learning can stem from the implicit iterative learning process through policy evaluation (Howlett and Ramesh, 1995). This includes discussing solutions to Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  171 cross-sectoral issues and how these can be addressed in practical terms, and the type of instruments that could support the new strategies. Activities involving and promoting information exchange between different stakeholders in a spectrum of sectors contribute to strengthening the policy-science-society interface. On the one hand, cross-sectoral issues are discussed, and their causal links, impacts, propagation mechanisms and feedback loops identified. Practitioners and stakeholders learn throughout this process of identifying and characterising complex problems, which can lead to innovative solutions of coordinated actions that benefit the nexus context over time. On the other hand, the actors involved improve their understanding of how other fields of work function, how different organisations are structured and operate and how decisions at the various levels are taken. Learning at this level can happen through lesson-drawing (or endogenously) from formal decision processes; or via social learning (exogenously) from other applications external, yet relevant, to the policy context (Howlett and Ramesh, 1995). Long-term knowledge transfer at the local level creates opportunities for accessing and retrieving data in a timely relevant manner for a study with the involvement of (or by) local experts. Additionally, it can expand and improve data systems for integrated analyses (e.g. measuring and monitoring systems). This aspect can also function as an ‘enabler’ due to the potential compounded effect of existing knowledge leveraging nexus assessments and adopting the approach in decision making.

9.5 CONCLUSIONS This chapter provides new and senior practitioners information for the planning and implementation of learning activities embedded in nexus assessments. It also considers the role of learning activities in the context in which they are implemented and the target audience involved (e.g. academic and vocational education, business, public sector, civil society). We describe and compare examples of CLEWs-type applications from the perspective of knowledge transfer. However, we acknowledge that other nexus frameworks also contemplate similar knowledge-transfer activities using various methods and tools. This chapter aimed not to compare approaches but to identify the role of learning and observe how it is differently accounted for in studies with diverse aims and designs. It also serves as a means to transfer this type of experience within and beyond the nexus community. In this manner, nexus practitioners and approach advocates, interested people and people of interest are informed about how knowledge is shared, created and developed in a nexus assessment process. The nexus approach is about integration and multi-disciplinarity and making wide-ranging, coherent and sustainable development-aligned decisions. It is yet to become mainstream, and continuous learning is required in the process. It holds the immense potential of facilitating communication and promoting collaboration across sectors and departmental divides, ultimately leading to the incorporation of nexus thinking in policy design. Learning processes can support its advancement and uptake by policy-makers. Entry points for knowledge transfer include academic and vocational education programmes, capacity development or participation in CoPs, to name a few. Thus, all aspects involved in adopting the approach should equally consider multiple dimensions in support of robust and effective decision-making processes in any timeframe. Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

172  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Barriers, challenges, enabling factors and opportunities to knowledge-transfer processes in the nexus studies were identified and described, particularly regarding applications of the CLEWs framework and related examples. Key barriers and challenges identified include (1) comprehensive planning and development of capacity taking into account existing capacity; (2) implications across the levels of capacity (individual, organisation, sector/network and enabling environment); (3) the existence of the necessary resources to support knowledge transfer (educational, human, infrastructure) and (4) how to develop and sustain capacity at the local level. As key enabling factors and opportunities, we found (1) the vast number of applications that can be transferred from practice to all academic and vocational programmes; (2) ongoing nexus practice knowledge sharing through different CoPs, collaborations and partnerships (knowledge sharing is highly beneficial for advancing the approach, which, coupled with participatory processes, can fasten the transition to integrated planning approaches); and (3) regarding professional learning and capacity development, considering the interrelations between levels of capacity, effects and influences at all entry levels. In summary, enablers, opportunities, barriers and challenges are interrelated. Acting over, addressing or improving one aspect could benefit another element, and practitioners should be aware and reflect upon the connections and respective implications. We highlight the importance of integration and a holistic approach to designing and planning learning activities in the nexus context, regardless of the learning setting. This effort should include a reflection on the learning methods that can be developed and deployed appropriately to ensure the success of the knowledge-building processes. Aspects such as the audience, the specificities of the project or study or the long-term influence of the learning should be considered in the design and transference of materials and resources related to nexus activities (extrapolating from CLEWs-type assessment experiences and other existing practices). Knowledge transfer can advance the nexus approach not only in academia and research but also in practice. Framing the knowledge-transfer activities in terms of capacity levels, which considers existing capacity and a needs assessment, could be the way forward in planning and developing capacity-development programmes. An example could be establishing institutional arrangements that facilitate the continued use and improvement of the skills developed, including the incorporation in work programmes. Such a strategy would put the knowledge to use and consolidate the nexus approach within decision environments. Building local capacity, and supporting it with a strategic and longer-term plan, would ensure the sustainability of the nexus approach via the science–policy interface. Such experience would then retrofit into the nexus knowledge transferred in the different learning contexts. Importantly, opportunities for interdisciplinarity should also be encouraged among practitioners (academia, research, policy-makers, and other stakeholders) to support science-based evidence entering policy- and decision-making processes and vice versa.

NOTES 1. 2.

This chapter is available for free as Open Access from the individual product page at www​.elgaronline​ .com under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://​ creativecommons​.org/​licenses/​by​-sa/​4​.0/​) license. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the universal action plan launched by the United Nations in 2015 that builds on the previous agenda defined by the Millennium Development Goals. The new agenda is structured around 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets. Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  173 3. By 2012, CLEWs analyses were being conducted in several countries and imparted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (UNDESA, 2014). Countries involved in the initiative included Brazil, Germany, India, Lithuania, Mauritius, Thailand, South Africa and Syria (UNDESA, 2014). These consisted of quantitative analyses of issues related to the CLEWs nexus using different sets of modelling tools. The analytical approach was strongly based on the soft linking of sectoral models (e.g. Low Emissions Analysis Platform, Model for Energy Supply Systems and Their General Environmental Impact and/or Model for Analysis of Energy Demand, Water Evaluation and Planning Tool, Model for the Analysis of Water Demand, Agroecological Zoning and Cropwat for water, land and agriculture and Computable General Equilibrium for the economy; some of the countries used their in-country developed tools). 4. Description of OSeMOSYS is an open-source linear optimisation modelling tool typically used for energy systems analysis (Howells et al., 2011). It has been applied in the development of CLEW-type studies, both through soft linking of sectoral models (Almulla et al., 2018; Ramos et al., 2017; Sridharan et al., 2019) and the integrated representation of CLEW systems (Alfstad et al., 2016; Balderrama et al., 2019; Sridharan et al., 2020). 5. The governmental officials from institutions that relate to sectors operating the dimensions of climate, land, energy and water, including central banks and the Ministry of Planning, Finance and Commerce.

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174  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus de Strasser, L., A. Lipponen, M. Howells, S. Stec and C. Bréthaut (2016), ‘A methodology to assess the water energy food ecosystems nexus in transboundary river basins’, Water, 8 (2), 59. Engström, R.E., M. Howells, G. Destouni, V. Bhatt, M. Bazilian and H.-H. Rogner (2017), ‘Connecting the resource nexus to basic urban service provision – with a focus on water–energy interactions in New York City’, Sustainable Cities and Society, 31, 83–94. European Commission (2020), Funding and Tenders: Understanding Climate-Water-Energy-Food Nexus and Streamlining Water-Related Policies (TOPIC ID: LC-CLA-14-2020), accessed 26 May 2021 at https://​ec​.europa​.eu/​info/​funding​-tenders/​opportunities/​portal/​screen/​opportunities/​topic​ -details/​lc​-cla​-14​-2020. FAO (2012), ‘Global Agro-Ecological Zones (GAEZ) Data portal, Institutional, accessed 8 March 2021 at www​.fao​.org/​nr/​gaez/​about​-data​-portal/​en/​. FAO (2020), Second Nexus Dialogue: Hands-On Nexus Analysis in Souss Massa, Morocco, accessed 16 December 2020 at www​.fao​.org/​neareast/​news/​view/​en/​c/​1267690/​. FAO (n.d.), ‘Open data, FAOLEX database, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’, Institutional, accessed 8 March 2021 at www​.fao​.org/​faolex/​opendata/​en/​. Flammini, A., M. Puri, L. Pluschke and O. Dubois (2014), Walking the Nexus Talk: Assessing the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in the Context of the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative, Rome: FAO, p. 150. Gallagher, L., J. Dalton, C. Bréthaut, T. Allan, H. Bellfield, D. Crilly et al. (2016), ‘The critical role of risk in setting directions for water, food and energy policy and research’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 23, 12–16. Giampietro, M. (2013), An Innovative Accounting Framework for the Food-Energy-Water Nexus: Application of the MuSIASEM Approach to Three Case Studies, Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Gidden, M. J. and D. Huppmann (2019), ‘Pyam: A Python package for the analysis and visualization of models of the interaction of climate, human, and environmental systems’, Journal of Open Source Software, 4 (33), 1095. GIZ (2016), ‘Nexus platform – the water-energy-food nexus’, accessed 4 November 2019 at www​.water​ -energy​-food​.org/​nexus​-platform​-the​-water​-energy​-food​-nexus/​. Graham, N.T., E.G.R. Davies, M.I. Hejazi, K. Calvin, S.H. Kim, L. Helinski et al. (2018), ‘Water sector assumptions for the shared socioeconomic pathways in an integrated modeling framework’, Water Resources Research, 54 (9), 6423–6440. Hermann, S., M. Welsch, R.E. Segerstrom, M.I. Howells, C. Young, T. Alfstad, H.-H. Rogner and P. Steduto (2012), ‘Climate, land, energy and water (CLEW) interlinkages in Burkina Faso: An analysis of agricultural intensification and bioenergy production’, Natural Resources Forum, 36 (4), 245–262. Hicks, C.C., C. Fitzsimmons and N.V.C. Polunin (2010), ‘Interdisciplinarity in the environmental sciences: Barriers and frontiers’, Environmental Conservation, 37 (4), 464–477. Hoff, H. (2011), Understanding the Nexus: Background Paper for the Bonn2011 Nexus Conference, SEI. Howells, M., H. Rogner, N. Strachan, C. Heaps, H. Huntington, S. Kypreos et al. (2011), ‘OSeMOSYS: The Open Source Energy Modeling System: An introduction to its ethos, structure and development’, Energy Policy, 39 (10), 5850–5870. Howells, M., S. Hermann, M. Welsch, M. Bazilian, R. Segerström, T. Alfstad et al. (2013), ‘Integrated analysis of climate change, land-use, energy and water strategies’, Nature Climate Change, 3 (7), 621–626. Howells, M., J. Quirós-Tortós, R. Morrison, H.-H. Rogner, T. Niet, L. Petrarulo et al. (2021), ‘Energy system analytics and good governance: U4RIA goals of energy modelling for policy support (pre-print)’, Research Square, https://​doi​.org/​10​.21203/​rs​.3​.rs​-311311/​v1. Howlett, M. and M. Ramesh (1995), Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems, Toronto: Oxford University Press. IAEA (2017), Interlinkage of Climate, Land, Energy and Water Use (CLEW), IAEA, accessed 16 December 2020 at www​.iaea​.org/​topics/​economics/​energy​-economic​-and​-environmental​-analysis/​ climate​-land​-energy​-water​-strategies. IAMC (2020), Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium: Annual Meetings, accessed 11 January 2021 at www​.iamconsortium​.org/​annual​-meetings/​. Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  175 ICTP (2017), ‘CLEWS summer school, smr 3168, 12–30 June 2017’, accessed 7 October 2019 at http://​ indico​.ictp​.it/​event/​8008/​. ICTP (2018), ‘The summer school on modelling tools for sustainable development – OpTIMUS, smr 3210, 4–29 June 2018’, accessed 7 October 2019 at http://​indico​.ictp​.it/​event/​8315/​. ICTP (2019), ‘Joint summer school on modelling tools for sustainable development – OpTIMUS, smr 3299, 10–28 June 2019’, accessed 7 October 2019 at http://​indico​.ictp​.it/​event/​8751/​. ICTP (2021), ‘Joint summer school on modelling tools for sustainable development, smr 3581, 14 June 2021–2 July 2021’, Institutional, accessed 27 May 2021 at http://​indico​.ictp​.it/​event/​9549/​. ICTP and IAEA (2012), ‘Joint ICTP-IAEA workshop on sustainable energy development: Pathways and strategies after Rio+20, smr 2372, 1–5 October 2012’, accessed 7 October 2019 at http://​indico​.ictp​ .it/​event/​a11197/​overview. ICTP and IAEA (2013), ‘Joint ICTP-IAEA advancing modelling of climate, land-use, energy and water (CLEW) interactions, smr 2490, 7-11 October 2013’, Institutional, accessed 20 November 2019 at http://​indico​.ictp​.it/​event/​a12212/​overview. IIASA (2018), 2018 Zambezi Participatory Scenario Workshop (Video Recording), accessed 26 January 2021 at https://​Vimeo​.Com/​326570579. IIASA (2019), Integrated Solutions for Water, Energy, and Land (ISWEL): Integrated Solutions for Water, Energy, and Land – IIASA, Institutional, accessed 8 March 2021 at https://​iiasa​.ac​.at/​web/​ home/​research/​iswel/​ISWEL​.html. IIASA (2020), ‘The Nexus Solutions Tool (NEST)’, Institutional, accessed 21 December 2020 at https://​ iiasa​.ac​.at/​web/​home/​research/​researchPrograms/​Energy/​Research/​NEST​.html. JMP (WHO, UNICEF) (2017), ‘Global database: WASH data (households)’, Institutional, accessed 14 September 2020 at https://​washdata​.org/​data/​household​#!/​. Kok, K., M. Patel, D.S. Rothman and G. Quaranta (2006), ‘Multi-scale narratives from an IA perspective, Part II: Participatory local scenario development’, Futures, 38 (3), 285–311. KTH-dESA (2015), ‘OSeMOSYS newsletter May 2015: OSeMOSYS training workshop in Nicaragua and Bolivia’, accessed 6 March 2021 at www​.osemosys​.org/​news​.html. KTH-dESA (2017), ‘Building capacity on CLEWs analysis in Nicaragua’, Institutional, accessed 6 March 2021 at www​.energy​.kth​.se/​energy​-systems/​desa​-news/​building​-capacity​-on​-clews​-analysis​ -in​-nicaragua​-1​.713637. Lebel, L. and B. Lebel (2018), ‘Nexus narratives and resource insecurities in the Mekong Region’, Environmental Science and Policy, 90, 164–172. Liu, J., V. Hull, H.C.J. Godfray, D. Tilman, P. Gleick, H. Hoff et al. (2018), ‘Nexus approaches to global sustainable development’, Nature Sustainability, 1 (9), 466–476. Lundgren, R.E. and A.H. McMakin (2009), ‘Stakeholder participation’, in Risk Communication: A Handbook for Communicating Environmental, Safety, and Health Risks, IEEE, 229–252. Martinez, P., M. Blanco and B. Castro-Campos (2018), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: A fuzzy-cognitive mapping approach to support nexus-compliant policies in Andalusia (Spain)’, Water, 10 (5), 664. Miralles-Wilhelm, F. (2016), ‘Development and application of integrative modeling tools in support of food-energy-water nexus planning: A research agenda’, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6 (1), 3–10. Mohtar, R.H. (2016), ‘The importance of the water-energy-food nexus in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)’, 1632, Policy Center for the New South, December, accessed 10 December 2020 at https://​ideas​.repec​.org/​p/​ocp/​ppaper/​pb​-16​-30​.html. Mohtar, R.H. and B. Daher (2016), ‘Water-energy-food nexus framework for facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue’, Water International, 41 (5), 655–661. Morgan, P. (1998), Capacity Development: Some Strategies. Note Prepared for the Political and Social Policies Division, accessed 2 October 2020 at http://​nsagm​.weebly​.com/​uploads/​1/​2/​0/​3/​12030125/​ strategies​_for​_capacity​_development​_cida​_1998​.pdf. NASA (2019), ‘EARTHDATA – open access for open science’, Institutional, accessed 8 March 2021 at https://​earthdata​.nasa​.gov/​. Nexus Cluster (2018), Nexus Project Cluster, accessed 4 November 2019 at www​.nexuscluster​.eu/​. OECD (2006), ‘The Challenge of Capacity Development – Working Towards Good Practice’, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris. Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

176  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus OpTIMUS Community (2019), ‘Energy Modelling Platform for Africa (EMP-A), 14–31 January 2019’, accessed 27 May 2021 at www​.ene​rgymodelli​ngplatform​.org/​emp​-a​-2019​.html. Ortiz, A. and P. Taylor (2019), Learning Purposefully in Capacity Development: Why, What and When to Measure? An Opinion Paper Prepared for IIEP, by Alfredo Ortiz and Peter Taylor, Institute of Development Studies, UK, Paris: UNESCO and International Institute for Educational Planning, 25 November, p. 53. Parkinson, S.C., M. Makowski, V. Krey, K. Sedraoui, A.H. Almasoud and N. Djilali (2018), ‘A multi-criteria model analysis framework for assessing integrated water-energy system transformation pathways’, Applied Energy, 210, 477–486. Pekel, J.-F., A. Cottam, N. Gorelick and A.S. Belward (2016), ‘High-resolution mapping of global surface water and its long-term changes’, Nature, 540 (7633), 418–422. Ramirez Gomez, C., Y. Almulla, FAO and SEI (2020a), Jordan Nexus Model – Results Visualization Platform, accessed 16 November 2020 at https://​jordan​-nexus​-model​.herokuapp​.com/​. Ramirez Gomez, C., Y. Almulla, FAO and SEI (2020b), Souss-Massa Nexus Model – Results Visualization Platform, accessed 16 November 2020 at https://​souss​-massa​-nexus​-model​.herokuapp​ .com/​#. Ramos, E., V. Sridharan, S. Ulloa and M. Howells (2017), ‘Investigating competing uses of unevenly distributed resources in Nicaragua applying the Climate, Land Use (Food), Energy and Water strategies framework’, Geophysical Research Abstracts, 19, EGU2017-14454, 1. Ramos, E., D.T. Kofinas, C. Laspidou, C. Papadopoulou, M. Papadopoulou, F. Gardumi et al. (2020), Deliverable 1.5. Framework for the Assessment of the Nexus, 1.5, May, p. 157. Ramos, E., M. Howells, V. Sridharan, R.E. Engström, C. Taliotis, D. Mentis et al. (2021), ‘The climate, land, energy, and water systems (CLEWs) framework: A retrospective of activities and advances to 2019’, Environmental Research Letters, 16 (3), 033003. Reid, W.V., D. Chen, L. Goldfarb, H. Hackmann, Y.T. Lee, K. Mokhele et al. (2010), ‘Earth system science for global sustainability: Grand challenges’, Science, 330 (6006), 916–917. Ringler, C., A. Bhaduri and R. Lawford (2013), ‘The nexus across water, energy, land and food (WELF): Potential for improved resource use efficiency?’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 5 (6), 617–624. Rogers, A. (2014), The Base of the Iceberg: Informal Learning and Its Impact on Formal and Non-Formal Learning, Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich. Simpson, G.B., G.P.W. Jewitt, W. Becker, J. Badenhorst, A.R. Neves, P. Rovira and V. Pascual (2020), The Water-Energy-Food Nexus Index, Jones & Wagener, accessed at www​.wefnexusindex​.org. Singh, M. (2015), Global Perspectives on Recognising Non-Formal and Informal Learning: Why Recognition Matters – UNESCO Digital Library, Hamburg: UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. Smajgl, A. (2010), ‘Challenging beliefs through multi-level participatory modelling in Indonesia’, Environmental Modelling and Software, 25 (11), 1470–1476. Smajgl, A. and J. Ward (2013), ‘A framework to bridge science and policy in complex decision making arenas’, Futures, 52, 52–58. Sridharan, V., E. Pereira Ramos, E. Zepeda, B. Boehlert, A. Shivakumar, C. Taliotis and M. Howells (2019), ‘The impact of climate change on crop production in Uganda: An integrated systems assessment with water and energy implications’, Water, 11 (9), 1805. Sridharan, V., A. Shivakumar, T. Niet, E.P. Ramos and M. Howells (2020), ‘Land, energy and water resource management and its impact on GHG emissions, electricity supply and food production: Insights from a Ugandan case study’, Environmental Research Communications, 2 (8), 085003. Ubels, J., N.-A. Acquaye-Baddoo and A. Fowler (2010), Capacity Development in Practice, London: Earthscan, International Institute for Environment and Development. UNDESA (2014), Global Sustainable Development Report – 2014 Prototype Edition, New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development, July, accessed 29 March 2018 at http://​su​stainabled​evelopment​.un​.org/​globalsdreport/​. UNDESA (2016), UN Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development – Outreach Training Course, accessed 11 January 2021 at https://​un​-modelling​.github​.io/​outreach​-training/​. UNDESA and UNDP (2016), UN Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development, accessed 18 November 2019 at https://​un​-modelling​.github​.io/​about/​. Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

Capacity development and knowledge transfer  177 UNDESA and UNDP (n.d.), UN Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development – Country Projects, accessed 25 November 2019 at https://​un​-modelling​.github​.io/​country​-projects/​. UNDESA-EAPD (2015), ‘UN/DESA transfers modelling tools that inform energy planning in Bolivia, Department of Economic and Social Affairs’, Institutional, accessed 7 March 2021 at www​.un​.org/​ development/​desa/​dpad/​2015/​world​-economic​-situation​-and​-prospects​-monthly​-briefing​-no​-87​-3/​. UNDESA-EAPD (2016), ‘Building capacities in Uganda for integrated water modelling, Department of Economic and Social Affairs’, Institutional, accessed 6 March 2021 at www​.un​.org/​development/​ desa/​dpad/​2016/​building​-capacities​-in​-uganda​-for​-integrated​-water​-modelling/​. UNDP (2008), Capacity Development Practice Note, New York: United Nations Development Programme, p. 31. UNDP and UNDESA (2021), Virtual Regional Roundtable on Integrated Policies for a Low-Carbon Future Using CLEWs (Climate, Land, Energy and Water Systems), 29–31 March 2021. UNECE (2015), Reconciling Resource Uses in Transboundary Basins: Assessment of the Water-Food-Energy-Ecosystems Nexus, ECE/MP​.WAT/​46, New York: United Nations, November, p. 121. UNECE (2016), 4th Meeting of the Task Force on the Water-Food-Energy-Ecosystems Nexus, accessed 24 January 2020 at www​.unece​.org/​environmental​-policy/​conventions/​water/​meetings​-and​-events/​ water/​task​-force​-on​-the​-water​-energy​-food​-ecosystems​-nexus​-water​-convention/​2016/​task​-force​-on​ -the​-water​-food​-energy​-ecosystems​-nexus/​doc​.html. UNECE (2017), Assessment of the Water-Food-Energy-Ecosystem Nexus and Benefits of Transboundary Cooperation in the Drina River Basin, ECE/MP​ .WAT/​ NONE/​ 9, New York: United Nations, December, p. 54. UNECE (2018a), Increasing Sustainable Deployment of Renewable Energy in Bosnia and Herzegovina with Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue (‘Hard Talk: New Possibilities for Developing Renewable Energy Sustainably in Bosnia and Herzegovina’), Institutional, accessed 27 January 2020 at www​.unece​ .org/​info/​media/​presscurrent​-press​-h/​sustainable​-energy/​2018/​increasing​-sustainable​-deployment​-of​ -renewable​-energy​-in​-bosnia​-and​-herzegovina​-with​-multi​-stakeholder​-dialogue/​doc​.html. UNECE (2018b), Methodology for Assessing the Water-Food-Energy-Ecosystems Nexus in Transboundary Basins and Experiences from Its Application: Synthesis, ECE/MP​.WAT/​55, New York: United Nations, p. 76. UNECE (2019), ‘National consultation workshop for Tunisia: Assessing the water-food-energy-ecosystems nexus in the North-Western Sahara Aquifer’, Institutional, accessed 22 August 2019 at www​.unece​ .org/​index​.php​?id​=​51681. UNECE (2020), Reconciling Resource Uses: Assessment of the Water-Food-Energy-Ecosystems Nexus in the North Western Sahara Aquifer System, Part A: ‘Nexus Challenges and Solutions, UNECE, ECE/MP​.WAT/​NONE/​16, Geneva, August, p. 72. United Nations (2015), Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, accessed 2 March 2021 at https://​sdgs​.un​.org/​publications/​ transforming​-our​-world​-2030​-agenda​-sustainable​-development​-17981. UNSD (n.d.), ‘UNdata: A world of information’, Institutional, accessed 8 March 2021 at https://​data​.un​ .org/​. UNU-FLORES (2019), About – Dresden Nexus Conference, accessed 11 January 2021 at http://​dresden​ -nexus​-conference​.org/​about. Voinov, A. and F. Bousquet (2010), ‘Modelling with stakeholders’, Environmental Modelling and Software, 25 (11), 1268–1281. Wada, Y., A. Vinca, S. Parkinson, B.A. Willaarts, P. Magnuszewski, J. Mochizuki et al. (2019), ‘Co-designing Indus water-energy-land futures’, One Earth, 1 (2), 185–194. Wolfe, M.L., K.C. Ting, N. Scott, A. Sharpley, J.W. Jones and L. Verma (2016), ‘Engineering solutions for food-energy-water systems: It is more than engineering’, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6 (1), 172–182. World Bank (2017), ‘ENERGYDATA.INFO – open data and analytics’, accessed 8 March 2021 at https://​energydata​.info/​.

Eunice Pereira Ramos, Francesco Gardumi, Taco Niet, Vignesh Sridharan, Thomas Alfstad, Ioannis Pappis, Lucia de Strasser, Abhishek Shivakumar, Mark Howells, and Hans-Holger Rogner - 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:06:21PM

10. A marine nexus approach for healthy ecosystems at sea Pietro Goglio and Sander van den Burg

10.1 INTRODUCTION The oceans and sea water constitute more than 95 per cent of the biosphere. They also play an important role in generating food through marine organisms, absorbing carbon dioxide, recycling nutrients, regulating earth climate and temperature (Bari, 2017; Moosdorf et al., 2014). They are a source of food, both through wild-capture landings and mariculture and aquaculture. A total estimated production of 138 MT ‘food from the oceans’ (data for 2015) is reported and it is considered possible to produce significantly more (High Level Group of Scientific Advisors, 2017). Oceans and sea-water areas are often associated with the blue economy. Under the blue economy concept all the economic sectors involved with the marine environment are grouped, emphasising there is potential for economic growth and job creation in different maritime sectors (Mallin and Barbesgaard, 2020; Soma et al., 2018). The blue economy has gained increasing interest in recent years. This became clear through increasing research and development investments into the development of new technologies which further expand its potential (EC, 2019, 2020). Further it is seen as potential for the development of coastal countries and coastal areas (UN and World Bank, 2017). There is also potential for sustainable development, as presented since the start of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development process, Agenda 21, the Johannesburg Plan, and their implementation and reaffirmation of which documented in the Rio+20 Conference (Bari, 2017; UN and World Bank, 2017). Just considering the established sectors of the blue economy, which include oil and gas extraction, maritime transport, tourism, fishery and aquaculture, 4 million people have been employed with investment for €14.9 billion in 2017 in the European Union (EU) (EC, 2019). Worldwide offshore oil and gas constitutes 15 per cent of world oil reserves and 45 per cent of world gas reserves (IEA, 2018). The blue economy constitutes within the EU a relevant sector with a gross value added (GVA) of approximately €65 billion in 2017 (EC, 2019). The nexus approach aims to identify trade-offs and synergies of water, energy and food systems, internalise social and environmental impacts and guide development of cross-sectoral policies (Albrecht et al., 2018). The Bonn 2011 Nexus conference is often marked as the launching event of the nexus concept, seeking to highlight interdependencies and trade-offs among the development goals for water, energy and food; ‘a nexus perspective increases the understanding of interdependencies across water, energy, food and other policies such as climate and biodiversity’.1 The nexus emphasises ‘that different domains – for instance, water, energy and food – are interconnected and can thus not be effectively resolved unless they are addressed as being fully interrelated and interdependent’ (Boas et al., 2016). To apply the nexus concept in decision making, various nexus assessment methodologies have been developed that seek to increase understanding of the linkages between water, energy 178

A marine nexus approach for healthy ecosystems at sea  179 and food and translate this understanding into action (Albrecht et al., 2018). Nexus assessments have mostly been used in land-based systems to evaluate the interactions between fresh water, energy and food systems (Jeswani et al., 2015; Karabulut et al., 2018). In the marine domain, the concept of the nexus, in the definition provided above, is less frequently used. Instead, marine policy making has its own set of assessment methodologies, developed to study impacts from anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic developments and inform decision making. This chapter analyses whether the nexus approach fits with current discussions and methods used in the marine domain to conclude on the added value of adopting a marine nexus concept and approach towards decision making. To this end, the following issues are addressed: ● What developments in the marine domain increase pressure on the environment? ● What are the expected impacts of these developments? ● What methods and tools are currently used in Europe to assess impact on the marine ecosystem? ● What can be the added value of applying a nexus-based approach to assessing developments in the marine domain?

10.2

INCREASING PRESSURE ON THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

GRID-Arendal and UNEP (2016) concluded that the increased use of resources and ocean space are adversely affecting the state of the ocean. The report identifies indicators (e.g. ocean acidification, fisheries density and pollution) and concludes that conditions will worsen. Consequently, many parts of the ocean are already seriously degraded and there is a risk that marine ecosystems enter a destructive cycle. Eventually, the marine ecosystem may not be able to continue delivering the benefits it currently provides the world. The ocean environment is subject to several types of pollution, including eutrophication, temperature pollution, plastic, biodiversity and climate change (Shahidul Islam and Tanaka, 2004; Vikas and Dwarakish, 2015). Plastic, for example, is a serious threat to the marine environment, and is mainly caused by human activity. Global production of plastic has increased significantly from 1.5 million t y−1 in the 1950s to 299 million t y−1 in 2013 (Li et al., 2016). The degradation of the plastic is extremely slow, which causes the concentration of plastic and microplastics in the environment. Plastic and microplastics (< 25 mm in size) can have an impact on marine life by causing death through entanglement, ingestion, hormone disruption and cancer of living organisms. Nowadays, some 80 per cent of the plastic present in the sea has a land-based origin (Li et al., 2016). Eutrophication is another type of pollution of the marine environment. It is caused by nitrate, ammonium and phosphorus loss from agricultural systems to the sea. It is also combined with the release of organic matter either in the form of manure or slurry due to a lack of waste management systems in the water. The process involves the increase of algal and micro-organism activity in the water which causes a lack of oxygen, leading to the death of living organisms in the water (Brady and Weil, 2002; Vikas and Dwarakish, 2015). An increase in sea temperature due to climate change, combined with a decrease in ocean pH, will have devastating effects on coral reef and bivalve growth. This will also be combined

180  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus with the risk from recreational activities on the ocean such as tourism but is a serious threat for fisheries, which are highly dependent on the reef (Magnan et al., 2016). Thus, the impact of greenhouse gases, in particular CO2 emissions, has a double effect – both chemical by decreasing pH and physical by increasing temperature (Magnan et al., 2016). Ocean acidification is responsible for the loss of biodiversity in oceans together with the threat caused by the presence of marine-invasive species (Castro et al., 2017; Marchese, 2015). The presence of the latter is caused by sea transport. In particular, ballast water disposal is mostly responsible for the spreading of invasive species. Alongside ballast water, biofouling, man-made structures (e.g. canals, aquaculture) and releases from aquaria are also responsible for invasive species introduction, affecting biodiversity (Castro et al., 2017).

10.3

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE BLUE ECONOMY

These bleak observations seem in contrast with the positive expectations voiced under the blue economy agenda, where further development of the sectors concerned is seen as a solution to many societal challenges. The key sectors are briefly presented in the following sections, and their main environmental impacts are identified. 10.3.1 Energy Production New blue economy sectors include off-shore wind, which has reached a level of 2.5 GW y−1 in the EU. This energy source can contribute to decarbonising the energy sector towards meeting the Paris Agreement targets (UNFCCC, 2015), however, it only provided 0.3 per cent of the global electricity generation in 2017 (IEA, 2018). Other sources of energy have been developed such as tidal and wave (Borthwick, 2016). Marine energy production can be categorised in two main groups, with oil and gas exploration considered established sectors and the developing sector represented by marine renewable electricity. In Europe, the former has been subject to decline as the main gas and oil field in the North Sea is depleting. However, overall trends show a general increase of up to 3.9 billion tonnes for crude oil and 1 million tonnes for natural gas (EC, 2019; IEA, 2019). Across the world, serious impacts of this industry have been identified, especially in relation to oil spillage and to the impact of ballast water on biodiversity (Castro et al., 2017). Since 1960, more than 5.5 Mt has been spilled in the ocean (Lindgren et al., 2016). The environmental impact of these oil spills includes the death of animals and the disruption of the benthic community and the food chain (Vikas and Dwarakish, 2015). As shallow-sea resources of oil and gas become depleted, there is a stronger drive towards deep sea exploration. In normal conditions of operation for deep sea exploration, the seabed is constantly disturbed, affecting the benthic community. Further, toxic chemicals can be discharged as part of the drilling operation (Cordes et al., 2016). The oil infrastructure can also provide shelter for deep-water fisheries and benthic communities. The impact of accident is larger than normal operations with just one spill every 21 months in the United States releasing oil and hydrocarbons into the water column. In the event of an oil spill, dispersants have been used which have a degree of toxicity for the marine environment and can enhance the toxicity of the hydrocarbon dispersed in the water (Cordes et al., 2016). In both cases, the waste and

A marine nexus approach for healthy ecosystems at sea  181 plastic release in the environments due to oil and gas operations have an important role to play in marine pollution (Cordes et al., 2016). Marine renewables is a less established economic sector of the blue economy but has developed in recent years both in scale and innovation (Borthwick, 2016; EC, 2019; UN and World Bank, 2017). With marine renewable energy, the following power sources can be included: offshore wind, tides, ocean currents, waves, thermal differences, salinity gradients and biomass. The estimated potential for offshore wind power is around 16000 TWh in 2050, while the global estimate is 34000 TWh (Borthwick, 2016). The estimated tidal potential is 26000 TWh, while wave energy could provide 32000 TWh. The technical potential for wave power is 5600 TWh. Finally, ocean thermal energy conversion has been estimated at 44000TWh and exploitation of salinity gradient could provide 1650 TWh (Borthwick, 2016). Despite the large potential for energy production for marine renewable energy, several environmental impacts have been identified. The dispersal of hydrocarbons, plastic debris, physical-chemical change of the water and the capture or killing of marine organisms due to water surges forcing sea organisms to enter the mechanical parts of the structures (Hammar et al., 2017). The risks also include: ● The temporary or permanent alteration of the natural habitat, especially for benthic organisms, as sea transport would be increased around the installations, which would also cause a further spread of marine-invasive species (Castro et al., 2017; Hammar et al., 2017). ● Ocean thermal energy conversion systems can cause changes in salinity and pH which could affect the marine ecosystem. ● The release of heavy metals (Hammar et al., 2017). ● Moving parts, which can impact fish, marine mammals and birds (Hammar et al., 2017). Despite these potential environmental impacts, including the effect of the magnetic field on the ecosystems, currently very few observations have been carried out (Hammar et al., 2017; Uihlein and Magagna, 2016). Thus there is the need for a comprehensive assessment to assess the impacts of these technologies (Uihlein and Magagna, 2016). 10.3.2 Food Production The main food production part of the blue economy is fisheries and aquaculture. Fish consumption has increased up to 20.3 kg per capita per annum, corresponding to 7 per cent of the global human protein intake in 2015. Fisheries provided 79.3 Mt of fish with a 1.9 Mt drop from the previous year in 2016, while marine aquaculture provided 28.7 Mt in the same year. Since 1961, the increase of fish consumption has outpaced global population growth (2.8 versus 1.6 per cent) (FAO, 2018). In 2015, sustainably fished stocks accounted for 59.9 per cent and underfished stocks for 7.0 per cent of the total stocks. The underfished stocks decreased continuously from 1974 to 2015, whereas the maximally sustainably fished stocks decreased from 1974 to 1989, and then increased to almost 60 per cent in 2015 (FAO, 2018). As well as the decrease of fish, fisheries are also responsible for issues related to marine transport such as oil tillage, invasive fishing introductions and more importantly pollution caused by plastic nets and waste which are abandoned in the water (Li et al., 2016; Vikas and Dwarakish, 2015). Indeed, the fishing fleet is responsible for 0.6 Mt of plastic debris that is added to the ocean every year, corresponding

182  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus to 10 per cent of the total marine debris which can cause entanglement, or ghost fishing (Li et al., 2016). Particular interest has been focused towards algal biomass production (Martens et al., 2017; Seghetta et al., 2017; Seghetta and Goglio, 2018; Singh et al., 2011; van den Burg et al., 2019) and the production of biofuels and biomaterials from marine sources such as algae (Helmes et al., 2018; Seghetta and Goglio, 2018; Singh et al., 2011). As well as an increasing interest towards underwater mineral deposits (EC, 2019), new technologies develop and expand seabed deposits (Bari, 2017). Further, marine ecosystems have been investigated for removing carbon from the atmosphere either via ocean alkalinisation or ocean fertilisation (Beerling et al., 2018; Lefebvre et al., 2019; Moosdorf et al., 2014; Williamson, 2016). The advance of fish farming has been encouraged by many governments, including the European Commission (EC, 2019), although its potential harmful impacts towards the marine ecosystems have been recognised (Abdou et al., 2018; Ferreira et al., 2015). For instance, aquaculture has considerable impacts on eutrophication, as well as on the dispersal of antibiotics and medicines into the water (Abdou et al., 2018; Bohnes and Laurent, 2018; Henriksson et al., 2012). Differently from fisheries, aquaculture is a growing sector both in quantity and in terms of technologies adopted, as well as types of fish grown (EC, 2019; FAO, 2018). Currently aquaculture provides 58 per cent of the fish in Europe. It is often seen in developing countries as a way to supply protein to the local population (UN and World Bank, 2017). The importance of fish farming is rapidly increasing, which brings increased concerns regarding its sustainability, for example, emissions leading to climate change, eutrophication, toxic and ecotoxic impacts, use of antibiotics, land use and water use for feed production, loss of biodiversity, introduction of exotic species, spread/amplification of parasites and disease, genetic pollution, dependence on capture fisheries and socio-economic concerns (Henriksson et al., 2012). All of these can also bring about habitat disruption. These environmental impacts have only been partially addressed in life-cycle assessment studies. However, several reviews highlight the need for consistency in the methodological approach (Bohnes and Laurent, 2018). They also report the lack of methodology to assess the impact of fewer fish on the marine ecosystems and the impact of medicines used in fish farming which are released into the marine environment. 10.3.3 Tourism Tourism is among the largest and fastest-growing economic sectors in the world. It has made an important contribution to job creation, export revenue and domestic value added. Tourism is directly responsible for on average 4.2 per cent of gross domestic product, 6.9 per cent of employment and 22 per cent of service exports in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (OECD, 2018). Globally, international tourist arrivals increased to over 1.2 billion in 2016. Arrivals to OECD countries represent more than half of the global growth rate of 4 per cent in 2016 (OECD, 2018). In the EU alone, tourism contributed to more than half of the jobs and more than a third of the gross value added from the blue economy in 2017. Employment in the marine touristic sector increased by 13 per cent in 2017 (EC, 2019). Tourism by itself is associated with many environmental impacts including energy consumption, resource use, greenhouse gas emissions, water and land use. Some of these impacts are related to the consumption of food and water in the touristic sector.

A marine nexus approach for healthy ecosystems at sea  183 In the case of marine wildlife tourism, the presence of humans is already a cause for habitat disruption (Trave et al., 2017). The continuous disruption of animal habitats can cause long-term consequences such as a decrease in animal health or reproductive fitness, population changes and habitat shifting and disruption (Trave et al., 2017). The presence of humans due to close proximity causes alteration in behaviour, while the high density of boats and improper manoeuvring can cause injury, physical damage to the benthic flora and fauna and can also alter the benthic composition. The alteration of habitats by marine tourism could result from pollution and the littering carried out during tourist activities (Trave et al., 2017). Coastal areas are subject to other human activities besides tourism, but their combination with the latter further enhances the consequences of marine tourism (Trave et al., 2017). Marine tourism is also responsible for marine debris, which can also have an impact on maritime activities (Wilson and Verlis, 2017). 10.3.4 Extraction of Minerals and Aggregates The increasing interest towards extraction of minerals from the seabed is fuelled by an increasing demand for raw materials and the scarcity, declined grades and conservation of terrestrial natural resources. Rising prices and technological progress have increased offshore mining activities in the deep sea (Kaikkonen et al., 2018). With the exception of gravel and sand extraction, this sector is relatively new. In Europe between 2008 and 2017, 350 Mt of gravel, sand and aggregates were extracted from the seabed (EC, 2019). Similar to transport, the extraction of minerals and aggregates also requires energy. More specifically, the extraction of raw materials causes seabed disturbances (Kaikkonen et al., 2018). These include mechanical destruction and killing of marine flora and fauna but also the release of chemicals and alteration of the seabed. This could also alter the level of toxicity and chemical characteristics of the seabed itself, in turn altering the biodiversity of the benthic population (Kaikkonen et al., 2018). 10.3.5 Bioenergy and Biomaterials The use of marine sources of biomass and biomaterial has attracted a lot of attention in public opinion and in research (Ingrao et al., 2018; Seghetta and Goglio, 2018; Seghetta et al., 2017). The use of bioalgae for the production of fuels is highly sought after within Europe to reach carbon-reduction goals (Seghetta and Goglio, 2018). Bioalgae are also seen as potential feedstock for the production of biomaterial such as lipids, organic acids (e.g. succinic and lactic acid), alcohols other than bioethanol (e.g. butanol) and biomaterials (e.g. polyhydroxyalkanoates) (Cesário et al., 2018). Further, bioalgae and seaweed are seen as a biological way to remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere (Duarte et al., 2017; EASAC, 2018; Seghetta et al., 2017). Bioalgae and seaweed production causes pressure on the aquatic environment. This includes impacts on climate change mitigation, energy consumption, the potential introduction of invasive species as in most of the blue economy activities, as well as impacts on human health and energy demand (Andersson et al., 2016; Seghetta et al., 2017). These will all result in disrupting the habitats of other species.

184  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Table 10.1

Main environmental impacts identified for each blue economy sector

  Environmental impact

Blue economy sector Energy Food

Tourism

Extraction of

Bioenergy and

minerals and

materials

aggregates Plastic and waste pollution

X

Oil spillage

X

X

X

X X

Impact on biodiversity

X

X

Moving part impacts on animals

X

X

Climate change

X

Disruption of salinity

X

Habitat disruption

X

Eutrophication

X X

Dispersal of antibiotics and medicines

X X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Physical damage to benthic communities Disruption of the benthic community

X

X

Invasive species introduction Toxicity

X

X

X

Decrease of health and reproductive fitness

X

of animals Marine debris Seabed disturbances

X X

X

Energy consumption

X

X

X

X

X

Human health

 

 

 

X

X

10.3.6 Overview Most of the blue economy sectors are responsible for environmental impacts, including climate change, plastic, resource use and habitat disruption. Energy, climate change and resource use have been assessed in previous nexus assessments, but this is not the case for plastic and habitat disruption (Jeswani et al., 2015; Karabulut et al., 2018). This chapter, however, gives evidence that any impacts related to water scarcity or availability are not a major public concern. An overview of the main environmental impacts for each of the main blue economy sectors is presented in Table 10.1. Impacts on biodiversity are also a concern in bioeconomy sectors such as food, tourism and the extraction of minerals. Despite some nexus assessments also considering biodiversity, many life-cycle assessment researchers highlight the need for a consistent methodology to assess biodiversity (Gabel et al., 2016; Goglio et al., 2017; Lindqvist et al., 2016; Teixeira et al., 2016). A change in biodiversity can potentially be used as a proxy for habitat disruption, since they are closely related (Krauss et al., 2010). Food production is the sector which involves the widest range of environmental impacts as it interacts with biogeochemical cycles, flora, fauna and the physical environment (Henriksson et al., 2012; Li et al., 2016; Vikas and Dwarakish, 2015). The introduction of invasive species is a key environmental concern in different sectors of the blue economy (e.g. food production, biomaterial and marine transport). So far, this impact has been addressed to a limited extent only in nexus assessments (de Strasser et al., 2016; Jeswani et al., 2015).

A marine nexus approach for healthy ecosystems at sea  185

10.4

ASSESSMENT METHODS IN THE MARINE DOMAIN

A variety of policies and assessment tools are currently in place to understand environmental impacts of developments in the marine domain and govern these developments. This overview largely focuses on the policies and instruments deployed in the EU. Similar methods are used elsewhere (Morgan, 2012; Wang et al., 2003). 10.4.1 Marine Strategy Framework Directive The Marine Strategy Framework Directive is the environmental core piece of the EU’s Integrated Maritime Policy. The main objective of Directive 2008/56/EC of the European Parliament and the Council, establishing a framework for community action in the field of marine environmental policy, is to establish a framework within which member states take the necessary measures to achieve or maintain clean, healthy and productive seas, also known as Good Environmental Status. For that purpose, the member states should develop and implement marine strategies, with the aim to (a) protect and preserve the marine environment, prevent its deterioration or restore marine ecosystems and (b) prevent and reduce inputs in the marine environment, with a view to phasing out pollution. Member states should apply an ecosystem-based approach to the integrated management of human activities regarding land, water and living resources. The approach considers that maintaining ecosystem quality ensures that ecosystems can provide the goods and services that humans want and need. Ecosystem-based management differs from current approaches that usually focus on a single species, sector, activity or concern; it considers the cumulative impacts of different sectors. Furthermore, the Directive contributes to coherence between the member states, and aims to ensure the integration of environmental concerns. The Directive has required European member states to assess the current status of marine ecosystems, develop and implement strategies to reach Good Environmental Status and monitor progress. 10.4.2 Integrated Cumulative Effects Assessment Integrated ecosystem assessments represent an important tool to understand how humans interact with the marine ecosystem. Levin et al. (2009) defined integrated ecosystem assessments as ‘a formal synthesis and quantitative analysis of information on relevant natural and socioeconomic factors, in relation to specified ecosystem management objectives’. It is an incremental approach at multiple scales across sectors, in which integrated scientific understanding feeds into management choices and receives feedback from changing ecosystem objectives. Cumulative effects are the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present and reasonably foreseeable actions. They have also been defined as ‘the net result of environmental impact from a number of projects and activities’ (Sadler, 1996). It is expected that this combination of cumulative pressures can have various (positive and negative) cumulative impacts/effects on humans and the marine environment. A cumulative effects assessment is understood as ‘a systematic procedure for identifying and evaluating the significance of effects from multiple sources/activities and for providing an

186  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus estimate on the overall expected impact to inform management measures’ (Judd et al., 2015). The framework consists of four phases: ● Define purpose and scope. ● Identify human activities (sector) and related pressures and impacts on ecosystems (impact chain). ● Establish the relative importance of the individual pressures/impact chains by calculating ‘impact risk’. ● Evaluate the quality of the underlying information and level of confidence. Analyse the causes (source of pressures and effects), pathways and consequences of these effects on receptors. This is an essential and integral part of the process, usually applying frameworks such as drivers-pressures-state-impacts-response (Borja et al., 2006). 10.4.3 Environmental Impact Assessment A common methodology to assess the environmental impact of foreseen projects is the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Its use is, in the EU, formalised by Directives 2011/92/EU (Environmental Impact Assessment meant to be used for projects), and 2001/42/ EC (Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive, applicable to policies and plans). The common principle of both Directives is to ensure that plans, programmes and projects likely to have significant effects on the environment are made subject to an environmental assessment, prior to their approval or authorisation. Article 3 of Directive 2011/92/EU prescribes that EIA ‘shall identify, describe and assess in an appropriate manner, in the light of each individual case … the direct and indirect effects of a project on the following factors: (a) human beings, fauna and flora; (b) soil, water, air, climate and the landscape; (c) material assets and the cultural heritage; (d) the interaction between the factors referred to in points (a), (b) and (c)’. Amendments to the Directive have broadened the topical scope of EIA, for example the 2014 amendment aimed to increase consideration of resource efficiency, climate change and biodiversity and disaster prevention in the assessment process. The common principle of both Directives is to ensure that plans, programmes and projects likely to have significant effects on the environment are made subject to an environmental assessment, prior to their approval or authorisation. Consultation with the public is a key feature of environmental assessment procedures. 10.4.4 Ecosystem Services A relative newcomer to the field of assessment methods, the concept of ecosystem services departs from the observation that ecosystems provide services for the benefit of humans. Commonly, different types of services are distinguished: provisioning, regulating, cultural and maintaining services. Earlier studies used the concept of ecosystem services to describe the state of an ecosystem (Hattam et al., 2015) and value them in economic terms (Sagebiel et al., 2016). Such services can be quantified and valued but can also be used as a unit to assess impacts of marine development. In other words, the impact of development is assessed by looking at the changes in the stock and supply of ecosystem services (Depellegrin et al., 2020).

A marine nexus approach for healthy ecosystems at sea  187

10.5

DISCUSSION: TOWARDS A MARINE NEXUS APPROACH

This chapter has presented emerging developments in the marine domain, the environmental pressures that come along with these and the assessment methods that are currently in use. We argue there is an opportunity to elaborate on the marine nexus approach. Analogous to terrestrial nexus approaches, the marine nexus should not focus on single issues but address multiple issues at the same time and acknowledge that there are trade-offs between different issues. We describe how a marine nexus approach can be of added value and inform decision making in the marine domain. The marine nexus approach can shed light on the interrelationships and trade-offs between different activities. Current assessment methods are strongly focused on the environmental dimension. Extensive methodological development has led to complex assessment methods to analyse the state of the marine ecosystem. As interest in the production of food and energy at sea grows, a range of environmental impact assessments are carried out to predict possible impacts on the ecosystem. Yet, these assessment methods take a sectoral approach and do not allow for an evaluation of the trade-offs between different policy objectives. A marine nexus approach could be used for example to analyse how the development of offshore wind energy interacts with food provisioning and nature conservation and help decision makers to balance different interests. In a marine nexus, one needs to look at water in a different manner. From its inception, the nexus concept was tightly linked to concerns over water security (World Economic Forum, 2011). Many studies taking a nexus approach departed from the assumption that water availability is a limiting factor (Karabulut et al., 2016; Link et al., 2016). In the marine nexus, the absolute availability of water obviously is not a primary concern. What is of concern is the long-term availability of healthy marine ecosystems that can support the provision of energy and food. The impact of human activities should for this reason not be assessed in terms of water usage, but by looking at the state of the marine ecosystem and its resilience to anthropogenic impacts. Additionally, it is worth investigating to what extent the growth of maritime activities, including food and energy production, is a substitute for land-based activities that require fresh water. Other environmental impact factors should be included in the marine nexus. The nexus commonly includes the topics of water, energy and food (Allan et al., 2015; Endo et al., 2017; Smajgl et al., 2016). At times, additional topics are added, e.g. biodiversity (Stoy et al., 2018) or climate (Matthew, 2018). In the case of the marine environment, the nexus concept should be expanded to at least include the impact of plastic pollution. This is not captured in the life-cycle assessment as at the moment the impact of plastic affects energy demand, climate change and resource use but it is not considered an impact by itself (Antelava et al., 2019). However, the impact of plastic is particularly relevant on its own in the marine environment (Li et al., 2016; Vikas and Dwarakish, 2015). Thus, a clear methodological development is necessary to integrate into the nexus assessment the impact of plastics as a pollutant in the marine environment related to the blue economy; the European Commission is currently working on this (Nessi et al., 2020). The physical disturbance impact should also be considered in the blue economy nexus assessment as it is responsible for the alteration of marine ecosystems (Andersson et al., 2016; Hammar et al., 2017). However, except for direct monitoring, only some modelling attempts have been carried out using a large amount of data which might not be available to the nexus

188  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus assessor (Kregting et al., 2016). Further, this impact should be also be compared with environmental wave motion and tidal effect which also affect the benthic community without any human interaction (Kregting et al., 2016). Another key element which should be included in the nexus assessment of the blue economy is the potential direct killing of the marine fauna and flora resulting from fishing, energy production and the extraction of minerals and aggregates (Cordes et al., 2016; FAO, 2018; Hammar et al., 2017; Kaikkonen et al., 2018). In the case of the nexus assessment, this current work highlights the need to include at least a qualitative assessment of biodiversity in a comprehensive nexus assessment of any blue economy sector or process to better inform policy and decision makers.

10.6 OUTLOOK A marine nexus assessment can shed new insight into the relationships between water, energy, food and biodiversity in the marine realm. To have a true impact, and support decision makers, such an assessment should be embedded in existing procedures. While ‘terrestrial’ nexus assessments have been around for some years now, the actual uptake in decision making remains limited. The lack of nexus applications in policy and decision making can be related to numerous factors, with the main barrier being the complex nature of ‘nexus’ systems combined with the disarray of tools attempting to model its interconnections (Dargin et al., 2019). The nexus approach has been criticised as being ‘largely conceptual’ (Simpson and Jewitt, 2019). To ensure a marine nexus is more than conceptual, and actually finds its way into decision making, it is important to relate to the relevant policies in place. A logical entry point for implementing a marine nexus approach lies in the global efforts to develop marine or maritime spatial planning. The EU Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (2014/89/EU) and international efforts to advance marine spatial planning (Ehler and Douvere, 2009) aim at establishing and implementing marine spatial planning, considering economic, social and environmental aspects to support sustainable development and growth in the maritime sector, applying an ecosystem-based approach. It explicitly seeks to contribute to the sustainable development of energy sectors at sea, of maritime transport and of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors, and to the preservation, protection and improvement of the environment, including resilience to climate change impacts. The benefits and impacts of different sectors – including energy and food – need to be balanced in maritime spatial planning. A marine nexus approach can contribute to advanced understanding of the interrelationship and trade-offs between these sectors.

NOTE 1. See also the website of the Nexus Resource Platform: www​ .water​ -energy​ -food​ .org/​ calendar/​ calendar​-detail/​bonn2011​-messages​-from​-the​-bonn2011​-nexus​-conference/​.

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A marine nexus approach for healthy ecosystems at sea  189 (LCA) combined with PCA and HCPC’, International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 23 (5), 1049–1062. Albrecht, T.R., A. Crootof and C.A. Scott (2018), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: A systematic review of methods for nexus assessment’, Environmental Research Letters, 13 (4), 043002. Allan, T., M. Keulertz and E. Woertz (2015), ‘The water-food-energy nexus: An introduction to nexus concepts and some conceptual and operational problems’, International Journal of Water Resources Development, 31 (3), 301–311. Andersson, K., F. Baldi, S. Brynolf, J.F. Lindgren, L. Granhag and E. Svensson (eds) (2016), Shipping and the Environment, Berlin: Springer. Antelava, A., S. Damilos, S. Hafeez, G. Manos, S.M. Al-Salem, B.K. Sharma, K. Kohli and A. Constantinou (2019), ‘Plastic solid waste (PSW) in the context of life cycle assessment (LCA) and sustainable management’, Environmental Management, 64 (2), 230–244. Bari, A. (2017), ‘Our oceans and the blue economy: Opportunities and challenges’, Procedia Engineering, 194, 5–11. Beerling, D.J., J.R. Leake, S.P. Long, J.D. Scholes, J. Ton, P.N. Nelson et al. (2018), ‘Farming with crops and rocks to address global climate, food and soil security’, Nature Plants, 4, 138–147. Boas, I., F. Biermann and N. Kanie (2016), ‘Cross-sectoral strategies in global sustainability governance: Towards a nexus approach’, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 16 (3), 449–464. Bohnes, F.A. and A. Laurent (2018), ‘LCA of aquaculture systems: methodological issues and potential improvements’, International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 24, 324–337. Borja, Á., I. Galparsoro, O. Solaun, I. Muxika, E.M. Tello, A. Uriarte and V. Valencia (2006), ‘The European water framework directive and the DPSIR: A methodological approach to assess the risk of failing to achieve good ecological status’, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 66 (1), 84–96. Borthwick, A.G.L. (2016), ‘Marine renewable energy seascape’, Engineering, 2 (1), 69–78. Brady, N., and R. Weil (ed.) (2002), The Nature and Properties of Soils, 13th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Castro, M.C.T. de, T.W. Fileman and J.M. Hall-Spencer (2017), ‘Invasive species in the northeastern and southwestern Atlantic ocean: A review’, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 116 (1–2), 41–47. Cesário, M.T., M.M.R. da Fonseca, M.M. Marques and M.C.M.D. de Almeida (2018), ‘Marine algal carbohydrates as carbon sources for the production of biochemicals and biomaterials’, Prospects in Biotechnology, 36 (3), 798–817. Cordes, E.E., D.O.B. Jones, T.A. Schlacher, D.J. Amon, A.F. Bernardino, S. Brooke et al. (2016), ‘Environmental impacts of the deep-water oil and gas industry: A review to guide management strategies’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 4, 58. Dargin, J., B. Daher and R.H. Mohtar (2019), ‘Complexity versus simplicity in water energy food nexus (WEF) assessment tools’, Science of The Total Environment, 650, 1566–1575. de Strasser, L., A. Lipponen, M. Howells, S. Stec and C. Bréthaut (2016), ‘A methodology to assess the water energy food ecosystems nexus in transboundary river basins’, Water, 8 (2), 59. Depellegrin, D., S. Menegon, L. Gusatu, S. Roy and I. Misiunė (2020), ‘Assessing marine ecosystem services richness and exposure to anthropogenic threats in small sea areas: A case study for the Lithuanian sea space’, Ecological Indicators, 108. Duarte, C.M., J. Wu, X. Xiao, A. Bruhn and D. Krause-Jensen (2017), ‘Can seaweed farming play a role in climate change mitigation and adaptation?’, Frontiers in Marine Science, 4. EASAC (2018), ‘Negative emission technologies: What role in meeting Paris Agreement targets?’, EASAC policy report 35, Brussels: European Academies Science Advisory Council. EC (2019), ‘The EU blue economy report 2019’, Brussels: European Commission. EC (2020), ‘Maritime Forum – European Commission, Brussels, Belgium’, accessed 23 November 2020 at https://​webgate​.ec​.europa​.eu/​maritimeforum/​en/​frontpage/​1451. Ehler, C. and F. Douvere (ed.) (2009), Marine Spatial Planning: A Step-by-Step Approach toward Ecosystem-Based Management. Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and Man and the Biosphere Programme, Paris: UNESCO. Endo, A., I. Tsurita, K. Burnett and P.M. Orencio (2017), ‘A review of the current state of research on the water, energy, and food nexus’, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 11, 20–30.

190  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus FAO (2018), The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018, Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization. Ferreira, J.G., L. Falconer, J. Kittiwanich, L. Ross, C. Saurel, K. Wellman, C.B. Zhu and P. Suvanachai (2015), ‘Analysis of production and environmental effects of Nile tilapia and white shrimp culture in Thailand’, Aquaculture, 447, 23–36. Gabel, V.M., M.S. Meier, U. Köpke and M. Stolze (2016), ‘The challenges of including impacts on biodiversity in agricultural life cycle assessments’, Journal of Environmental Management, 181, 249–260. Goglio, P., G. Brankatschk, M.T. Knudsen, A.G. Williams and T. Nemecek (2017), ‘Addressing crop interactions within cropping systems in LCA’, International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 1–9. GRID-Arendal and UNEP (2016), World Ocean Assessment Overview, Oslo: GRID-Arendal and Paris: United Nations Environmental Programme. Hammar, L., M. Gullström, T.G. Dahlgren, M.E. Asplund, I.B. Goncalves and S. Molander (2017), ‘Introducing ocean energy industries to a busy marine environment’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 74 , 178–185. Hattam, C., J.P. Atkins, N. Beaumont, T. Bӧrger, A. Bӧhnke-Henrichs, D. Burdon et al. (2015), ‘Marine ecosystem services: Linking indicators to their classification’, Ecological Indicators, 49, 61–75. Helmes, R.J.K., A.M. López-Contreras, M. Benoit, H. Abreu, J. Maguire, F. Moejes and S.W.K. van den Burg (2018), ‘Environmental impacts of experimental production of lactic acid for bioplastics from Ulva spp’, Sustainability (Switzerland), 10 (7), 1–15. Henriksson, P.J.G., J.B. Guinée, R. Kleijn and G.R. de Snoo (2012), ‘Life cycle assessment of aquaculture systems: A review of methodologies’, International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 17 (3), 304–313. High Level Group of Scientific Advisors (ed.) (2017), Food from the Oceans: How Can More Food and Biomass Be Obtained from the Oceans in a Way That Does Not Deprive Future Generations of Their Benefits?, Scientific Advice Mechanisms Independent Scientific Advice for Policy Making. IEA (2018), Offshore Energy Outlook, Paris: International Energy Agency. IEA (2019), ‘Statistics, World, Oil production – crude and other products’, Paris: International Energy Agency, accessed 30 August 2019 at www​.iea​.org/​statistics/​?country​=​WORLD​&​year​=​2016​ &​category​=​Oil​&​indicator​=​OilProd​&​mode​=​chart​&​dataTable​=​OIL. Ingrao, C., J. Bacenetti, A. Bezama, V. Blok, P. Goglio, E.G. Koukios et al. (2018), ‘The potential roles of bio-economy in the transition to equitable, sustainable, post fossil-carbon societies: Findings from this virtual special issue’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 204, 471–488. Jeswani, H.K., R. Burkinshaw and A. Azapagic (2015), ‘Environmental sustainability issues in the food-energy-water nexus: Breakfast cereals and snacks’, Sustainable Production and Consumption, 2, 17–28. Judd, A.D., T. Backhaus and F. Goodsir (2015), ‘An effective set of principles for practical implementation of marine cumulative effects assessment’, Environmental Science and Policy, 54, 254–262. Kaikkonen, L., R. Venesjärvi, H. Nygård and S. Kuikka (2018), ‘Assessing the impacts of seabed mineral extraction in the deep sea and coastal marine environments: Current methods and recommendations for environmental risk assessment’, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 135, 1183–1197. Karabulut, A., B.N. Egoh, D. Lanzanova, B. Grizzetti, G. Bidoglio, L. Pagliero et al. (2016), ‘Mapping water provisioning services to support the ecosystem-water-food-energy nexus in the Danube river basin’, Ecosystem Services, 17, 278–292. Karabulut, A., E. Crenna, S. Sala and A. Udias (2018), ‘A proposal for integration of the ecosystem-water-food-land-energy (EWFLE) nexus concept into life cycle assessment: A synthesis matrix system for food security’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 172, 3874–3889. Krauss, J., R. Bommarco, M. Guardiola, R.K. Heikkinen, A. Helm, M. Kuussaari et al. (2010), ‘Habitat fragmentation causes immediate and time-delayed biodiversity loss at different trophic levels’, Ecology Letters, 13 (5), 597–605. Kregting, L., B. Elsaesser, R. Kennedy, D. Smyth, J. O’Carroll and G. Savidge (2016), ‘Do changes in current flow as a result of arrays of tidal turbines have an effect on benthic communities?’, PLoS One, 11 (8), e0161279. Lefebvre, D., P. Goglio, A. Williams, D.A.C. Manning, A.C. de Azevedo, M. Bergmann, J. Meersmans and P. Smith (2019), ‘Assessing the potential of soil carbonation and enhanced weathering through

A marine nexus approach for healthy ecosystems at sea  191 life cycle assessment: A case study for Sao Paulo state, Brazil’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 233, 468–481. Levin, P.S., M.J. Fogarty, S.A. Murawski and D. Fluharty (2009), ‘Integrated ecosystem assessments: Developing the scientific basis for ecosystem-based management of the ocean’, PLoS Biology, 7 (1), e1000014. Li, W.C., H.F. Tse and L. Fok (2016), ‘Plastic waste in the marine environment: A review of sources, occurrence and effects’, Science of the Total Environment, 566–567, 333–349. Lindgren, J.F., M. Wilewska-Bien, L. Granhag, K. Andersson and K.M. Eriksson (2016), ‘Discharges to the sea’, in K. Andersson, S. Brynolf, J.F. Lindgren and M. Wilewska-Bien (eds), Shipping and the Environment: Improving Environmental Performance in Marine Transportation, Berlin: Springer, 125–168. Lindqvist, M., U. Palme and J.P. Lindner (2016), ‘A comparison of two different biodiversity assessment methods in LCA: A case study of Swedish spruce forest’, International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 21 (2), 190–201. Link, P.M., J. Scheffran and T. Ide (2016), ‘Conflict and cooperation in the water-security nexus: A global comparative analysis of river basins under climate change’, WIREs Water, 3 (4), 495–515. Magnan, A.K., M. Colombier, R. Billé, F. Joos, O. Hoegh-Guldberg, H.-O. Pörtner, H. Waisman, T. Spencer and J.-P. Gattuso (2016), ‘Implications of the Paris Agreement for the ocean’, Nature Climate Change, 6 (8), 732–735. Mallin, F. and M. Barbesgaard (2020), ‘Awash with contradiction: Capital, ocean space and the logics of the blue economy paradigm’, Geoforum, 113, 121–132. Marchese, C. (2015), ‘Biodiversity hotspots: A shortcut for a more complicated concept’, Global Ecology and Conservation, 3, 297–309. Martens, J.A., A. Bogaerts, N. De Kimpe, P.A. Jacobs, G.B. Marin, K. Rabaey, M. Saeys and S. Verhelst (2017), ‘The chemical route to a carbon dioxide neutral world’, ChemSusChem, 10 (6), 1039–1055. Matthew, R.A. (2018), ‘Afterward: Closing thoughts on the water-food-energy-climate nexus BT: Water, energy, food and people across the global south: “The nexus” in an era of climate change’, in L.A. Swatuk and C. Cash (eds), Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 325–332. Moosdorf, N., P. Renforth and J. Hartmann (2014), ‘Carbon dioxide efficiency of terrestrial enhanced weathering’, Environmental Science and Technology, 48 (9), 4809–4816. Morgan, R.K. (2012), ‘Environmental impact assessment: The state of the art’, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 30 (1), 5–14. Nessi, S., C. Bulgheroni, P. Garcia-Gutierrez, J. Giuntoli, A. Konti, E. Sanye-Mengual, D. Tonini, R. Pant and L. Marelli (2020), Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of alternative feedstock for plastics production, Part 2, Ispra: Joint Research Centre, European Commission. OECD (2018), OECD Tourism Trends and Policies, Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sadler, B. (ed.) (1996), Environmental Assessment in a Changing World: Evaluating Practice to Improve Performance, Ottawa: Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Sagebiel, J., C. Schwartz, M. Rhozyel, S. Rajmis and J. Hirschfeld (2016), ‘Economic valuation of Baltic marine ecosystem services: Blind spots and limited consistency’, ICES Journal of Marine Science, 73 (4), 991–1003. Seghetta, M. and P. Goglio (2018), Life Cycle Assessment of Seaweed Cultivation Systems, Totowa, NJ: Humana Press. Seghetta, M., D. Romeo, M. D’Este, M. Alvarado-Morales, I. Angelidaki, S. Bastianoni and M. Thomsen (2017), ‘Seaweed as innovative feedstock for energy and feed: Evaluating the impacts through a life cycle assessment’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 150, 1–15. Shahidul Islam, Md. and M. Tanaka (2004), ‘Impacts of pollution on coastal and marine ecosystems including coastal and marine fisheries and approach for management: A review and synthesis’, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 48 (7–8), 624–649. Simpson, G.B. and G.P.W. Jewitt (2019), ‘The water-energy-food nexus in the Anthropocene: Moving from “nexus thinking” to “nexus action”’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 40, 117–123. Singh, A., S.I. Olsen and P.S. Nigam (2011), ‘A viable technology to generate third-generation biofuel’, Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, 86 (11), 1349–1353.

192  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Smajgl, A., J. Ward and L. Pluschke (2016), ‘The water-food-energy nexus: Realising a new paradigm’, Journal of Hydrology, 533, 533–540. Soma, K., S.W.K. van den Burg, E.W.J. Hoefnagel, M. Stuiver and C.M. van der Heide (2018), ‘Social innovation: A future pathway for blue growth?’, Marine Policy, 87. Stoy, P.C., S. Ahmed, M. Jarchow, B. Rashford, D. Swanson, S. Albeke et al. (2018), ‘Opportunities and trade-offs among BECCS and the food, water, energy, biodiversity, and social systems nexus at regional scales’, BioScience, 68 (2), 100–111. Teixeira, R.F.M., D. Maia de Souza, M.P. Curran, A. Antón, O. Michelsen and L. Milà i Canals (2016), ‘Towards consensus on land use impacts on biodiversity in LCA: UNEP/SETAC life cycle initiative preliminary recommendations based on expert contributions’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 112, 4283–4287. Trave, C., J. Brunnschweiler, M. Sheaves, A. Diedrich and A. Barnett (2017), ‘Are we killing them with kindness? Evaluation of sustainable marine wildlife tourism’, Biological Conservation, 209, 211–222. Uihlein, A. and D. Magagna (2016), ‘Wave and tidal current energy: A review of the current state of research beyond technology’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 58, 1070–1081. UN and World Bank (2017), Blue Economy: Increasing Long-Term Benefits of the Sustainable Use of Marine Resources for Small Island Developing States and Coastal Least Developed Countries, Washington, DC: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social affairs and New York: World Bank. UNFCCC (2015), Conference of Parties Agreement, 21st session, Paris Agreement, Paris: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. van den Burg, S.W.K., H. Dagevos and R.J.K. Helmes (2019), ‘Towards sustainable European seaweed value chains: A triple P perspective’, ICES Journal of Marine Science. Vikas, M. and G.S. Dwarakish (2015), ‘Coastal pollution: A review’, Aquatic Procedia, 4, 381–388. Wang, Y., R.K. Morgan and M. Cashmore (2003), ‘Environmental impact assessment of projects in the People’s Republic of China: New law, old problems’, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 23 (5), 543–579. Williamson, P. (2016), ‘Emissions reduction: Scrutinize CO2 removal methods’, Nature, 530 (7589), 153–155. Wilson, S.P. and K.M. Verlis (2017), ‘The ugly face of tourism: Marine debris pollution linked to visitation in the southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia’, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 117 (1–2), 239–246. World Economic Forum (2011), Water Security, the Water-Food-Energy-Climate Nexus, Washington, DC: Island Press.

11. Examining knowledge of the nexus at the urban scale Andrea L. Pierce, Monika Heyder, Grant Tregonning, Pia Laborgne, Olga Wilhelmi and Jochen Wendel

11.1

WHY FOCUS ON THE URBAN NEXUS?

The world’s population is increasingly urban.1 Fifty-five per cent of the global population lived in urban areas as of 2018, increasing from 30 per cent in 1950, and estimated to rise to 68 per cent by 2050 (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2019). Urbanization results from rural-to-urban migration and from natural population increases within urban areas that outpace growth in rural areas. The bulk of the urban population growth this century is projected to occur within developing nations of Africa and Asia, especially within Nigeria, India, and China. Population growth, economic development, and urbanization all drive heightened demand for the provisioning services of water, energy, and food. For instance, more than 40 per cent of the global population is projected to face ‘severe water stress’ by 2050 (UN-Water, 2020: 112). More than 57 per cent of the global population may face water stress at least one month per year by 2050 (Boretti and Rosa, 2019). Severe water-stressed locales exist in Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East, overlapping substantially with rapidly urbanizing areas of the globe. Additionally, these same areas are projected to face environmental stressors from climate change, including sea-level rise, increasing precipitation and nuisance flooding, and rising heat (UN-Water, 2020). Sea-level rise and coastal flooding can inundate fresh drinking water supplies and damage water and sanitation infrastructure. Rising temperatures cause increased surface water evaporation and a higher concentration of pollutants, nutrients, and salts in remaining water supplies. Polluted runoff from urban and industrial processes caused by increasing precipitation during storms can also threaten the water quality even when water quantity is not threatened, driving demand for energy-intensive water treatment. Historically, urbanization has been associated with rising energy demand (Madlener and Sunak, 2011). Urbanization closely relates to economic development and intensification demands more energy. As electrification expands globally and especially within cities, rising energy demand is supplied by differing fuel sources (crude oil, coal, natural gas, renewables), which have different environmental impacts. Nevertheless, total energy demand typically increases with population growth. One complicating factor is the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on global energy demand (International Energy Agency, 2020). Before the pandemic, global energy demand was projected to increase by more than 12 per cent of 2019 levels by 2030. Should the global economy recover by 2022, global energy demand is now projected to increase 10 per cent over 2019 levels by 2030. Should the global economy not recover until 2025, global energy demand is projected to increase by only 5 per cent. The crisis has already reversed recent progress in 193 Andrea L

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194  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus expanding electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa; 580 million residents were projected to lack access in 2020 including 80 million in Nigeria, one of the world’s most rapidly urbanizing countries. Lack of access stems from both unaffordability for consumers and supply constraints. Furthermore, many COVID-19 recovery plans might neglect environmental solutions for more cost-effective ones, e.g. by disfavouring costly green energy to keep energy prices low for the production industry. One benefit of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be a marked decrease in demand for highly polluting coal in favour of less-polluting oil and natural gas. This effect adds to a substantial drop in China’s coal demand, witnessed over the past decade (International Energy Agency, 2020). The transition to cleaner-burning fuels worldwide will improve urban air quality, especially downwind of electric power plants. The indoor air quality will also improve as a result of cleaner cooking fuels, including electricity. Unfortunately, rising heat from global climate change and localized urban heat island effects can drive an increase in energy demand for cooling, further increasing the production of urban air pollutants such as ozone, threatening human health, and reinforcing global climate change. Should countries implement greener energy policies during the coming recovery, the benefit to urban air quality could be substantial (e.g. declining concentrations of fine particulates by 45–65 per cent in 10 years) (International Energy Agency, 2020). Population growth and urbanization will drive up overall demand for food, especially in rapidly growing areas in Africa and South Asia. The Food and Agricultural Organization predicts that the ‘different consumption patterns, jobs and living conditions of urban and rural populations, will affect the demand for and quality of various food items’ (FAO, 2018a: 10). As household income rises, demand shifts from largely plant-based diets to more water and energy resource-intensive products such as meat, fish, and dairy products (FAO, 2018a), consistent with a ‘Western’ diet. At the same time, food insecurity is a serious global problem. Approximately 820 million people (10.9 per cent) in 2017 were undernourished and more than 650 million people are projected to remain undernourished as of 2030, without substantial policy changes (FAO, 2018a). At present, undernourishment concentrates in regions of rapid population growth. At more than 20 per cent of its population, Africa has the highest prevalence of undernourishment, while Asia has more than 11 per cent of its population facing undernourishment (FAO, 2018a). Future rapid urbanization will bring serious food security concerns to already hungry areas. Urbanization can convert agricultural lands to urban uses, reducing food production capacity near cities (d’Amour et al., 2017; FAO, 2018b). Sea-level rise and coastal flooding will further reduce arable lands near cities (Boretti and Rosa, 2019). Urbanization is expected to have a more substantial effect on the loss of productive arable land than degradation or climate change (FAO, 2018a). Stronger rural–urban linkages by developing ‘agro-economies’ can ensure urban food security, while also reducing energy and water demand for transport and processing. Taken together, we must focus research and practical attention on the urban nexus because the majority of the global population now lives in urban areas and because rapid urbanization is likely to hit the same areas already stressed by poverty, pressure on resources, and climate change. Without action and within decades, we can expect insecurities in one or multiple water-energy-food (WEF) provisioning systems necessary for sustaining and improving human health and quality of life. Additionally, attempts to address individual-sector concerns

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Examining knowledge of the nexus at the urban scale  195 such as urban food security will have implications for resource use and efficiencies in other WEF sectors as well as their interactions, requiring an integrated strategy. The international community recognizes the importance of cities to its global development agenda, adding a specific urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to the United Nations’ latest iteration of global goals in 2015. SDG 11, ‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’, aims to ‘By 2020, substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters’ (UNDP, 2021). Additionally, the New Leipzig Charter, issued by the European ministries, proclaims the need for integrated urban planning to achieve the ambition of just, green, and productive (European) cities. Combined in a balanced and integrated manner, these ambitions aim at developing resilient cities with a high quality of life. Cities must establish integrated and sustainable urban development strategies that coordinate all urban policy areas and balance conflicting and mutual effects and interests (European Commission, 2020). The urban nexus is a way forward towards achieving such integrated policies and plans (Artioli et al., 2017). The urban WEF nexus remains relatively elusive despite increasing interest in sustainable urban development scholarship and practice. In the following sections, this chapter addresses four practical questions: (1) why focus on the urban nexus; (2) what do we know about the urban nexus, especially with respect to resource interlinkages, governance, and transdisciplinary approaches; (3) what have we learned about the urban nexus, with insights from a comparative case study of the WEF nexus in three mid-sized cities; and (4) where do we (as a scholarly community) go from here? The chapter highlights the potential of the urban nexus concept and related transdisciplinary activities such as visualization and participatory modelling (PM) for facilitating cooperation and knowledge exchange among relevant stakeholders and citizens.

11.2

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE URBAN NEXUS?

The following sections explore what we know generally about the urban nexus concerning resource interlinkages, governance, and transdisciplinary approaches. 11.2.1 Interlinkages between Natural Resources Cities are complex systems, composed of physical elements such as buildings and infrastructure (green and grey) and dynamic elements like flows of people, goods, and information (Castells, 2001). Urban ecology scholars examine cities using the urban metabolism model, where resources such as water, energy, and food are inputs to city functions and waste products such as air and water pollution are exported into the environment of the city (Fischer-Kowalski and Hüttler, 1998; Kennedy et al., 2010). Under this model, the health of the city and its residents depend directly on the security of WEF resources and the efficiency of WEF resource use in urban processes and interactions. These security and efficiency concerns lie at the heart of WEF nexus research and practice (Romero-Lankao et al., 2017). Elements of the WEF system operate at different geographic scales, from the local to the global, and with substantial cross-boundary effects (Ramaswami et al., 2017). The water

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196  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus supply for a city may come from far beyond the city boundaries, requiring costly agreements between multiple political jurisdictions, utilities, or businesses to transport and/or treat freshwater to urban consumers. Urban development in the United States arid west, for instance, required substantial investments in water infrastructure, including canals, pipelines, hydroelectric plants, and desalination plants, all of which require extensive energy to operate (Reisner, 1993; Scott et al., 2011). Likewise, the energy required to power a city and its activities may be produced well outside city boundaries, requiring large-scale transmission infrastructure and resulting in an off-loading of pollution from electricity generation to jurisdictions other than where it is consumed. Island cities are often reliant on external energy sources such as petroleum, which are shipped in at a high cost. Urban agriculture produces a small fraction of the food for urban consumption, while most food is shipped to cities across vast distances. It is for this reason that scholars have sought to quantify the WEF resource needs of cities (Ramaswami et al., 2017) and the potential trade-offs and efficiency gains from integrating WEF management through an urban nexus perspective (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017; Gondhalekar and Ramsauer, 2017; Sperling and Berke, 2017). The nexus framework also enables estimating trade-offs between rural and urban interests at a larger geographic scale (Kurian, 2017), although potentially with a loss of attention to local effects (Scott et al., 2011). The circular economy framework, extending the urban metabolism model to minimize and reuse waste within cities, provides another potential opportunity to operationalize the urban nexus (Brandoni and Bošnjaković, 2018; Brears, 2015). The circular economy entails a holistic consideration of a product’s value chain, going beyond end-of-life disposal to providing a second life, protecting resources and the environment while supporting economic development (Del Borghi et al., 2020). Businesses in the various supply chains of the WEF nexus can work to find cooperative approaches that generate resource efficiencies. For instance, heat can be recovered from wastewater or sewage sludge and sludge can be used as fertilizer in agriculture or to generate biogas. Likewise, groundwater can assist in cooling buildings via inverse heat pumps. Urban environments offer potential WEF nexus efficiencies through co-locating these facilities, including: 1. Urban agricultural methods that are water-efficient like aquaponics, hydroponics (with LED Grow lights), and vertical greenhouses; 2. Water treatment technologies that can produce drinking water, energy generation (methane), and mineral/nutrient recovery; and 3. Innovative energy solutions like utilizing waste from fish farms for energy generation and implementation of solar panels for financially self-sustaining areas. (Sperling and Berke, 2017: 177)

Empirical documentation of urban-scale WEF nexus interlinkages is relatively rare. Instead, scholars have estimated or modelled potential benefits in an urban setting. For instance, Walker et al. (2014) examined water, energy, and nutrient flows in the Greater London area using an urban metabolism approach. They found that recovering urine from wastewater could reduce nitrogen loss by 47 per cent and generate a financially valuable fertilizer product. Likewise, diverting food waste from sewage for energy production could potentially reduce carbon emissions from renewable sources by 66 per cent. Similarly, Gondhalekar and Ramsauer (2017) modelled potential synergies of water resources management, energy efficiency, and urban agriculture in Munich, Germany. By applying a WEF nexus approach, the study found that replacing green infrastructure with urban agriculture could provide for 66 per cent of local demand for fruit and 246 per cent of

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Examining knowledge of the nexus at the urban scale  197 local demand for vegetables. They also found that wastewater recycling and reuse coupled with rainwater harvesting could save 26 per cent of current freshwater supply while biogas generation from human sewage could save 20 per cent of current electricity supply. Each study uses different methods and concepts of the urban WEF nexus. Zhang et al. (2019) proposed a three-dimensional conceptual framework for urban WEF nexus studies to routinize the approaches used. Under such a framework, priority research areas are highlighted to promote the development of nexus analytical methods that match a systematic assessment of urban WEF systems with corresponding case studies to operationalize nexus governance. Additionally, scholars note that an exclusive focus on improving efficiencies of the physical WEF systems may miss deeper implications of WEF system management on social vulnerabilities and resilience (e.g. Mguni and van Vliet, 2020). Special considerations are necessary for understanding the plight of the urban poor especially with respect to interconnected WEF problems such as food security and energy poverty. 11.2.2 Governance Processes Nexus scholars argue that integrated policy, planning, and management of the interdependent WEF systems is necessary to achieve security and efficiency and minimize trade-offs between systems (Brandoni and Bošnjaković, 2018; Covarrubias et al., 2019). For this, we need effective governance arrangements and interactions. Governance is the process of collectively managing public problems such as resource security. It is most often associated with the actions of governments, but governance can be provided through partnerships with businesses or non-profit organizations, or directly by private citizens and without government involvement (Stoker, 1998). Governance requires some coordinating structure and mechanisms for effective interaction, often dependent on the number and relative power of differing involved actors and stakeholders. Informal self-governance can be achieved in some cases with few actors and with high interpersonal trust (Ostrom, 2010; for a small-scale industrial example, see Ehrenfeld and Gertler, 1997). Otherwise, more formal governance arrangements are required to clarify responsibilities and facilitate collective decision making. Contemporary study of governance most often views these arrangements as networks of actors, with ‘heterogeneous power relations and forms of distributed power that are more fuzzy, fluid, and indeterminate’ than traditional, state-led governance hierarchies (Covarrubias et al., 2019: 3). Urban governance covers the scope of governance activities at the city scale, which is complicated by the fact that city governments are subordinate to higher levels of government like states or provinces and have limited legal authority to manage activities occurring within their boundaries. Thus, urban governance often requires a multi-level lens, examining activities not just of municipal or city-level actors but extending vertically to state or provincial actors and national or even supra-national actors like the European Union (Héritier and Rhodes, 2011). The urban scale also bleeds horizontally when cities, suburbs, and nearby peri-urban areas merge to create metropolitan-wide markets of production and consumption. A recent review of the urban governance scholarly literature found that ‘[t]he most studied governance challenge, by far, is citizen participation … Taken together, issues around participation, democracy, and engagement are present in nearly two-thirds of the articles included in our analysis’ (Cruz et al., 2019: 3). These topics were highly present in non-academic literature as well, in reports from non-governmental organizations and activists. Thus, a focus

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198  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus on citizen engagement in knowledge co-creation of the WEF nexus (see the next section) fits well with the direction of modern scholarship and practice. Even so, surveyed urban managers found these participatory topics to be less relevant to their day-to-day management than budgets, politicization, problem complexity, and ‘maladapted or outdated policy silos’ (Cruz et al., 2019: 4). Additionally, addressing complex urban challenges like climate change requires ‘decades of commitment and investment by city leaders … It is also not clear that cities can manage these issues without significant investments from national and transnational scales of government’ (Cruz et al., 2019: 5). Urban nexus governance is therefore extraordinarily complex, involving vertical and horizontal ties, and then layering in the networks of WEF systems actors (Romero-Lankao et al., 2017). Traditionally, each WEF system has its own governance structure, policies, plans, norms, and operating procedures, colloquially known as ‘silos’. Nexus thinking aims to break through these silos, to achieve better sustainability outcomes (Covarrubias et al., 2019). Given this complexity, integrated governance is the desired state for the management of the WEF nexus according to many authors (for a problematized view, see Artioli et al., 2017). In this context, integrated means collaboration across WEF systems and with participation from stakeholders in government and out (Hoff et al., 2019). Collaborative and participatory governance arguably enhances available knowledge and resources (financial, managerial) as well as improves transparency and legitimacy. Additionally, ‘good urban governance’ is supported by empowering multi-sectoral and multi-level stakeholders who profit from integrated and coordinated strategies, processes, and tools to participate in the decision-making process and balance public and private interests (European Commission, 2020). Despite the aspirations, empirical demonstrations of integrated governance of the WEF nexus in an urban context are also rare. A policy review noted that, typically, ‘proposed [nexus] solutions are oriented towards outcomes (resource use and adequacy of supply) without fully exploring processes (institutions and policy frameworks that influence decision-making)’ (Scott et al., 2011: 6623). Another review noted that scholars often recommend integrated governance without diving deeply into how to accomplish such goals (Urbinatti et al., 2020). Only 28 of 1,455 nexus studies in peer-reviewed journal articles from 2007 to 2018 studied governance in any meaningful way. This nexus governance literature was highly fragmented, comprising 24 separate concepts and eight themes, with urban governance being one of the eight noted themes (Urbinatti et al., 2020). Indeed, a review of 40 years of nexus literature revealed only a nascent grouping of urban-scale studies (Newell et al., 2019). Further exploration of the water-energy nexus in Arizona, United States (with substantial demand to supply urban Phoenix and Tucson) via stakeholder workshops in 2005 found that local and state resource managers rarely collaborated, requiring new multi-level institutions, enforcement mechanisms, and resources to realize effective nexus collaboration (Scott et al., 2011). Ten years later, a cross-sectoral workshop on urban WEF nexus in Detroit and Baltimore conducted in 2015 identified ‘partnerships and governance structures’ as one of four themes requiring further attention (Treemore-Spears et al., 2016). The workshop revealed that partnerships were emerging by connecting stakeholders with governance institutions and seeking ‘buy-in around collaboratively developed goals, strategies, and actions and timely feedback’ (Treemore-Spears et al., 2016: 93). Both cities have relatively limited administrative and policy capacity on sustainability. Instead, partnerships with local universities and schools improved citizen understanding of nexus issues in the local environment, and partner-

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Examining knowledge of the nexus at the urban scale  199 ships with businesses and non-governmental organizations identified innovative strategies that connect to the WEF nexus but are framed in language that directly address community needs. More recently, one study examined ‘three instances in the WEF sector in Amsterdam, where a nexus is actively emerging in different ways. These are (1) decarbonizing practices in the last mile of food production, (2) wastewater and energy links in Buiksloterham, and (3) the recovery of nutrients from wastewater plants’ (Covarrubias et al., 2019: 6). Amsterdam has a high policy and administrative capacity, with strong cross-sectoral leadership commitments to urban sustainability and resilience. The Netherlands is also relatively advanced within the European Union for its adoption of the circular economy and nexus framing (Brears, 2015). Nevertheless, the Amsterdam study revealed that effective urban nexus governance does not emerge simply through shared values but requires reconfiguration of governance activities and shifting network power over time to new actors. Without sufficient power shifts, projects remain more experimental than mainstream. Prior WEF governance decisions constrain future options in important ways (Romero-Lankao et al., 2017). This path dependency contributes to some barriers to effective integrated governance seen in empirical studies (e.g. Covarrubias et al., 2019). Thus, integrating nexus thinking into WEF governance requires leadership, time, and resources to accomplish. Navigating the integration involves ‘transaction costs’ to involved organizations and individuals, especially in an overlapping regulatory environment (Larcom and van Gevelt, 2017). In some cases, integration may require legal or policy changes to authorize collaboration across organizations tasked with managing individual systems (Brandoni and Bošnjaković, 2018; Leck et al., 2015). Importantly, clarity of responsibility and capability for action, knowledge transfer, and inclusion of stakeholders stand as prospective barriers to effective nexus governance (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2016). Effective governance will need new metrics and decision support models that operationalize nexus elements and interdependencies (Scott et al., 2011), as part of ‘a new WEF urban nexus science’ (Sperling and Berke, 2017: 177). New indicators and tools are also needed that connect system management decisions to important societal outcomes beyond efficiency, such as reducing economic and social inequalities in resource access and provision and improving nexus sustainability and resilience (Treemore-Spears et al., 2016). These tools would enable a holistic assessment of the societal effects of and trade-offs within urban WEF systems. 11.2.3 Transdisciplinary Approaches Achieving integrated WEF governance requires improving the knowledge base about interlinkages between resources, their dynamics, and the capabilities of governance systems to steer management practices in a more sustainable direction. Even so, much of the nexus literature to date has emerged from science or engineering fields with a distinctive techno-scientific framing (Wiegleb and Bruns, 2018). Wiegleb and Bruns (2018: 14) argue for earlier and more central engagement of social scientific domains in nexus research and for natural science and engineering domains ‘to acknowledge and recognize the political nature of resource use and governance’. Specifically, ‘[t]he nexus approach may reproduce existing inequalities in resource allocations and power structures unless research and policy carry a fundamental critique of these very inequalities’ (Artioli et al., 2017: 218), requiring engagement from social science disciplines. Thus, most scholars now assert the necessity of interdisciplinary research approaches, involving multiple

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200  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus disciplines and new ways of managing teams, working with publishers, and obtaining funding (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2016). Scholars also note that the WEF nexus reflects a ‘wicked problem’ (Rittel and Webber, 1973) that requires stakeholder engagement to negotiate political questions of value priorities and alternative solutions, building trust among participants for future collaboration (Scott et al., 2011). Stakeholder engagement enables integration of local knowledge and problem orientation beyond technical experts, which serve as key aspects of a transdisciplinary approach to understanding the WEF nexus (Ghodsvali et al., 2019). Below we review three transdisciplinary approaches that can be used to advance the urban WEF nexus in practice. Urban living laboratories Urban living laboratories (ULLs) offer an innovative approach for addressing wicked problems through stakeholder engagement and co-creation of knowledge grounded in the local context (Puerari et al., 2018). They create space for learning and experimentation and can foster innovative local cooperation and experimentation in the research and practice of sustainability transitions (Robinson et al., 2015). ULLs are part of process-oriented forms of sustainability science, based on a rich tradition of action research and embedded in transdisciplinary forms of research and science. ULLs ‘can be considered both an arena (geographically or institutionally bound spaces), and as an approach for intentional experimentation of researchers, citizens, companies, and local governments’ (McCormick and Hartmann, 2017: 40). ULLs have been adopted primarily in Europe but have begun to expand worldwide (Puerari et al., 2018). Data visualization The age of big data and the rise of smart cities has provided new information on the various components associated with urban liveability and sustainability (Allam et al., 2019). However, turning these data into digestible strands of knowledge for evidence-based decision-making processes typically requires specialist understanding and multi-method approaches (Kovacs-Györi et al., 2020). Visualization methods are often utilised to convey complex data and information to a variety of stakeholder groups (Cheshire and Batty, 2012). Although these methods are generally accepted within the academic and scientific sectors, they are rarely accepted by end-user or non-specialist audiences, most notably due to the limited integration of participatory methods within the design and development of visualization projects (Smørdal et al., 2016). An early body of research identified the importance of engaging users in the design and development of visualization tools to ensure data information is transferred accurately and efficiently to end users, improve end-user visualization literacy and understanding, and to ground the visualization within the local community (Carlis and Konstan, 1998; Cleveland and McGill, 1984; Papert, 1980). Although contemporary visualization projects have started to recognize the importance of participatory-centred visualization methodologies (Azzam et al., 2013; Cinderby et al., 2011), nexus visualization scholarship largely excludes participatory methods from the design, development, and implementation process. Such approaches have the potential to disempower community members and mirror existing power structures (Smørdal et al., 2016). As a result, certain stakeholder and end-user groups struggle to engage with project outputs, and nexus visualizations are rendered meaningless to the local community.

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Examining knowledge of the nexus at the urban scale  201 This is particularly true for nexus projects concerning WEF systems, which predominantly adopt non-participatory methods. Participatory methods are an important framework for the co-creation of knowledge between academic and non-academic communities and provide an opportunity for feedback and evaluation at various stages in the design, development, and implementation of visualization tools (Weise et al., 2020). By excluding end users and stakeholder community members in these processes, non-participatory methods may accentuate existing barriers in nexus literacy and distrust between academic–stakeholder groups (Jänicke et al., 2020) and cause conflict between the goals of visualization scholars and stakeholders. As such, non-participatory methods have the potential to reproduce existing societal processes and systems that perpetuate urban inequalities (Albuquerque and de Almeida, 2020). Contemporary research has therefore explored the notion of participatory design approaches as a means to minimize the gap between research and application (Jänicke et al., 2020), strengthen academic–stakeholder relationships, and better enable community engagement (Cinderby et al., 2011). In light of this, novel approaches in participatory-based visualization projects have emerged and have started to play a pivotal role in the design and implementation of user-centred frameworks such as ULLs (Kallus, 2016; Panagiotopoulou and Stratigea, 2017; Smørdal et al., 2016). However, these approaches remain neglected by nexus visualization efforts, particularly those centred on food, energy, and water. Participatory modelling PM can work within a larger participatory-based project like a ULL to improve understanding of the urban WEF nexus through co-creation of knowledge with local stakeholders. PM provides a learning process that creates formalized and shared representations of complex phenomena (Voinov et al., 2018). Specifically, PM employs tools like cognitive mapping to construct shared mental models (Hare, 2011) such as the resource interlinkages in the urban WEF nexus. The resulting shared representations facilitate capacity and trust building through knowledge co-generation (Scott et al., 2015; Sperling and Berke, 2017). PM has been successfully used in transdisciplinary studies to understand, communicate, and improve natural resource management, most notably in water management (Bots and van Daalen, 2008; Daniell et al., 2010; Hare, 2011; Hare et al., 2003). A few examples show its application to the full WEF nexus (Halbe et al., 2015). PM may not always be recommended for participatory processes as it might impose modes of thinking not naturally employed by the stakeholders involved (Bots and van Daalen, 2008). Facilitators should be open to adapt the language, use natural language, and adapt the overall PM process to suit the local situation. The modelling exercise should be a means of participation and ensure the long-term use of the results. The resulting model will be of no value when not used. A critical factor in ensuring the model’s use is a sense of ownership by the potential and actual end users (Basco-Carrera et al., 2017). A transparent process creates ownership as well as appropriation by allowing changes and adjustments to the representation (be it a conceptual or simulation model) throughout the project according to findings or available data, in an iterative process. Furthermore, PM can be supported by different tools or methods, and users must choose their practice prudently (Voinov et al., 2018). Thus, designing an appropriate PM process to suit research and practice goals becomes a key task of a project’s overall research design.

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11.3

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT THE URBAN NEXUS?

11.3.1 About Our Project The chapter authors have been involved since 2018 in a collaborative, multi-investigator project to examine many of the issues raised concerning the urban WEF nexus.2 Specifically, the Creating Interfaces project explores socio-technical interfaces at the WEF nexus in three mid-sized case cities: Slupsk (Poland), Tulcea (Romania), and Wilmington (Delaware, United States). Aiming to increase urban sustainability, resilience, and quality of life, this project strives to build local decision-making capacity through innovative approaches in coordinated knowledge creation, governance, and exchange. It investigates and tests novel approaches in participatory knowledge generation and citizen science, along with their implementation, and explores ways of enhancing the visibility and understanding of the WEF nexus through data visualization and PM. 11.3.2 How the Nexus Is Governed Much of the WEF nexus research to date has focused on technical aspects of resource interconnections with calls for integrated management to achieve efficiency and resilience. Frequently, scholars make passing reference to needing policy and governance relating to the nexus but without an in-depth study of these topics. For instance, one important review paper noted ‘directions for further research arise around the question of which actors have authority and capacity for integrated management, and how they conceive the problems of water, food and energy sectors’ (Artioli et al., 2017: 221). Our project aims to address this need through a comparative study of the urban WEF nexus and its governance in our three cases. Through document review, citizen workshops, and interviews with key stakeholders, we sought to understand the policy and governance landscape surrounding the nexus. We found little evidence of knowledge, authority, or capacity for integrated nexus governance. Each sub-system was governed independently, with infrequent to non-existent interactions between key actors in any formal capacity. We found nascent collaborations on larger issues of sustainable development in Slupsk that brought together some of the resource managers such as on waste management but without any intentionality to address the nexus. We also found some personal connections between individuals across sub-systems in Wilmington such as government officials serving on non-profit boards or private citizens serving on advisory groups, which might act as precursors for developing more formalized interlinkages. A central barrier in all three cases appeared to be the lack of a champion advocating for integrated nexus governance. The nexus appeared as a technical concept that lacked resonance with many participants. Additionally, in both Slupsk and Tulcea, legal barriers prevented collaboration between entities in some ways, which would need to be addressed before any integrated policy or action could emerge. Our assessment revealed the importance of efforts to visualize and communicate the nexus and its importance within the local context to key stakeholders as a stepping stone to building support for further nexus policy or governance.

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Examining knowledge of the nexus at the urban scale  203 11.3.3 How Participatory Modelling Helped to Visualize the Nexus Building upon existing participatory-based visualization scholarship (Cinderby et al., 2012; Jänicke et al., 2020; Weise et al., 2020), we exploit PM exercises at various stages of the visualization design process to enable the co-creation of knowledge from multiple stakeholder groups. By doing so, end users, such as community stakeholder groups and other members of civil society, have the opportunity to contribute to research findings of the project and develop new skills and knowledge related to the WEF nexus within their city. A PM exercise was executed at a ULL citizen workshop in the Wilmington case in April 2019. We first conducted a visioning exercise to articulate the desired future concerning food, water, and energy systems. We next led participants through a small-group activity aimed at depicting the linkages between food, energy, and water systems in Wilmington. The participants were prompted to think about connections generally, but also more deeply about the directional relationships involved using active verbs like ‘increases’, ‘prevents’, and so forth. Causal loop diagrams were constructed within each group on posters and then presented verbally to the entire workshop audience, allowing clarifications. After the workshop, the project team combined the group diagrams into one conceptual model visualizing the WEF nexus and its interfaces found in the Wilmington case. This aggregated conceptual model can be used within the Wilmington ULL at subsequent workshops to (re)orient stakeholders to the nexus and to further elaborate overlooked interlinkages between the WEF systems and their actors. The model can also be used as a starting point for visualization of the urban WEF nexus in other cases. Figure 11.1 depicts the process we used for embedding PM in the Wilmington ULL case. We began with initial research during the preparation phase. We then conducted the visioning and visualization activities at the citizen workshop during the implementation phase. Last, we evaluated and are, at present, disseminating our findings to ULL stakeholders and the larger scholarly community in the follow-up phase.

Source:

Creating Interfaces project, adapted from Videira et al. (2010) and Voinov et al. (2018).

Figure 11.1

Participatory modelling process for the Wilmington case

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204  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus In brief, the PM exercise elucidated the primary infrastructure considerations on water, energy, and food supply, security, quality, and waste. Yet, the exercise also highlighted that the different sub-system needs and concerns cannot be regarded in isolation; more often they are linked to one another and embedded in the broader urban system encompassing policy and governance structures and processes at multiple spatial scales (i.e. city, county, state). Furthermore, the participants highlighted links between all WEF elements and the social stratification of the urban community (poor public transport, poor rental buildings, power outage, and flooding striking predominantly in the poorer communities). One immediate concern for participants had to do with access to healthy and affordable food within inner-city neighbourhoods not well served by grocery stores or public transit. Multiple ideas were suggested including starting a jitney-style service of electric vehicles to take persons to farmers’ markets and larger grocery stores outside of disconnected neighbourhoods. Thus, it appears that the social aspects of infrastructure planning, especially equity, lie at the heart of the urban WEF nexus in Wilmington. Their existence, or rather their lack, can connect, divide, integrate, and exclude the community at the same time. Furthermore, external influences like climate change need to be considered, inducing the need for resilience, adaptation, and climate-protective measures that are coordinated with any nexus efficiency efforts. Similar conclusions were drawn by Mguni and van Vliet (2020) from their comparative study of Kampala (Uganda), Guarulhos (Brazil), and Sofia (Bulgaria).

11.4

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Despite substantial academic and practitioner interest, the WEF nexus has not been well operationalized or demonstrated at the urban scale (Newell et al., 2019; Urbinatti et al., 2020). Language continues to focus on potentials rather than actuals when it comes to the urban nexus. Our own work shows that the urban nexus concept remains difficult to grasp or operationalize by citizens and non-technical actors. Data visualization and PM exercises can be used to illustrate the nexus and its importance, but these activities need to be done carefully and with an eye towards natural (Cinderby et al., 2011), on-technical language and rooted in the needs of local communities. Social scientists could play an important translational role if brought early into WEF nexus study teams (Wiegleb and Bruns, 2018). Concerns have been raised for decades about inclusiveness of typical participatory processes in environmental management (e.g. Dietz and Stern, 2008). Infrastructure planning and development of WEF systems need to centre issues such as social equity and power dynamics so as to build community trust and remedy past exclusionary practices. Indeed, the best participatory processes allow both bottom-up and top-down contributions with two-way communication between managers and stakeholders or citizens. The ULL approach can provide a transdisciplinary venue for knowledge building and deliberation on complex topics like the WEF nexus (Puerari et al., 2018), but such results take time, energy, financial resources, and leadership. Fortunately, SDG 11 and the New Leipzig Charter illustrate support for such innovative and collaborative practices in pursuit of sustainable urban development. Hooking urban WEF nexus considerations into ongoing conversations on sustainable development appears to be an appropriate strategy that could work for European cases (such as Slupsk and Tulcea) and other similarly situated cities. In the United States, one strategy might be connecting WEF nexus

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Examining knowledge of the nexus at the urban scale  205 with environmental justice conversations, especially given renewed attention to environmental justice and climate adaptation by the Biden Administration. As for the state of the scholarly literature, several recommendations have been made to improve our understanding of the urban nexus. For instance, we need urban nexus research specifically on ‘(1) integration of modelling from social sciences; (2) spatializing the flows to understand their multi-scalar dimensions; (3) focus on governance and equity; and (4) co-creating useful knowledge with stakeholder and policy communities’ (Newell et al., 2019: 12). Fragmentation across the recent nexus governance literature suggests we, as a scholarly community, must work towards a common conceptual and research framework (e.g. Zhang et al., 2019) but also must engage critically with the nexus idea (Urbinatti et al., 2020). A focus specifically on WEF systems may miss larger interactions between citizens and their environment (Kurian and Kojima, 2021). Improving quality of life and securing livelihoods should remain a central focus of all sustainable urban development efforts (Biggs et al., 2015). Finally, we lack systematic, comparable data to study urban governance (Cruz et al., 2019). For this reason, we need ‘imaginative and iterative use of case studies to engage local and regional organizations to build capacity to address local development priorities’ (Kurian, 2017: 105). A repository of similarly constructed case studies would be a useful start to such an endeavour, perhaps modelled after the Case Study Docking Station of the Urban Climate Change Research Network.3 A subset of these cases could focus specifically on effective participatory governance strategies, seen as a missing link in much of the nexus literature (Urbinatti et al., 2020).

NOTES 1. In preparing its urbanization dataset and projections, the United Nations allows each country to determine its definition of ‘urban areas’, resulting in dramatically different conceptions of ‘urban’ ranging from 1,000 person settlements to multi-million person agglomerations. Urbanization is the process of increasing the share of a country’s population within these nationally defined urban areas (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2019). For our purposes in this chapter, we use the terms ‘urban area’ and ‘city’ interchangeably and follow the United Nations’ conventions. 2. This chapter content is informed by our involvement in the project ‘Creating Interfaces: Building Capacity for Integrated Governance at the Food-Water-Energy-Nexus in Cities on the Water’, funded by JPI Urban Europe and Belmont Forum for 2018–2021, co-financed by the Horizon 2020 programme under grant agreement No. 830254. More details on the project are available at: https://​ creatinginterfaces​.eifer​.kit​.edu/​project/​. 3. See also https://​uccrn​.ei​.columbia​.edu/​case​-study​-docking​-station.

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Examining knowledge of the nexus at the urban scale  209 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2019), World Urbanization Prospects 2018: Highlights, ST/ESA/SER.A/421, New York: United Nations, accessed 17 November 2020 at https://​population​.un​.org/​wup/​Publications/​Files/​WUP2018​-Highlights​.pdf. Urbinatti, A.M., L.L. Benites-Lazaro, C.M. de Carvalho and L.L. Giatti (2020), ‘The conceptual basis of water-energy-food nexus governance: Systematic literature review using network and discourse analysis’, Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, 17 (2), 21–43. Videira, N., P. Antunes, R. Santos and R. Lopes (2010), ‘A participatory modelling approach to support integrated sustainability assessment processes’, Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 27 (4), 446–460. Voinov, A., K. Jenni, S. Gray, N. Kolagani, P.D. Glynn, P. Bommel et al. (2018), ‘Tools and methods in participatory modelling: Selecting the right tool for the job’, Environmental Modelling and Software, 109, 232–255. Walker, R.V., M.B. Beck, J.W. Hall, R.J. Dawson and O. Heidrich (2014), ‘The energy-water-food nexus: Strategic analysis of technologies for transforming the urban metabolism’, Journal of Environmental Management, 141, 104–115. Weise, S., A. Wilson and G. Vigar (2020), ‘Reflections on deploying community-driven visualisations for public engagement in urban planning’, Urban Planning, 5 (2), 59–70. Wiegleb, V. and A. Bruns (2018), ‘What is driving the water-energy-food nexus? Discourses, knowledge, and politics of an emerging resource governance concept’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, accessed at https://​doi​.org/​10​.3389/​fenvs​.2018​.00128. Zhang, P., L. Zhang, Y. Chang, M. Xu, Y. Hao, S. Liang, G. Liu, Z. Yang and C. Wang (2019), ‘Food-energy-water (FEW) nexus for urban sustainability: A comprehensive review’, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 142, 215–224.

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PART III ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NEXUS: GOVERNANCE, POLICY AND BUSINESS

12. Water-energy-food nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa Michael Jacobson and Gracie Pekarcik

12.1 INTRODUCTION 12.1.1 The Water-Energy-Food Nexus The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus is a useful framework for addressing complex transdisciplinary natural resource and environmental challenges in integrated, innovative ways. Simpson and Jewitt (2019) define the concept as, “the study of the connections between these three resource sectors, together with the synergies, conflicts and trade-offs that arise from how they are managed, i.e. water for food and food for water, energy for water and water for energy, and food for energy and energy for food.” There are numerous ways in which the three strands of water, energy, and food overlap. For example, water is an essential component in energy production – for cooling, electricity from hydropower, some fossil fuel extraction, and biofuels – and energy is used in numerous processes for supplying, treating, and using water (particularly as water is heavy to lift and distribute and is energy-intensive to heat). For food production, water is used either through rainfall or irrigation, while energy is used in irrigation abstraction as well as conveyance, labor, machinery, and other inputs. Agriculture currently accounts for 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals (Flammini et al., 2014). At the same time, agricultural production can produce bioenergy and provide water conservation and other ecosystem services. About 30 percent of total global energy is consumed in agricultural production and food supply chains (Flammini et al., 2014). Food production and distribution require adequate energy supplies for pumping water, transportation, storage facilities, and land preparation. Practitioners of the WEF nexus have recognized that an integrated approach, which assesses trade-offs and synergies in resource management as opposed to working in independent silos, is essential to ensure the sustainability of our global, regional, and local WEF systems (Hoff, 2011; Weitz et al., 2017). Sectoral management of resources often lacks coordination, dialogue, and collaboration among relevant sectors, significantly affecting resource use efficiency and the effectiveness of policies for service delivery (Nhamo et al., 2018). The interactions among the WEF components are complex. Multidimensional and highly interdependent, social, and environmental changes that disturb and/or threaten one of these systems can cascade to other components. If system problems are not fully addressed at all necessary scales, interventions in one system may have significant unintended consequences for the others (Simpson and Jewitt, 2019). An evolving literature on the WEF nexus argues that there is a need to better understand the conditions under which cross-sectoral coordination can occur (Albrecht et al., 2018). Understanding and quantifying the biophysical links between sectors and determining relevant institutional structures to inform decision making and policy are also fundamental to a WEF 211

212  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus nexus approach. Weitz et al. (2017) point out that our understanding of what governing the WEF nexus means and under which conditions it works or not remains very limited, and more empirical work on the matter is warranted. A major criticism to date is that it is too theoretical and lacking real-world operational and practical solutions (Cash et al., 2006; Liu et al., 2017; McCarl et al., 2017; McGrane et al., 2018; Terrapon-Pfaff et al., 2018). The heterogeneous nature of data (including availability, accessibility, disparity, mismatch, and plurality) at different scales, as well as different data quality and standards, presents challenges to applying a WEF nexus framework in a consistent manner. Data collected at a jurisdictional level (e.g. political units like cities, municipalities, or provinces) are often responsible for policy and governance that affect households and communities, but each level uses different methods of data collection and storage (Liu et al., 2017). Data requirements will vary according to the WEF nexus issues being tackled, but its availability is essential for evaluating trade-offs and synergies across sectors (Landauer et al., 2018; Termeer et al., 2010). Indeed, recent reviews have variously argued that, “the WEF nexus is not a clearly defined construct or an agreed and tested framework”; and noted that, “while WEF nexus literature is long on determination and ambition, it is short on grounded evidence on the essential elements of WEF security” (Wichelns, 2017). An effective WEF nexus analysis should assess all three sectors simultaneously, providing quantitative and qualitative relationships and linkage between sectors. In addition, local-level and bottom-up inclusive stakeholder-driven approaches are called for by broadening participation and incorporating local knowledge (Allouche et al., 2018). 12.1.2 Objectives and Approach The WEF nexus approach is especially applicable throughout Africa as much of the continent is extremely susceptible to water and food insecurity, inadequate energy provision, climate variability, a growing population, and poor management of governance capabilities (Conway et al., 2015; Kougias et al., 2018; Tian et al., 2018). The projected doubling of the African population to 2 billion people by 2050 will further exacerbate pressure on already depleted resources, as demand exceeds supply (de Sherbinin, 2014). Climate change projections indicate a reduction in the productivity of over 50 percent of agricultural land in southern Africa by 2050, and a reduction of between 10 and 30 percent in rainfall, a situation that threatens the livelihoods of over 60 percent of the population living in rural areas relying on natural systems (Besada and Werner, 2015; Mabhaudhi et al., 2019). Approximately 70 percent of Africa’s population does not have access to reliable power or other modern energy sources, a statistic that, if maintained, will result in increased energy poverty throughout the continent (IEA, 2014; Szabo et al., 2016). Concerning water, most countries of sub-Saharan Africa failed to meet both rural and urban improved drinking water access targets set by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and currently one-fifth of the population faces serious water shortages exacerbated by climate change (Dos Santos et al., 2017; Rockström and Falkenmark, 2015). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that 350–600 million people in Africa will be at risk of increased water stress by 2050 due to rainfall variability (Niang et al., 2014). As for the food sector, many households still rely on rain-fed subsistence agriculture for food security and livelihoods (Prasad et al., 2012; Rademacher-Schulz and Mahama, 2012; Sahle et al., 2019). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (2017), between 2014 and 2015, 153

WEF nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa  213 million individuals in sub-Saharan Africa experienced severe food insecurity. Additionally, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa rely on food imports to achieve food security despite abundant natural resources. This will likely be made worse due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Barrett, 2020). Since its introduction over a decade ago, there have been hundreds of WEF nexus-related papers and reports produced (Albrecht et al., 2018). Despite this plethora of work on WEF nexus and the acute nature of WEF security issues in Africa, there is no stock taking of WEF nexus studies on the continent. To frame and analyze the state of the WEF nexus in Africa we decided to consider the influencing role of technologies on WEF nexus integration. Technologies are continually introduced and leveraged throughout the continent of Africa to improve agricultural and energy production and manage water resources for overall ecosystem and livelihood functioning. Babiker et al. (2019) state, “technological and innovative solutions within the WEF nexus, where two, or all three, components of the Nexus are integrated as inputs would enhance resource efficiency and expand the available natural resource base, thus bolstering the sustainability and security of the three resources.” Developing typologies of key technology interventions, used or targeted in the papers by one sector, allows us to better understand how much they influence integration (connections and linkages) across other sectors. When employing technologies to improve WEF systems and livelihoods, a multitude of trade-offs emerge that must be addressed in decision making to improve sustainability of interventions (McCornick et al., 2008). Most of the trade-offs occur when deciding on adoption and use of WEF-related technologies. The provision of technological interventions for security in one WEF sector at the expense of others can impede sustainable livelihood development and impact the national economy of a country (Babiker et al., 2019). Trade-offs in this context are decisions which result in the diminishing of benefits in one sector in return for gains in another sector. In some cases, trade-offs are linked to externalities – the unintended impact an intervention has on resource access that is not captured in the market. Externalities can be both negative and positive (synergies). Kurian (2017) states that the importance of trade-offs in the nexus approach is that they address issues overlooked by approaches such as integrated water resource management. These trade-offs are necessary to identify, understand, and minimize to improve decision making and the sustainability of interventions. On the other hand, a key intention of using a WEF nexus approach is to find synergies or positive externalities where the technology introduced in one sector complements and is beneficial to the other sectors. The overall goal of the chapter is to discuss the status, use, and effectiveness of WEF nexus approaches on the continent. The objectives are to: 1. Review and summarize the literature on the WEF nexus in Africa. 2. Highlight, cluster, and describe key technologies commonly analyzed using a WEF nexus approach. 3. Examine common trade-offs (and synergies) emerging from the WEF nexus literature. A systematic literature survey of peer-reviewed and gray literature publications was carried out using ISI-Web of Science, CAB Direct, and Google Scholar. The first step was the identification of the potential studies to be included in the analysis through the examination of the abstract using the keywords water, energy, food, nexus, and Africa. Once the abstracts were analyzed for content, they were classified by publication date, country/region of focus, paper type,1 methods, and main technology that was considered and/

214  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus or introduced in the paper. In this chapter, we refer to technology as defined in the Open Education Sociology Dictionary: “The application of knowledge, techniques, and tools to adapt and control physical environments and material resources to satisfy wants and needs” (Bell, 2013). Further elaboration of each paper was made to distinguish the type of WEF nexus model or framework used, and the scale at what level the study was undertaken (i.e. regional, national, or transnational). The synthesis of these papers would hopefully suggest key themes, approaches, and technology interventions using a WEF nexus approach. Finally, to better understand the linkages between sectors, the trade-offs (or synergies) were examined to see how effective they were in helping decision makers. Trade-offs were determined by the authors’ discussions of implicit or explicit derived costs and benefits of implementing each intervention.

12.2 RESULTS 12.2.1 Comprehensive Literature Review The results yielded 90 WEF-related papers with an Africa focus dating from 2003 to 2020.2 Table 12.1 shows the publication dates of the 90 papers, indicating a clear majority (98 percent) of papers being published after 2010, and over two-thirds since 2016. This makes logical sense as the term “water-energy-food nexus” did not begin to appear in academic publications until the early 2010s, specifically in the World Economic Forum’s (2011) Water Security: The Water-Food-Energy-Climate Nexus (Estrada, 2018). From this initial analysis we found that not all sources focused on all three sectors of the WEF nexus. More specifically, over one-quarter of the papers lacked a clear food systems connection. Most of the papers addressing multiple sectors focused on linking water and energy. Of the 90 papers, only about two-thirds showed a clear connection to all three sectors (Table 12.2). Furthermore, about 80 percent of the papers carried out an empirical analysis. To better understand the “true” use of WEF systems in a nexus framework the literature was narrowed. The criteria for further analysis were papers that (1) had food, water, and energy systems explicitly present, (2) had empirical analysis in which there was an evidence-based approach to the study, (3) had interpretation of information, and (4) clearly discussed trade-offs. The reduced set of publications was narrowed down to 51 publications. The narrowed set was analyzed in depth to determine the utilized methods, objectives, frameworks and primary water, energy, or food technology intervention used. 12.2.2 Reduced Set Literature Review Of the 51 papers, most used a case study approach with either modelling or other analytical tools. Case studies generally applied the WEF nexus to an in-depth investigation of a specific region, group, scenario, etc. Modelling studies included a data-driven model or framework implemented to analyze aspects of the WEF nexus and understand real-world systems. Analysis studies refer to a detailed examination and extrapolation of information from collected data or literature. Table 12.3 shows that one-quarter of the studies focused on sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, with eastern Africa and southern Africa regions accounting for 31 and 20 percent, respec-

WEF nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa  215 Table 12.1

Publication dates (N = 90)

Publication date

Frequency

Percentage

2000–2005

1

1

2006–2010

1

1

2011–2015

27

30

2016–2020

61

68

Table 12.2

Integration of WEF systems found in literature (N = 90)

WEF system focus

Frequency

Percentage

Only water

2

2

Only energy

9

10

Only food

3

3

Water, energy

12

13

Water, food

6

7

Energy, food

3

3

Water, energy, food

55

61

Note:

N = 55 for “all of the WEF systems,” but four didn’t use empirical analysis (i.e. blog posts).

Table 12.3

Regions of reduced set of publications (N = 51)

Study region

Frequency

Percentage

Eastern Africa

16

31

Sub-Saharan Africa

12

24

Southern Africa

10

20

Western Africa

7

14

Northern Africa

6

12

Central Africa

0

0

tively. A significant gap is seen in that no publications were focused specifically on central Africa. About half of the studies were carried out at a national scale, while the rest were carried out at either a transnational (37 percent) or local-regional (12 percent) scale. Table 12.4 shows a detailed breakdown of all the primary technologies of focus in the papers. Although many papers discussed multiple technologies, dominant technology interventions employed to address WEF system problems focused on irrigation (49 percent), hydropower (27 percent), and renewable energies (wind, solar, nuclear, not including biomass) (24 percent). 12.2.3 Trade-Off Analysis For discussion purposes, we clustered the technology interventions into five categories: irrigation, hydropower, renewable energy, water management, and land management (Table 12.5). Within each cluster, we identified specific issues (as shown in the rows in Table 12.5) and these are further discussed the following sections. Irrigation Irrigation is the most common technology intervention found in the African WEF nexus literature. Irrigation provides synergies between the water and food sectors by increasing

216  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Table 12.4

Primary technology interventions of WEF nexus studies (N = 51)

Technology intervention type

Frequency

Percentage

Irrigation

25

49

Hydropower

14

27

Renewables

12

24

Biofuels/biomass

7

14

Mechanization of agriculture

7

14

Infrastructure development

6

12

Energy production systems

5

10

Data-driven modelling

5

10

Conservation agriculture methods

4

8

Rural electrification, grid and off-grid solutions

4

8

Waste-to-energy pathways

4

8

Solar photovoltaic technology

3

6

Improved seeds

3

6

Land use planning

3

6

Improved cookstoves

2

4

Agroforestry

2

4

Charcoal harvesting and production

2

4

Wastewater recycling and water harvesting

1

2

Inter-basin transfer

1

2

Virtual water management

1

2

Blue/green water management

0

0

Table 12.5

Clusters of technology interventions matched to key issues Clusters

  Issues

Irrigation

Hydropower

Renewable energy

 

Energy use: pumping

Optimal water

Fuelwood and charcoal Agricultural

and access

allocation

biomass

production and food

Large-scale

Efficiency:

Electricity demand

Solar

security

investments

overextraction for

– population

Biogas

Water footprint (blue, Land clearing

agricultural and

Agriculture use

Wastewater

green, grey, virtual)

Agroforestry

non-agricultural use

Ecosystems impact

Water availability

Fuel subsidies – policy

Types: drip, solar PV

Drought/climate

(rainwater)

Land tenure

Water management

pumps, gravity, diesel

Drought/flooding –

Agriculture

climate change

amendments – e.g.

Subsidized energy

fertilizer

policy

Rainfed training

Transboundary

Land management Degradation

systems

water provision to agriculture lands for improved yields and food security. It is also recognized as a transformative technology in boosting agricultural yields of African small-scale farmers (Mabhaudhi et al., 2018). One of the primary WEF nexus trade-offs of irrigation is its significant energy use to pump and distribute water, which can be risky in regions already facing energy insecurity. For example, in a WEF nexus case study of Ethiopia’s sugarcane production, Hailemariam et al. (2019) found that modern irrigation technologies, while able to prevent overextraction of water, required increased total energy consumption. The sites that used modern irrigation technologies (sprinkler, pivot, drip) had an 18–21 percent greater

WEF nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa  217 total energy consumption (MJ/ha per year) than those that used traditional systems. Similarly, Mabhaudhi et al. (2018) showed that improving and expanding water supply for irrigation will require significant energy expenses for pumping and distribution. They anticipate this will likely prove a challenge for southern Africa as less than 30 percent of the population has access to electricity, and as such, irrigation expansion will further increase energy insecurity in the region. They show the urgency for improved agricultural water management to prevent overextraction and increase water productivity through methods such as rainwater harvesting, soil water conservation, improved seed varieties, intercropping, and investments in micro-irrigation systems. A WEF nexus study of the 43 main food crops of Egypt showed that overall improved system efficiency excelled at decreasing water and energy footprints compared to only improved pumps (El Gafy et al., 2016). These studies suggest the promotion of energy-efficient irrigation practices such as remote-sensing and crop-modelling technologies for irrigation scheduling. Doing so assures that the synergies produced through irrigation are not negated by potential energy trade-offs. There has been recent interest to expand the energy base for irrigation through the provision of renewable energy sources to reduce energy costs to consumers, especially small-scale farmers. However, using renewable energy for irrigation may also result in overextraction and expanded water withdrawals. In a WEF nexus study of solar steam irrigation in Kenya, while improving food production capabilities, it was found to also increase overextraction of groundwater, causing subsequent drops in aquifer levels. This threatens water quality as well as local food production (Flammini et al., 2014). While irrigation can provide synergistic food and livelihood security for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, there are also trade-offs depending upon irrigation type and method utilized (Mabhaudhi et al., 2019). A WEF nexus assessment of three irrigation case studies in Morocco found that, although drip irrigation is lauded as more water and energy efficient, farmer adoption is conditional upon access to resources (money, land, subsidies, etc.) and that, “water and energy efficiency does not necessarily reduce overall consumption, and the adoption of drip irrigation (and policies supporting it) can create winners and losers” (Jobbins et al., 2015). Although barriers to entry are minimized through fuel subsidies to power irrigation systems they can lead to overextraction of water (Doukkali and Lejars, 2015; Jobbins et al., 2015). The decision to shift to renewable energy for irrigation also has economic and policy implications. Xie et al. (2020), in a WEF nexus study, compared using stand-alone solar photovoltaic (PV) to diesel for irrigation water pumping throughout sub-Saharan Africa. They found that, although solar PV pumping is more environmentally sustainable, “the cost effectiveness varies by land suitability and crop type – highlighting the complexity of decision-making around energy source and irrigation technologies in the region.” Likewise, a WEF nexus report on solar PV in Tunisia showed that, while it is economically feasible to use off-grid pumping due to a fade-out of diesel subsidies, highly subsidized electricity tariffs for pumping prevent grid-connected solar pumping irrigation systems from being economically feasible (Keskes el al., 2019). Seeliger et al. (2018) applied a farm budget model to address WEF nexus trade-offs between using electrically pumped irrigation versus gravity-fed piped systems in the Middle Breede River of South Africa. They found that while pumped irrigation can provide greater influxes of water, gravity-fed piped systems from dams proved more beneficial for water quality. The gravity-fed systems supply clean fresh water from the dams while the pumped irrigation is

218  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus easily contaminated from the geological salinity of the catchment soils as well as agri-polluted return flows from farmlands and storm water from informal settlements. The water quality improvement with gravity-fed piped systems prevents farmers from overirrigating, resulting in synergies such as higher agricultural yield and lower overall water usage. Berga et al. (2017), in their WEF nexus study of the Eastern Nile region, point to trade-offs in transitioning from rain-fed agriculture to irrigated agriculture resulting from lack of trained agronomists. They show that over the last 40 years, research and training for agronomists were focused on increased productivity and self-sufficiency through rain-fed agriculture. As such, the switch to irrigated agriculture will require investments in education and research so that skilled people are available to maintain these irrigation schemes. Finally, a WEF nexus study compared expanding irrigation versus improved fertilizer application for agricultural expansion and crop productivity in the Mékrou river basin of West Africa (Udias et al., 2018). While both interventions improved agricultural productivity, the benefits of fertilization were almost twice as strong as irrigation. Irrigation was more cost-heavy with up-front investments. This study shows the need to analyze trade-offs across agricultural inputs before introducing costly technologies. Hydropower The second most common primary technological intervention found in the African WEF nexus literature was related to hydropower. Hydropower is an important source of power for many African countries. Since most of the major river systems in Africa cut across multiple countries, there were a cluster of papers specifically looking at transboundary water management issues such as availability, access, scarcity, and security (Allam and Eltahir, 2019; Conway et al., 2015; Johnson et al., 2018; Stein et al., 2018; Yang and Wi, 2018). Prevailing WEF nexus trade-offs include determining the optimal water allocation between upstream (irrigation), midstream (ecological purposes), and downstream (hydropower) usage. Competition exists between water usage for irrigation (agriculture), ecosystems, and energy projects – particularly hydropower. A typical example of hydropower trade-offs is demonstrated in a Rwandan WEF nexus paper. As its economy grows, so will the demand for electricity, likely to be fulfilled by hydropower at the expense of water for irrigation and agriculture (Johnson et al., 2018). Conversely, Rwanda’s agricultural transformation process could harm hydropower generation if irrigated water is allocated upstream. Additionally, competition over allocation of water resources for hydropower, irrigation, and water supply to major towns and various industries has the potential to create serious conflict in the region. The accurate determination of optimal water allocation allows for synergies across the water, energy, and food sectors. However, if water distribution is not managed efficiently across these competing uses, it will produce suboptimal results such as water deficits for agricultural irrigation, increased number of zero-flow days, or reduced hydropower production (Ferrini and Benavides, 2020b). An illustration of the trade-off between allocating water for rain-fed agriculture upstream versus saving the water for hydropower production is provided by Allam and Eltahir (2019) in their WEF nexus study of the Upper Blue Nile river basin. They determined an extra 1,000 GWh can be generated by the Grand Ethiopian Resistance Dam (GERD) system annually if more water is allocated to hydropower downstream rather than expanding rain-fed agriculture upstream. While doing so would provide energy benefits, the trade-off would be decreased food production. Therefore, the authors suggest allocating half the basin area to agricultural

WEF nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa  219 water consumption (7.55 cubic kilometers) offset by monthly water releases through the GERD turbines of 3–4 cubic kilometers and fluctuating storage between rainy and dry seasons. Similarly, in a WEF nexus analysis of the Great Ruaha River System of Tanzania, which supplies most of Tanzania’s electricity, a stable streamflow is needed to maintain their hydropower generation – competing for water availability with wildlife, agriculture, and human consumption (Yang and Wi, 2018). Their modelling finds that no single intervention can mitigate the emergence of zero-flow days, and suggest that a combination of improvements in irrigation efficiency, modest reduction of irrigation areas, and agricultural management is necessary. Climate change further exacerbates trade-offs related to water use for hydropower through changing rainfall patterns. Conway et al. (2015), in their WEF nexus assessment of southern Africa, look to historical records to highlight the impact of drought on electricity production on the Kariba Dam in the Zambezi river basin. The southern Africa 1991–1992 drought impacted power production from the Kariba Dam. Estimates indicate the gross domestic product (GDP) of Zambia was reduced by US $102 million and export earnings reduced by US $36 million. Another example leveraged by Conway et al. (2015) is a drought in 2000 in Kenya which reduced hydropower capacity by 25 percent and, subsequently, GDP by 1.5 percent. Flammini et al. (2014) find that hydropower, while providing energy access and security benefits, can alter the hydrology of a river and negatively affect downstream water availability throughout the year and across boundaries. A potential solution can be to implement environmental flow requirements which consist of assessing quality, quantity, and timing of flows for optimal ecosystem and social use. Environmental flow for ecosystem services in the Kariba and Cahora Bassa reservoirs reduced power production and increased hydropower losses (Nyatsanza et al., 2015). To produce synergies between water and energy, the authors recommend a joint environmental flow operation to benefit the ecosystem while only marginally reducing power production. Renewable energy Papers that focused on energy-related issues had two main strands. One set focused on the role of biomass, mainly for household cooking, such as biogas, fuelwood, and charcoal, and others focused on renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuels for electricity. Trade-offs exist between environmental conservation, energy access, and agricultural productivity when there is heavy dependence on traditional biomass for energy sources in rural households – which has implications for food security (Stein et al., 2018). Mekonnen et al. (2017) find that on small-scale farms in Ethiopia the usage of livestock dung as a fuel source for domestic energy can deplete soil fertility, which negatively impacts the value of harvested crops. A solution proposed by the authors to counteract the negative trade-offs of dung and crop residue for domestic biofuel use is the introduction of agroforestry. The usage of on-farm fuelwood from agroforestry trees produces synergies by increasing the value of agricultural output, and on-farm production of fuelwood provides labor savings. Another WEF nexus paper also showed that agroforestry trees can provide synergies if grown on-farm and the trees do not compete with cropland (Imasiku and Ntagwirumugara, 2020). In most African countries, woody biomass is a primary household energy source. Hoffman et al. (2017) state, “In Sub-Saharan Africa, the high and growing consumption of traditional biomass for cooking purposes – notably fuelwood and charcoal – is both a key source of energy and contributor for food security as well as a pressure on natural resources.” Charcoal production and its uses are specifically identified in a few WEF nexus studies. The papers

220  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus discuss trade-offs and synergies emerging from charcoal production such as changes in biodiversity, altered soil and water productivity, and wildlife conflict. While charcoal produces synergies between energy and income for many small-scale farmers, charcoal production and distribution also reduce biodiversity and soil productivity, as well as water quality and quantity. Martins (2018), in a WEF nexus study of charcoal production in Mozambique, found that it promotes deforestation – threatening biodiversity and food security. Githiru et al. (2017) use a nexus approach to address human–wildlife conflicts in the face of charcoal production in Kenya. They find that the provision of charcoal for alternative income and a reliance on wood-based energy degrades wildlife habitat. This exacerbates competition between humans and wildlife for food and water resources. The authors determined that, “for multifunctional landscapes where elephants occur in close proximity with humans, any food-water-energy nexus activities towards achieving sustainability and resilience should consider human– elephant conflicts.” Typical of most of the studies is that mitigating charcoal as an agricultural or wildlife habitat trade-off requires the implementation of improved value chains and increasing farmer/charcoal, producer/individual access to increased resources (finances, knowledge, markets, and public services). Albeit fuelwood and charcoal are the default energy for cooking for over three-quarters of African households, other renewable energy investments, especially solar, wind, and biogas, are becoming increasingly widespread to meet various energy power demands and replace fossil fuels (Conway et al., 2015; Phimister et al., 2014; Smith et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2018). Choice of renewable power influences water and food quality and quantity issues. For example, in Phimister et al.’s (2014) WEF nexus paper, biogas was viewed as having synergies with recycling food waste and mitigating deforestation, but upfront capital costs hindered adoption. Biogas produced from organic waste is lauded as an ideal sustainable source of household energy. Smith et al.’s (2015) nexus study of biogas technologies in sub-Saharan Africa finds that a combination of improved cookstoves (i.e. Pyrolysis cookstoves) and anaerobic digestion could reduce deforestation due to wood fuel demand by 70–100 percent. However, they also note that up to half of installed biodigesters fail to function after 10 years due to inadequate maintenance and repair, pointing to the necessity of support for digester maintenance for long-term sustainability. Similarly, Phimister et al.’s (2014) study reviews current policies and practices regarding biogas in sub-Saharan Africa to examine adoption constraints. They find that biogas technologies and sustainable organic waste practices are limited by up-front costs of a biogas digester. Biogas also alters household labor and social/gender relations. They state, “adoption of new [biogas] technologies changes labor requirements for water and wood collection and for livestock management, so affecting both the total amount of labour and its allocation across family members.” Optimal development of waste-to-energy technologies can provide synergies between the WEF sectors through reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved resource allocation. For example, promoting WEF nexus approaches in waste and wastewater management simultaneously enhances job creation, reduces management costs, and improves environmental health and resource quality (Babiker et al., 2019; Flammini et al., 2014; SAB Miller and World Wildlife Fund, 2014). However, although these technologies are often more sustainable and efficient, they sometimes face constraints that prevent their adoption. In a wastewater scenario, Wang et al. (2018) found that land and economic constraints in Ghana can prevent the adoption of renewable technologies in wastewater treatment, which results in inefficient power use that increases greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, they found that the interaction

WEF nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa  221 between policies and technology that emerge in the wastewater and energy sectors provides for the integration of distributed energy-generation technologies and waste circular systems. However, “this may lead to significant shifts in the optimal solutions, e.g. coal-driven technologies, which may appear to be less competitive if considering their water quality degradation profiles.” Conway et al. (2015) suggest the implementation of solar photovoltaic and wind renewable energy investments over biofuels and hydropower in South Africa because they have the smallest impact on water withdrawal and consumption and on food security. They found that renewable sources would reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly. Unfortunately, its adoption is constrained by policy restrictions on hydropower imports, climate change, and high water and air temperatures for cooling processes. South Africa’s main energy utility, Eskom, has begun implementing dry-cooling systems in place of wet-cooling systems for their power plants to mitigate water withdrawals. Water management A set of WEF nexus-related studies examined the implementation of food security interventions in the context of water management as the focal intervention. In Sudan, Babiker et al. (2019) found the pursuit of food security without consideration of watershed planning resulted in mismanaged irrigation and rainfall water resources, severe deforestation, and overgrazing of rangelands and pastures. They argue that the lack of planning increased land degradation and decreased crop productivity. In a panel of selected sub-Saharan African countries over the period of 1980–2013, a WEF nexus study found that increased cereal yields and the agricultural value added led to environmental degradation and significantly increased water poverty indicators (Ozturk, 2017). As such, water resource planning is necessary to provide sufficient agricultural value added and cereal yields. These studies highlight a lack of synergies between water management technologies and agricultural yields when adequate planning does not take place. Often only blue water is included in conventional water resource planning and interventions, ignoring green (rain-fed agriculture) water and virtual (equivalent of water embedded in imported food products). In a Tunisian water footprint-related WEF nexus study, authors found that classical hydraulic approaches to water planning, which only provide blue water interventions, result in exclusion or underestimation of important resources for food security and accurate food trade balance (Chahed et al., 2015). Allan et al. (2015) came to the same conclusion in their WEF nexus study using an historical and contemporary analysis of global drylands, a category which much of Africa falls under. Another prevalent water management issue examined from a WEF nexus perspective is transboundary water sources. In multiple WEF nexus studies of southern Africa, trade-offs arise because of the mixed uses of shared water basins and aquifers. Competition and limited governance rules for shared resources can result in improper allocation of water among upstream and downstream water uses – further entrenching the vulnerability of WEF systems (Conway et al., 2015; Mabhaudhi et al., 2018, 2019; Mpandeli et al., 2018). Conway et al. (2015) highlight the current lack of integration between institutions, incomplete efforts to increase stakeholder participation, and centralized water management as barriers to water sharing in southern Africa. They indicate institutional solutions to water-sharing barriers, such as the Southern Africa Development Community, which has developed a protocol of shared watercourses, and sophisticated water-sharing agreements in South Africa, such as the Joint

222  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Development and Utilization of the Water Resources of Komati River Basin and the Lesotho Highlands Development Project. Water availability issues were analyzed in a few WEF nexus studies. Low water availability coupled with inaccessibility and/or poor water management results in high levels of water insecurity. A WEF nexus case study in the municipality of Elundini, a catchment area for the Umzimvubu River of South Africa, examined irrigation water availability and its impacts on water security and found that water availability does not directly correlate with water security, as the rugged terrain and prevailing land tenure practices make large-scale irrigation projects infeasible (Prasad et al., 2012). In the Wabe River catchment of the Omo-Gibe Basin in East Africa, high annual precipitation and low actual evapotranspiration result in high water yields (Sahle et al., 2019). Despite high water availability, the authors found that local communities were still unable to achieve water security due to inability to access water yields and poor rainwater management. Additionally, heavy rainfall causes these high water yields to carry detached topsoil from agricultural land, jeopardizing food security. Water availability is affected by climate change as rainfall patterns change. For example, a nexus study using a participatory research approach showed that 98 percent of household survey respondents in the Nadowli District of Ghana indicated changing rainfall patterns as having a negative effect on crop production and the overall economic situation of the household (Rademacher-Shulz and Mahama, 2012). These rainfall pattern changes are also leading to more severe droughts, floods, and heatwaves on the African continent, exacerbating food insecurity (Prasad et al., 2012). A warmer climate will require increased energy consumption for power plant cooling, directly competing for water resources with other uses and methods of energy production. Carter and Gulati (2014), in their WEF nexus case study assessment of South Africa, find that this is an issue when it comes to the climate change adaptation response of advancing planting times to avoid heat stress. While this adaptation has the potential to optimize crop yield, it is likely to be restricted by the competition for available water to now meet an increasing energy demand. In Morocco, various studies showed that “water-saving” techniques which were given priority in water policy had increased subsidized energy use which indirectly exceeded the direct effects of agricultural subsidies (Doukkali and Lejars, 2015; Jobbins et al., 2015). As such, these “water-saving” practices have unintentionally increased aquifer depletion, placed strains on energy supply, and weakened food security. These studies highlight the necessity of proper water management through interventions such as modelling technologies, rainwater harvesting, and conservation agriculture to assure that high water availability correlates with improved water and food security. Good water resource management also reduces conflict, as non-optimal water allocation increases conflict between major towns and various industries as they compete for water resource supplies (Johnson et al., 2018). Land management A few WEF nexus studies focused on land-related issues pertaining to meeting food security needs. Land use issues include land degradation, large-scale land investments, sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, and land tenure. Central to the land issues is the need for clear property rights and policies for ensuring synergy across the sectors. Government policies can significantly impact land use. For example, Babiker et al. (2019) find that, “the elimination of fuel subsidies in 2013 and the irregular supply of diesel fuel has increased the cost of crop

WEF nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa  223 production and contributed significantly to delays in land preparation and crop harvesting across the country.” For land reclamation in South Africa, Flammini et al. (2014) argue that synergies can be produced by combining bioenergy cultivation with sustainable bioenergy conversion processes, such as biogas, which can minimize water consumption, produce net energy, and restore severely degraded and contaminated mine lands. However, when soil is restored and more fertile, a debate over determining optimal land use will occur between partner mining companies, local farmers, and other stakeholders. Impacts of large-scale land investments, for example sugar cane production in Ethiopia, will exacerbate water availability and quality (Hailemariam et al., 2019). An assessment of South African sugar cane farms showed that irrigation accounted for between 70 and 80 percent of on-farm energy use (Boote et al., 2014). Bhattacharyya et al. (2015) find that increasing conversion of land for large-scale biofuel projects using first-generation technology feedstock such as jatropha, cassava, and palm oil is affecting local food security in the Economic Community of West African States region. The authors assess that these trade-offs could be reduced through the rejection of silo mentality between sectors and intentionally adopting a WEF nexus mindset when determining project decisions, prioritizations, and resource allocation. A WEF nexus study on sustainable agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa showed that converting large forest and savanna areas to cropland, combined with intensification practices, has affected water quality by enhancing nutrient exports to riverine systems and increasing water shortages (Tian et al., 2018). Similarly, a WEF nexus study found that increasing agroforestry systems throughout Ethiopia may exacerbate food security as trees compete for land with crop production (Mekonnen et al., 2017). However, agroforestry also produces synergies in that it can bring additional household income, fix nitrogen, and reduce time spent for fuelwood collection. A study in Rwanda showed that land use allocation will become more important as population increases (Imasiku and Ntagwirumugara, 2020). As the population and standard of living increase, so will pressure on land, biomass resources, and water ecosystems. Land tenure systems and the disparities and conflicts which emerge as a result have also been examined with a WEF nexus lens in a few studies. Jobbins et al. (2015) indicated that in Morocco, land tenure systems are a common barrier to adopting drip irrigation technologies among small-scale farmers, noting “even with large subsidies provided by the state, poor farmers would need access to credit to finance the remaining investment cost of drip irrigation.” A lack of formal land tenure or rights across Africa hinders the ability of improved waste-to-energy systems (Thieme and Kovacs, 2015). For example, in Mali and Burkina Faso farmers of Bamako and Ouugadougou use solid waste as compost but do not have the incentive to safely dispose of toxic, untreated waste due to land tenure insecurity. These practices then exacerbate threats to the local water and food systems. Legal pluralism between national and traditional laws creates conflict between different communities of the region. For instance, the conflict between pastoralist, nomadic, and trader communities in the north and agricultural and fishing communities in the south of the Sahelian band has resulted in increased scarcity of resources such as fertile land and water (Ferrini and Benavides, 2020a). The nomadic herders are in direct conflict with farmers when their cattle eat from unharvested fields, disrupting the mutually beneficial traditional system in which herders come at the end of the agricultural season to feed their cattle and beneficially leave manure for fertilization of farmers’ fields. Climate change also has impacted land use deci-

224  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus sions. For example, “the decline in crop production for own consumption; shifts in the rainy season; unemployment; longer drought periods followed by unreliable harvest; and increase in drought frequency” result in households using migration as a risk-management strategy in Ghana (Rademacher-Schulz and Mahama, 2012).

12.3

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

A review of the WEF nexus literature in Africa revealed some interesting observations. First, the types of questions and issues tackled in the papers that purported to use a nexus approach were varied and not atypical to ones seen in other non-WEF nexus-related studies. This then raises questions such as: (1) what is novel, unique, or innovative in using a WEF nexus approach or framework; and (2) did it result in better decisions and outcomes? A second observation was that, although many papers professed to using a WEF nexus approach, only two-thirds of those explicitly included water, energy, and food systems and used empirical analysis. Albeit many of them addressed two of the three sectors (and called it the WEF nexus), they did not meet our criteria of explicit linkages across all three sectors. Third, of the 51 papers that met the criteria, in each there was a dominant water or energy technology, and less so a food (agricultural) technology of primary interest that drove the rationale for using a nexus perspective/approach. Using a technological intervention focus to cluster and discuss the papers provided a useful framework but also showed, as expected, that there is much overlap as the dominant or primary sector technology influences other sector interventions. Therefore, the clustering of the papers became blurred in some cases when multiple technologies were considered. Five clusters of technology interventions using a nexus approach were identified as irrigation, hydropower, renewable energy, water management, and land management. Water and land management became catch-all clusters for those that did not focus on irrigation, hydropower, and renewable energy technologies. The dominance of irrigation and hydropower in the nexus literature to date can be partly explained by its emergent history with International Water Management Institute efforts to link water to other sectors. Irrigation and hydropower are intrinsically linked to energy use and food production making them relatively sharper and straightforward to analyze in a nexus context. Renewable energy-focused WEF nexus studies have increased due in part to the urgency of its potential synergistic impacts on climate change compared to “traditional” energy sources. This review revealed the lack of dominant food technological interventions or agricultural production systems-driven nexus studies in Africa. Why is this the case when increased food production is a goal in many of the studies? One reason for this is clearly a symptom of water (and more recently energy-focused specialists) driving WEF nexus studies, which goes back to its evolution. It is no surprise then that studies emanate from the water sector, where WEF nexus frameworks and thinking evolved. Another reason for this dominance of the water sector is perhaps a result of the modelling tools and scale of most the studies. Hydropower and irrigation, for example, are usually modelled at a regional or catchment level lending themselves to national or even transnational analytical scales while food production issues are more often best addressed at the farm or local levels. To date, most WEF nexus studies have been carried out at the larger scale and are more top down in approach, only indirectly reaching local-level, small-scale farmers’ decisions. A critique of the WEF nexus is the lack of inclusive bottom-up

WEF nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa  225 participatory approaches that recognize and promote a greater diversity of interests, values, and strategies to broaden alternatives and solutions (Allouche et al., 2018). Using a more comprehensive approach that is scalable can also address operability and on-the-ground concerns raised about the WEF nexus (Liu et al., 2017; Terrapon-Pfaff et al., 2018). Most papers show trade-offs, and less so synergies, but they also discuss why synergies can prevail. For example, in irrigation use, energy efficiency and policies for reducing overextraction can promote synergies across the sectors to maximize food production. Commonly noted was that trade-offs could be reduced through the rejection of silo mentality between sectors and intentionally adopting a WEF nexus mindset when determining project decisions, prioritization, and resource allocation. The prevalence of trade-offs (compared to synergies) highlights the current existing gaps in operationalizing decisions. One such way to address the gaps associated with lack of synergetic solutions is the necessity of determining site-specific plans (Udias et al., 2018). No individual region or site in Africa has the same availability to, access to, and utilization of natural resources. As such, one cannot assume that the exact same WEF nexus interventions would work across the bandwidth of Africa or even a single region. For instance, while farmer decision making is influenced by internal and external biophysical and social/political factors, it is also recognized that it is an adaptive and dynamic process. The decision by a farmer to adopt a technology is a constantly moving situation and changes over time, but it is highly context specific (Bernard et al., 2014; Feola et al., 2015). Recognizing the need for local-level solutions and synergies produces opportunities to add to the current body of research. The WEF nexus literature review also showed the variety of objectives to answer diverse sets of questions. It is promising that researchers, analysts, practitioners, and policy makers are using a WEF nexus approach to examine trade-offs and synergies across these critical sectors. The methods used for integrating a nexus approach into papers was wide ranging. Importantly, there was no overarching or commonly used method, or framework used. Data-driven modelling tools addressed the WEF nexus at multiple sectors and scales (Doukkali and Lejars, 2015; Imasiku and Ntagwirumugara, 2020; Sahle et al., 2019; Seeliger et al., 2018; Tian et al., 2018; Udias et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018; Yang and Wi, 2018). Papers that provided multiple technological interventions as opposed to a single technology proved more effective in avoiding fragmented WEF planning and implementation to reduce trade-offs. For example, Jobbins et al. (2015), who in their nexus study utilize only the single intervention of irrigation, were unable to demonstrate in three case studies of irrigation in Morocco that a positive impact on water, energy, or food security was produced because of the intervention. Rather, they highlight the complexity of making irrigation technologies work for small dryland farmers due to trade-offs and inequalities that produce winners and losers. Conversely, Mabhaudhi et al. (2018) addressed irrigation alongside the interventions of rainwater harvesting, renewable energy sources, crop-modelling technologies, improved crop varieties, etc. in southern Africa. In doing so, the authors can preemptively address the trade-offs associated with irrigation interventions for resilient food systems and livelihood capacity building. Their goal is to “ensure that trade-offs with energy and water are mitigated whilst maximising the synergies.” In doing so, their result indicates the necessity of matching targets to increase irrigation area with available water and energy resources (i.e. the WEF nexus approach) to ensure coordinated improvements and improved agricultural productivity. A common cross-cutting theme in the papers was climate change. External pressures such as climate change exacerbate nexus trade-offs. Climate change is an increasingly prevalent

226  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus pressure as the WEF sectors are often highly exposed and sensitive to climate variability and change (Carter and Gulati, 2014; Conway et al., 2015; Liwenga et al., 2012; Mpandeli et al., 2018; Pardoe et al., 2018; Prasad et al., 2012; Rademacher-Schulz and Mahama, 2012; Seeliger et al., 2018). This is an important issue when siloed intervention methods are utilized because they “inadvertently create imbalances and inefficiencies in resource allocation and utilization, respectively” (Mpandeli et al., 2018). A major roadblock in addressing these climate change issues is the lack of coherence among institutions and policies responding to climate change. Often, this is a result of climate change not being viewed as a priority in the face of current urgent needs such as food and water availability. Pardoe et al. (2018), using Tanzania as an example, emphasize that, “the integration of climate change into national-level policies, plans, and strategies is an important means through which to encourage action on climate change.” For Tanzania, the creation and publication of their National Adaptation Plan of Action resulted in increased integration of climate change and subsequent adaptation strategies into country-wide policies and planning documents, specifically in the agriculture and water sectors. However, there is still a gap in climate change integration in the energy sector because of its focus on internal energy source diversification. This results in the undermining of efforts of the water and agriculture sectors to address climate change. As such, policy and institution coherence are necessary to mitigate the trade-offs among WEF systems produced by climate change. There is an urgent need for a more integrated transdisciplinary thinking but some question the advantages of using a WEF nexus approach compared to other methods. As noted, many WEF security issues can be addressed in other ways, including other systems modelling approaches. For example, Martins (2018) found the 2MBio-A, “a systems analytical and design framework based on a design tool specifically developed for bioenergy,” to be more effective than the nexus approach in analyzing the charcoal energy system, as it includes necessary social, ecological, and socio-historical dynamics. Using a WEF nexus approach perhaps does more clearly show trade-offs across sectors but it was not clear from this review that it results in better policies or outcomes. More importantly, despite its potential, full adoption of the WEF nexus approach is still hindered by a lack of clarity on an applicable spatial scale, data availability, and operability. It was also shown in numerous studies that efforts to produce WEF system synergies through technological interventions can be deterred by institutional and political constraints. If WEF nexus approaches are used to make better decisions, they must not neglect the larger social, political, and economic context of the farmers and beneficiaries of the technologies. It must be acknowledged that a WEF nexus approach is not a panacea. In summary, there is a need for greater priority and emphasis to be placed on WEF nexus research development in the introduction of appropriate site-specific technologies in plans and policies rather than a plethora of top-down large-scale studies. For example, studies which include better understanding of African farming systems (use of water and energy) and farmer behavior patterns in their social and biophysical environment, at multiple scales, could improve decision support systems and lead to more sustainable land use management.

NOTES 1. Paper types: original research article, review article, case study article, theoretical article, report, book/blog, discussion/conference paper.

WEF nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa  227 2.

A full list of the 90 papers used in the chapter can be received from the authors upon request. Please contact Michael Jacobson by email for access.

REFERENCES Albrecht, T.R., A. Crootof and C.A. Scott (2018), “The water-energy-food nexus: A systematic review of methods for nexus assessment,” Environmental Research Letters, 13 (4), 043002. Allam, M.M. and E.A.B. Eltahir (2019), “Water-energy-food nexus sustainability in the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin,” Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7 (Article 5). Allan, T., M. Keulertz and E. Woertz (2015), “The water-food-energy nexus: An introduction to nexus concepts and some conceptual and operational problems,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, 31 (3), 301–311. Allouche, J., C. Middleton and D. Gyawali (2018), The Water-Food-Energy Nexus: Power, Politics and Justice, London: Routledge. Babiker, B., A. Salih, K. Siddig and C. Ringler (2019), Nexus Assessment: Synergies of the Water, Energy and Food Sectors in Sudan, Eschborn: Nexus Regional Dialogue Programme. Barrett, C.B. (2020), “Actions now can curb food systems fallout from COVID-19,” Nature Food, 1, 319–320. Bell, K. (ed.) (2013), Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved from https://​sociologydictionary​ .org/​. Berga, H., C. Ringler, E. Bryan, H. ElDidi and S. Elnasikh (2017), “Addressing transboundary cooperation in the Eastern Nile through the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Insights from an E-survey and key informant interviews,” IFPRI Discussion Paper 1655, Washington, DC. Retrieved from: http://​ebrary​ .ifpri​.org/​cdm/​ref/​collection/​p15738coll2/​id/​131342. Bernard, F., M. Van Noordwijk, E. Luedeling, G. Villamor, G. Sileshi and S. Namirembe (2014), “Social actors and unsustainability of agriculture,” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 6, 155–161. Besada, H. and K. Werner (2015), “An assessment of the effects of Africa’s water crisis on food security and management,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, 31, 120–133. Bhattacharyya, S., N. Bugatti and H. Bauer (2015), “A bottom-up approach to the nexus of energy, food and water security in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region,” Nexus Network Thinkpiece Series. Retrieved from https://​thenexusnetwork​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2014/​ 08/​Bhattacharyya​-thinkpiece​_2015​.pdf. Boote, D.N., J.C. Smither and P.W.L. Lyne (2014), “The development and application of an energy calculator for sugarcane production in South Africa,” Proceedings of the South African Sugar Technologists Association, 87, 459–463. Carter, S. and M. Gulati (2014), “Climate change, the food energy water nexus and food security in South Africa: Understanding the food energy water nexus,” Cape Town: WWF-SA. Cash, D.W., W. Adger, F. Berkes, P. Garden, L. Lebel, P. Olsson, L. Pritchard and O. Young (2006), “Scale and cross-scale dynamics: Governance and information in a multilevel world,” Ecology and Society, 11 (2), 8. Chahed, J., M. Besbes and A. Hamdane (2015), “Virtual-water content of agricultural production and food trade balance of Tunisia,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, 31 (3), 407–421. Conway, D., E. van Garderen, D. Deryng, S. Dorling, T. Krueger, W. Landman et al. (2015), “Climate and southern Africa’s water-energy-food nexus,” Nature Climate Change, 5, 837–846. de Sherbinin, A. (2014), “Climate change hotspots mapping: What have we learned?,” Climatic Change, 123 (1), 23–37. Dos Santos, S., E.A. Adams, G. Neville, Y. Wada, A. de Sherbinin, E. Mullin Bernhardt and S.B. Adamo (2017), “Urban growth and water access in sub-Saharan Africa: Progress, challenges, and emerging research directions,” Science of the Total Environment, 607–608, 497–508. Doukkali, M.R. and C. Lejars (2015), “Energy cost of irrigation policy in Morocco: A social accounting matrix assessment,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, 31(3), 422–435.

228  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus El Gafy, I., N. Grigg and W. Reagan (2016), “Dynamic behaviour of the water-food-energy nexus: Focus on crop production and consumption,” Irrigation and Drainage, 66(1), 19–33. Estrada, J. (2018), “The rise of the water-energy-food nexus,” November 30. Retrieved from https://​ waterinthewest​.stanford​.edu/​news​-events/​news​-insights/​rise​-water​-energy​-food​-nexus. Feola, G., A.M. Lerner, M. Jain, M.J.F. Montefrio and K.A. Nicholas (2015), “Researching farmer behaviour in climate change adaptation and sustainable agriculture: Lessons learned from five case studies,” Journal of Rural Studies, 39, 74–84. Ferrini, L. and L. Benavides (2020a), “Can the water, energy and food nexus approach prevent conflicts in a fragile context?,” Blog post shared by the Nexus Resource Platform, March 24. Retrieved from www​.water​-energy​-food​.org/​news/​nexus​-blog​-can​-the​-water​-energy​-and​-food​-nexus​-approach​ -prevent​-conflicts​-in​-a​-fragile​-context/​. Ferrini, L. and L. Benavides (2020b), “Opportunities for mutual learning? The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Fomi Dam: Transboundary relations and nexus thinking across the Sahel,” Blog post shared by the Nexus Resource Platform, March 9. Retrieved from www​.water​-energy​-food​.org/​ news/​nexus​-blog​-opportunities​-for​-mutual​-learning​-the​-grand​-ethiopian​-renaissance​-dam​-and​-fomi​ -dams​-transboundary​-relations​-and​-nexus​-thinking​-across​-the​-sahel/​. Flammini, A., M. Puri, L. Pluschke and O. Dubois (2014), Walking the Nexus Talk: Assessing the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Food and Agriculture Organization (2017), Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in Africa 2016: The Challenges of Building Resilience to Shocks and Stresses, Accra: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Githiru, M., U. Mutwiwa, S. Kasaine and B. Schulte (2017), “A spanner in the works: Human–elephant conflict complicates the food-water-energy nexus in drylands of Africa,” Frontiers in Environmental Science, 5. Hailemariam, W., T. Silalertruksa, S.H. Gheewala and N. Jakrawatana (2019), “Water-energy-food nexus of sugarcane production in Ethiopia,” Environmental Engineering Science, 36 (7), 798–807. Hoff, H. (2011), “Understanding the nexus,” Background paper for the Bonn 2011 Nexus Conference: The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus, Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute. Hoffmann, H.K., K. Sander, M. Brüntrup and S. Sieber (2017), “Applying the water-energy-food nexus to the charcoal value chain,” Frontiers in Environmental Science, 5. IEA (2014), Africa Energy Outlook: A Focus on Energy Prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa, Paris: International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook Special Report. Imasiku, K. and E. Ntagwirumugara (2020), “An impact analysis of population growth on energy‐water‐ food‐land nexus for ecological sustainable development in Rwanda,” Food and Energy Security, 9 (1), e185. Jobbins, G., J. Kalpakian, A. Chriyaa, A. Legrouri and E.H.E. Mzouri (2015), “To what end? Drip irrigation and the water-energy-food nexus in Morocco,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, 31 (3), 393–406. Johnson, O.W., C. Muhoza, M. Ogeya, T. Ogol, T. Binnington, F. Flores and L. Karlberg (2018), Exploring the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Rwanda’s Akagara Basin, J. Kemsey, ed. Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute. Keskes, T., H. Zahar, A. Ghezal and K. Bedoui (2019), Impact of Solar Pumping Systems in Tunisia, Nexus Regional Dialogue Programme. Kougias I., S. Szabó, N. Scarlat, F. Monforti, M. Banja, K. Bódis and M. Moner-Girona (2018), Water-Energy-Food Nexus Interactions Assessment: Renewable Energy Sources to Support Water Access and Quality in West Africa, Luxembourg, European Commission. Kurian, M. (2017), “The water-energy-food nexus: Trade-offs, thresholds and transdisciplinary approaches to sustainable development,” Environmental Science and Policy, 68, 97. Landauer, M., S. Juhola and J. Klein (2018), “The role of scale in integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation in cities,” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 62 (5), 741–765. Liu, J., H. Yang, C. Cudennec, A.K. Gain, H. Hoff, R. Lawford, J. Qi, L. de Strasser, P.T. Yillia and C. Zheng (2017), “Challenges in operationalizing the water-energy-food nexus,” Hydrological Sciences Journal, 62 (11), 1714–1720. Liwenga, E.T., L. Kwezi and T. Afifi (2012), Rainfall, Food Security, and Human Mobility: Case Study: Tanzania, Vol. 6, Bonn: UNU-EHS.

WEF nexus approaches and initiatives in Africa  229 Mabhaudhi, T., S. Mpandeli, L. Nhamo, V. Chimonyo, C. Nhemachena, A. Senzanje, D. Naidoo and A. Modi (2018), “Prospects for improving irrigated agriculture in Southern Africa: Linking water, energy and food,” Water, 10 (12), 1881. Mabhaudhi, T., L. Nhamo, S. Mpandeli, C. Nhemachena, A. Senzanje, N. Sobratee et al. (2019), “The water-energy-food nexus as a tool to transform rural livelihoods and well-being in southern Africa,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16 (16), 2970. Martins, R. (2018), “Nexusing charcoal in south Mozambique: A proposal to integrate the nexus charcoal-food-water analysis with a participatory analytical and systemic tool,” Frontiers in Environmental Science, 6. McCarl, B.A., Y. Yang, R. Srinivasan, E.N. Pistikopolous and R.H. Mohtar (2017), “Data for WEF nexus analysis: A review of issues,” Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports, 4, 137–143. McCornick, P.G., S.B. Awulachew and M. Abebe (2008), “Water-food-energy-environment synergies and trade-offs: Major issues and case studies,” Water Policy, 10 (S1), 23–36. McGrane, S. J., M. Acuto, F. Artioli, P.Y. Chen, R. Coomber, J. Cottee et al. (2018), “Scaling the nexus: Towards integrated frameworks for analysing water, energy and food,” The Geographical Journal, 185 (4), 419–431. Mekonnen, D., E. Bryan, T. Alemu, T. and C. Ringler (2017), “Food versus fuel: Examining trade-offs in the allocation of biomass energy sources to domestic and productive uses in Ethiopia,” Agricultural Economics, 48 (4), 425–435. Mpandeli, S., D. Naidoo, T. Mabhaudhi, C. Nhemachena, L. Nhamo, S. Liphadzi, S. Hlahla and A.T. Modi (2018), “Climate change adaptation through the water-energy-food nexus in southern Africa,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15 (10), 2306. Nhamo, L., B. Ndlela, C. Nhemachena, T. Mabhaudhi, S. Mpandeli and G. Matchaya (2018), “The water-energy-food nexus: Climate risks and opportunities in southern Africa,” Water, 10 (5), 567. Niang, I., O.C. Ruppel, M.A. Abdrabo, A. Essel, C. Lennard, J. Padgham and P. Urquhart (2014), “Africa,” in Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nyatsanza, F.F., S. Graas and P. Zaag (2015), “The impact of dynamic environmental flow releases on hydropower production in the Zambezi river basin,” Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 51 (4), 1029–1042. Ozturk, I. (2017), “The dynamic relationship between agricultural sustainability and food‐energy‐water poverty in a panel of selected sub‐Saharan African countries,” Energy Policy, 107 (February), 289–299. Pardoe, J., D. Conway E. Namaganda K. Vincent, A.J. Dougil and J.J. Kashaigili (2018), “Climate change and the water-energy-food nexus: Insights from policy and practice in Tanzania,” Climate Policy, 18 (7), 863–877. Phimister, E., J. Smith, P. Hallett, P. Smith, H. Homans and A. Fischer (2014), “How can we ensure better use of organic waste materials for food, energy production and water use in sub-Saharan Africa?,” Nexus Network Thinkpiece Series. Retrieved from https://​thenexusnetwork​.org/​projects/​ thinkpiece​-2014​-phimister​-et​-al/​. Prasad, G., A. Stone, A. Hughes and T. Stewart (2012), “Towards the development of an energy-water-food security nexus based modelling framework as policy and planning tool for South Africa,” Paper presented at the Strategies to Overcome Poverty and Inequality Conference, University of Cape Town. Rademacher-Schulz, C. and E.S. Mahama (2012), Rainfall, Food Security, and Human Mobility: Case Study Ghana, Vol. 3, Bonn: UNU-EHS. Rockström, J. and M. Falkenmark (2015), “Increase water harvesting in Africa,” Nature (London), 519 (7543), 283. SAB Miller and World Wildlife Fund (2014), The Water-Food-Energy Nexus: Insights into Resilient Development, SAB Miller and WWF. Sahle, M., O. Saito, C. Fürst and K. Yeshitela (2019), “Quantifying and mapping of water-related ecosystem services for enhancing the security of the food-water-energy nexus in tropical data-sparse catchment,” Science of the Total Environment, 646, 573–586.

230  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Seeliger, L., W.P. de Clercq, W. Hoffmann, J.D.S. Cullis, A.M. Horn and M. de Witt (2018), “Applying the water-energy-food nexus to farm profitability in the middle Breede catchment, South Africa,” South African Journal of Science, 114 (11), 89–98. Simpson, G.B. and G.P.W. Jewitt (2019), “The development of the water-energy-food nexus as a framework for achieving resource security: A review,” Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7 (8). Smith, J.U., A. Fischer, P.D. Hallett, H.Y. Homans, P. Smith, Y. Abdul-Salam, H.H. Emmerling and E. Phimister (2015), “Sustainable use of organic resources for bioenergy, food and water provision in rural sub-Saharan Africa,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 50, 903–917. Stein, C., C. Pahl-Wostl and J. Barron (2018), “Towards a relational understanding of the water-energy-food nexus: An analysis of embeddedness and governance in the Upper Blue Nile region of Ethiopia,” Environmental Science and Policy, 90, 173–182. Szabó, S., M. Moner-Girona, I. Kougias, R. Bailis and K. Bódis (2016), “Identification of advantageous electricity generation options in sub-Saharan Africa integrating existing resources,” Nature Energy, 1, 16140. Termeer, C.J.A.M., A. Dewulf and M.V. Lieshout (2010), “Disentangling scale approaches in governance research: Comparing monocentric, multilevel, and adaptive governance,” Ecology and Society, 15 (4), 29–29. Terrapon-Pfaff, J., W. Ortiz, C. Dienst and M. Gröne (2018), “Energising the WEF nexus to enhance sustainable development at local level,” Journal of Environmental Management, 223, 409–416. Thieme, T. and E. Kovacs (2015), Services and Slums: Rethinking Infrastructures and Provisioning across the Nexus. Nexus Network Thinkpiece Series. Retrieved from https://​thenexusnetwork​.org/​wp​ -content/​uploads/​2014/​08/​ThiemeandKovacs​_Servi​cesandSlum​sNexusThin​kpiece2015​.pdf. Tian, H., C. Lu, S. Pan, J. Yang, R. Miao, W. Ren et al. (2018), “Optimizing resource use efficiencies in the food-energy-water nexus for sustainable agriculture: From conceptual model to decision support system,” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 33, 104–113. Udias, A., M. Pastori, C. Dondeynaz, C.C. Moreno, A. Ali, L. Cattaneo and J. Cano (2018), “A decision support tool to enhance agricultural growth in the Mékrou river basin (West Africa),” Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 154, 467–481. Wang, X., M. Guo, Rembrandt H.E.M. Koppelaar, K.H. van Dam, C.P. Triantafyllidis and N. Shah (2018), “A nexus approach for sustainable urban energy-water-waste systems planning and operation,” Environmental Science and Technology, 52 (5), 3257–3266. Weitz, N., C. Strambo, E. Kemp-Benedict and M. Nilsson (2017), “Closing the governance gaps in the water-energy-food nexus: Insights from integrative environmental governance,” Global Environmental Change, 45, 165–173. Wichelns, D. (2017), “The water-energy-food nexus: Is the increasing attention warranted, from either a research or policy perspective?,” Environmental Science and Policy, 69, 113–123. Xie, H., C. Ringler and L. You (2020), “Last mile energy access for productive energy use in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: What and where is the potential?,” Presented at the AGU in San Francisco, CA, December 9–13, 2019. Yang, Y.E. and S. Wi (2018), “Informing regional water-energy-food nexus with system analysis and interactive visualization: A case study in the Great Ruaha River of Tanzania,” Agricultural Water Management, 196, 75–86.

13. Agricultural development in the Andean countries and the nexus Oscar Melo, Lisbeth Naranjo, Dolores Rey, Gloria Salmoral, Oswaldo Viteri-Salazar and Eduardo Zegarra

13.1 INTRODUCTION Agricultural exports are inherently linked to food security, and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a key player in meeting the increasing global demand for food. However, agriculture has multiple impacts on nexus-related elements, such as energy supply and demand, water conflicts, and biodiversity loss, that can thwart LAC countries’ sustainable development (Bellfield, 2015). Such is the case of Andean countries (i.e. Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Chile) in which economic growth is based on the abundance of natural resources, ranging from minerals and energy sources to land and water (Willaarts et al., 2014). Agriculture, in economic terms, is a relevant activity in this region, representing 4 to 14 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) (ECLAC, 2020), between 9 and 30 per cent of total employment (World Bank, 2020), and food exports represent between 18 and 54 per cent of total exports (Olmos, 2017). Internationally, increasing trade and growing demand for food play a key role in driving development in LAC (Falconí et al., 2017). In countries such as Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, the agricultural sector has expanded due to government incentives intended to intensify agriculture and trade policies promoting agro-exports, which have contributed to transforming this region into a significant competitor in the global agricultural market. This growth driven by export-oriented agriculture can bring foreign currency, employment, and economic activity to boost local development. However, significant trade-offs need to be considered when promoting agricultural expansion, which could negatively impact the environment, migration, and food security. Rapid growth in agricultural activity translates into expanding the land use frontier and intensification of food production. These latter effects can reduce biodiversity, increase pollution, and stress the water and energy supply (Embid and Martín, 2017). Export-oriented agriculture increases in many regions at the expense of more traditional peasant agriculture. Moreover, the competition for production factors (land, water, energy, labour) may drive away peasant farming by threatening their income and food security. The rapid increase in labour demand can also cause rapid migration and population concentration, overwhelming the provision of essential public services in rural and least developed areas. This chapter discusses the need and impact of a nexus perspective in the context of weak governance and high inequality by reviewing case studies in Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. These case studies were selected because they are relevant not only for Andean countries but also for other developing countries where food exports are vital economic activities. In the three case studies, irrigation and thus water availability are critical for agriculture and food provision. The case studies illustrate examples of existing trade-offs among water, energy, and 231 Oscar Melo

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232  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus agriculture sectors and the potential for implementing nexus governance to support sustainable development.

13.2

AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN THREE ANDEAN COUNTRIES

Chile was an early reformer among Andean countries opening its economy to trade and signing trade agreements with a large share of the world economy. By 2009 it had trade agreements with countries that represent 85 per cent of global GDP, which led to the growth and diversification of markets and food products exported (Melo et al., 2014). This growth has, in general, not necessarily translated into an equal increase in water consumption because export crops are in general less water-intensive using more efficient irrigation technology (Anríquez and Melo, 2018). Nevertheless, long-lasting droughts and demand from other water users have led to conflicts, especially in the country’s drier areas. In 2017, Peruvian agro-exports were USD 4.8 billion, almost five times those of 2004, representing 12 per cent of total exports (Zegarra, 2019). A mix of special conditions has contributed to this: (1) favourable climate along the Peruvian coast that allows the production of fruits and vegetables at any season under irrigation; (2) free trade agreements and national legislation favouring agro-exports (tax deductions and deregulation of labour conditions); (3) public investment in large-scale irrigation projects along the coast; and (4) an expanded international demand for fruits and other horticultural products. Although this agro-export boom is seen as a success of Peruvian agricultural policies, environmental and water overexploitation problems have not been clearly understood and evaluated. There is increasing awareness of the unsustainable path of underground water use, with highly conflictive competition over water between small farmers and large corporations. In Ecuador, to cope with water-energy-food challenges, the government has planned to increase the irrigated area (from 941,000 to 1,443,000 hectares) and reservoir capacity (from 7,690 hm3 to 14,672 hm3) for hydropower, flood control, and irrigation purposes by 2035 (MAGAP, 2013; CISPDR, 2014). Those measures and expected changes in crop patterns can contribute to increasing national food security, both for local and export purposes (Salmoral et al., 2018), and energy security, but probably at the expense of environmental degradation, greater energy use, and unequal water-energy food access. 13.2.1 Present and Future Water-Energy-Food-Environment Challenges in Andean Countries Currently, water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) components in Andean countries are mostly managed independently from each other. Policies and institutions have been designed mainly in isolation, without considering any synergies or trade-offs between them. This leads in some cases to the overexploitation of natural resources, increasing competition between sectors, and negative externalities. The main challenges that Andean countries face are weak governance and global change, including climate change, population growth, and migratory dynamics. Weak governance is demonstrated by insufficient planning and low capacity for management, lack of control in natural resource uses (e.g. irrigation, drinking water, and sanitation

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Agricultural development in the Andean countries  233 services). Embid and Martín (2017) suggest this regional deficiency may be due to multiple causes, including the ineffectiveness of regulatory frameworks, a lack of institutional capacities and adequate material and human resources, the fragmentation of decision-making power, and the absence of citizen participation. Regarding global change, fast-growing cities along the arid coasts of Chile and Peru face climate change risks and increased pressures on water supply due to urban population growth, agricultural expansion, and other extractive activities such as mining (Salmoral et al., 2020a). The Andes constitute one of the world’s regions most affected by climate change (Magrin et al., 2014). The literature highlights the warming of mean temperatures, deglaciation, and precipitation variation as the most severe consequences. In the extreme south of the Andes, between 2000 and 2018, the mass loss of the glaciers amounted to approximately 22.9 gigatons per year (Dussaillant et al., 2019). Changes in water availability in the highlands affect energy production from hydroelectric sources and urban and agricultural water use for downstream users. Moreover, the rising energy demand for cities and industries intensifies water scarcity and water conflict (Schorr and Quiles, 2017). Furthermore, the Andean region is among the more unequal regions on the planet (ECLAC, 2020). This inequity means that people living in the region have very different opportunities to access essential and socially desired resources depending on their income, social status, or place they live. There is a significant asymmetry in terms of opportunities to participate in political decisions. These economic and political inequalities reproduce inequities in access to increasingly scarce resources such as clean water, healthy food, and cheap energy, regardless of whether a nexus approach is applied or not (Schorr and Quiles, 2017). In the analysis of sustainable development, the WEFE nexus approach is acknowledged in three major Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) —SDG 2 (food security), SDG 6 (clean water), and SDG 7 (modern energy). Twelve SDG indicators and three indicators of water use have been chosen to illustrate the current challenges in water, energy, and food facing Chile, Ecuador, and Peru and to identify the issues that require attention (Table 13.1). Agriculture is the major water user in the three countries representing close to 80 per cent of abstractions. But they show very different levels of water efficiency, with Peru and Ecuador having 73 and 38 per cent higher costs of water use than Chile, respectively. There is also a large gap in access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation, with Chile and Ecuador being over the world and regional average. In the degree of integrated water resource management index, an essentially subjective index based on surveys, Chile scores the lowest and Ecuador the highest and above the regional, but below the world average. The energy indicators show that most of the population have access to electricity, but renewable energy represents less than 30 per cent of final energy consumption. In economic terms, these countries need between 2.6 and 3.9 megajoules to produce USD 1 of GDP, making Peru the most efficient of the three. In relation to food, there are important challenges such as the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity, with Peru being the country with the highest value in this indicator, reaching 30 per cent. In addition, it is shown that agriculture value added share of GDP is 9.5 per cent for Ecuador and 3.6 per cent for Chile, which are higher and lower than the regional and world averages, respectively.

Oscar Melo

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Percentage Percentage

Municipal water withdrawal as % of total water withdrawal

Proportion of population using safely managed drinking water

Oscar Melo

Lisbeth Naranjo

Dolores Rey

 

countries (in watts per capita) (SDG 7, Indicator 7.b.1)

Installed renewable energy-generating capacity in developing

production, including in hybrid systems (SGD 7, Indicator 7.a.1)

clean energy research and development and renewable energy Watts per capita

United States dollars

Millions of constant 2017

parity GDP

2011 purchasing power

International financial flows to developing countries in support of

Megajoules per constant

(SDG 7, Indicator 7.3.1)

Percentage

Percentage

Percentage

per cubic meter

United States dollars

Percentage

Energy intensity measured in terms of primary energy and GDP

Indicator 7.2.1)

Renewable energy share in total final energy consumption (SDG 7,

(SDG 7, Indicator 7.1.1)

Proportion of population with access to electricity

Energy

 

(SDG 6, Indicator 6.5.1)

Degree of integrated water resources management

Water use efficiency over time (SDG 6, Indicator 6.4.1)

treated (SDG 6, Indicator 6.3.1)

Proportion of domestic and industrial wastewater flows safely

(SDG 6, Indicator 6.2.1)

services and (b) a hand-washing facility with soap and water

Proportion of population using (a) safely managed sanitation

Percentage

Percentage

services (SDG 6, Indicator 6.1.1)

Percentage

Units

Industrial water withdrawal as % of total water withdrawal

Water, energy, and food indicators

Agricultural water withdrawal as % of total water withdrawal

Water

Indicators

Table 13.1

2018

2017

2017

2017

2017

2018

2017

2018

2017

2017

2017

2017

2017

Year

579.6

204.3

3.9

23.5

100.0

23.0

6.4

72.5

77.5

98.6

3.6

13.4

83.0

Chile

302.3

26.5

3.5

16.7

100.0

42.0

8.8

43.3

42.0

75.1

13.0

5.5

81.4

Ecuador

194.5

535.6

2.6

27.7

96.4

30.0

11.1

39.2

42.8

50.4

17.4

1.3

81.4

Perú Latin America

389.0

4562.5

3.7

29.4

98.2

35.0

14.1

–

31.3

74.3

–

–

–

and the Caribbean

204.5

21398.4

5.0

17.3

88.8

49.0

18.2

–

45.0

70.6

–

–

–

World

234  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Gloria Salmoral

Oswaldo

Oscar Melo

Source:

UNSTATS (2020) and FAO (2019).

Agriculture value-added share of GDP (SDG 2, Indicator 2.a.1)

(SDG 2, Indicator 2.1.2)

based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale

Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population,

Food

Indicators

Percentage

Percentage

Units

2015

2015

Year

3.6

10.2

Chile

9.5

23.3

Ecuador

–

29.9

Perú

Latin America

4.4

25.1

and the Caribbean

5.5

22.4

World

Agricultural development in the Andean countries  235

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236  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

13.3

CASE STUDIES

The design of policies and initiatives that intensify water, land, and energy use usually ignores existing interdependences with other components to support sustainable development. The WEFE nexus addresses this issue (Liu et al., 2017) by adding the need to identify and integrate governance and policy as the main pillars (Roidt and Avellán, 2019). We will use the term nexus governance to refer to the identification and assessment of interdependencies in water, land, and energy resources for their integrated management across sectors and actors involved, as previous studies have done (e.g. Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017; Pahl-Wostl, 2017; Salmoral et al., 2019). Based on case studies in Chile, Peru, and Ecuador, this section analyses the prospects and challenges facing agricultural development in Andean countries, the existing WEFE trade-offs, and the role of nexus governance to support sustainable development. For each country, we assess the current situation of nexus governance in the context of local development, the implications of economic development for water, and how sustainable the expansion of agricultural systems is from a nexus perspective. 13.3.1 Chile: A Success Story in Export-Oriented Agriculture Facing New Challenges Chile is a success story in terms of the development of an export-oriented agri-food sector. In 2016, food exports were close to USD 16 billion and represented 27 per cent of the country’s total exports, placing it as the 6th country in the share of food in total food exports.1 This path started with the country’s opening to international trade, securing land and water property rights, increasing assurances to investors, and having substantial public infrastructure investments. Nevertheless, new challenges pose a critical threat to this strategy’s sustainability, and new ideas are needed to confront water scarcity, environmental degradation, and income distribution (Vicuña et al., 2014). Current policies and sectoral institutions do not seem capable of facing the pace and magnitude of the threats. A sharp increase in agricultural water demand resulted from the public policies implemented from the mid-1980s, whose objectives were to increase the irrigated area. Between 1970 and 1990, the irrigated area grew by about 70 per cent (World Bank, 2011). This growth rate fell sharply between 1997 and 2007 when the irrigated area increased by only 3 per cent, reflecting a growth driven by substituting existing irrigated areas. Central to these developments were irrigation infrastructure subsidies and a new water code and constitution that gave secure property over water use rights. To illustrate Chile’s nexus governance situation, we present two case studies, the Petorca and Copiapó basins (Figure 13.1). Petorca Petorca is a semi-arid basin fed from snowmelt with an area of almost 2,000 km2. Its primary economic activity is agriculture, with avocados being the main crop, mostly export-oriented. Large farms provide about 50 per cent of agricultural employment in the basin. It currently does not have any dams, but two small ones are under construction. Since 2005, water deficits have been more frequent, due in part to a drought that has lasted close to 10 years (Garreaud et al., 2017), bringing social conflict. Small farmers have run out of water and are unable to find alternative sources. No more underground water rights are available and for some of those who have them, the drop of the groundwater level has left their wells dry. This has been especially

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Figure 13.1

Map of case studies

dramatic in drinking water provision where the government has implemented a system of cistern trucks to deliver water to rural inhabitants. Although the problem’s likely origin is the sustained decrease in precipitation, poor water management and planning have aggravated the consequences, bringing social unrest. According to the Chilean water code, management is mostly left to water user organisations. Rural drinking-water provision is mostly in the hands of community-managed organisations. Both of these organisations have shown difficulties in addressing the problems brought up by the extended dry period. Inexistent or weak user organisations have failed to implement proper monitoring and actions to mitigate lower precipitation impacts. Also, many accusations of illegal water abstraction have been put forward, but only a few prosecuted. Enforcement by

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238  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus the water authority has not been agile. For example, the Petorca aquifer was declared under restriction in 1997, but water rights continued to be granted almost doubling the allowed extraction. In 2008 the General Water Directorate (DGA) started monitoring extractions and only in 2018 the aquifer was declared under prohibition; thus, no more water rights could be granted. Between 2008 and 2018, the DGA received 241 formal complaints about illegal extraction, in addition to protection appeals filed by families in the area due to the inability to access drinking water. DGA also started several programmes to create and strengthen water-related associations, study the aquifers, and search for investments that could alleviate the problems. The rapid growth of avocado plantations, coinciding with decreased precipitation, has led to community organisations pointing at the export avocado industry as the main culprit. Although Petorca avocado production represents a small fraction of the national production, the presence of this issue in the media has impacted the entire Chilean avocado industry. For example, in countries like Denmark, supermarket chains have publicly declared that avocados from this territory will not be imported (BCN, 2019), but also in Chile, people started looking at the industry very critically. One consequence of the latter was a legal review of the permits being granted by the forest service to plant avocados on hillsides substituting shrub ecosystems. Copiapó The Copiapó river basin, located in the Atacama region, represents an example of an arid basin subjected to high and increasing water stress due to the growing demand for irrigation of crops, urban water supply, the mining industry, and tourism (Suárez et al., 2014). Agriculture (mainly table grapes, olives, and other vegetables) and mining (copper, iron, gold, and silver) are the main economic activities and have placed the basin in a highly strategic position within the north of Chile. These sectors employ 7.6 and 19.6 per cent of the workforce in the Atacama region, for agriculture and mining, respectively (Meza et al., 2015). Agriculture uses close to 80 per cent of the total water in the basin, mostly from underground sources. Due to the high aridity and water scarcity, almost all crops (about 90 per cent) use drip irrigation. Therefore, a substantial amount of energy is used for pumping (Meza et al., 2015; Arce et al., 2019). Water management by user associations has improved, and is actively looking for new solutions. For example, there is an integration between groundwater and river management that is testing aquifer recharge and an agreement on new rules to ensure that all users have access to water. In Copiapó, seawater is vital to meet the basin demands because large mining operations bring desalinated water to the basin and a new desalination plant for drinking water is about to start operating. This desalination, in part mandated by regulation, is probably oversupplying the basin with fresh water. Its use is meant mainly for drinking water and mining since it is too expensive for agriculture. At the same time, the increasing energy demand, especially from sustainable sources, new regulations, lower costs of production, aridity, and cheap land availability, has led to a rapid growth of solar power in the region. On top of this, a reform to the water code, mostly intended for the hydroelectric generation industry, charges a no-use fee to water rights holders (Gomez et al., 2014; Melo et al., 2004). This implies that water rights holders have an incentive to use water above their optimal level to avoid paying the fee.

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Agricultural development in the Andean countries  239 Lessons and challenges One of the main challenges in Chile, like other countries in the region, rests on the need to strengthen its institutional framework and governance. A drier and warmer future, and increasing societal demands, requires solutions that transcend administrative borders and the interests of one sector or another, and that include multiple actors and disciplines of knowledge. The large engineering works that were once the facilitating factor for agricultural development today must be designed differently, in order to consider changing climatic and social conditions (Vicuña et al., 2014). The agricultural sector has traditionally been well placed within public policies fostering the development of the country’s economy. However, it is necessary to promote public policies that find a balance between economic, social, and environmental development so that it is sustainable over time. The nexus approach represents an opportunity to improve the governance of the water, energy, and food sectors and the involvement of and the generation of incentives that promote the efficient use of natural resources, addressing the externalities due to the expansion of agriculture. 13.3.2 Peru: A New Water Law Brings New Hope, But There Are Still Challenges The 2009 Water Law was approved in Peru in response to pressures arising from urban population growth, increasing agricultural water demand, and the mining industry’s contested presence in the upper areas of important watersheds. This relatively recent law has important aspects that can be used to implement a more nexus-oriented water management approach. It is very explicit regarding the need for integrated water resources management and the need to pursue not only economic but also social and environmental goals. It has an open call for thinking in the long run and promoting water planning across actors and sectors involved. The law created regional water councils and local water authorities, hoping to achieve more decentralised decision making and promote more active participation of economic sectors and organised civil society. Despite these important advantages from a nexus governance perspective, the Peruvian Water Law’s implementation also faced different challenges. Although it was inspired by integrated water management principles – which are key for a nexus approach – it kept a sectorial bias as the National Water Authority (ANA) remained inside the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation. Also, the integrated vision has not been fully implemented due to a lack of resources and serious problems of intra- and intergovernmental coordination. In addition, enforcement challenges make it difficult to ensure the correct application and implementation of the law. This section is based on the authors’ recent work in two case studies in Peru – Arequipa city and the Ica valley. In Arequipa, we explored the challenges for promoting sustainable economic development in the context of nexus governance (Salmoral et al., 2020a), whereas in Ica we took a more quantitative approach to assess the sustainability of groundwater use in the context of an agro-export boom (Zegarra, 2018; Salmoral et al., 2020b). Arequipa In the city of Arequipa (the second-largest city in Peru) and its hinterland, there is a complex network of actors involved in the multi-sectorial nexus governance for sustainable development, with existing formal and informal mechanisms for coordination and collaboration between key stakeholders in the context of a rather loose institutional framework. ANA,

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240  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus although the most influential and interested actor in the integrated management of natural resources for sustainable development, has a relatively weak capacity for coordination and control over key decisions like water resource allocation, tariff setting, and long-term planning. Initiatives from local government and research organisations for sustainable natural resources were rarely coordinated with ANA. A silo problem in policy design and implementation is evident. Water users in the river basin council were grouped between agricultural or non-agricultural users. Key sectors with high water use (e.g. sanitation and energy production) were largely neglected in these policies. Moreover, the environment was not even considered by the river basin councils. Problems with weak planning for urban development, which led to poor water and wastewater infrastructure provision for large informal settlements, were also evident. Based on a stakeholder mapping exercise undertaken in the area, it is clear that there is a need for initiatives aimed at increasing the interest of key stakeholders in the nexus governance across natural resources. Conflicts between key stakeholders also need to be identified and dealt with, for instance, the opposition between the Ministry of Energy and Mining and the Ministry of the Environment for the support of ecological and economic zoning in land use planning (Gustafsson and Scurrah, 2019). The question then arises as to balancing the trade-offs between mining activities, which are the main economic contribution in the region, reducing water demand, and meeting air pollution environmental standards. Organisations with low influence, including non-governmental organisations, peasant communities, National Service of Natural Areas Protected, and the Regional Environment Authority, could become more influential through alliances (Reed et al., 2009) with other subject stakeholders and key players. Ica The Ica valley is home to the region’s capital city, Ica, with about 300,000 inhabitants. The city experienced a rapid increase of population during 2010–2020, mainly due to migratory processes related to the growing demand for workers to be employed in the agro-food industry (targeted at export on the world market). This caused pressures for urban expansion and on drinking water and sewerage systems. These services already faced deficiencies and limitations with meeting the previously existing demand (SUNASS, 2017). The export boom in Ica has been based on the growing groundwater extraction from one of the most extensive and productive aquifers on the Peruvian coast. A total of 543 million m3 of water is estimated to be extracted annually, which is about a third of all groundwater extracted in the country (ANA, 2009). The region faced overexploitation of water for a long time, and a water emergency was declared in the valley in 2010 by the regional government (Cárdenas-Panduro, 2012). The export boom in Ica, as in other coastal areas, has been characterised by the predominance of a few large-scale, high-tech companies that use modern precision irrigation techniques and equipment, and that export fruits and vegetables to various markets worldwide practically throughout the year (Muñoz and Zúñiga, 2018). The case of Ica is one of an apparent scarcity of water in a desert ecosystem. Due to its unique characteristics, a critical agro-export economic growth pole has been generated in the country. It is a case in which powerful economic incentives, stemming from a growing demand for fresh food from the international market, place substantial pressure on the water resource base at the regional and local levels.

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Agricultural development in the Andean countries  241 In the case of Ica, we identified ANA’s weakness and bias as the main governance problem. Under the current situation, the water authority is unable to control the rapid overexploitation of the aquifer amid an agro-export boom during the last two decades. ANA is not enforcing effective measures to control water overextraction as it shows conflicting interests as part of the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, an agency that pursues the expansion of the agro-export sector and at the same time collects fees based on water extraction. The Water Law failed to establish a multi-sector water authority, and this led to severe consequences, including a lack of multi-sector measures. Moreover, there is a lack of short-term and long-term societal coverage in these water decisions, which is critical to adopt a nexus approach to governance. It should also be noted that all water for human consumption in the province of Ica is extracted from the subsoil by public companies and local organisations that provide the service. Lessons and recommendations The new institutional framework for water management created by the 2009 Water Law presents both limitations and opportunities to address water management’s challenges from the point of view of the nexus in this particular context. This has been reflected in unsuccessful attempts to enforce the closed regimes’ basic norms for drilling wells and groundwater extraction in the face of significant drops in the water table. Another important element of the nexus is energy. The agro-export process has generated a considerable increase in the demand for energy to operate the groundwater pumping and distribution systems. The high profitability of large-scale agro-export activity has allowed companies to expand their groundwater extraction levels in recent years significantly. This, in turn, has led to a drop in the level of the aquifer and increasingly higher costs of energy. This situation affects other non-exporting users such as the thousands of small farmers (parceleros) that still operate in the valley and do not have the economic and technological resources to be able to extract water from the aquifer, generating growing tensions of access to this vital resource. A very specific new instrument created by the 2009 law was retribution for water use, a sort of bulk water tariff. Bulk tariffs are used to regulate the use of water by diverse and competing users within specific areas. Such tariffs are important mechanisms (if well designed) to manage externalities, improve coordination, and adequately plan water use. A good design of bulk water tariffs needs to consider private and public gains in water use and equilibrate a short- and long-run view with a clear eye in resource sustainability. Finally, it is urgent that water management policies also explicitly incorporate objectives of restoration and enhancement of key landscape resources for a territory in which the desertification process has accelerated dramatically. A valley in the middle of the desert presents an important potential for an alternative development with tourist and scenic attractions of great value. This requires concerted planning instruments that establish objectives of this type for the medium and long term. In a certain way, Ica cannot (and should not) tie its future only to agro-exports; it also has more diversified options where well-managed tourist services can be an interesting development option.

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242  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus 13.3.3 Ecuador: Important Water Infrastructure and Subsidised Water, But Still Inequitable Access Ecuador is considered a megadiverse country (Myers et al., 2000; Vasco-Pérez et al., 2015), crossed by the Andes mountain range from north to south, being the smallest country in the Andean zone. This mountainous condition allows a variety of microclimates, with extreme levels of precipitation throughout the year: 5200 mm in the Napo province, in the eastern part of the country, or 265 mm in the Santa Elena province, Pacific zone (INAMHI, 2017), where the water represents a decisive factor when developing agriculture; and if water availability improves, this province has a high agricultural potential for export (Proaño and Briones, 2008). New water regulation Since 2008, Ecuador has had a new constitution, where for the first time, a chapter for the rights of nature is established (Arts 71–74), setting a precedent in the region. Water is mentioned as part of the strategic sectors of the country, ‘considered as a strategic national patrimony for public use with an exclusively public or community water management’ (Asamblea Constituyente, 2008). Based on what is established in the constitution, the National Water Secretariat (SENAGUA) was created, including the Water Regulation and Control Agency and the Public Water Company (EPA). To guarantee citizen participation, regulations are generated for the formation of the different Water Administration Boards. The 2014 Organic Law on Water Resources promulgated the use of water, thus giving institutional and legal support to the water governance model, where the ‘State regulates the use and management of irrigation water for food production, under the principles of equity, efficiency and environmental sustainability’ (Registro Oficial, 2014). Despite having a defined water governance model, with an organisational and legal structure and with the participation of civil society, there have been several conflicts in the territory regarding access and use of water. In the case of Santa Elena, where most of the territory is communal land, the large farmers are located near water sources, leading to the displacement of peasant farmers towards marginal places (Rivadeneira and Proaño, 2009; Tuaza and Sáenz, 2014). In other parts of the country the industry damages the quality of the water used to irrigate crops (e.g. Pelileo canton). For instance, there have been registered conflicts due to discharges from the textile industry and farmers who demand a better quality of water for agriculture (Gamboa, 2015; Guato and Rumipamba, 2018). In addition, water conflicts are taking place between mining and residents who struggle to keep their water sources intact (Sánchez-Vázquez et al., 2016). These examples show that the governance model still has weaknesses. Urgent action needs to be taken by the authority, as well as more citizen participation. Absences allow a change in the priority of water use, with the conflicts already mentioned. Santa Elena province Traditionally, peasants of the province of Santa Elena (until 2007, part of the province of Guayas and currently organised in about 70 communes; GADSE, 2020), carried out low-input subsistence agriculture in the winter months between January and April, with short-cycle crops, such as pepper, melon, watermelon, and corn (Velasco and Tamayo, 2020). However, after the operation of the Daule–Santa Elena transfer in the 1980s, a rebound in agricultural activities began, both for the export and for domestic markets, as the use of thousands of

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Agricultural development in the Andean countries  243 hectares of dry forest was converted into agricultural land (Alvarez, 2001). Since then, the provision of water to the area has been increasing, for human consumption, agricultural irrigation, and industrial use, through the execution of different repowering projects of the Santa Elena Aqueduct Hydraulic Plan (PHASE), the last one still in progress (EPA, 2020a). The availability of water for agricultural use has generated a series of opportunities for the implementation of export crops (e.g. mango, guava, banana) and for the generation of employment for the inhabitants of the area. The water comes from the Chongón reservoir, which must be propelled through pumping stations to cross a small mountain range approximately 300 m high. During 2018, 225 hm3 was transferred, with significant energy consumption (EPA, 2020b). Although access to more water represents a development opportunity, it has also been a source of conflict. This happens when the priority of use established in the regulations is not respected, for example, when the agro-export sector is given higher priority than small community farmers. Within the policies to achieve self-sufficiency in food, between 2012 and 2014 the Comprehensive Project for Sustainable Agricultural, Environmental and Social Development of Ecuador (PIDAASSE) was implemented to provide development opportunities for community peasants on the peninsula of Santa Elena (MAG, 2020). This project incorporated nearly 6,000 hectares of communal lands to agricultural production, providing peasants with drip irrigation systems and so-called agricultural kits, mainly corn (MAG, 2018). The province of Santa Elena represents an agricultural potential due to its geographical conditions, soil, and climate. However, the water deficit is its main limitation. The water must be propelled from the Daule river to the Chongón reservoir (38 km), and then it is propelled about 50 km to reach the Azúcar and San Vicente reservoirs. This requires several pumping stations whose energy consumption according to the EPA (2020b) costs about USD 1.5 million a year. At the moment, the EPA is in charge of managing the water supply for the province, where different investments have been made for about USD 600 million. Since the last reissuing of the PHASE project, the government has proposed charging for water supply for agricultural irrigation. For this purpose, water administration boards have been formed, which also seek to improve water management. However, there is resistance by community peasants who refuse to pay the USD 0.01/m3 fee. Large producers (who have a high share of irrigation and a relatively high use of water per hectare) pay between USD 0.01 and 0.02/m3. Although this charge would allow the EPA to recover part of the operating costs, mostly energy for pumping, it does not cover the full cost of water (operating and maintenance) (Herrera et al., 2004), which is USD 0.1/m3; thus water is being highly subsidised by the state to small and large farmers. These water subsidies could be justified by creating employment from large farm operations and income in small ones, but their continuity is subject to political shifts. Lessons Ecuador has maintained a strong policy of energy subsidies for several decades, both for fossil fuels and electricity. In order to increase national income, recent governments have tried to reduce or focalise these subsidies, but they have not succeeded because it represents a political stronghold, which has prevented radical decisions from being taken (Peláez-Samaniego et al., 2007; Schaffitzel et al., 2020). Such subsidies stimulated excessive energy use, such as that occurring with food transport (Terneuz and Viteri-Salazar, 2020).

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244  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Ecuadorian governments have planned large multipurpose projects, such as the Baba and Chone (Registro Oficial, 2004). Between 2008 and 2018, several of these projects have been completed and pointed to as successful and emblematic (Presidencia del Ecuador, 2021). The multipurpose projects provide potential solutions to society’s different problems, such as flood control, irrigation in dry seasons, and hydropower development. However, these projects have been controversial (Sasso, 2009), they lack deep analysis and understanding of all impacts, and interdependences are present among WEFE under the framework of sustainability (Briones-Hidrovo et al., 2019; Hidalgo-Bastidas and Boelens, 2019). In Ecuador, the WEFE nexus analysis has not yet been approached comprehensively, so this approach would be an opportunity to improve the application of public policies and the development of long-term projects in a sustainable way. Agricultural production in Santa Elena is viable for large producers, at least partly due to the prevailing water subsidies. Large producers argue that such subsidies are justified on the grounds of the employment generated by them. Peasants manage to maintain agriculture throughout the year, thanks to the subsidised water and the government’s irrigation equipment provision (PIDAASSE project). In-depth nexus assessments to link the SDGs with farming viability remains lacking to the best of our understanding. Such an assessment would facilitate decisions regarding the future of export-oriented farming and profitability of alternative farming systems.

13.4

CONCLUSIONS: NEXUS THINKING FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN ANDEAN COUNTRIES

Andean countries face development challenges that depend crucially on the governance of land, water, and energy resources. The growth of export-oriented agriculture represents an opportunity to agricultural and economic development. However, this growth has also exposed tensions between water governance and agricultural and energy policies and initial efforts towards environmental protection. This chapter has presented the need for a nexus perspective in the context of weak institutions and high inequality by reviewing case studies in Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. It has illustrated the existing trade-offs and the potential for implementing a nexus governance approach in a developing-country context. From the review of these three countries and their nexus governance challenges in the context of agricultural development, a number of key recommendations emerged: ● Agricultural development policies need to be sustainable. Governments have made a significant investment in expanding irrigation infrastructure to capitalise on export opportunities. This expansion is bringing economic and employment growth and represents an opportunity for local development. However, for these benefits to be enjoyed by present but also future generations, the promoted agricultural development needs to be sustainable. WEFE-related policies are key to achieving this goal as long-term social, economic, and environmental goals are included and articulated in planning, budgeting, and resource allocation processes. In seeking economic opportunities, by for example developing export-oriented crops, the other elements of the nexus (i.e. water, energy, and the environment) should be taken into account to achieve a more sustainable development. From the

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case studies, it seems that at least one of these elements is not managed sustainably. Once the economic activity is established it seems that the political economy prevents changes that would hurt the export of these products. Therefore, the nexus view should be incorporated at the core of any development policy. Promoting a specific crop (e.g. corn in Santa Elena) in small producers must be analysed in the long term, considering that a greater flow of money in small economies does not always mean higher surplus, even more when the crops have high dependence on agricultural inputs (Viteri-Salazar et al., 2018). Stakeholder collaboration is key. From a governance point of view, the nexus approach does not really need new institutional structures or major restructuring. What is needed is a comprehensive collaboration between entities such as working networks or platforms supported by multi-sector policies, protocols, and procedures. Tensions between sectors competing for natural resources are growing. This is the case, for example, of big agribusinesses taking water and land that traditionally belonged to local small farmholders or communities. The increasing demand of natural resources versus projections of decreasing water availability requires an integrated resource management that allows increased efficiency but also considers equity and sustainability issues. Policy implementation needs to be coordinated. There is a disconnection between the national policies and the implementation at a local level. Social issues need to be part of the policy design process. In order to accomplish sustainability goals, social aspects also require attention and should be included in the planning processes (e.g. urban planning and irrigation development projects). Monitoring and enforcement are key to the success of policies. Although in some cases the right regulatory tools are in place to tackle issues related to water abstraction, the lack of monitoring and enforcement prevents these regulations from achieving the objectives they were designed for. This led to uncontrolled groundwater abstraction in some cases, threatening the sustainability of the water source and impacting other uses like water supply and sanitation services in cities nearby. In that sense, the effective application of the nexus approach requires, as a first and indispensable step, both strengthening the monitoring and information-generation programmes and consolidating and standardising existing databases. This will allow a better understanding of the state of the different components of the nexus, make comparisons between the different sectors, basins, or countries, and evaluate the impacts caused by the different uses of water resources and related ecosystems and water, energy, and food security (Embid and Martín, 2017). It is important to understand the unintended consequences of policies. Although subsidies in water or energy can help the most vulnerable population, it can also lead to unsustainable outcomes. Sometimes, these subsidies are captured by large firms and more powerful agents, increasing inequality.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The main inputs of this chapter are a product of the NEXT-AG project (Nexus Thinking for Sustainable Agricultural Development in Andean Countries) (NE/R015759/1), funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, United Kingdom and Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo, Chile.

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NOTE 1.

Authors’ calculations based on Chilean customs and ITC Trademap data.

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14. Management of the nexus in Australia Jamie Pittock, Mark Howden and Paul Wyrwoll

14.1

WHY AUSTRALIA?

In one of the nation’s most iconic poems, Dorothea Mackellar described Australia as a land of drought and flooding rains: extremes are, in a sense, the norm. Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth. As a continent nation of extremes of different types, there are tremendous threats from a changing climate as well as enormous opportunities from better management of water and in the production of energy and food (Pittock et al., 2013). How Australia manages these threats and opportunities will provide lessons for much of the rest of the world on how to better navigate the nexus of climate, energy, food and water (Pittock, 2013). To set the scene, the nature of the biophysical and socio-economic extremes are important to understand. Australia spans latitudes from 10° to 45° south, embracing large areas of the wet-dry tropics, an arid interior and the hydrologically difficult mid-latitudes. As a continent-nation surrounded by sea, the climate in general and precipitation in particular is highly variable and strongly influenced by such drivers as the El Niño Southern Oscillation and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). Under a warming climate, greater precipitation is anticipated in the sparsely populated north west of Australia. The projections for the heavily populated southern Australia are grim, with evidence for rain-bearing winter storms passing further and further south, bringing less precipitation to land (IPCC, 2014; Pittock, 2003). These trends are already evident, with major impacts. In the temperate zone, less rain and higher temperatures will be expressed as drastic reductions in stream inflows. Extreme droughts in recent decades have had severe impacts on agriculture and domestic water supplies, threatened water access for thermal power stations and badly impacted most sectors of society (Reisinger et al., 2014), as highlighted most recently by the firestorms of the summer of 2019–2020. Some of these impacts are shown in Figure 14.1. Australia is also an old, flat continent where areas of fertile soil suitable for highly productive agriculture and forests are limited. The focus for agriculture has been on extensive drylands in the south east. As a developed nation with few subsidies for agriculture, high labour costs generate pressures for farmers to become more efficient and more productive. The need to be more productive, and to adapt to farming in a highly variable and comparatively dry climate on poor soils, has driven Australian farmers to be highly innovative (Howden et al., 2007). In socio-economic terms Australia is unusual. As a developed nation of 25 million people its economy has a large share of energy-intensive primary industries. The relatively small but rapidly growing population means that a substantial portion of the country’s modest agricultural production is exported and subject to the vicissitudes of international commodity markets (Jackson et al., 2020), although climate change and population growth may reduce these exports. As with agriculture, the extensive mineral production is largely exported with limited further processing. Extensive coal, gas, iron ore and uranium resources underpin an economically and politically powerful extractive industries sector (DoEE, 2019). Historically, 250

Management of the nexus in Australia  251

Figure 14.1

Key projected climate change impacts on agriculture, energy and water in Australia

electricity production from coal-fired generators peaked at over 80 per cent of supply, in part explaining the climate policy wars that have beset Australia over the past quarter century (Burke et al., 2019). The drivers for economic productivity in this dry, old and sparsely populated exporting nation have favoured free market economic policies. The micro-economic reforms from the 1980s saw state-owned agricultural marketing, energy and water agencies corporatised, privatised and subject to anti-monopoly competition regulations (NCC, n.d.). In addition to land and mineral resources, a whole range of natural resources have increasingly been managed by issuing entitlements that may be traded, often within capped markets (Hollander and Curran, 2001). These resources include timber from public forests, fish and water. To illustrate the breadth of the application of markets to manage natural resources in Australia, in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), salinity pollution from agriculture in river systems is governed within a cap and trade market. Indeed, from 2012 to 2014, there was a cap and trade carbon market that was a casualty of political change (Crowley, 2017). Australia is also one of the world’s most urbanised nations and is a very multi-cultural country with high levels of immigration. Rural and regional areas are among the most socio-economically disadvantaged parts of the nation with relatively low incomes, poor health and often limited access to other services (Chan, 2018). A common lament is that Australia’s urban residents have decreasing connections to both the natural environment and regional Australia.

252  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Reconciliation with and improved livelihoods for Indigenous Australians is unfinished business in this settler nation. First Nations peoples now have title to a quarter of the Australian land area, creating both a management challenge and an opportunity to benefit from changing climate and energy policies and businesses (Pittock, 2011; Ross et al., 2009; Roughley and Williams, 2007). Indigenous water rights, on the other hand, are not meaningfully recognised nor realised in water policy and practice (Marshall, 2017). Politically, Australia is a federation of six states and two self-governing territories. Under Australia’s 1901 constitution, a limited range of policy fields were directly named as responsibilities of the Federal Government, and these do not include natural resources such as water or energy (Australian Government, 2012). However, the Federal Government can regulate businesses and legislate to implement Australia’s obligations under international agreements, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Australia’s compulsory voting system means that elections have authority but it also confers great influence on a small number of swing electorates. These marginal electorates include a number of regions with extensive agriculture and minerals industries, fuelling the climate wars (Mathiesen, 2019), helping make political change in relation to climate and environmental issues more difficult to resolve. Australia offers considerable lessons for other countries for managing the nexus of climate, energy, food and water, driven by the nation’s biophysical, socio-economic, institutional and political context. As an old, dry land subject to great climatic variability, Australia is both highly vulnerable to climate change and has great opportunities to better manage water, energy and food production. The socio-economic context has driven innovation for productivity and the potential to better exploit natural resources if the political tensions with disadvantaged regions and legacy industries can be managed. A historically strong public service and stable institutions have previously provided mechanisms for effective management of trade-offs. Politically, reform in the Australian federation is slow but the states provide opportunities to innovate in this polycentric governance structure. This assessment of the nexus of water, climate, energy and food policies updates and extends earlier work (Pittock et al., 2013) and the following sections lead to a synthesis of the lessons emerging from Australia for a ‘coherent’ system of governance of the nexus.

14.2

WATER POLICY

Water resources are highly unevenly distributed in space and time across the Australian continent (National Land and Water Resources Audit, 2000). Most surface water resources occur across northern Australia but are only available in the four to five months of the ‘summer’ wet season. Despite dreams of generations of Australian politicians, the flat landscape, poor soils and difficult climate mean that intensive agricultural development across the sparsely populated tropics has largely failed (Ash and Watson, 2018; Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce, 2009). The central Australian deserts have little and sporadic surface water but are underlain by some extensive aquifers of varying water quality. In south-western and south-eastern Australia, and along the Great Divide in the east, temperate and sub-tropical climates support largely permanent rivers. These regions are the focus of human settlement, agricultural production and thus energy generation and demand. Water availability in the temperate zone is subject to some of the greatest variation in the world, oscillating from extreme

Management of the nexus in Australia  253 droughts in El Niño years through to massive floods in La Niña times (Puckridge et al., 1998), leading to extensive dam and water distribution systems to try to even out water supply. This strategy has had substantial environmental costs and, as the Millennium Drought showed, has not removed climate risk for industries such as rice growing. Traditionally, Indigenous Australians had sophisticated systems for sustainably managing scarce and variable water resources, for example, with canals and traps for farming eels as a key food resource. As an example, the complex Budj Bim aquaculture system was created, manipulated and modified over a period of at least 6,600 years (UNESCO, 2019). The eighteenth-century British invaders quickly realised that their water governance institutions developed on the placid streams of Europe were utterly unsuited to managing water in Australia. Colonial politicians travelled to the United States in the 1890s to study water management and returned vowing never to adopt a system as perverse as the prior appropriation system of the western half of that nation. Instead, state systems of water entitlements were adopted that were largely based on shares of the available resource in any one year, providing for automatic adjustment of water extraction in drier years (Pittock, 2016). From the nineteenth century the ‘pioneering myth’ fuelled a development philosophy of government subsidies to develop dams and other infrastructure for irrigated agriculture, and to a lesser extent, hydropower. By the 1990s the major rivers in south-eastern Australia had been dammed, notably in the MDB, covering a seventh of the continent. The overallocation of water entitlements, exacerbated by drought, has created cyclical crises with toxic cyano-bacteria blooms, salinity and death of floodplain forests, mass death of fish, loss of irrigated agricultural crops and water supplies for towns. Centred on the MDB, these crises led to the adoption of economic and water governance reforms that have attempted to manage water within cap and trade markets, with implications for water use in other sectors (Connell, 2007). In 2020, the pioneering approach to water development is resurgent under the direction of a new National Water Grid Authority that proposes to subsidise major new water infrastructure projects (NWGA, 2020). Consequently, water policy in Australia is now dominated by three key debates, namely (Pittock, 2019): 1. allocation of water between irrigated agriculture – promoted by powerful agri-business interests – versus a range of other ecosystem services as part of the ongoing conflict between adherents of the ‘pioneering myth’ versus advocates of ‘limits to growth’ in Australia; 2. the ‘hydro-illogical cycle’ as a driver of reactive policy reform (for example, due to droughts) versus proponents of proactive, adaptive management of emerging threats and opportunities; and 3. subsidiarity in governance of the environment and natural resources in the Australian federation versus centralisation of water-related decision making, accounting and compliance. It is in this context that the water nexus with energy, food and climate policies is explored here. In the 1990s national micro-economic reforms saw state government water agencies separate policy and regulatory agencies from service providers. State-owned water service agencies were corporatised and many irrigation systems were privatised. Independent pricing tribunals now require water corporations to justify the public interest in any subsidies and impose user-pays fees for water entitlement holders (Abel et al., 2016). The success of this reform was in large part due to an economy-wide approach where water was just one of many

254  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus targeted sectors, support from major left and right political parties and large payments to state governments on implementation. This was followed up with the National Water Initiative of 2004 that further emphasised a user-pays approach to water investments and reinforced political commitments to water markets (Pittock et al., 2015). Water markets have also been established, focused on the MDB but also involving major surface and groundwater systems in other parts of Australia. In the MDB this resulted in water entitlements being separated from land titles and converted to more consistent shares, to enable trading. The market enables timely lease of water entitlements for a season or trade on a permanent basis with low transaction costs. This enables agricultural producers of high-value crops to readily acquire water from those using water for less economic return. This means, for example, that in a drought, producers of annual crops have the option of leasing their diminished share of the available water to a farmer who needs water to keep permanent tree crops alive. In this way, in the millennium drought a 67 per cent decline in water use from 2000–2001 to 2008–2009 was accompanied by only a 20 per cent decline in price-adjusted gross value of irrigated agricultural production (Kirby et al., 2014). These reforms have placed a price on water. Active water markets have developed in regions around large cities and in large river basins, like the Murray-Darling and Hunter, where water availability is limited and there are many competing users. The increasing linking of rivers and reservoirs with pipelines in ‘water grids’, such as in Victoria and south-eastern Queensland, extends the reach of these markets. This generates in part a common measure and potential for the market to use water pricing to mediate the nexus of water, agriculture and energy. Farmers now have a strong incentive to use water more efficiently in order to either expand production or to sell the unused portion of their water entitlement. Indeed, from 2014 to 2018 the gross value added of water consumed rose 8 per cent while water consumption fell by 7 per cent (ABS, 2020). Further, with global change, the market now enables access to water entitlements to change as readily as new crops, technologies and societal values, for example, with respect to energy technologies. However, these market signals do not necessarily address externalities nor is the system comprehensive in that other users (i.e. environment and urban) are often treated differently and via other mechanisms. Farming interests have sought policy protection against wealthier urban water users buying them out. Some energy generators are excluded from cap and trade water markets, such as coal seam gas extraction in Queensland. Other energy generators have bespoke agreements with governments, for example, the thermal power stations located on smaller rivers. Consequently, governance in the public interest cannot be left entirely to the markets. The marketisation of water has also changed governance institutions considerably. Water had been governed administratively by state water agencies who were often ‘captured’ by agricultural interests, and where processes were opaque and often idiosyncratic from river to river (Connell, 2007). As a tradeable right with a high economic value, there is now a much greater role in water accounting for law enforcement agencies, competition regulators and the tax office.

Management of the nexus in Australia  255 Yet, all is not well in paradise, with the MDB suffering from poor transitional arrangements in the adoption of cap and trade water markets, mistakes, perverse outcomes and poor administration, as outlined here: 1. Transition arrangements when the markets were established enabled little-used administrative water entitlements to be traded, exacerbating the overextraction of water from stressed rivers (Grafton and Horne, 2014; Young, 2010). 2. Insufficient water accounting is grounded in science, poor monitoring and limited public reporting that has enabled regulatory capture in some states and facilitated theft of water (Matthews, 2017). An independent report comparing the difference between expected versus observed MDB flows found that 22 per cent of water could not be accounted for (WGCS, 2020). 3. A government focus on ‘more crop per drop’ water efficiency programmes has failed to address the risk of double-counting return flows, further exacerbating water extractions from stressed rivers (Williams and Grafton, 2019). 4. There are increased energy costs for farmers following implementation of government water-efficiency programmes, for example, in converting gravity canals to reticulated pipes. 5. Water-efficiency programmes have replaced gravity-fed irrigation systems with reticulated systems drawing on grid electricity, thus contributing to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions given the predominance of fossil fuel electricity generation in the key states. 6. Queensland has failed to include extractive industries within the cap and trade water market. 7. There has been inadequate monitoring and regulation of other risks to shared surface and groundwater resources from changes in land and water use, such as from greater water storage on farms, expansion of tree plantations and regrowth of forests following fires (van Dijk et al., 2006). 8. Insufficient restrictions on ‘inter-valley transfers’ of water entitlements have resulted in environmental harm. 9. There has been a failure to implement to date complementary and promised environmental measures to reduce environmental harms, for example, reconnecting rivers to key floodplains to allow managed, overbank flows (WGCS, 2017) or ensuring flows at the mouth of the River Murray. 10. There are inadequate allocations to the environment. 11. Downstream users such as in South Australia have inadequate quantity and quality of water available. From these issues, our assessment is that Australia’s challenges in managing scarce water to sustain the environment while supporting agricultural and energy industries hold many lessons for better nexus governance. These lessons include: (1) identifying and addressing potential perverse outcomes in both transitional and permanent institutions; (2) undertaking robust, accurate and independent water resource measurement and monitoring; (3) maximising transparency and independent regulation to avoid corruption and regulatory capture; (4) enforcing user-pays policies to avoid subsidising low-value developments that favour sectional interests; and (5) including all sectors in the water cap so as to avoid carve-outs for growth industries, for example, for unconventional gas production.

256  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

14.3

WATER AND CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION POLICIES

For a country being severely impacted by climate change (Reisinger et al., 2014), Australia has been reticent to take decisive action on climate adaptation and mitigation, as outlined in these next two sections. Climate change adaptation policies have been neglected for a number of reasons. Some of those in favour of action on climate change have not wanted the political focus taken from emission reduction (mitigation) by conceding that adaptation is an option. Influential academics have argued that adaptation should be undertaken autonomously and that there is no need for policy intervention, epitomised in the influential report of climate policy by Garnaut, who stated: ‘Households and businesses will take the primary responsibility for the maintenance of their livelihoods and the things that they value’ (Garnaut, 2008). Extending this thinking, successive governments struggled to agree on the role of the Federal Government if climate change adaptation has to be locally contextual, considering that this is a responsibility of local, territory and state governments. On the contrary, there are strong arguments that the Federal Government has important roles for adaptation in providing technical information, benchmarking better practices, providing mandates for government agencies, supporting access to finance and implementation of adaptations in its own jurisdiction (Hussey et al., 2013). The lack of coherent support led to adoption by the state and federal governments of a ‘National climate resilience and adaptation strategy’ that is notable for its flowery rhetoric and lack of quantified measures, timelines and funding (Australian Government, 2015). The mounting frequency of severe storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves and fires as well as increasing stress on the agricultural sector and water resources is driving a number of state and more local governments to adopt more sophisticated climate adaptation policies. The Australian Capital Territory’s Climate Change Adaptation Strategy represents good practice, and is notable for the measures that involve water and energy (ACT Government, 2016). Two examples illustrate this integrated thinking. Sustainable urban drainage systems are beginning to be deployed to reduce stormwater runoff and funnel it to urban vegetation to help cool the city of Canberra. The Government of the Australian Capital Territory is also retrofitting public housing with better insulation and water-efficient devices, resulting in lower energy use and emissions, reduced health impacts from heatwaves and reduced expenditure for disadvantaged residents. Water policies have been less successful in considering climate change adaptation. During the millennium drought, the capital cities of southern Australia were caught out as urban water supplies ran low and resulted in the emergency construction of desalinisation plants. In the case of Sydney, these supply-side investments have proved costly, inefficient and premature (Grafton et al., 2015). They have also been branded as maladaptation for exacerbating GHG emissions through electricity use, disadvantaging poorer consumers, having a very high opportunity cost, creating a path dependency and reducing incentives to adapt further as this very expensive infrastructure is paid off through residential water tariffs (Barnett and O’Neill, 2010). The National Water Initiative sought to codify how to manage climate-induced losses when it assigned the cost of climate change to water users (Commonwealth of Australia et al., 2004). Yet this policy has created ambiguity by stating that governments must compensate water users for changes in policy. As the Federal Government asserted authority over water allo-

Management of the nexus in Australia  257 cations in the MDB from 2007, the Water Act (Commonwealth of Australia, 2008) requires consideration of climate change in decadal reviews. The good intentions of the Water Act were curtailed when a decision was taken to not make direct allowance for climate change impacts in the first subsidiary Basin Plan in 2012. The Federal Government had funded its science agency, CSIRO, to assess future water availability in the MDB. In the 40 years to 2030, CSIRO projections ranged from a 7 per cent increase to a 37 per cent decrease with a median loss of 12 per cent. In the 2010 Guide to the Basin Plan, the MDB Authority proposed to reduce water consumption by 3 per cent over a decade to account for expected climate-induced losses. It is important to note how much these reductions appear to have been underestimated: a report on ‘Impact of lower inflows on state shares under the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement’ recently found that the median inflows into the River Murray have approximately halved in the last 20 years when compared with the previous century with most of the reduction likely due to climate change (IIGMDBWR, 2020). By 2012, as political pressure mounted to reduce reallocation of water from agriculture, the authority argued that scientific uncertainty meant that adjustments for climate change should be postponed to the scheduled revision of the Basin Plan (now due in 2026) (Pittock, 2013), even though reductions in river flows in this region due to climate change are well established in the science literature (Reisinger et al., 2014). The authority further argued that the water entitlement system that reduces water diversions during drier years and increases environmental flows to sustain wetland ecosystems were adequate adaptation measures. The severe impacts of the 2018–2019 drought in the MDB on freshwater ecosystems and irrigated agriculture, and with dozens of towns running out of water, suggest that this confidence is misplaced. The common thread running through Australia’s policies since 2004 for adapting water management to a changing climate is a high-level statement of intent that lacks any coherent explanation of how it will be implemented. In the context of highly variable water availability overlying long-term climate change trends, the governments have not mapped out trigger points for more considered and timely adaptation decisions, whether it was to add desalination capacity for urban water supplies or to change rural water allocations. A number of the urban water utilities do now have such plans (e.g. Sydney). Yet for the MDB there remains a lack of clarity on thresholds of acceptable change for maintaining values, options for adaptation or agreed adaptation pathways. Many no-regrets and low-regrets adaptation options exist that could help sustain water-related values in the MDB (Lukasiewicz et al., 2013). As discussed below, climate-induced changes in technology raise new threats to sustainable water management. The lack of adaptation planning increases the risk that governments will yet again postpone decisions pending the elusive scientific certainty on impacts. At the time of writing, the Federal Government’s Productivity Commission is reviewing the National Water Initiative and asking how Australia’s volumetric-based water management plans can be made more flexible and adaptive as the climate changes. The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has proposed a number of measures that would improve adaptation planning. These begin with obvious, no-regrets measures such as regulating changes to land use that diminish stream inflows (e.g. farm dams, establishing new forests) and changing the ‘credit’ water-allocation scheme on some New South Wales rivers to a ‘debit’ system where only water in storage can be released. Other measures would be more innovative. Water entitlements could be automatically adjusted to reflect recent trends in water availability. Thresholds of acceptable change and trigger points to commence predetermined interventions along an adaptation pathway could be identified to enable more timely action. In southern

258  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Australia, where decreased water availability is anticipated, this would involve early triage planning to identify those environmental and socio-economic values that may not be sustained in a more water-constrained future. There are further measures for adapting to changing water availability with uncertainty. There is a need to identify and prevent potential developments that establish problematic path dependency, such as the growth of irrigated nut tree plantations. There could be development of agreements that safeguard public interests, such as adequate climate insurance or agreement to not seek public support in the case of extended drought. Developers could be required to pay environmental bonds to ensure avoidance of damage or to ensure rehabilitation in the case of cessation of activities vulnerable to climate change. From this situation, our assessment is that Australia’s limited innovations to manage scarce water in a changing climate holds lessons for better nexus governance. These lessons include: (1) identifying adaptation options and implementing no- and low-regrets measures; and (2) identifying thresholds of acceptable change and trigger points to commence predetermined interventions along an adaptation pathway.

14.4

CLIMATE MITIGATION AND ENERGY POLICIES

Australian scientists have been at the forefront of research to identify the causes, impacts and response options for managing climate change. However, powerful industry groups have aligned with climate-sceptic political leaders to stymie effective action to reduce Australia’s GHG emissions over the last three decades (see Wilkinson, 2020). These groups argue for the exploitation of extensive coal deposits in eastern Australia and the unconventional gas deposits that underly around a quarter of the continent (Geoscience Australia and BREE, 2012). Throughout United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, the Australian Government has argued that, as a resource-intensive economy, it should have latitude to defer mitigation efforts; for example, gaining agreement for a target in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol where emissions would rise by 8 per cent to 2012. Yet, outside the policy and politics there are many low-hanging fruit for reducing Australia’s emissions. Australia is a global hotspot for deforestation and has extensive areas of marginal lands where ecological restoration may sequester carbon (Hamilton and Vellen, 1999). Australia is one of the world’s most emissions-intensive economies on a per capita basis: in contrast to other rich countries, there are no national vehicle fuel-efficiency standards and energy sector GHG emissions are trending upward (DoEE, 2019). There are extensive opportunities for profitable investments in energy efficiency, electrification and a range of technologies and solutions to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 or earlier (ClimateWorks Australia, 2010). A key foundation for this dramatic but technically and economically feasible shift would be the continent’s abundant and widely dispersed tidal, wave, wind, solar and geothermal energy resources (Garnaut, 2019). The major barriers to reducing GHG emissions across Australia’s economy have been and continue to be political, as we now elaborate. Since 2007, there have been stillborn policy reforms, both successful and attempted policy reversals, and an overriding atmosphere of uncertainty and conflict surrounding Federal Government policy on renewable energy and climate change mitigation (Crowley, 2017). The political careers of prime ministers and leaders of the opposition have foundered as national climate and energy policy has been

Management of the nexus in Australia  259 determined by backroom politics rather than science and economics. Major energy and mining companies and their industry associations allied with a media conglomerate and climate change sceptics to influence and oppose federal policy (Wilkinson, 2020). The asymmetric power of vested interests in public discourse and the absence of transition planning have facilitated opposition to climate change mitigation in key marginal electorates with a high concentration of employment in coal industries; this local opposition has, in turn, amplified national political resistance to reform (Mathiesen, 2019). Proponents of change are yet to convince impacted workers and communities that a transition to renewable energy will provide them with good jobs. Yet, there are examples of leadership for renewables, with, for example, the conservative opposition leader in the state of Western Australia taking a policy to the 2021 election of closing coal-fired power stations by 2021. Surprisingly, the nexus of energy production and water has rarely featured in the public debate on climate policy. An exception is the alliance of environmentalists and farmers, known commonly as ‘Lock the Gate’, who have succeeded in galvanising public opposition to the expansion of coal seam gas, fracking and coal-mining developments because of their impacts on surface and groundwater. Despite all the politics, something quite remarkable is afoot in Australia’s electricity sector: a massive expansion of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power plants. Approximately 22.9 GW of large-scale wind and solar generation was installed by 2019, with 6.3 GW in 2019 alone (Clean Energy Regulator, 2020). Meanwhile, Australian households and businesses installed 10.3 GW of small-scale solar PV systems in 2019 (Clean Energy Regulator, 2020). This nascent renewable energy transition has seen Australian electricity generation from renewable energy sources (including hydropower) rise from 7.5 per cent in 2008–2009 to 20.9 per cent in 2019 (DISER, 2020a). Recently, for the first time, renewables met 100 per cent of South Australia’s electricity demand and their contribution to the National Electricity Market grid exceeded 60 per cent. In stark contrast to the relatively recent prevailing view that mitigating electricity sector emissions is expensive and hard, electrification is now recognised as a cheap source of emissions reductions across heating and cooling, transport, some industrial processes and across the economy (CWA, 2020a). The share of coal-fired electricity generation has fallen from 80 per cent in the mid-2000s to 56 per cent in 2019 (DISER, 2020a), a third of all coal-fired power stations closed between 2012 and 2017 and the remainder are projected to close within the next two decades (Burke et al., 2019). Falling costs of grid-scale battery storage, deployment of pumped hydropower and investments in new transmission and renewable energy zones will only mean deeper cuts in GHG emissions; the National Electricity Market operator’s five planning scenarios involve 42–65 per cent and 68–94 per cent reductions in emissions by 2030 and 2040, respectively (relative to 2005 levels) (AEMO, 2020). Coal-fired power stations are large users of water. How did all this happen? It did not result from long-term, integrated climate and energy policy at the national level. From 2007 there have been several attempts to put a price on GHG emissions. This culminated in 2011 with the adoption of a Clean Energy Act which included a price on carbon dioxide emissions that was repealed in 2014 following a change of government (Crowley, 2017). Concurrently, to appease fossil fuel interests, successive governments have invested heavily in carbon capture and storage research and pilot projects, to no commercial avail (Marshall, 2016). From 2013, conservative governments have used the controversial Emissions Reduction Fund to purchase lowest cost abatement in the form of Australian carbon credit units mainly from the land sector (Slezak, 2019).

260  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus The expansion of renewable energy generators and the closure of a number of the increasingly unreliable and ageing coal-fired power stations has seen the political debate focus on increasing supply reliability through energy storage and dispatchable power. The current Federal Government has invested heavily in pumped storage hydropower and is proposing to support more electricity generation from gas to maintain supply reliability (DISER, 2020b). Major shifts in the energy sector are creating opportunities. Coal mining for export and coal-fired power stations consume nearly 383,000 ML of water per year (Overton, 2020). Water is scarce in regions where the power stations are concentrated, such as in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales and the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. The closure of these power stations potentially releases large volumes of cooling water entitlements. In recent decades, political leaders resisting the adoption of policies to decarbonise the energy sector have focused on a series of distracting issues. The arguments that renewable energy was too expensive and unable to provide reliable electricity supply have been discredited as solar and wind generators have become cheaper and the proportional contribution to the grid greater. Public and private investments in batteries and pumped storage hydropower have demonstrated how to supply renewable electricity reliably. The most recent Federal Government policy proposal would see renewed subsidies for carbon capture and storage, increased investment in gas – supposedly as a ‘transition fuel’ and for ‘green steel’ production – and investment in hydrogen that may be produced from fossil fuels (DISER, 2020b). Meanwhile, more progressive state and territory governments are implementing ambitious climate change mitigation programmes. For example, the Australian Capital Territory has used reverse auctions to secure all of its electricity supply from renewable generators, and is now focusing on reducing emissions from transport and domestic gas users (Mason, 2020). South Australia now draws on solar and wind generators for more than 60 per cent of its demand and is aiming for 100 per cent renewable electricity supply by 2030 (Parkinson, 2019), noting that it is already achieving that now intermittently. Australia’s people and businesses may reduce the GHGs associated with its electricity supply despite the Federal Government. We consider that the unhappy history of climate change mitigation and energy policies in Australia holds a number of lessons: (1) practical, credible policies for transitioning employment and regional economies from fossil fuels to renewable energy need to be articulated to maintain public support; (2) when research and financial support have been provided to researchers and businesses by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and ‘green loans’ by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, great progress has been made in making renewable technologies commercially viable; (3) revision of energy market rules is needed to enable new entrants to compete on a more even basis; (4) reduction in the various hidden and open fossil fuel subsidies for coal and gas-based systems can make renewable energy more economically viable; (5) pumped storage, batteries and investment in better transmission lines make it possible to supply electricity on demand from renewable energy generators; and (6) in federal systems of government, sub-national governments can demonstrate good practice for climate change mitigation even where national governments fail to implement adequate policies.

Management of the nexus in Australia  261

14.5

FOOD POLICY

Food policy in Australia is covered by a combination of food and nutrition programmes of the Department of Health – which do not engage issues of production – and agricultural policies of the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. This discussion focuses on the agricultural policy in the nexus. Agriculture varies considerably across the continent, characterised by extensive pastoral production in the centre and the north, grain and livestock production in the temperate and sub-tropical ‘wheat-sheep’ zone and with intensive production focused in the east and south west. Australia exports 70 per cent of its agricultural production (Jackson et al., 2020). Agricultural policy in Australia has been largely bipartisan and influenced by non-economic considerations in support of the farming community (Botterill, 2016). Currently, the proposed framing is addressed in the Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper, touted as ‘We are lowering tax, cutting red and green tape, building infrastructure, encouraging trade, developing northern Australia, and supporting business to innovate and create jobs’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015: 11). The emphasis of the White Paper is on productivity, exporting produce and preparing farmers for drought. Climate change receives hardly any attention in the policy as opposed to ‘drought’, reflecting scepticism among many Australian Government leaders. An odd inconsistency in the perceptions of many conservative leaders in Australia is their focus on healthy soils for agriculture, climate change mitigation and adaptation, seeing this as a win-win-win for their constituency given the funding available from the Climate Solutions Fund. Similarly, energy is considered to a limited extent in the context of justifying removing climate change mitigation measures, purportedly to lower electricity prices. Water is extensively discussed with funding provided to plan major public infrastructure as well as on-farm water storages and efficiency projects. These water-focused measures have potentially many perverse impacts, including further subsidies for irrigated agriculture, significant environmental and cultural impacts and diminishing downstream river inflows. In essence, the current Australian agricultural policies overlook the nexus with climate and energy. In the context of rapidly mounting agricultural impacts of climate change (Hughes et al., 2019) this is unsustainable. There is a growing movement by farmers for change, as illustrated by the Farmers for Climate Action movement (https://​far​mersforcli​mateaction​.org​.au/​) and the change in 2020 of the peak industry body, the National Farmers Federation, in favour of a net-zero climate change policy along with effective climate adaptation. The agricultural water policies focused on increasing water storage and supply highlight the need for systems thinking to manage the nexus of water, climate change, energy and food production. For example, in southern Australia, climate change will broadly mean increased demand for water but reduced supply, leading to increased competition with other users, especially the environment and urban systems.

14.6

SHALL EVER THE TWAIN MEET?

Key interlinkages among the water, climate change, energy and food sectors in Australia can be summarised as shown in Table 14.1. The magnitude of some of these interlinkages is great, as with the 70 per cent of water diverted for agriculture. In other cases, while the volume may

262  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Table 14.1

Australian manifestations of the water, energy, food and climate nexus

Sector

Water

Energy

Food

Climate

Water

Australia is the driest inhabited

Thermal power plants

Agriculture uses 70% of

Decreases in surface water

continent on Earth.

consume 1.4% of total

total water extraction.

availability due to climate

water consumption in

change is acute in south-west

Australia.

Australia and increasingly problematic in the

Energy

Food

Water and waste water represent Australia generates 60%

Murray-Darling Basin. About a third of national

some 3% of total energy

of its electricity from coal, almost 2% of direct

emissions relate to electricity;

consumption. Approximately

and this portion is falling. energy consumption.

other stationary energy has

30% of Australian household

a share of almost 20% and

energy consumption is used to

transport 19%.

heat water. Recycled waste water supply use Biofuels has a share of in agriculture is negligible.

Australia is a major

1.6% of renewable energy food-exporting nation consumption.

Climate

Agriculture represents

Agriculture has a direct share of almost 13% of national

for a limited number of

emissions. On top of this,

commodities.

it indirectly adds to another

Climate change has

12%. Australians are among the

Climate change is expected

Climate change is

to decrease surface water in

increasingly impacting on decreased broadacre

southern Australia and may

hydropower and thermal

agriculture profitability

greenhouse gases per capita.

increase it in north-west

power generation.

by 22%.

Australia is highly vulnerable

Australia.

world’s greatest emitters of

to the impacts of climate change.

Source: BoM (2020); DISER (2020a); DoEE (2019); Hughes et al. (2019); IPCC (2014); Pittock et al. (2013); Radcliffe (2018).

be small, there are considerable risks, for example, in thermal power stations running out of water. Having now described the state and interactions among the water, climate change, energy and food sectors in Australia, the question now is whether there are institutions that are likely to integrate policies and practices across these sectors to seize positive synergies and minimise perverse outcomes to manage the nexus. Three domains that may play a role in a ‘coherent’ system of nexus governance are explored, namely the non-government community and research sectors, market mechanisms and government. 14.6.1 Community and Research Sectors The government policy paralysis in Australia has led to growing efforts by non-government stakeholders to find alternative ways of promoting change. Most recently, Hatfield-Dodds et al. (2015) modelled the energy-water-food nexus, land use and biodiversity, material flows and climate change to assess ecological pressures, population growth and living standards. They argued that with the right policy choices, economic outcomes can be decoupled from environmental performance. This builds on the neoliberal economic thinking that has dominated Australian policy since the 1990s in the energy and water markets. As described above, in water the introduction of markets saw entitlements purchased by farmers producing more valuable products and employing more people, leading to better socio-economic outcomes

Management of the nexus in Australia  263 with a supposedly capped water supply. In energy, the markets are increasingly enabling lower-cost solar and wind generators to displace fossil fuel generators. Well-regulated and linked markets may enable the environmental modernist’s dream of increasing societal benefits within planetary boundaries. A number of examples illustrate the potential for community-based reforms. Since the 1980s ‘Landcare’ groups of farmers have worked together to make their agricultural systems more sustainable, and in the process, improving water management, contributing to climate change mitigation (Robins, 2007) and reducing political conflict. The non-governmental organisations Transition Australia (https://​transitionaustralia​.net/​) and SEEChange (www​.see​-change​.org​ .au/​) are working to reduce the GHG footprint of their local communities with energy efficiency, renewable energy and other sustainability initiatives. There are a range of independent, third-party certification initiatives, such as that of the Water Stewardship Standard (https://​ a4ws​.org/​) that seeks to help businesses manage their water use more sustainably, including in the food and beverage sector. ClimateWorks Australia is a not-for-profit, independent boundary organisation supported by a philanthropic trust and a university. Its Land Use Futures programme seeks to work with the private sector, government, research and community organisations to co-create options for a system that has socio-economic benefits, produces nutritious food whilst meeting science-based goals for climate, biodiversity and natural capital. This work is linked to the global Food and Land Use Coalition. To achieve a sustainable and resilient food and land use system it proposes 10 ‘critical transitions’ (CWA, 2020b). ClimateWorks argues that its multi-stakeholder ‘roadmaps’ could lead to coalitions to implement these critical transitions. For instance, in its Natural Capital Roadmap it promotes measurement and valuation of natural capital, which would (among other things) integrate decisions around food production, water management and climate change responses. The question is whether these admirable community and academic efforts can amount to more than isolated best practice examples, or whether a critical mass will be reached in which these more sustainable practices become the norm without regulatory change or financial incentives. This may require transformational political change as discussed above. 14.6.2 Market Mechanisms The substantially deregulated nature of the water, energy and food sectors in Australia creates opportunities for businesses to profitably integrate better practices across the relevant sectors. This is happening in many respects. Solar and wind energy generators, increasingly backed up by batteries and pumped storage, and increasingly located in new regional energy precincts, may well accelerate the phase-out of coal-fired power and threaten gas as an energy source. The prospect of Australia as an energy superpower, exporting energy (electricity, ammonia and/or hydrogen) and energy-intensive products, may further drive more sustainable commercial solutions (Garnaut, 2019). At the same time this will free up water for other uses. In agriculture, the drive for further productivity, reliance on energy-intensive equipment and the volumetric price on water combine to provide a significant incentive for further innovation to reduce energy and water use. While the Emission Reduction Fund and voluntary carbon-offset markets provide a weak signal, a government-backed carbon market could provide an extra income stream to enable farmers to sequester more carbon in the landscape

264  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus and undertake other mitigation measures. The removal of subsidies such as the diesel fuel rebate would accelerate efficiencies but also free up taxpayer funds for other purposes. Markets in Australia through prices on water and energy are beginning to promote more rigorous management of this nexus, but the lack of a price on GHG emissions highlights the need for further government policy reform to maximise synergies and minimise perverse outcomes. 14.6.3 Government Sound governance of this multi-sectoral nexus is a challenge for governments that are typically comprised of separate sectoral agencies that usually operate in an adversarial mode. Pittock (2010a, 2010b) proposed that effective cross-sectoral governance requires six institutions, namely: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Leaders who are champions for a ‘coherent’ system of nexus governance. Legal mandates that require and enable sectoral agencies to engage with other sectors. Horizontal integration institutions for coherent cross-sectoral governance. Vertical integration institutions for coherent cross-scale governance, from local to national governments. 5. Third-party accountability mechanisms, both inside and outside government, to monitor, report and hold government programmes to account. 6. Institutions that provide information fit for purpose for decision making, decision-relevant research and development and capacity building.

Here we assess the extent to which coherent nexus governance is practised for the water, climate change, energy and food sectors focused on the Federal Government and its vertical interactions with the state governments (Table 14.2). Leadership has been lacking or inconsistent due to changes of government and policy direction. Australian governments have considered more active management of the nexus (PMSEIC, 2010) but have not followed through. During the Labour government from 2007 to 2013 there was a concerted effort to adopt a climate change policy consistent with global requirements, decarbonise the energy sector and reform water management. These incipient efforts have since been wound back due to the politics around the MDB water allocations and the climate change policy wars. Few federal political leaders are vocal champions for sustainability reforms across these sectors. The legal mandates for sectoral agencies to engage other sectors are patchy. Some laws require consideration of sustainability and climate change, such as for water governance. Yet in the energy sector, climate change mitigation is being diluted as an objective by the emphases on affordability and reliability apparently as a justification for continued fossil fuel use. Australian governments place great emphasis on whole-of-government (horizontal) coordination of policies and programmes. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet have a lead role in ensuring coordination. Cabinet sub-committees, interdepartmental committees and task forces are common mechanisms such that, with firm direction, the mechanisms exist for the public service to implement a coherent system of nexus management. Previously, the Australian Greenhouse Office and the Department of Environment and Climate Change were examples where horizontal coordination occurred including across the nexus issues. There has also been a moderately successful system of vertical integration, with a series of federal and state government sectoral committees that play roles in sharing information on good practices,

National Water Initiative (2004), Commonwealth

Water Act (2008) and subsidiary Murray-Darling

Commonwealth

institutional mandate

Poor

change. Poor

Moderate

Active integration is practised across government

agencies but has been insufficient to fully

implement policies.

Commonwealth

horizontal integration

Effective integration is practised across government agencies to implement inadequate policies

Effective integration is practised across government agencies to implement inadequate policies.

Effective integration is practised across government agencies to implement inadequate policies.

previous departmental structures.

but this has gone backwards from

Moderate

programme.

inadequate climate adaptation Moderate

Moderate

fossil fuels.

Political commitment to implementing all elements No commitment to change from use of No overarching vision evident.

of agreed water reforms is waxing and waning.

Poor

leadership

Inconsistent commitment and an

are increasing.

Corporation have effected positive Poor

required. Emissions from core sectors

Agency and Clean Energy Finance

Commonwealth

state government institutions.

address climate change as quickly as

focus on ad hoc elements like drought frequently and are insufficient to

frequently and are ad hoc. The which lack comprehensiveness.

Federal policies have changed

No overarching federal policies –

Federal policies have changed

Climate Poor

Food Poor

Energy Poor

Basin Plan provide sound mandates for federal and Australian Renewable Energy

Water

Good

Policy sector

Synthesis of Australian Commonwealth and national governance institutions for integrated management of the water, energy, food and climate sectors

National and/or

Table 14.2

Management of the nexus in Australia  265

ambitious policies to change to use of component by component, e.g. on

Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council) but

Commission and Australian National government to account.

of accountability institutions to hold government to account.

Productivity Commission, Australian National

Audit Office, interim MDB Inspector-General

Source:

of accountability institutions to hold

exist, including the Productivity

Inadequate policies limit the ability

Accountability institutions exist, including the

accountability

Based on the framework of Pittock (2010a, 2010b) with sectoral governance attributes assessed as poor, moderate or good by the authors.

effect change.

Commission. However, they have been unable to

Audit Office.

Inadequate policies limit the ability

Accountability institutions

Poor

engender state compliance. Moderate

Independent

and Australian Competition and Consumer

Poor

development. Moderate

renewable energy.

there are insufficient incentives and penalties to

biosecurity, agricultural research and mitigation and adaptation.

ambitious policies for climate change

Progressive states are implementing

Federal–state collaboration evident

Progressive states are implementing

Institutions exist for federal–state integration (e.g.

vertical integration

Climate Poor

Food Moderate

Energy Poor

Water

Moderate

Policy sector

Commonwealth–state

266  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Management of the nexus in Australia  267 and developing and communicating new policies. It is unclear at the time of writing whether the change to first ministers meeting in a more operational National Cabinet (that excludes local government representation) from the COVID crisis will improve cooperation over the former Council of Australian Governments. There is a plethora of third-party accountability mechanisms but their powers are often limited or rely upon moral persuasion. In government, the Australian National Audit Office and the Productivity Commission frequently produce critical reports and recommend reforms in these sectors, but their findings are often ignored by government. A similar fate befalls many advisory processes, such as the national State of the Environment reporting process. The limited ability of third parties to challenge government decisions in the courts, in the few successful cases, can have a major impact on government policy and practice. Analysis of national (federal plus state) policies in Australia concluded that they succeed under very limited circumstances. These include when there was (Pittock et al., 2015): (1) a focus on a national issue perceived to be urgent; (2) agreement for reform by major political parties; (3) federal funding to pay for state government implementation; (4) active stakeholder support; (5) significant short-term economic benefits; (6) agreement on core principles and systemic legislative reform with incremental implementation over a number of years; (7) reporting to federal and state leaders; and (8) a core role for central government agencies rather than delegation to an environment department. While long-term benefits of policy reform may be the objective, significant short-term economic benefits were needed to gain acceptance by state governments and other stakeholders.

14.7 LESSONS This assessment of interactions among the water, climate change, energy and food sectors in Australia has asked whether there are institutions that are likely to integrate policies and practices across these sectors to seize positive synergies and minimise perverse outcomes. Australia desperately needs to better manage the impacts of climate change on its scarce water resources and valuable agricultural industries while transitioning from fossil fuels, to exploit its abundance of renewable energy resources. This case study has highlighted that perceptions of need are not yet enough to develop a ‘coherent’ system of nexus governance. A number of lessons emerge from this examination of sustainability measures in the four sectors, including that successful nexus reform requires the following: 1. practical, credible policies for transitioning employment and regional economies impacted by reforms to maintain public support, including co-design with stakeholders to increase legitimacy and practicality; 2. transparency and independent regulation to avoid corruption and regulatory capture; 3. user-pays policies to avoid subsidising low-value developments that favour sectional interests and have perverse impacts (e.g. to avoid subsidies for the construction of environmentally damaging dams for low-value irrigated crop production); 4. implementing no- and low-regrets adaptation measures; 5. identifying thresholds of acceptable change and trigger points to commence predetermined interventions along an adaptation pathway; 6. developing financial mechanisms to support reform;

268  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus 7. effective information systems for planning, monitoring and evaluation and compliance; and 8. decision-relevant research and development. In the brief period (2012–2014) when Australia had market-based prices on all of electricity, water and GHG emissions there were promising signs that the markets were beginning to drive more efficient uses of natural resources. This has since dissipated. Further, Australia as a federal system of government illustrates how sub-national governments can innovate and demonstrate good practices where national governments fail to implement adequate policies akin to what has been happening in the United States with climate change policies and action. This presents a moral hazard where the national government can free-ride off the efforts of the states. Australia demonstrates that the admirable efforts of community groups and researchers for more integrated nexus management needs the support of political leaders and market mechanisms to agree on economic-environmental-social values and guide policymaking.

REFERENCES Abel, N., R.M. Wise, M.J. Colloff, B.H. Walker, J.R.A. Butler, P. Ryan et al. (2016), ‘Building resilient pathways to transformation when “no one is in charge”: Insights from Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin’, Ecology and Society, 21 (2), 23. ABS (2020), Water Account, Australia 2017–2018, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.abs​.gov​.au/​statistics/​environment/​environmental​-management/​water​ -account​-australia/​2017​-18. ACT Government (2016), ACT Climate Change Adaptation Strategy: Living with a Warming Climate, Canberra: ACT Government, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.environment​.act​.gov​.au/​_​_data/​ assets/​pdf​_file/​0004/​912478/​ACT​-Climate​-Change​-Adaptation​-Strategy​.pdf. AEMO (2020), 2020 Integrated System Plan (ISP) Chart Data, Canberra: Australian Energy Market Operator, accessed 10 February 2021 at aemo​.com​.au/​energy​-systems/​major​-publications/​integrated​ -system​-plan​-isp/​2020​-integrated​-system​-plan​-isp​#Final​%202020​%20ISP. Ash, A. and I. Watson (2018), ‘Developing the north: Learning from the past to guide future plans and policies’, The Rangeland Journal, 40 (4), 301–314. Australian Government (2012), The Constitution, Canberra: Australian Government, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.aph​.gov​.au/​about​_parliament/​senate/​powers​_practice​_n​_procedures/​ constitution. Australian Government (2015), National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy, Canberra: Australian Government, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.environment​.gov​.au/​climate​-change/​ adaptation/​strategy. Barnett, J. and S. O’Neill (2010), ‘Maladaptation’, Global Environmental Change, 20 (2), 211–213. BoM, 2020. Water in Australia 2018–19, Melbourne: Bureau of Meteorology, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.bom​.gov​.au/​water/​waterinaustralia/​. Botterill, L.C. (2016), ‘Agricultural policy in Australia: Deregulation, bipartisanship and agrarian sentiment’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 51 (4), 667–682. Burke, P.J., R. Best and F. Jotzo (2019), ‘Closures of coal-fired power stations in Australia: Local unemployment effects’, Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 63 (1), 142–165. Chan, G. (2018), Rusted off, Sydney: Penguin Random House. Clean Energy Regulator (2020), The Acceleration of Renewables Delivered in Australia in 2019, Canberra: Australian Government Clean Energy Regulator, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.​cleanenerg​ yregulator​.gov​.au/​DocumentAssets/​Documents/​The​%20Renewable​%20Energy​%20Target​%202019​ %20Administrative​%20Report​%20​%E2​%80​%93​%20The​%20acceleration​%20in​%20renewables​ %20delivered​%20in​%202019​.pdf.

Management of the nexus in Australia  269 ClimateWorks Australia (2010), Low Carbon Growth Plan for Australia, Clayton: ClimateWorks Australia, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.c​limatework​saustralia​.org/​resource/​low​-carbon​-growth​ -plan​-for​-australia/​. Commonwealth of Australia (2008), Water Act 2007, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.legislation​.gov​.au/​Details/​C2017C00151. Commonwealth of Australia (2015), Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.agriculture​.gov​.au/​ag​ -farm​-food/​agriculture​-white​-paper. Commonwealth of Australia, Government of New South Wales, Government of Victoria, Government of Queensland, Government of South Australia, Government of the Australian Capital Territory and Government of the Northern Territory (2004), Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Water Initiative, Council of Australian Governments, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.agriculture​.gov​ .au/​water/​policy/​nwi. Connell, D. (2007), Water Politics in the Murray-Darling Basin, Leichardt: The Federation Press. Crowley, K. (2017), ‘Up and down with climate politics 2013–2016: The repeal of carbon pricing in Australia’, WIREs Climate Change, 8 (3), e458. CWA (2020a), Decarbonisation Futures: Solutions, Actions and Benchmarks for a Net Zero Emissions Australia, Clayton: ClimateWorks Australia, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​ .c​ limatework​ saustralia​.org/​resource/​decarbonisation​-futures​-solutions​-actions​-and​-benchmarks​-for​-a​-net​-zero​ -emissions​-australia/​. CWA (2020b), Global Food and Land Use Transitions: Challenges and Opportunities for Australia, Melbourne: ClimateWorks Australia. DISER (2020a), Australian Energy Update 2020: Australian Energy Statistics, Canberra: Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. DISER (2020b), Technology Investment Roadmap: First Low Emissions Technology Statement – 2020, Canberra: Department of Industry, Science Energy and Resources. DoEE (2019), Australian Energy Update 2019, Canberra: Department of the Environment and Energy. Garnaut, R. (2008), The Garnaut Climate Change Review: Final Report, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Garnaut, R. (2019), Superpower: Australia’s Low-Carbon Opportunity, Melbourne: Black Inc. Geoscience Australia and BREE (2012), Australian Gas Resource Assessment 2012, Canberra: Geoscience Australia and Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.ga​.gov​.au/​webtemp/​image​_cache/​GA21116​.pdf. Grafton, R.Q. and J. Horne (2014), ‘Water markets in the Murray-Darling Basin’, Agricultural Water Management, 145, 61–71. Grafton, R.Q., L. Chu and T. Kompas (2015), ‘Optimal water tariffs and supply augmentation for cost-of-service regulated water utilities’, Utilities Policy, 34, 54–62. Hamilton, C. and L. Vellen (1999), ‘Land-use change in Australia and the Kyoto Protocol’, Environmental Science and Policy, 2 (2), 145–152. Hatfield-Dodds, S., H. Schandl, P.D. Adams, T.M. Baynes, T.S. Brinsmead, B.A. Bryan et al. (2015), ‘Australia is “free to choose” economic growth and falling environmental pressures’, Nature, 527 (7576), 49–53. Hollander, R. and G. Curran (2001), ‘The greening of the grey: National competition policy and the environment’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 60 (3), 42–55. Howden, S.M., J. Soussana, F.N. Tubiello, N. Chhetri, M. Dunlop and H. Meinke (2007), ‘Adapting agriculture to climate change’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 19691–19696. Hughes, N., D. Galeano and S. Hattfield-Dodds (2019), The Effects of Drought and Climate Variability on Australian Farms, Canberra: Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.agriculture​.gov​.au/​abares/​products/​insights/​effects​-of​-drought​-and​-climate​ -variability​-on​-Australian​-farms. Hussey, K., R. Price, J. Pittock, J. Livingstone, S. Dovers, D. Fisher and S. Hatfield-Dodds (2013), Statutory Frameworks, Institutions and Policy Processes for Climate Adaptation: Do Australia’s Existing Statutory Frameworks, Associated Institutions and Policy Processes Support or Impede National Adaptation Planning and Practice?, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility,

270  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus accessed 11 February 2021 at nccarf​.edu​.au/​statutory​-frameworks​-institutions​-and​-policy​-processes​ -climate​-adaptation​-do​-australias/​. IIGMDBWR (2020), Impact of Lower Inflows on State Shares under the Murray–Darling Basin Agreement, Canberra: Interim Inspector-General of Murray–Darling Basin Water Resources, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.aph​.gov​.au/​DocumentStore​.ashx​?id​=​7ea20400​-0b4e​-4ef3​-868d​ -b2843aeba347​&​subId​=​680172. IPCC (2014), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, Part B: Regional Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, V.R. Barros, C.B. Field, D.J. Dokken, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, T.E. Bilir et al. (eds), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackson, T., K. Zammit and S. Hatfield-Dodds (2020), Snapshot of Australian Agriculture 2020, Canberra: Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.agriculture​.gov​.au/​abares/​products/​insights/​snapshot​-of​-australian​-agriculture​ -2020. Kirby, M., R. Bark, J. Connor, M.E. Qureshi and S. Keyworth (2014), ‘Sustainable irrigation: How did irrigated agriculture in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin adapt in the Millennium Drought?’, Agricultural Water Management, 145, 154–162. Lukasiewicz, A., C.M. Finlayson and J. Pittock (2013), Identifying Low Risk Climate Change Adaptation in Catchment Management While Avoiding Unintended Consequences, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, accessed 11 February 2021 at openresearch​-repository​.anu​.edu​.au/​ handle/​1885/​65434. Marshall, J.P. (2016), ‘Disordering fantasies of coal and technology: Carbon capture and storage in Australia’, Energy Policy, 99, 288–298. Marshall, V. (2017), ‘Overturning aqua nullius: Pathways to national law reform’, New Directions, 221. Mason, B. (2020), The ACT Is Now Running on 100 Renewable Electricity, Crows Nest: SBS News, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.sbs​.com​.au/​news/​the​-act​-is​-now​-running​-on​-100​-renewable​ -electricity. Mathiesen, K. (2019), Australia’s Coal Communities, Ignored by Labor, Deliver Brutal Election Defeat, London: Climate Home News, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.climatechangenews​.com/​2019/​05/​ 20/​australias​-coal​-communities​-ignored​-labor​-deliver​-brutal​-election​-defeat/​. Matthews, K. (2017), Independent Investigation into NSW Water Management and Compliance: Final Report, Sydney: NSW Department of Industry, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.industry​.nsw​ .gov​.au/​_​_data/​assets/​pdf​_file/​0019/​131905/​Matthews​-final​-report​-NSW​-water​-management​-and​ -compliance​.pdf. National Land and Water Resources Audit (2000), Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000: Surface Water and Groundwater – Availability and Quality, Canberra: Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.bom​.gov​.au/​water/​awra/​2000​ -assessment​.pdf. NCC (n.d.), National Competition Policy: Major Areas for Reform, Canberra: National Competition Council, accessed 11 February 2021 at ncp​.ncc​.gov​.au/​pages/​reform. Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce (2009), Sustainable Development of Northern Australia, Canberra: Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, accessed 11 February 2021 at apo​.org​.au/​sites/​default/​files/​resource​-files/​2010​-02/​apo​-nid159366​ .pdf. NWGA (2020), The National Water Grid: Investing in Australia’s Water Future, Canberra: National Water Grid Authority, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.nationalwatergrid​.gov​.au/​sites/​default/​ files/​documents/​the​-national​-water​-grid​-investing​-in​-australias​-water​-future​.pdf. Overton, I.C. (2020), Water for Coal: Coal Mining and Coal-Fired Power Generation Impacts on Water Availability and Quality in New South Wales and Queensland, Melbourne: Australian Conservation Foundation, accessed 11 February 2021 at apo​.org​.au/​sites/​default/​files/​resource​-files/​2020​-04/​apo​ -nid303605​.pdf. Parkinson, G. (2019), ‘South Australia’s stunning renewable energy transition, and what comes next’, Renew Economy, 5 November, accessed 11 February 2021 at reneweconomy​.com​.au/​south​-australias​ -stunning​-renewable​-energy​-transition​-and​-what​-comes​-next​-79597/​.

Management of the nexus in Australia  271 Pittock, A.B. (2003), Climate Change: An Australian Guide to the Science and Potential Impacts, Canberra: Australian Greenhouse Office. Pittock, B. (2011), ‘Co-benefits of large-scale renewables in remote Australia: Energy futures and climate change’, The Rangeland Journal, 33 (4), 315–325. Pittock, J. (2010a), Integrating Management of Freshwater Ecosystems and Climate Change, Canberra: Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.researchgate​.net/​publication/​258844873​_Integrating​_management​_of​_freshwater​ _ecosystems​_and​_climate​_change. Pittock, J. (2010b), ‘A pale reflection of political reality: Integration of global climate, wetland, and biodiversity agreements’, Climate Law, 1 (3), 343–373. Pittock, J. (2013), ‘Lessons from adaptation to sustain freshwater environments in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 4 (5), 429–438. Pittock, J. (2016), ‘The Murray-Darling Basin: Climate change, infrastructure and water’, in C. Tortajada (ed.), Increasing Resilience to Climate Variability and Change, Singapore: Springer, pp. 41–60. Pittock, J. (2019), ‘Are we there yet? The Murray-Darling Basin and sustainable water management’, Thesis Eleven, 150 (1), 119–130. Pittock, J., K. Hussey and S. McGlennon (2013), ‘Australian climate, energy and water policies: Conflicts and synergies’, Australian Geographer, 44 (1), 3–22. Pittock, J., K. Hussey and S. Dovers (2015), ‘Ecologically sustainable development in broader retrospect and prospect: Evaluating national framework policies against climate adaptation imperatives’, Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 22 (1), 1–15. PMSEIC (2010), Challenges at Energy-Water-Carbon Intersections, Canberra: Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, accessed 11 February 2021 at web​.science​.unsw​.edu​ .au/​~matthew/​FINAL​_EnergyWaterCarbon​.pdf. Puckridge, J.T., F. Sheldon, K.F. Walker and A.J. Boulton (1998), ‘Flow variability and the ecology of large rivers’, Marine and Freshwater Research, 49 (1), 55–72. Radcliffe, J.C. (2018), ‘The water energy nexus in Australia: The outcome of two crises’, Water-Energy Nexus, 1 (1), 66–85. Reisinger, A., R.L. Kitching, F. Chiew, L. Hughes, P.C.D. Newton, S.S. Schuster, A. Tait and P. Whetton (2014), ‘2014: Australasia’, in V.R. Barros, C.B. Field, D.J. Dokken, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, T.E. Bilir et al. (eds), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, Part B: Regional Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robins, L. (2007), ‘Major paradigm shifts in NRM in Australia’, International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 7 (4), 300–311. Ross, H., Grant, C., Robinson, C.J., Izurieta, A., Smyth, D. and P. Rist (2009), ‘Co-management and Indigenous protected areas in Australia: Achievements and ways forward’, Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 16 (4), 242–252. Roughley, R. and S. Williams (2007), The Engagement of Indigenous Australians in Natural Resource Management: Key Findings and Outcomes from Land and Water Australia and the Broader Literature, Canberra: Land and Water Australia, accessed 11 February 2021 at https://​library​.dbca​.wa​ .gov​.au/​static/​FullTextFiles/​070634​.pdf. Slezak, M. (2019), Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund Is Failing to Deliver, Government Data Shows, Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.abc​.net​.au/​ news/​2019​-06​-17/​australian​-emissions​-reduction​-fund​-data​-analysis. UNESCO (2019), Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, accessed 11 February 2021 at whc​.unesco​.org/​en/​list/​1577/​. van Dijk, A., R. Evans, P. Hairsine, S. Khan, R. Nathan, Z. Paydar, N. Viney and L. Zhang (2006), Risks to the Shared Water Resources of the Murray-Darling Basin, Canberra: Murray-Darling Basin Commission, accessed 11 February 2021 at www​.clw​.csiro​.au/​publications/​wate​rforahealt​hycountry/​ 2006/​Risks​SharedWate​rResources​.pdf. WGCS (2017), Review of Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin, Sydney: Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, accessed 11 February 2021 at wentworthgroup​.org/​2017/​11/​review​-of​-water​ -reform​-in​-the​-murray​-darling​-basin/​2017/​.

272  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus WGCS (2020), Assessment of River Flows in the Murray-Darling Basin: Observed versus Expected Flows under the Basin Plan 2012–2019, Sydney: Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, accessed 11 February 2021 at wentworthgroup​.org/​2020/​09/​mdb​-flows​-2020/​2020/​. Wilkinson, M. (2020), The Carbon Club, Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Williams, J. and R.Q. Grafton (2019), ‘Missing in action: Possible effects of water recovery on stream and river flows in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’, Australasian Journal of Water Resources, 23 (2), 1–10. Young, M.D. (2010), Environmental Effectiveness and Economic Efficiency of Water Use in Agriculture: The Experience of and Lessons from the Australian Water Reform Programme, Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

15. Innovations on the nexus for development and growth in the south Mediterranean region Sanaa Zebakh, Fadi Abdelradi, Essam Sh. Mohamed, Omar Amawi, Mohamed Sadiki and Ali Rhouma

15.1 INTRODUCTION The Mediterranean countries face water scarcity and salinity, decline of resource efficiency and deterioration of ecosystems which are exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. The southern and eastern part of the Mediterranean region has become more fragile in terms of food security and an increase in undernourishment is observed due mainly to regional crises and conflicts (FAO and CIHEAM, 2015). The total population size in the Mediterranean area is increasing from 270 million people in 1970 to reach 570 million in 2030. In parallel, the demand for natural resources and food is projected to grow exponentially in the coming years. By 2050, the total water withdrawals are expected to double in the south and eastern Mediterranean (SEM) countries due to a decrease of 30–50 percent of freshwater availability (Milano et al., 2013). These countries must cope with the combination of demographic growth and diet changes to face the future food demand (FAO and CIHEAM, 2015). Furthermore, according to the Mediterranean observatory for energy, the energy consumption is projected to double between 2010 to 2030 (Lenzi, 2016). Weak governance and large implementation gaps exist across most sectors of the economy (including water, energy and food), aggravated by a lack of policy coherence in the SEM countries. Considering this context, there is an urgent need to work on the Mediterranean resource’s integrated management across the sectors of water, energy, food and ecosystems (WEFE) and build on more innovative solutions to achieve their sustainability. The water, energy and food (WEF) sectors have historically been managed independently from each other in the Mediterranean region, with limited considerations of cross-sectoral interactions. Shortages of WEF potentially harms economic and business development and also compromises social well-being. A perspective towards integrated water resource management (IWRM) has been introduced during the past few decades in some countries. However, the implementation of IWRM practices has not advanced much in the SEM countries (Oweis, 2012). Several research and innovation actions have been implemented during the past decades in the water and energy sectors which are seen as economy drivers (IRENA, 2016; OECD, 2016). Also, integrated approaches in the agro-food sector have been supported (water-food nexus, water-energy nexus and food-energy nexus). In parallel, progress has been achieved in testing and implementing integrated approaches through economic instruments, as well as public policy and institutional arrangements. Fortunately, there are emerging signs that society (including the public and private sectors and non-governmental organizations) start to work and focus their efforts to cope with resource scarcity. Competition for WEF has motivated stakeholders towards partnerships for innovation and technology investments. Beyond 273 Sanaa Zebakh

Fadi Abdelradi

Essam Sh

Mohamed

Omar Amawi

Mohamed Sadiki

274  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus different developed technologies, several organizations have innovated on how they address the nexus issue (Hertel and Lui, 2016). Technological and social innovations along the WEF nexus should focus on: ● optimizing the use and efficiency of WEF resources; ● ensuring resource security at national and global levels, including access to WEF to address environmental change and adapt societies to change; ● enabling the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), allowing support for decision making with proper monitoring of progress with relevant indicators; and ● consolidating integrated infrastructure for supporting multiple sectors and enhancing the opportunities and benefits of innovative technologies. In this chapter, we explore which innovations along the WEF nexus could mitigate the Mediterranean particularity in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries. The chapter addresses the following questions: ● What is the dynamic progress in the south Mediterranean countries that enabled the implementation of the WEFE nexus? ● What are the main technological innovations in the WEFE nexus that are implemented in the south Mediterranean countries? ● How do innovations boost the effective implementation of the WEFE nexus technologies in the south Mediterranean countries? ● To what extent did transboundary cooperation on science and technology (S&T) in the frame of Euro-Mediterranean research policy programming support the adoption of the WEFE nexus?

15.2

A NEXUS-ENABLING ENVIRONMENT: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR INNOVATION IN THE SOUTHERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION

The WEF nexus approach has received wide attention in the academic literature following the Bonn Conference in 2011 and the emergence of nexus ecosystems (Albrecht et al., 2018; Leck et al, 2015; Liu et al., 2017). Numerous analytical methodologies have been used to understand the interconnections among the nexus sectors, and these methodologies have different data requirements, benefits and limitations with cases that operate at specific geographical scales (Albrecht et al., 2018). In contrast to linear methods, the nexus approach is multidisciplinary to enhance cross-sectoral coordination of natural resources management. Dai et al. (2018) provide an extensive review of available methodologies to assess the nexus according to three classifications: type of model (quantitative analysis; simulation; integrated); geographical scale; and nexus challenge level, which refers to the application of the model results. The literature recognizes that institutional cooperation and coordination is pivotal for the nexus vertically (different levels of government) and horizontally (across sectors). The cooperation and coordination levels are required so the nexus approach can be transferred into decision-making processes (Rasul, 2016; White et al., 2017). Many studies concluded that communication across sectors and government levels can be improved through the establishment of dialogue platforms (Weitz et al., 2017). The establishment of the “Water, Energy Food Resource

Sanaa Zebakh

Fadi Abdelradi

Essam Sh

Mohamed

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Innovations on the nexus in the south Mediterranean  275 Platform” (www​.water​-energy​-food​.org/​en/​home​.html) following the Bonn Conference aims to identify approaches to tackle nexus stress. Other platforms, for example, the Food, Energy, Environment, Water Network, have emerged (www​.fe2wnetwork​.org). WEF nexus ecosystems have been activated by the involvement of stakeholders (White et al., 2017). At the regional level, the Mediterranean region is facing many implementation challenges in the enabling environment, including rooted vertical structures of government departments, a lack of communication between sectors and unequal capabilities and power distributions among sectors as central barriers to nexus governance. Different solutions have been suggested to address these constraints, such as establishing a network between science and policy; developing a platform for sharing nexus governance best practices; developing capacity-building programs and promoting nexus technology implementation; and providing incentives to the private sector for bridging nexus investment gaps (Al-Zubari and Alrwis, 2020). The Entrepreneurship Ecosystems Strategy has identified six domains for a sustaining entrepreneurship which are finance, market, human capital, policy, support and culture. Finance plays an important role in defining the pathway to scale up innovators, according to USAID (2020). It shows how different funding mechanisms are correlated with the different stages of development of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Access to markets is a supportive measure for innovators to get the visibility they need through access to different business networks and hubs, as well as reaching out to customers as a major need for testing assumptions of the entrepreneurs. Human capital is an essential factor reflecting the knowledge, technical experience, skills and resources of the innovators gained in the field before starting their business, together with the availability of training institutions and investment in innovation to help growth and scaling. Policy can help innovators to scale up towards innovation within the nexus. Regional innovation ecosystems are strengthened in the Arab countries as part of their development plans. There are meaningful initiatives to link between research and economic sectors to support the regional economy (techno parks, incubator creation, etc.). Moreover, the Arab Science and Technology Plan of Action validated in 2011 by the Arab Summit identified water, food, agriculture and energy among the 14 areas of priority (Hanafi and Arvanitis, 2015). The regional knowledge-based economy has begun to bear fruit and has led to the foundation of an innovative ecosystem. Investment of research and innovation in WEFE sectors is not only carried out by academic actors, it is also a matter of interest to large companies. In Tunisia, for example, ONAS is focusing research and development (R&D) activities on wastewater treatment, energy and use of treated water in agriculture. Moreover, the Algerian agribusiness group, CEVITAL, implemented an R&D unit in 2010 to achieve agri-food innovative products. Egypt implemented a shift towards organic farming contributing to protecting the environment through using biofertilizers. The relevant legislation offers investment support and registration of organic practices with operating licenses to start and run their business. Furthermore, the revision of the Egyptian sustainable agricultural development strategy accounts for the nexus approach. Support is found to be key for innovators to scale up in the form of accelerators, incubators and business development centers. Morocco established a specific agency, IRESEN, in 2011 to support R&D towards renewable energy. This agency stimulated the link between academic research and industry, changing the innovation landscape, supporting renewable energy and establishing links to other sectors including agriculture. Financial support and grants are allocated to strengthen innovation, creation of value, technology transfer and human capital training. The Green Inno Boost 2.0

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276  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus program offers technological support for the industrialization and marketing of entrepreneurs’ innovations. IRESEN is also participating with European programs such as LEAP-RE1 (funded by COFUND) carried out in 83 European and African countries and Smart Energy systems2 (funded by ERA-NET). Projects targeted at the WEFE nexus are funded, including the design and creation of an intelligent agro-photovoltaic (PV) experimental station for agriculture resilient to climate change. A series of national and sectoral policies are implemented favoring the adoption of the nexus approach. Strategies, plans, programs and incentives are implemented to support the water, agriculture and energy sectors. Morocco aims to optimize its water resources, rationalize energy use in farming and increase renewable energy and unconventional water use in the agricultural sector (CSMD, 2021). The Jordan Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Law introduced a specific fund to support renewable energy projects. Moreover, tax exemptions are applied to encourage the adoption of renewable energy and systems and equipment improving energy efficiency. The National Water Strategy 2016–2025 is aligned with the SDGs and includes water for irrigation and energy. The Jordanian government considered creating synergies between WEFE sectors in the frame of the National Energy Strategy 2007–2020, Environmental Policy and Plan of Action and the Agriculture Document of 2009. The different plans have underlying provisions to cope with climate change and adopt the WEF nexus (IUCN, 2019). The development of policies, regulations and regulatory framework programs in the South Mediterranean Countries paved the way for WEFE nexus development. For the further growth of ecosystems, for the benefit of all, true collaboration needs to become an integral part of its overall culture. This in particular relates to the interplay between actors from different spheres of the ecosystem, to the interactions between competitors as well as to the ecosystem’s relationship with people and organizations external to the already existing network. To this end, a need to promote win-win scenarios and highlight best practices is necessary.

15.3

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS ALONG THE WATER-ENERGY-FOOD-ECOSYSTEM NEXUS

Technology innovations that strive to address WEFE resources are emerging in the south Mediterranean regions. Such technologies typically aim to improve water conservation by power utilities and agricultural businesses by adopting systems like renewable energy sources (e.g. wind and solar) and leveraging information and communication technology (ICT) to promote the efficient use of water and energy for agricultural, household and industrial needs. According to the E4C3 survey report (ASME, 2021), a description of existing innovations addressing the interaction between nexus sectors was identified by interviewing 27 innovation SMEs in the relevant sectors in nine Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. Two types of technologies were identified: Agri-tech and green-tech. Agri-tech is the application of technologies in agriculture such as reducing water usage in agriculture, using machine learning in increasing yields while adapting irrigation to weather conditions. Green tech is the application of technologies to develop eco-friendly solutions like renewable energy, waste management and water treatment. Interviews are held and they show that a common theme was the inefficient usage of water for agriculture. Another driver was the concept of the circular economy to reuse waste. Furthermore, social innovators developed many projects within the nexus to link the circular economy with the efficient use of water resources. Considering

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Innovations on the nexus in the south Mediterranean  277 the approaches to innovation, IDEO, a global design company innovator that uses a design thinking approach to integrate people’s needs with technological possibilities and business success factors. One growing trend is the use of ICT to drive more efficient and effective resource management. This trend is spreading among innovators in nexus ecosystems. ICT applications for the nexus can now be used to collect data remotely from several sources for different applications. ICT is one of today’s emergent technology innovations that addresses the WEF nexus. For example, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas has developed an app, GeoAgro, for data collection and visualization for agro-ecosystems research, development and outreach. The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have developed a Global Agro-Ecological Zones system (www​.gaez​.iiasa​.ac​.at/​) that provides agronomic data including the quantification of land productivity with climate scenarios. According to FAO (2020), agriculture 4.0 is the concept that shows the next generation of integration between using technologies related to automation, block chain, internet of things, big data, robotics and precision agriculture. Technological innovations potentially offer opportunities to test and learn from disruptive modes of production. Considering the WEFE nexus, innovations provide benefits in all three sectors, tackling the issues that each domain faces. The MENA region should harness the potential of the new “wave of innovation” developed by the WEFE nexus (ASME, 2021). However, innovation diffusion is constrained with political processes and institutional structures (Smith and Raven, 2012). To meet the significant challenges that south Mediterranean countries are facing in terms of the SDGs, in particular SDG 2 (Zero hunger), SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation) and SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy), more public support is needed for boosting local and regional initiatives, supporting entrepreneurship and access to funding and decreasing the administrative burden. The following sections present successful local initiatives in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan. 15.3.1 Nexus in Egypt A hybrid system for renewable energy HYRESS (Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems for the Supply of Services in Rural Settlements of Mediterranean Partner Countries) is aimed at removing knowledge barriers against the critical nexus between water and energy security in rural areas. The energy produced from a hybrid wind/PV/diesel system is either used directly or stored in a battery. Energy for a submersible pump is used in a brackish water well for irrigation and a desalination unit for potable water production. The diesel generator acts as a back-up unit for emergency situations. The main advantages of this innovative design are: ● The use of off-the-shelf components available in Egypt. ● The requirements for service and maintenance are very low, with the possibility of remote monitoring and control. ● The technologies are cost effective. ● Appliances have low levels of energy consumption and are able to cope with the power supplied from stand-alone systems (e.g. an energy-efficient desalination unit, soft starting of submersible pumps, etc.).

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278  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus ● An optimized deep discharge solar batteries storage system, taking into consideration the high temperature in the summer months in Egypt. The above is tested in Wadi El Natroun, and another similar demonstration site in Ksar Guilène was implemented, but without any diesel generator back-up. In this second site the loads include some rural electrification and the brackish water desalination unit for the community. The water-energy nexus shifted the design philosophy of the village from the existing isolated solar home systems to a more innovative and integrated micro-grid configuration where different producers (PV, wind, etc.) and different consumers (water pumping, rural electrification, desalination, etc.) can be added and extended and can be connected to the national electricity grid, should it reach the community. An integrated water-energy-food nexus model An integrated WEF model (CARES) is designed to optimize the usage of brackish water for producing agriculture products with a minimum environmental impact. Brackish water is to be desalinated using innovative technology called fertilizers drawn forward osmosis which has been tested and adopted by the CARES team. The technology is based on using different fertilizer draw solutions to separate the water from the salt and produce fertigated water for agriculture. In this case, the desalination process is carried out using a hydroponics mixture of fertilizers. The diluted mix is then used for crop production in hydroponics systems. In addition to the innovative approach of separating the salt from the water, the model is also innovative in the medium used. The hydroponics in this case uses sand as the bed. Different types of sand have been tested, and considerable improvements on the quality of harvested crops and yields have been achieved. The model has already been implemented on a pilot scale and is on its way to being commercialized. Solar technology applied to agriculture The increase of fuel and gas prices is creating an important opportunity for the market of solar technology application in the sector of agriculture. Egypt has one of the world’s highest solar energy yields and a significant growth has been observed since 2000 in the PV energy market. According to a survey conducted by the World Bank Group (2018), 67 percent of PV start-up sales are directed to the agricultural sector. The Karm Solar start-up uses sourced material from the desert. One of the projects aims is to generate water for agriculture using solar energy. Using only solar panels, the start-up company serves the local irrigated area relying on a 30 kW submersible pump realizing an average flow rate of 140 m3/h (Groeneveld, n.d.). 15.3.2 Nexus in Tunisia Solar PV water-pumping system for the development of rural areas In Tunisia, the demand for water is increasing especially in rural areas and remote locations where access to conventional energy is difficult or impossible. There has been a growing interest in using PV generators as a new source of energy. The utilization of a standalone PV pumping system is a practical, reliable, efficient and economical solution for the lack of water, especially in desert areas. Two pilot projects have been tested in southern Tunisia: BeniKhdeche and Ben Guerdane. Solar pumping for irrigation shows the need for aligning

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Innovations on the nexus in the south Mediterranean  279 technological, regulative and governmental considerations, emphasizing the need for integrated adaptive planning, policy making and implementation. Water desalination for agricultural uses The Tunisian experience in the desalination of agricultural borehole water began in the 2000s in the private sector, both for irrigation and for livestock farming using osmosis techniques. Unlike other sectors using desalinated water (industry, tourism), the agricultural sector used these unconventional resources which represent only around 1.5 percent in 2016 of all desalinated water. Among the first agricultural companies that introduced desalination was SUNLUCAR, with twenty-fifth-season farms (El Hamma, Gabès) and Floralia (Al Alia, Bizerte), which is in its third generation of reverse osmosis stations. Many other low-capacity water desalination plants exist without any census. The Ministry of Agriculture has integrated this area through two components: ● Construction of a brackish water desalination installation by reverse osmosis, with a capacity of 200 m3 per day to benefit the farmers of the Sidi-Alouen, Mehdia region for the irrigation of greenhouse crops. ● Encouragement with the new agricultural investment code, with a 50 percent subsidy for the acquisition of a water desalination plant for agricultural purposes. Desalination plants in the agricultural sector have low capacities which generally vary from a few tens of m3/day to a few hundred m3/day. In the framework of the national strategy for the rational and sustainable management of conventional and unconventional water resources, the General Directorate of Rural Engineering and Water Use (Ministry of Agriculture, Hydraulic Resources and Fisheries) carried out during the period 2013–2016 a pilot action of salt water desalination, from a deep borehole, for the irrigation of 75 agricultural greenhouses, at the level of the delegation of Sidi Alouane (Governorate of Mehdia). This action is part of the ACCBAT project funded by a grant from the European Union within the European Union/ENPI/CTMED program (2007–2013). Considered a pilot micro-project on a regional and even national scale, this initiative could be transposed to other regions of the country since it consists in enhancing an unconventional water source (brackish water) for agricultural purposes. Water desalination using solar energy Thermal systems using the air humidification and dehumidification process have several applications in industrial and agricultural environments, namely the desalination of sea and/ or brackish water, air conditioning, cooling, etc. As part of a pilot partnership project with the German firm Dornier, which dates back 30 years, a pilot was installed and tested in the region of Hazag in Sfax, where the degradation of irrigated soils by brackish water is becoming more and more important due to the anarchic exploitation of aquifers. This project has been regularly cited as being the first Tunisian experiment in terms of solar energy use for the irrigation of water desalination. Although the obtained results confirmed that the desalination process is an interesting solution to meet certain local needs of medium importance in geographically dispersed places, the pilot has been abandoned mainly for budgetary reasons.

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280  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Recently, a new pilot of water desalination using solar energy has been developed by SolartechSud and tested in open-field conditions in southern Tunisia relying on new patented technology using the FH process for thermal water desalination (Friaa and Hamza, 2018). 15.3.3 Nexus in Morocco The nexus approach has the potential to improve human well-being while reducing pressure on the environment and natural resources through integrated management and governance, and hence involves a more efficient use of resources. Some examples are presented of the main Moroccan projects that succeeded to meet the SDG objectives by adopting the WEFE nexus. Drip irrigation in Morocco From the late 1960s, Morocco developed an important hydraulic infrastructure that supported the implementation of a large-scale agricultural irrigation to ensure food security and to promote agricultural exports (Doukkali and Lejars, 2015). The National Water Strategy and National Water Plan were set up to face water challenges and coordinate water management (supply and demand). Among the policy targets, it is foreseen to convert conventional to drip irrigation in up to 920 000 hectares in 2030; strengthen the use of non-conventional water resources, such as the desalination of seawater (510 million cubic meter per year) and saline water and the reuse of treated wastewater (325 million cubic meter per year) (Hssaisoune et al., 2020). Furthermore, the government is investing considerably to incite farmers to adopt local irrigation. The cost of drip irrigation installation is subsided at 100 percent for small farms of less than 5 hectares (Jobbins et al., 2015) and the total subvention may reach the equivalent of around 4,500 euro per hectare. On top of this, some 2,000 euro is supported for the construction of the storage basin (MAPM, 2016). Several projects on drip irrigation have been successfully implemented in Oum Rbiaa River in Tadla-Azilal, Bitit, Ain Chegag in Sebou, Lamzoudia in Tensift and Guerdane and Issen in Souss-Massa. The use of drip irrigation is combined with new technologies and processes such as ICT support and soilless agriculture. In fact, the Agrotech Souss-Massa has developed for 1,000 small farmers a specific program for land, water and energy use via SMS. This has allowed savings of 2,000 m3 of water per ha per year (104 million m³ per year) and 21.5 percent of electricity per year in parallel to a significant saving in fertilizers. Solar-powered pumping for irrigation in agriculture The Moroccan Green Plan has dedicated a budget of around 40 million euro to support the national program to promote solar pumping for irrigation. The program was launched in 2013 and aims to encourage small and medium-sized farms to substitute diesel pumps with solar-powered ones. The infrastructure and necessary equipment are subsidized up to 50 percent (MAPM, 2013). In total some 30,000 farms use PV systems for water pumping representing 8.8 percent of irrigated exploitation (AMEE, 2019). An example of solar water pumping for irrigation has been implemented in a village in Oujda. This remote area is not connected to the electricity grid and the high price of fossil energy is a constraint to farmers. A study showed that PV is cheaper compared to fuel, electricity and butane.4

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Innovations on the nexus in the south Mediterranean  281 Seawater desalination The pilot project implemented in 2014 in the plain of Chtouka Aït Baha (Souss-Massa, which is suffering from groundwater overexploitation and salinity) aims to support irrigation by desalination of seawater. Ranked as fourth in the world in terms of production capacity, this project offers a new alternative in terms of water resources. The project total cost is 448 million euro and it will cover the irrigation needs of 15,000 hectares of the Chtouka perimeter enabling 1,270 plot irrigation terminals. Ultimately, this inverse osmosis technology plant will provide a total capacity of 400,000 m3 per day which should be shared out in a fair manner to match demand for agriculture and households. This project is unique since it is pooling the production of both drinking water and irrigation water. Starting in 2021, the seawater desalination unit for agricultural irrigation of the Chtouka plain will supply farmers with desalinated irrigation water (ORMVASM, 2019). Reuse of unconventional water for agriculture irrigation The National Program for Pooled Sanitation and Reuse of Treated Wastewater was launched in 2005 and achieved the treatment of 64 Mm3 per year of wastewater volume by 2019. It is mainly used for watering green spaces, golf courses, irrigation of suitable agricultural species, etc. The objective of the government is to attain 100 Mm3 per year in 2020 and 341 Mm3 per year by 2050 (HCP, 2019). Several pilot projects have been implemented (Ouarzazate, Ben Sergao, Drarga, Attaouia) to study and develop documented technical standards through research. Currently, 25 Mm3 per year of treated wastewater is reused mainly for irrigating golf courses (Marrakech, Agadir, Benslimane, Essaouira, Bouznika, etc.). The current volume of wastewater produced in the entire hydraulic basin of Souss-Massa is estimated at 25 Mm3 per year, of which 14 Mm3 per year is treated (55 percent). A limited reused volume is entirely dedicated to the irrigation of 90 hectare golf courses and green spaces (IRES, 2020). Another project is operational at Boujaad producing 0.77 million m3 per year dedicated to agricultural use (El Azhari and Loudyi, 2019). 15.3.4 Nexus in Jordan Jordan has very limited water, energy, agriculture and land resources, and stress on natural resources has worsened due to an increasing population, influx of refugees, rapid urbanization and climate change. On top of this, there is a trend towards increasing food self-sufficiency through local agriculture and socio-economic development. These trends put increasing stress on natural resources. Jordan has become a resource-dependent country to cover its demand, and the situation is especially difficult in the water sector, with a fast-widening gap between water demand and supply and great overexploitation and degradation of surface water and groundwater resources. Far from lessening these effects, the next decades are set to accelerate and intensify the situation with the expected development of the country and impacts of climate change. With natural resources becoming scarcer and more degraded, traditional sectoral plans that did not consider cross-sectoral trade-offs must be substituted by an integrated management of water, energy and agricultural resources.

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282  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Sahara Forest project in Aqaba The Sahara Forest project integrated production system focuses on solar energy and seawater. It is aimed to improve water availability and the production of food and biomass, providing new employment opportunities. Using a hydroponic system and humidity in the air, water needs for food production are 50 percent lower compared to other greenhouses. Several technologies are integrated, namely electricity production through the use of solar power (PV or CSP), freshwater production through seawater desalination using renewable energy, seawater-cooled greenhouses for food production and outdoor revegetation using run-off from the greenhouses. The Sahara Forest project has been implemented at a pilot scale, including the first pilot with 1 hectare and one greenhouse pilot in Qatar, and a larger “launch station” with 3 hectares and two greenhouses in Jordan. These pilots have been funded by international organizations aligned with national policies, institutions and funding, and an upscaling of the project is under way or planned. Policies including the sustainable energy and climate action plan encourage private-sector involvement and investment at all levels (e.g. technologies such as PV). Private investment is stimulated through schemes like design, build, operate, transfer. Local communities and non-governmental organizations assist the municipality to develop and fund additional activities and promote recycling and the use of local products. Local initiatives promote energy-efficiency measures and indirectly also integrated/nexus solutions. Stakeholders are engaged from planning to implementation all the way to monitoring and evaluation.

15.4

THE ROLE OF INNOVATION IN OPERATIONALIZING THE NEXUS

The Mediterranean challenges (e.g. climate change, increasing disparity in society, biodiversity loss, water scarcity and desertification) call for rapid and radical changes of production and consumption systems. Attention should be paid towards innovation management, both social and technological, to promote and increase the possibility of large‐scale transition. So far, the implementation of the nexus through coherent and integrated policies is particularly critical in the Mediterranean countries. An integrated and nexus approach is merited to make societies resilient for climate change. The Mediterranean region also faces several constraints including insufficient incentives and investments, limited vision, lack of knowledge and experience to guide technology development (Weitz et al., 2017). The low application of practical nexus projects implies that there is little empirical evidence of the potential benefits and added value of applying the nexus approach as well as of the challenges associated with it. This lack of evidence in turn limits political will for the development of adequate framework conditions, structures and funding that could support nexus adoption. In order to break this vicious cycle, examples of good practice of nexus use on the ground and their quantitative analyses are required (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017). Research and innovation could play a crucial role and demonstrate to the stakeholders the benefits and the added value of the nexus. However, the nexus concept still needs to be appropriated beyond the academic domain. A number of research and innovation projects have been piloting nexus approaches through modeling, assessment, dialogue, assistance to policy making, technical applications and testing new methodologies. The added value of the WEFE nexus implementation on the ground is not only demonstrated through research activities offering new and innovative technologies, but also by

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Innovations on the nexus in the south Mediterranean  283 offering opportunities for start-up development and job creation, as presented in the following subsections. 15.4.1 Added Value of Research and Innovation for the Adoption of Seawater Greenhouses Seawater greenhouses (SWGH) are one of the most important technological solutions to illustrate the WEFE nexus. They offer sustainable solutions to these problems by ensuring the desalination and internal cooling of the greenhouses in a single structure by a solar distillation process based on the concept of humidification-dehumidification (Davies and Paton, 2006). SWGH have been built (or are in progress) in Spain, Abu Dhabi, Oman, Australia and Somalia. The amount of freshwater produced is variable and depends on several factors. The Spanish greenhouse of 360 m2 produces 1.5 m3 per day while that of Oman reaches a maximum of 0.6m3 per day for 750 m2. A Moroccan team has explored an innovative process to improve the producibility of the greenhouses in freshwater by adding a solar pond. The brine of the SWGH is recycled through a solar pond as a heat storage plant and a heat source to warm the air to more or less 70°C at the inlet of the second evaporator of the SWGH. This process results in a freshwater production more than five times higher than that of the classical SWGH (Choukai and Zejli, 2020). 15.4.2 Innovations to Integrate the Nexus as an Engine to Create Jobs Investments in research and innovation, targeted at the WEF nexus, might induce an economic stimulus by creating jobs and solving trade-offs between WEF. Investments in more efficient technologies in the domain of the WEF nexus (e.g. renewable energy for water-related activities and innovative farming practices for water and energy efficiency in agriculture) might create jobs, or at least prevent job losses for several sectors in a region (Bizikova et al., 2014). In order to define the right focus on research and innovation it is important to have proper interaction between the knowledge providers and technology users. To prevent purely academic exercises, research needs to be linked to viable business cases, real-life testing and demonstration activities. The adoption of a bottom-up approach could be considered before upscaling. As an example, the development of innovation in the agricultural sector could create synergies in the WEF nexus, subject to mainstreaming and coordination across sectoral policies. Furthermore, desalination technologies and the smart use of ecosystems (wetlands) to collect and store water and carbon could also provide positive economic opportunities (EFTEC, 2005). The role of governments is of great importance for the nexus implementation, since they can speed up the process by providing funding or support for new technologies that contribute to the welfare of society which otherwise would not easily reach the markets. In Egypt, clean tech start-ups represent 90 percent of the decentralized PV market. They have the ability to be more flexible and innovative, adjust to local needs and support technology transfer. PV solar start-ups have allowed the creation of 552 jobs for skilled and unskilled people both in the Egyptian capital and in the countryside, according to a survey conducted with 20 start-ups (World Bank Group, 2018).

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15.5

NEXUS DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF POLICIES ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

The Barcelona process (1995) officially launched the Euro-Mediterranean (EU-Med) dialogue on S&T, recognizing among others the importance of collaboration between the two shores of the Mediterranean in the field of research, development and innovation (European Commission, 1995). Since then, numerous initiatives have been taken to reinforce the partnership and networking between researchers to tackle common issues faced by the Mediterranean region. The participation of Mediterranean partner countries in European framework programs increased along with the opening up of Community programs to the participation of international cooperation partner countries (Zebakh and Finance, 2017). The first EU-Med Ministerial Conference on Higher Education and Scientific Research held in Cairo (2007) endorsed the implementation of coordination activities for the EU-Med region, under the Seventh Framework Programme for Research (Cairo Declaration, 2007). This is how the first two ERANET5 programs, ARIMNET (2009) and ERANETMED (2012), were implemented, launching seven transnational calls for proposals in the fields of agriculture, water, food and energy.6 The two programs funded 96 transnational projects and we analyzed those projects which linked two or more sectors among the WEFE nexus. Results show that 73 projects (76 percent) are directly addressing interaction between at least two sectors in WEFE. These projects offer sustainable technological approaches and solutions to impact the European and Mediterranean ecosystems. The ARIMNET projects are mostly related to the food-ecosystem nexus (Figure 15.1). They target a sustainable and efficient Mediterranean farming system

Source: Author’s calculation based on the lists of funded projects extracted from the program websites (www​ .arimnet2​.net, www​.eranetmed​.eu and www​.prima​-med​.org).

Figure 15.1

The water, energy, food and ecosystem nexus in the European Union– Mediterranean research programs (ARIMNET, ERANETMED and PRIMA)

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Innovations on the nexus in the south Mediterranean  285 by improving agriculture resilience through (1) irrigation and water management, (2) soil conservation, (3) biodiversity and breeding approaches, (4) local cultivar revalorization and (5) plant and animal health management for more efficiency and durability facing biotic and abiotic stresses. The ERANETMED programs focused more on the WEF interactions with a strong fondness for water-ecosystem interactions (38.5 percent) and energy-ecosystem interactions (15.4 percent); this differentiates it from the ARIMNET program. The first ERANETMED call included the energy-water nexus (JC-NEXUS-2014), and the second call focused on society, ecosystems and environment. For example, the EdGeWIsE project (Energy and Water Systems Integration and Management) started in 2016 and involved eight partners from six countries (Portugal, France, Tunisia, Greece, Cyprus and Malta). The project aimed to integrate the water and energy systems in a single and efficient system. New methods of water and energy collection and production are investigated through experimental pilots and the energy produced from renewable energy sources is stored in the water systems for later retrieval. The management procedures developed by the project are tested through experimental pilots in the region and the solutions are evaluated by commercial companies to seek their impact in real-world applications. The WEFE nexus approach is fully aligned with the ambition of the EU-Med S&T policy makers since the region needs to emphasize joining collaborative efforts, interlinking between WEFE sectors to alleviate actual and future challenging constraints. Since 2017, the PRIMA initiative has marked a new step in European–Mediterranean cooperation in S&T. This joint program aims at fostering research and innovation capacities, developing collective knowledge and innovative solutions for a more sustainable management of water and agri-food systems in the Mediterranean region (European Union, 2017). PRIMA’s first call was published in 2018 and since then 129 projects have been selected and funded (169.5 million euro) to address challenges around the Mediterranean region related to water management, farming and the agri-food value chain. PRIMA partners built a consensus on the necessity to further strengthen the WEFE nexus for the region and identified indicators for two SDGs (SDG 2 on food and SDG 6 on energy) to monitor impact (Saladini et al., 2018). In 2019 and 2020, PRIMA published specific calls addressing the WEFE nexus approach, targeting a regional optimum development at economic level by considering fair access to natural resources and environmental protection. The highest number of projects (10 percent) interlink between all WEFE sectors. One example is the AZMUD project (2019) that has the objective to improve Mediterranean greenhouse performance with the use of innovative plastic materials, natural additives and novelty irrigation technologies (use of wastewater). The reduction of cost and efficiency of heating systems together with the monitoring and control of plant pathogens and parasites (by combining magnetic fields) will be addressed by the research activities. Moreover, AZMUD will be developing a tailor-made biodegradable polymer that can be used to protect natural pesticides from botanical innovative formulations suitable for several crops. PRIMA also encourages research and exchanges between partners to demonstrate the multiple benefits of the WEFE nexus at economic, social and environmental levels around the Mediterranean region. PRIMA-funded actions relate to WEF nexus governance in the Mediterranean countries (SIGMA-NEXUS project) and the acceleration and capitalization of EU-Med partner countries’ WEFE nexus best practices (PHEMAC project). Moreover, PRIMA launched in June 2021 the WEFE Nexus Prize to award successful initiatives imple-

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286  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus mented in the Mediterranean region, combining the management practices of WEFE resources at the local, subregional and regional levels. It is expected that support from regional policies such as the European Neighborhood Policy, the Union for the Mediterranean Water Policy actions, the Water Framework Directive combined with the financial EU-Med S&T programs will lead to more consistent cooperation between the European Union and the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries on the WEFE nexus approach. An analysis of the Mediterranean partner countries’ scientific output on the WEFE nexus (extracted from the SCOPUS database) shows an upward trend of scientific production in these topics (Figure 15.2). The main subject areas are environmental sciences (35 percent) and energy (19 percent). Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco are ranked at the top of authors, collaborating mainly with counterparts from the United Kingdom, United States, Germany and Italy. The main funding sponsors are the European Commission (through the Framework Programmes of Research) and the Natural Environment Research Council (United Kingdom).

Source: Authors’ calculation based on bibliometric analysis from the SCOPUS database, for the period 2010–2020, with author affiliations from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon and the keywords “nexus” and “WEFE.” Extracted from SCOPUS on 3 June 2021.

Figure 15.2

Number of WEFE nexus papers by year with affiliations from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon

The Euro-Med support to research and innovation actions is also foreseen to deepen awareness on the benefits of the WEFE nexus and to reinforce innovation through transboundary cooperation. EU-Med partners demonstrated through the above-mentioned initiatives (ARIMNET, ERANETMED, PRIMA and scientific production) their commitment to

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Innovations on the nexus in the south Mediterranean  287 increase considerably the policies and programs integrating the nexus to cope with the regional challenges.

15.6 CONCLUSIONS The adoption of the WEFE nexus no longer has to be justified for its environmental, social and economic impact. The experience from southern Mediterranean countries presented in this chapter gives proof of the dynamics established by policies and incentives in the water, energy and agriculture sectors. However, bureaucracy, governance issues, sectoral policies, culture and weak support remain to limit the uptake and upscaling of the adoption of innovative nexus solutions (ASME, 2021). Research and innovation are key factors to improve agriculture in the Mediterranean basin and strengthen farming faced with current and future climate change. Innovation also enables a boost to national economies by creating jobs and offering solutions tailored to the local context of each region. Since investment in research and innovation in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan are lower than 0.73 percent of their respective national gross domestic products (Badran, 2018), south Mediterranean countries should move toward more collaborative initiatives to speed up the innovation process in the adoption of the WEFE nexus. The EU-Med political dialogue has raised awareness of the nexus among researchers from both shores. These programs offer support to projects that join several countries’ efforts to reach innovative solutions for the region while integrating the nexus. They also support research studies on the nexus governance. The challenge for these countries is pending and needs more effort to promote results of research and innovation projects, the reinforcement of policies, regulations and incentives and also the encouragement of entrepreneurship and emerging sectors. It is expected that the pursuit of the EU-Med dialogue and programs will result in a great leap for WEFE nexus adoption in the region.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4.

www​.leap​-re​.eu/​leap​-re​-call/​. www​.eranet​-smartenergysystems​.eu/​. Interdisciplinary Center, www​.e4c​.ip​-paris​.fr/​#/​. https://​fnh​.ma/​article/​developpement​-durable/​pompage​-solaire​-8​-8​-des​-exploitations​-irriguees​-au​ -maroc​-sont​-equipees​-en​-panneaux​-photovoltaiques. 5. The ERA-NET program supports the coordination of national and regional programs. 6. The first ERANETMED call addressed the water-energy nexus.

REFERENCES Al-Saidi, M. and N.A. Elagib (2017), “Towards understanding the integrative approach of the water, energy and food nexus,” Science of the Total Environment, 574, 1131–1139. Al-Zubari, W. and K. Alrwis (2020), “The WEF nexus approach: An imperative enabler for sustainable development in the MENA region.” Available at: www​.g20​-insights​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2020/​ 11/​T20​_TF10​_PB9​.pdf.

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288  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Albrecht, T.R., A. Crootof and C.A. Scott (2018), “The water-energy-food nexus: A systematic review of methods for nexus assessment,” Environmental Research Letters, 13 (4), 043002. AMEE (2019), “Etude de l’Agence marocaine pour l’efficacité énergétique.” Available at: www​.amee​ .ma. ASME (2021), “Water-energy-food nexus innovations in MENA: Bringing hope amid challenges collaboration.” Available at: www​.​engineerin​gforchange​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2020/​11/​E4C​-AUB​ -wefnexus​-innovation​-MENA​.pdf. Badran, A. (2018), “Landscape of R&D in the Arab region compared with the rest of the world,” in Universities in Arab Countries: An Urgent Need for Change: Underpinning the Transition to a Peaceful and Prosperous Future. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1007/​978​-3​-319​-73111​-7​_4. Bizikova, L., D. Roy, H.D. Venema, M. McCandless, K. Zubrycki, D. Swanson et al. (2014), Water-Energy-Food Nexus and Agricultural Investment: A Sustainable Development Guidebook. International Institute for Sustainable Development. Available at: www​.iisd​.org/​publications/​water​ -energy​-food​-nexus​-and​-agricultural​-investment​-sustainable​-development​-guidebook. Cairo Declaration (2007), Available at: https://​ufmsecretariat​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2012/​09/​cairo​ _declaration​.pdf. Choukai, O. and D. Zejli (2020), “Solar pond driven seawater greenhouse: Simulations on different Moroccan locations,” Desalination and Water Treatment, 179, 28–37. CSMD (2021), Le nouveau modèle de développement. Rapport général. Available at: www​.csmd​.ma/​ documents/​Rapport​_General​.pdf. Dai, J., S. Wu, G. Han, J. Weinberg, X. Xie, X. Wu, X. Song, B. Jia, W. Xue and Q. Yang (2018), “Water-energy nexus: A review of methods and tools for macro-assessment,” Applied Energy, 210, 393–408. Davies P.A. and C. Paton (2006), “The seawater greenhouse: Background, theory and current status,” International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies, 1 (2), 183–190. Doukkali, M.R. and C. Lejars (2015), “Energy cost of irrigation policy in Morocco: A social accounting matrix assessment,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, 31 (3), 422–435. EFTEC (2005), “The economic, social and ecological value of ecosystem services: A literature review.” Available at: www​.cbd​.int/​financial/​values/​unitedkingdom​-valueliterature​.pdf El Azhari, M. and D. Loudyi (2019), “Analysis of the water-energy nexus in central Oum Er-Rbia sub-basin – Morocco,” International Journal of River Basin Management, 17 (1), 13–24. European Commission (1995), “Barcelona declaration adopted at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference 1995.” Available at: http://​ufmsecretariat​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2015/​10/​Declaración​-de​-Barcelona​ -1995​.pdf. European Union (2017), “Decision (EU) 2017/1324 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2017 on the participation of the Union in the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) jointly undertaken by several Member States,” Official Journal of the European Union. -extension://​ fe47c6d0​ -1a4d​ -4e5d​ -b177​ FAO (2020), “Agriculture 4.0,” Vol. 24. Available at: moz​ -a6fd8fbcb09d/​enhanced​-reader​.html​?openApp​&​pdf​=​http​%3A​%2F​%2Fwww​.fao​.org​%2F3​ %2Fcb2186en​%2FCB2186EN​.pdf. FAO and CIHEAM (2015), Mediterranean food consumption patterns: diet, environment, society, economy and health. White Paper Priority 5 of Feeding Knowledge Programme, EXPO Milan 2015. Rome: FAO and Bari: CIHEAM-IAMB. Friaa, A. and S. Hamza (2018), Procédé FH de dessalement de l’eau par voie thermique (TN. Patent No. 2017000121). WIPO. Available at: https://​rb​.gy/​i3y44b. Groeneveld, S.J. (n.d.), “Karm Solar: Bringing sun to the Egyptian desert.” Available at: https://​ climateheroes​.org/​karm​-solar​-bringing​-sun​-to​-the​-egyptian​-desert/​. Hanafi, S. and R. Arvanitis (2015), “Knowledge production in the Arab world: The impossible promise,” in Knowledge Production in the Arab World: The Impossible Promise, Vol. 25. https://​doi​.org/​10​ .4324/​9781315669434. HCP (2019), “Examen national volontaire de la mise en oeuvre des objectifs de développement durable,” Vol. 53. Available at: www​.hcp​.ma/​Rapport​-National​-2020​-sur​-la​-mise​-en​-oeuvre​-par​-le​-Royaume​ -du​-Maroc​-des​-Objectifs​-de​-Developpement​-Durable​_a2592​.html.

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16. The role of land in the water-energy-food nexus Jiaguo Qi, Steve Pueppke, Myung Sik Cho, Yachen Xie, Charlie Navanugraha and Tep Makathy

16.1 INTRODUCTION As the solid surface of Earth that is not permanently covered by water, land is the area where most human activity throughout history has occurred and is the natural resource to many species on it. For human beings, land is the very type of natural resource that provides water, energy, and food (WEF) to sustain its civilizations. Over the centuries, land has increasingly been managed to derive these ecosystem services, resulting in complex land use and land cover patterns around the world (Figure 16.1). Understanding the role of the land in WEF systems allows a holistic management of land resources to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (e.g., Munroe and Müller, 2020). The term “land use and land cover” has collectively been used frequently but it is important to recognize the distinct differences between land use and land cover. Here, the term land use refers to operations on land with specific intentions, by humans, to obtain products and/or ecosystem services such as freshwater, agricultural produce, and coal. The term land cover commonly refers to natural or planted vegetation, or man-made structures (roads, buildings, etc.) which occur on the land surface. In many cases, however, particularly in the remote sensing community, the term land use and land cover is used collectively to mean either use or cover, when it is difficult or impossible to know the human’s intention of a piece of land covered with

Source: Friedl and Sulla-Menashe (2019); data source: 2019 year’s MODIS annual land cover data (MODIS/006/ MCD12Q1).

Figure 16.1

Global land use and land cover distribution, 2019 291 Jiaguo Qi

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292  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus physical objects such as trees or grass. Land use indicates how people use the land, whereas land cover indicates the physical land type. Different land uses can result in different types of land cover, and more importantly different ecosystem services such as food, water, and even energy to benefit human sustainability. Globally, about 50 percent of habitable land has been used to produce human food. Recent reports suggest that approximately 15–20 percent of the global land area is used as agricultural cropland (e.g., USGS, 2017) and about 30 percent is used as grazing land for livestock production (e. g., Lund, 2007; Godde et al., 2020). Agricultural land use for food production is still responsible for most of the changes in the land system, including deforestation and associated land degradation (Gibbs et al., 2010; Jayathilake et al., 2020). Over the past 50 years, agriculture expansion has been accelerated by the globalization process, population growth and dietary shifts, where increased food imports are teleconnected with the land uses and food demands of different geographic regions or countries. This has caused growing concern over land grabbing and speculation throughout the world, not only in the context of depriving food from local inhabitants but also exhausting water resources through crop irrigation (e.g., Vandergeten et al., 2016; Chanceline, 2019). Similarly, land is the substrate to sustain freshwater either in the form of ice, snow, or liquid water on the land surface, in the soil, or underground. An often forgotten type of land use is the approximately 38,000 global dams constructed to regulate the natural flow of surface water for the purpose of flood control and crop irrigation (e.g., Mulligan et al., 2020). These dams are believed to be linked to the observed emerging trends in global freshwater availability (Rodell et al., 2018). Along with other natural lakes and rivers, these constructed reservoirs serve as hydropower generation, agricultural irrigation via connected canals, aquaculture, and drinking water supplies to urban populations. However, environmental and ecosystem service trade-offs exist resulting from hydro dams (e.g., Pittock et al., 2015; Bof et al., 2021; Null et al., 2021). Interestingly, while some regions are increasingly engaged in river restoration by removing dams (mostly in developed countries), developing countries are building more hydro dams of larger capacity (e.g., Magilligan et al., 2016; Roy et al., 2018; Opgrand et al., 2020). Land has been exploited to extract crude oil, natural gas, and coal, designated to produce biofuel energy crops, or set aside to install windmills and solar panels to generate green energy as the world continues to demand more energy for economic development (e.g., Yu et al., 2015; Fritsche et al., 2017; Brinkmann, 2021). Land acquisition to install energy infrastructure is quite controversial (e.g., Ablo and Asamoah, 2018; Čábelková et al., 2020) as it replaces land that would otherwise be used to provide other ecosystem services including water and food crops. The above examples demonstrate that land is intrinsically linked to WEF systems, and it behaves as a nexus in the WEF system. Traditionally, land system dynamics are considered a disciplinary science, involving complex interactions between land use, land cover, climate, and humans (e.g., Turner et al., 1995; Turner, 2002; Verburg et al., 2015). Therefore, it is logical to manage land uses to balance the ecosystem services provided by WEF systems. However, efforts to integrate land use and land cover and the WEF nexus to form a new land-water-energy-food (LWEF) nexus have further evolved. Arguments have been made that the land itself is a vertex in the nexus, because land use and land cover has traditionally been embedded within the entire WEF system (e.g., Kumar et al., 2012; Ringler et al., 2013; Laspidou et al., 2019; Wolde et al., 2021). By examining each of the WEF vertices in depth,

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The role of land in the water-energy-food nexus  293 one would find that almost every part of WEF vertices and nexus involve land. Not only does land play a significant role in every vertex, but land is a component of the WEF system. The objective of this chapter is to integrate land into the WEF nexus framework and specifically discuss the role of land in the interwoven WEF system. In the following discussion, land is first treated as an essential vertex in the LWEF framework and then its nexus to WEF is further elaborated. Finally, a case study in the Mekong River Basin (MRB) is presented to demonstrate how land is manipulated to affect WEF systems, focusing on the challenges, opportunities, and potential pathways towards a sustainable LWEF system.

16.2

THE ROLE OF LAND IN THE WEF NEXUS FRAMEWORK

16.2.1 The LWEF Conceptual Framework Land has traditionally been used to produce food, store freshwater, support energy infrastructure, and provide other ecosystem services, and thus there is a complex interrelationship between land use and the WEF system. The dynamic linkages among WEF and land can be conceptualized to form a LWEF framework (Figure 16.2). Here, land is treated as a vertex (the

Figure 16.2

Conceptual framework of land (L), water (W), energy (E), food (F) systems to demonstrate the nexus (N) and dynamic interactions and stresses (S) among them

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294  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus central circle) with a dynamic feedback process (nexus) to act as stresses on WEF vertices. Changes in the land system through land use and land cover, as well as management, can unbalance the WEF system. At the same time, any changes in the WEF vertices can also lead to undesirable changes in land use, degradation, or its associated ecosystem services. Land is, therefore, both embedded in each of the vertices and acts as a nexus in the LWEF system (Figure 16.2), as detailed in the following sections. 16.2.2 Land in Water Vertex Land is implicitly embedded in the water vertex (see Figure 16.2). It is commonly known that approximately 97 percent of global water is stored in oceans, seas, and bays and the remaining 3 percent is stored in land, air, plants, or other organisms (USGS, 2021). The portion stored in and on land, including lakes, rivers, swamps, groundwater, and soil moisture, accounts for about 0.775 percent of the total, which has been traditionally managed to derive ecosystem services such as food and energy. First, land stores water in the soil or underground and supports surface water in lakes, rivers, streams, snow, and ice. Aside from soil moisture, ground and surface water is often manipulated to enhance food production through agricultural irrigation and aquaculture. A specific land use type is related to large-scale hydro dam constructions to store, divert, and utilize

Source:

Lehner et al. (2011); https://​sedac​.ciesin​.columbia​.edu/​data/​set/​grand​-v1​-dams​-rev01.

Figure 16.3

Global distribution of hydro dams to store water for drought mitigation, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and human consumption

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The role of land in the water-energy-food nexus  295 surface water for drought mitigation, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and human consumption around the globe (Figure 16.3). These dams are densely distributed in major basins in the United States, the southeastern part of South America, throughout Europe, the southern part of Africa, as well as east and south Asia. Although each dam has a small footprint, the impacts are far reaching both in space and time (e.g., Intralawan et al., 2018; Arantes et al., 2019; Kuriqi et al., 2020). In addition to being embedded in the water vertex, food production, industrial uses, urban development, forestation, and other purposes compete for land as a nexus to other ecosystem services. Land is therefore an actor to change the dynamic relationships among WEF systems but also an outcome of their competitions. 16.2.3 Land in Energy Vertex Land is also embedded in the energy vertex in multiple ways (see Figure 16.2). First, land is exploited for crude oil, natural gas, and coal. Although it is not the scope of this chapter to detail geographic distributions of oil fields, approximately half of the world’s reserves are in the Middle East, with Canada, the United States, Latin America, Africa, and part of Eurasia also being top oil producers (e.g., Moody, 2017; Tong et al., 2018). Large fields in Texas, for example, have been drilled for oil and natural gas exploration with drillers and fracking machineries creating controversy (Howarth et al., 2011; Meng, 2017). Second, land has increasingly been used to produce biofuel crops to benefit energy, the environment, and greenhouse gas emission reduction (e.g., Searchinger et al., 2008; Tilman et al., 2009; Correa et al., 2019). Another way that land is embedded in energy is coal mining (e.g., Oakleaf et al., 2019; Simpson et al., 2019) that serves as the main source of energy, particularly in developing countries. Although sporadic in distribution, mostly in northern Asia, North America, and Australia (Thakur, 2017), large-scale operations of coal mining are expected to increase significantly by 2100 (e.g., Mohr and Evans, 2009; Jiang et al., 2019) and are the major drivers of land use changes in many parts of the world (Trainor et al., 2016; Sonter et al., 2017). The impacts of these mining operations on water resources and environment of adjacent lands are far reaching, although there is a push to reduce coal production as an effort mitigating climate change. 16.2.4 Land in Food Vertex Land is intrinsically embedded in the food vertex (see Figure 16.2) and has traditionally been the primary resource for agricultural crop production. According to World Bank data statistics and data shown in Figure 16.1, approximately 37 percent of global land is cropland, which contributes significantly to global food security (Awika, 2011; Teluguntla et al., 2015; Qi et al., 2020). Aside from cropland for grain production, rangeland is another type of land use that nurtures an environment to grow forage for livestock (Godde et al., 2018, 2020). The percentage of global land area that can be grazed is about 30 percent, which is used to produce livestock (World Bank, 2020). Varying in livestock-carrying capacity, these rangelands support millions of smallholder famers in developing countries, providing food and other benefits (e.g., Thornton et al., 2006; Banda and Tanganyika, 2021). However, the actual livestock production will vary depending on accessibility to water resources, climate variability, and other environmental conditions (Thornton, 2010; Herrero et al., 2012). It is these land uses

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296  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus that sustain food supplies to more than 7 billion people around the world (Qi et al., 2020). Rangeland degradation can potentially jeopardize food security because of overgrazing and increasing climate variability (Qi et al., 2012; Hilker et al., 2014; Godde et al., 2020). Ironically, an analysis of the geographic distribution of these food-producing lands reveals an alarming mismatch between food production and human settlements and population (Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012; Bashford, 2014). Land of high-quality agricultural potential is not necessarily where people live, and there is an interesting pattern of quality soils concentrated in the areas of urban settlements in metropolitan areas. This should raise food security concerns, particularly given the ongoing globalization and climate change (Wheeler and von Braun, 2013; Qi et al., 2020, Luo et al., 2021). 16.2.5 Land as the Water-Energy-Food Nexus It is clear, as discussed previously, that land is embedded in each of the WEF vertices but more importantly land is the nexus of the three (Figure 16.2). Land use and land cover change are both the victim and culprit of the dynamic interactions among all components of the LWEF system. Land use is intrinsically linked to and/or the result of complex interactions among WEF components. For example, in recent years, croplands and rangelands are being converted to biofuel crop production to generate green energy. This single goal-driven change in land use subsequently and simultaneously results in reductions in crops and forage for livestock, creating a major trade-off in food production. Changing cropping and grazing systems subsequently affects the associated water requirements and thus water resources distribution. This dynamic feedback process triggered by land use change often creates trade-offs among food, energy, and water. However, it is also possible that proper land use change or management could result in synergies among the three. In any case, land competition for biofuel energy and food production is a typical trade-off that needs to be avoided but is often unavoidable (Smith et al., 2010). Global shifts in diet, with a rapid increase in meat consumption, resulted in overgrazing of rangelands for livestock production, and shifting cultivation from traditional cropping system to animal feed production (Leemhuis et al., 2017; Qi et al., 2020), altering energy and water requirements for food processing, production, and consumption. Similarly, land use change can be and often is a result of complex WEF interactions. Increases in population and food demand is often associated with cropland expansion, agricultural intensification, forest clearing, and grazing land degradation (Hazell and Wood, 2008; Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2011; Godde et al., 2018) among others, while higher demands for energy come with escalation in coal mining and hydropower dam construction. Increasing water scarcity, either due to climate change, water use competition, or alteration of hydrological processes, often forces farmers to abandon agricultural practices while energy availability enhances water withdraws for more irrigated land expansions and intensification. All in all, the WEF nexus is an intertwined system (e. g. Pueppke et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2017; Sivakumar, 2021) and is closely linked to the ways in which land is managed. Land is seamlessly an integral part of the WEF system and is explicitly interwoven in each of the vertexes. Changes in land use can tip off the balance of the WEF systems, and improper management of WEF resources can result in land use change and degradation. Sound policy of land uses will reduce trade-offs among the three vertices and achieve a desirable synergy of WEF sectors.

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16.3

THE LWEF SYSTEM IN THE MEKONG RIVER BASIN

16.3.1 The Land, Water, Energy, and Food Systems The MRB is a prime example of the large-scale, dynamic interactions between climate change, land use, and the WEF system throughout the world (e. g., Keskinen et al., 2015; Endo et al., 2020). As the world’s twelfth longest river, water originates from the glaciated highlands of the Tibetan Plateau in China and flows through Myanmar, Thailand, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), Cambodia, and Vietnam, finally emptying into the South China Sea. The basin has an Asian monsoon climate and its annual rainy season lasts from June to November and accounts for 80–90 percent of the river’s total annual flow (Xue et al., 2011; Pokhrel et al., 2018b). Food production in the basin historically relied on timely rainfall and the seasonal flows of the rivers and streams of the Mekong. Fisheries in rivers and lakes and livestock in wetlands benefited from abundant freshwater and nutrients supplied by seasonal flood surges, while crops and local produce were grown on rich soils with plentiful seasonal rainfall in the subtropical climate. Together, these patterns supported food and livelihoods for the region for generations. However, this is changing: the rhythm and intensity of the Asian monsoon have noticeably changed, with more frequent floods and more intense droughts devastating crops and dramatically altering aquatic ecosystems, deeply disrupting rural livelihoods (Bastakoti et al., 2014; Sok and Yu, 2015; Pokhrel et al., 2018b; Tran et al., 2020). The rising temperature in the Himalayas has increased snowmelt rates causing glacial retreat, altering discharges to the Mekong headwaters (Fu et al., 2004; You et al., 2017); this disrupts streamflows and impacts downstream aquatic ecosystems as well as associated agricultural food systems. With the mean temperature expected to rise by approximately 0.8 °C by 2030, including a regional 200 mm annual precipitation increase, more extreme climate events like typhoons are expected, making the MRB one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change. Accompanying climate change is globalization and rapid economic development in the MRB (e.g., Ambashi et al., 2020). A wide range of academics, donors, financial institutions, industries, businesses, governments, and non-governmental organizations from both outside and inside the basin have been involved in its development, cooperation, and academic research, particularly with respect to the region’s water resources, green energy development, and food security (e. g., Endo et al., 2020). Several international development strategies led by international financial institutions and donors have been developed to support the developing countries within the basin to reduce water and food security risks imposed by regional climate change while promoting an aggressive agenda to develop green energy to curb the climate change trajectory (Hecht et al., 2019; Intralawan et al., 2019). The demand for green energy, economic development, and climate mitigation, particularly floods and drought, have resulted in large-scale construction of hydro dams in the basin, which is further escalated by the proliferation of hydroelectric dams (e.g., Couto and Olden, 2018; Hecht et al., 2019). These hydro dams have brought some benefits in storing more freshwater in lakes and reservoirs for increasing accessibility, generating carbon-neutral energy, hydropower, and allowing small irrigation canals to be built for drought mitigation. At the same time, unintended consequences are agricultural land (paddy rice) expansion into the wetland areas where the inundation period has been significantly reduced or removed by constructed

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298  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus hydro dams and irrigation canals. Another trade-off is the livelihoods of fishermen, who claim that fishnet sizes are getting smaller, suggesting that large fish are disappearing from the rivers and lakes in the region. The issues include a desire and demand for green energy, water availability for irrigation from dammed rivers, and the promoted expansion of biofuel crops that are in direct competition with food crops. For example, sugarcane plantations have replaced other crops such as paddy rice fields, which resulted in a hike in rice prices in the region (Ko et al., 2017). Conversion from cropland to biofuel plantations helped meet energy demands but also changed the water requirements resulting in water use changes. In any case, land use conversion to hydro dams altered river flows, sedimentation, and water resource distribution, and impacted the connected agricultural land and aquatic systems (Waibel et al., 2012; Kondolf et al., 2018; Pokhrel et al., 2018a; Hecht et al., 2019), resulting in rigorous debate on the trade-offs brought about by these hydro dams. There are currently 11 hydropower dams on the mainstream of the Lower Mekong River and 77 dams in the entire Lower Mekong Basin, with more being planned for or under construction (OpenDevelopment Mekong, 2017). These dams are currently operating without coordination, increasingly altering river hydrology, affecting connected lakes, wetlands, and agricultural lands, which adversely affect the delivery of associated water and food that local communities rely on (Dugan et al., 2010; Grumbine and Xu, 2011; Soukhaphon et al., 2021). Furthermore, as noted above, the affected communities are often below the poverty line and they depend on sustainable water resources for food (e.g., fish, shrimp, livestock, and rice). A typical dilemma is the example of the wetland and agriculture around the Tonlé Sap Lake, which is connected to the Mekong River through the Tonlé river (Sithirith, 2015; Mahood et al., 2020). The lake serves as a natural reservoir during the dry season, absorbing a considerable amount of the flood discharge of the Mekong mainstream generated by the monsoon rains. The flood pulse during the wet season (typically June to December) and drought in the dry season (typically March to June) are the foundation of most wetland ecosystems. These dynamic pulses and resulting phenology are critical to the provision of wetland ecosystem services, including fish recruitment, biogeochemical processes, nutrition retention, net primary productivity, and wildlife refuge (Lamberts, 2006; Lin and Qi, 2017; Daly et al., 2020; Yoshida et al., 2020) and are thus of tremendous ecological, economic, and cultural value to local communities. However, the inundation hydroperiod (extent, duration, and frequency) of the lake ecosystem has changed over the past 15 years, making the surrounding wetlands vulnerable for cultivation or conversion to paddy fields. Although paddy rice plantations bring the benefit of paddy rice production, fisheries and fish habitat are lost and trade-offs are created. In this case, the upper-stream hydropower plants generated green energy, but water flow regulation through these dams has created food trade-offs and water resources even in the remote wetlands and lake ecosystems. Construction of additional planned dams will likely result in higher dry-season water levels, delaying wet-season flows and decreasing the duration and amplitude of flood pulses, causing severe impacts on food security and the livelihoods of floodplain inhabitants (Kummu and Sarkkula, 2008; Arias et al., 2012; Kummu et al., 2014; Mahood et al., 2020).

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The role of land in the water-energy-food nexus  299 16.3.2 The Nexus of Mekong There is a complex interaction within the Mekong LWEF system, where land uses, particularly hydro dams, play a key role both as a vertex itself and a nexus connecting to all other vertices. The dynamic interactions and their nexus can be summarized and synthesized intuitively in Figure 16.4 and Table 16.1, where land is one of the vertices that dynamically interacts with WEF systems. It is obvious that benefits exist, as a result of hydro dam constructions, from water accessibility, green energy, and irrigated agriculture perspectives. However, trade-offs co-exist, from habitat degradation, aquatic fishery, wetland protection, and biodiversity perspectives.

Figure 16.4

An example of a land use nexus with water, energy, and food systems in the Mekong River Basin

The question is how to avoid these trade-offs brought about by the ongoing hydro dam constructions and dam management regulations. Ideally, dam operation could and should be coordinated and synergized to maximize their potential in flood control, drought mitigation, and agricultural intensification, as well as addressing long-term water scarcity issues brought on by shrinking glaciers in the headwaters of the Mekong (Wang et al., 2017; Pokhrel et al., 2018b; Han et al., 2019; Soukhaphon et al., 2021). For example, dams could be managed

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300  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Table 16.1

Summary of interrelations among water, energy, food, and land systems within the Mekong River Basin

Land type

Water

Energy

Food

Forest

Water purification, retention,

Biofuel and woody biomass

Wild vegetables and fruits

Woody biomass and biofuel

Livestock grazing

Biomass and biofuel

Livestock grazing

evapotranspiration, erosion protection Shrubland

Water retention, water-quality filtration/ purification, erosion protection

Grassland

Water erosion protection and flow regulation

Wetland

Water resources, water quality,

Fisheries, livestock, aquatic

purification, flood buffering, erosion

vegetables

protection Cropland

Aquaculture

Irrigation, water pollution, infiltration,

Water pumping for irrigation,

soil erosion, freshwater withdraw,

Biofuel crops, food processing,

evapotranspiration

fertilizer, pesticides

Water resources required, water pollution, Pumping and water evaporative loss

Food crop production

Seafood production

circulation, feeding inputs, food processing

Water bodies

Freshwater storage, supplies and flood

Hydropower, transportation,

Fisheries, livestock consumption,

buffering, erosion protection

supplies, water diversion,

crop irrigation

pumping Snow and ice

Water reservoir, retention, evaporation

Reflection of solar energy

Barren

Water erosion, evaporative water loss,

Alternative energy, sensible

Food stress, wind erosion, loss of

flooding

fluxes

soil nutrients

Freshwater withdraw, water pollution,

Intensive energy consumption Food consumption

Urban build-up

water stress Dams/reservoirs

Redistribution of water resources,

Hydropower generation

hydrology, irrigation, water storage

Crop irrigation, agricultural drought mitigation, fisheries

to serve as a buffer to mitigate floods in wet seasons and store water for the dry seasons to mitigate droughts, but this needs coordination across the communities and sectors in the basin. Another challenge is the transboundary issue as the basin cuts across six countries (China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam). A new cooperation agreement was proposed in 2018 among all Mekong countries (Biba, 2018; Ren et al., 2021) but the implementation of the agreement remains to be put in place. Alternatively, these challenges and trade-offs among the LWEF components may be eased by technical advances in hydropower engineering. There is ongoing research to explore new ways to generate electricity without large physical structures to affect river hydrology (Moran et al., 2018; Chaudhari et al., 2021). Should this prove feasible, then the trade-off between the green energy (hydropower), water resources, food production, and other ecosystem services could be minimized or even avoided.

16.4

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Land is an integral part of the WEF system. Through a complex nexus, land use plays a key role in achieving synergies among WEF systems when properly managed. However, land use change can also lead to trade-offs that can have significant implications to WEF securities.

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The role of land in the water-energy-food nexus  301 A general LWEF framework was presented in an attempt to demonstrate the role of land in the WEF system, where arguments were made to suggest that land is both the nexus and a vertex in itself. This dual nature of land in the LWEF system makes land management imperative in order to avoid trade-offs among the three. It should be noted that there are still other aspects of land use’s role in the WEF system that we have not explored yet. To fully understand the role of land in the WEF system requires an integrated LWEF framework with both qualitative and quantitative data to quantify the vertex and nexus. The challenge remains in the availability of data specifically collected for the purpose of LWEF studies. Another aspect of LWEF is the social and policy dimensions that need to be further explored, but few studies have been carried out. The case study in the MRB demonstrated that LWEF systems are intrinsically intertwined, where there is a complex interaction pattern, or nexus between hydropower dams, agricultural food production, and water resources. While the construction of hydropower dams and biofuel production generated positive green energy outcomes, the associated land use changes have resulted in unintended consequences in food production and environmental implications. Habitat loss of aquatic ecosystems in exchange for food production may have additional long-term ecological consequences. While substantive efforts have been made to assess the impact of dams in the MRB (e.g., Orr et al., 2012; Heinimann et al., 2013; Kummu et al., 2014; Pokhrel et al., 2018a; Hecht et al., 2019), a full understanding of the role of land and dams in the WEF systems is needed in order to provide policy relevance recommendations on the multi-purpose operation of dams (Wichelns, 2017; Moran et al., 2018; Endo et al., 2020). Regardless, potential exists to achieve synergies and avoid trade-offs when land and dams are properly managed within the MRB.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We acknowledge financial support from NASA’s Land Cover and Land Use Program grant (80NSSC18K1134), NASA’s IDS grant (80NSSC17K0259) and USDA (MICL02264) grant. The Asia Hub at Nanjing Agricultural University and AsiaNexus at Michigan State University programs are also acknowledged.

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Yachen Xie

Charlie Navanugraha

The role of land in the water-energy-food nexus  305 Qi, J., P. Katic, A. Mukherji, A. Ruhweza and M. Spierenburg (2020), “Food: Rethinking global security,” in Future Earth (ed.), Our Future on Earth 2020, https://​futureearth​.org/​publications/​our​-future​ -on​-earth/​, pp.  74–81. Ren, J., Z. Peng and X. Pan (2021), “New transboundary water resources cooperation for Greater Mekong subregion: The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation,” Water Policy, 23 (3), 684–699. Ringler, C., A. Bhaduri and R. Lawford (2013), “The nexus across water, energy, land and food (WELF): Potential for improved resource use efficiency?,” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 5 (6), 617–624. Rodell, M., J.S. Famiglietti, D.N. Wiese, J.T. Reager, H.K. Beaudoing, F.W. Landerer and M.-H. Lo (2018), “Emerging trends in global freshwater availability,” Nature, 557, 651–659. Roy, S.G., E. Uchida, S.P. de Souza, B. Blachly, E. Fox, K. Gardner et al. (2018), “A multiscale approach to balance trade-offs among dam infrastructure, river restoration, and cost,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, November 20, 115 (47), 12069–12074. Searchinger, T., R. Heimlich, R.A. Houghton, F. Dong, A. Elobeid, J. Fabiosa, S. Tokgoz, D. Hayes and T. H. Yu (2008), “Use of US croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land-use change,” Science 29, 319 (5867), 1238–1240. Simpson, G.B., J. Badenhorst, G.P.W. Jewitt, M. Berchner and E. Davies (2019), “Competition for land: The water-energy-food nexus and coal mining in Mpumalanga province, South Africa,” Frontier in Environmental Science, June 18, https://​doi​.org/​10​.3389/​fenvs​.2019​.00086. Sithirith, M. (2015), “The governance of wetlands in the Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia,” Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering B, 4, 331–346. Sivakumar, B. (2021), “Water-energy-food nexus: Challenges and opportunities,” Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 35, 1–2. Smith, P., P.J. Gregory, D. van Vuuren, M. Obersteiner, P. Havlík, M. Rounsevell, J. Woods, E. Stehfest and J. Bellarby (2010), “Competition for land,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 3652941–3652957. Sok S. and X. Yu. (2015), “Adaptation, resilience and sustainable livelihoods in the communities of the Lower Mekong Basin, Cambodia,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, 31 (4), 575–588 Sonter, L.J., D. Herrera, D.J. Barrett, G.L. Galford, C.J. Moran and B.S. Soares-Filho (2017), “Mining drives extensive deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon,” Nature Communication, 8, 1013. Soukhaphon, A., I.G. Baird and Z.S. Hogan (2021), “The impacts of hydropower dams in the Mekong River Basin: A review,” Water, 13 (3), 265. Teluguntla, P., P.S. Thenkabail, J. Xiong, M.K. Gumma, C. Giri, C. Milesi et al. (2015), “Global cropland area database (GCAD) derived from remote sensing in support of food security in the twenty-first century: Current achievements and future possibilities,” in P. Thenkabail (ed.), Land Resources Monitoring, Modeling, and Mapping with Remote Sensing (Remote Sensing Handbook), Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis, pp. 1–45. Thakur, P. (2017), “Global reserves of coal bed methane and prominent coal basins,” in P. Thakur (ed.), Advanced Reservoir and Production Engineering for Coal Bed Methane, Cambridge, MA: Gulf Professional Publishing, pp. 1–15. Thornton P.K. (2010), “Livestock production: Recent trends, future prospects,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 3652853–3652867. Thornton, P.K., K.P.G. Jones, T.M. Owiyo, R.L. Kruska, M. Herrero, P. Kristjanson et al. (2006), Mapping Climate Vulnerability and Poverty in Africa, Nairobi: ILRI. Tilman D., R. Socolow, J.A. Foley, J. Hill, E. Larson, L. Lynd et al. (2009), “Beneficial biofuels: The food, energy, and environment trilemma,” Science 17, 325 (5938), 270–271. Tong, X., G. Zhang, Z. Wang, Z. Wen, Z. Tian, H. Wang, F. Ma and Y. Wu (2018), “Distribution and potential of global oil and gas resources,” Petroleum Exploration and Development, 45 (4), 779–789. Trainor, A.M., R.I. McDonald and J. Fargione (2016), “Energy sprawl is the largest driver of land use change in United States,” PLoS ONE, 11 (9), e0162269. Tran, D.D., C.N.X. Quang, P.D. Tien, P.G. Tran, P.K. Long, H.V. Hoa, N.N.H. Giang and L.T.T. Ha (2020), “Livelihood vulnerability and adaptation capacity of rice farmers under climate change and environmental pressure on the Vietnam Mekong Delta floodplains,” Water 2020, 12 (11), 3282.

Jiaguo Qi

Steve Pueppke

Myung Sik Cho

Yachen Xie

Charlie Navanugraha

306  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Turner, B.L. (2002), “Toward integrated land-change science: Advances in 1.5 decades of sustained international research on land-use and land-cover change,” in W. Steffen, J. Jäger, D.J. Carson and C. Bradshaw (eds), Challenges of a Changing Earth, Berlin: Springer. Turner, B.L., D. Skole, S. Sanderson, G. Fischer, L. Fresco and R. Leemans (1995), Land-Use and Land-Cover Change: Science/Research Plan, Stockholm: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Report no. 35/7. USGS (United States Geological Survey) (2017), New Map of Worldwide Croplands Support Food and Water Security, www​.usgs​.gov/​news/​new​-map​-worldwide​-croplands​-supports​-food​-and​-water​ -security. USGS (United States Geological Survey) (2021), How Much Water is There on Earth? www​.usgs​.gov/​ special​-topic/​water​-science​-school/​science/​how​-much​-water​-there​-earth​?qt​-science​_center​_objects​=​ 0​#qt​-science​_center​_objects. Vandergeten, E., H. Azadi, D. Teklemariam, J. Nyssen, F. Witlox and E. Vanhaute (2016), “Agricultural outsourcing or land grabbing: A meta-analysis,” Landscape Ecology, 31, 1395–1417. Verburg, P.H., N. Crossman, E.C. Ellis, A. Heinimann, P. Hostert, O. Mertz et al. (2015), “Land system science and sustainable development of the earth system: A global land project perspective,” Anthropocene, 12, 29–41. Waibel, G., S. Benedikter, N. Reis, S. Genschick, L. Nguyen, P.C. Huu and T.T. Be (2012), “Water governance under renovation? Concepts and practices of IWRM in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam,” in F.G. Renaud and C. Kuenzer (eds), The Mekong Delta System: Interdisciplinary Analyses of a River Delta, Cham: Springer. Wang, W., H. Lu, L.R. Leung, H.-Y. Li, J. Zhao, F. Tian, K. Yang and K. Sothea (2017), “Dam construction in Lancang-Mekong River Basin could mitigate future flood risk from warming-induced intensified rainfall,” Geophysical Research Letters, 44 (20), 378–410. Wheeler T. and J. von Braun (2013), “Climate change impacts on global food security,” Science, 341 (6145), 508–513. Wichelns, D. (2017), “The water-energy-food nexus: Is the increasing attention warranted, from either a research or policy perspective?,” Environmental Science and Policy, 69, 113–123. Wolde Z., W. Wei, D. Likessa, R. Omari and H. Ketema (2021), “Understanding the impact of land use and land cover change on water-energy-food nexus in the Gidabo Watershed, East African Rift Valley,” Natural Resources Research, 30 (3). World Bank (2020), World Bank Data, https://​data​.worldbank​.org/​indicator/​AG​.LND​.AGRI​.ZS. Xue, Z., J.P. Liu and Q. Ge (2011), “Changes in hydrology and sediment delivery of the Mekong River in the last 50 years: Connection to damming, monsoon and ENSO,” Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 36 (3), 296–308. Yoshida, Y., H.S. Lee, B.H. Trung, H.D. Tran, M.K. Lall, K. Kakar and T.D. Xuan (2020), “Impacts of mainstream hydropower dams on fisheries and agriculture in Lower Mekong Basin,” Sustainability  2020, 12, 2408. You, Q.L., G.Y. Ren, Y.Q. Zhang, Y.Y. Ren, X.B. Sun, Y.J. Zhan, A.B. Shrestha and R. Krishnan (2017), “An overview of studies of observed climate change in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region,” Advances in Climate Change Research, 8 (3), 141–147. Yu, Q., H.E. Epstein, R. Engstrom, N. Shiklomanov and D. Strelestskiy (2015), “Land cover and land use changes in the oil and gas regions of northwestern Siberia under changing climatic conditions,” Environmental Research Letter, 10, 124020.

Jiaguo Qi

Steve Pueppke

Myung Sik Cho

Yachen Xie

Charlie Navanugraha

PART IV STRENGTHENING THE NEXUS: METHODS AND TOOLS

17. Leveraging the water-energy-food security nexus with a complex adaptive systems approach Afreen Siddiqi

17.1 INTRODUCTION Research on the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus has brought attention to connections between water, energy, and food security (Hoff, 2011), and has highlighted the prospect of finding approaches to simultaneously meet these fundamental human needs by leveraging their connections. The nexus has been examined for governance, management, and operations for enhancing water, energy, and food security at national and sub-national scales (Odorico et al., 2018). The studies have yielded insights on policy trade-offs, such as increased water use for some biofuels (Gerbens-Leenes et al., 2009), higher energy use for water supplies from seawater desalination (Siddiqi and Diaz Anadon, 2011), and synergies in improving water efficiency in urban areas to simultaneously achieve water and energy savings (Cohen et al., 2004). But, it has also been noted that nexus assessment methods “frequently fall short of capturing interactions among water, energy, and food – the very linkages they conceptually purport to address” and their use in developing “socially and politically-relevant resource policies has been limited” (Albrecht et al., 2018). Since the nexus concept focuses on interactions of multiple components related to provisioning of water, food, and energy, it inherently embodies a systems approach. While the conceptual framing uses a systemic perspective, explicit examination of the nexus using complex adaptive systems (CAS) theories (Levin et al., 2013) has been limited. Such an effort is important because water, energy, and food security has temporal, dynamic, and adaptive aspects: human needs of water, energy, and food have to be served within specific time periods, hydrological, biophysical, and diurnal cycles determine water, crop growth, and energy availability, development of technological components (such as built infrastructure) involves time lags, and linkages with collection and use of information are important for making and regulating policy. Additionally, evolution is inherently present in natural ecosystems, technologies, and institutions. The interactions of these components determine water, energy, and food security in a given period, and analytical frameworks that incorporate these aspects can provide new perspectives for interventions. Motivated by this context, this chapter initiates the formulation of such an approach, and explores three specific questions: (1) how do the specific concepts of CAS theories apply to the WEF nexus? (2) Where are the potential points of leverage? (3) What are useful concepts (with practical implications) for managing and regulating the WEF nexus? The following sections discuss these in order. First, a brief discussion of literature on systems research is provided. Then, a discussion of key concepts from CAS theory along with their application for the WEF nexus is presented. A discussion of structures of interactions, leverage points, and 308

Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  309 regulations using a control-theoretic conceptualization is also presented. Then, the conceptual framework is applied to examine the WEF nexus for Pakistan – a country where water, energy, and food security is connected to large-scale irrigation-based agriculture and where a growing population places critical and urgent demands on enhancing human well-being. Lastly, directions for extensions of this work are briefly discussed.

17.2

SYSTEMS THEORIES AND THE WATER-ENERGY-FOOD NEXUS: A BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW

A short overview of streams of research that connect on issues of water, energy, and food security using a systems approach is helpful for context. An exhaustive review is outside the scope of this work. However, a few highlights are discussed on how knowledge in physical sciences (including biology and ecology), engineering, and social sciences (including economics) has converged (and continues to intersect) leading to the conception of systems theories and formulation of methods for analysis and design. 17.2.1 Systems-Theoretic Research Themes Ecology – with its focus on interactions between organisms and their environment – was a foundational science that provided many concepts and terminology later adopted in other disciplines that sought to develop systems-oriented inquiry. For example, research on cybernetics in the 1940s that focused on cognition, control, and communication (Wiener, 1948) and later attempts to formulate general systems theories (around the mid-twentieth century) strongly drew from knowledge of ecology and biology (Bertalanffy, 1968). Some of these efforts produced significant contributions in engineering and computation. The development of systems control theory for electro-mechanical systems (Wiener, 1948) and its applications led to the production of sophisticated machines, such as aircraft, digital computers, spacecraft, and continues to provide advances in automotive, manufacturing, and healthcare technologies. Dynamic systems-theoretic approaches were formulated for organizational management (Richardson, 2011; Sterman, 2000) and have been used for communicating policy challenges related to climate change and sustainability (Sterman, 2012). Research on socio-ecological systems at the intersection of ecology, economics, and political science (Levin et al., 2013) provides a strong foundation that links systems theories with water, energy, and food security. Several scholars framed and organized some of their work in socio-ecological systems literature (McGinnis and Ostrom, 2014), with a focus on examining natural resources (water, forests, fisheries) and human actions to harvest the resources for food, water, and commerce (such as agriculture, irrigation, fishing, etc.). Research work on engineering systems (de Weck et al., 2011) that include adaptable (Ross et al., 2008) and flexible (de Neufville and Scholtes, 2011) technical systems is especially relevant for the WEF nexus wherein built infrastructure is an important component. Additionally, literature on coupled natural and human systems and sustainability science (Clark and Harley, 2020) have explicit considerations of system adaptation and carry important relevance for managing the WEF nexus.

310  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus 17.2.2 Water, Energy, and Food Interconnections Interconnections between water, energy, and food for human needs were being explicitly studied at least from the late 1960s, and systems-theoretic paradigms influenced these studies. Henry Odum, exploring “new designs for systems of food production and consumption [that] will lead to the survival of man in affluence, stability, and justice,” used systems analysis linking food and energy (Odum, 1967). Research on the food-energy nexus continued in the 1970s (Pimentel et al., 1973), and water and energy interconnections were being explicitly discussed by the early 1990s (Gleick, 1994). Some studies accounted for two-way interdependencies, such as between water and energy (Mukherji, 2007; Siddiqi and Diaz Anadon, 2011) and between energy and food (Woods et al., 2010). Other studies have examined all three – water, food, and energy – that form the basis of fundamental material human needs (Albrecht et al., 2018; Odorico et al., 2018). In recent decades, there has been particular focus on defining (Hoff, 2011) and debating (Muller, 2015) what is meant by the WEF nexus and whether the integrative framing helps or hinders efforts to harness and use resources. There is an emerging convergence in the discourse that advocates for understanding the interdependencies between water, energy, and food such that security of all three resources is enhanced and that improvement of one resource with adverse impacts on other resources is minimized (Liu et al., 2015). The conceptual advancements for the WEF nexus have been in concert with methodological developments, and a variety of methods, broadly in the umbrella of systems analysis, have been applied to model governance, production, supply, and access to water, energy, and food. These include integrated assessment models (Bazilian et al., 2011), linear optimization methods (Zhang and Vesselinov, 2017), lifecycle analysis (Jordaan, 2012), and stakeholder analysis (Siddiqi et al., 2013). Some studies have also been conducted using agent-based modeling (Bazzana et al., 2020) and systems dynamics (Honti et al., 2019). However, it has been noted that there is generally “a lack of dynamic approaches based on CAS and co-evolutionary theory” for natural resource management (Rammel et al., 2007), and by extension for the WEF nexus.

17.3

COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS AND THE WEF NEXUS

There are several different disciplinary roots of what is broadly categorized as “systems literature,” and discourse and development of theories and definition of concepts continue. Therefore, for clarity, the specific definitions used (from literature) are articulated along with applications for the WEF nexus. 17.3.1 System A system is a set of interacting components producing emergent behavior that exists for the aggregate and is not reduceable to its constituents (Holland, 2014). For example, species interacting through biophysical processes in an environment constitute an ecosystem with emergent properties of resilience, stability, and fluxes of matter and energy. A farm is a system, where its emergent food production is through an organized set of interactions of humans, land, water, energy, machines, living organisms, and biophysical processes. A hydropower station

Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  311 is a system – its emergent behavior (or function) of electricity generation results when several components, including flowing water, pipes, turbines, and other machinery, interact in specific configurations. Technological systems are built to fulfill some “purpose,” and therefore a characteristic set of “‘functions’ or ‘purpose’” are also typically defined (Meadows, 2008) for such systems. 17.3.2 System Boundary The system boundary specification involves clearly specifying what components are included in – and what are considered external to – the system. The scoping is partly (but not solely) guided by the purpose for which a system is to be created (as in engineering and technical design), or by questions (such as for scientific inquiry), or the issue (that may be related to natural environment or human actions), or matters of policy (where political boundaries define jurisdictions of rules). A clear articulation of the system boundary is essential. Otherwise, a lack of clarity leads to confusion and ambiguity, and in some cases confounds understanding. For example, it has been shown that inconsistent system boundaries have led different studies of the same issue of biofuels to produce opposite results (Farrell et al., 2006). Other examples include different results for lifecycle emissions of electric vehicles depending on how the system boundaries are defined (de Weck et al., 2011). 17.3.3 Interaction Interactions between system components can be physical connections (transmitting energy and matter, or conveying forces) or social interactions between humans such as communication, socialization, competition, cooperation, trade, human–nature interactions, human–machine interactions, and so on. Interactions are governed by a set of rules such as physical laws, policies, or cultural norms (Selin and Selin, 2020). The interactions within a system connect to form paths, and some lead to positive feedback (reinforcing) or negative feedback (balancing) loops (Figure 17.1). A reinforcing loop structure leads to exponential growth (or decay), while a negative feedback loop creates self-correcting or balancing behavior (Sterman, 2000). The negative feedback structure shown on the left in Figure 17.1 shows the interactions of a system seeking to match its state to a “goal” (or “desired state”). The gap or difference between the goal and prevalent state of the system drives corrective action that affects the system state to bring it closer to the goal and narrow the gap. This structure is a core concept in feedback control theory, and is often referred to as a “goal-seeking” structure (Sterman, 2000). In most systems, there may be several reinforcing and balancing loops and interactions may also change over time. Systems theory posits that emergent behavior at particular instances results from interactions, and therefore understanding interactions is an essential part of understanding the system. The concept of the WEF nexus by its very definition is centered on interactions, and a significant literature on the nexus has sought to identify and quantify interactions between water, energy, and food. There are, however, other possibilities that result when richer descriptions of interactions are used that include identification of institutions and knowledge that governs or enables them (Selin and Selin, 2020). For instance, an understanding of all the interconnecting sets of interactions (pathways) connecting two components can be valuable for unearthing

312  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Figure 17.1

(Left) a negative feedback (balancing) or “goal-seeking” structure; (right) a set of components linked through information realize the goal-seeking structure. The components (boxes) sense the system state, determine decisions for action (based on given goals and state of system in a “controller”), and execute through actuators. The information links typically have errors and time delays. Note that this is an abstract representation of humans (individuals or groups) utilizing technologies to carry out sensing, controlling, and information-linking functions

new ways of affecting a specific part of the system. Consider the example of water pricing: Water pricing reflecting the full economic value of water in agricultural and commercial sectors continues to be difficult. On the other hand, food or agricultural production policy (that incorporates concerns of water conservation and efficient use) may have greater possibility of adjustment (and acceptance). Crop procurement policies are used in many developing countries to support farm production, and these can be used to steer crop choices and thereby affect water used for irrigation. Thus, water conservation goals may be achievable in some regions through interventions in food production (rather than directly on water withdrawal). 17.3.4 Emergence The notion of emergence is key in systems theory. It is “the large-scale effect” produced from interactions (Axelrod, 1997) of components (that may be human, technological, and/or environmental). For example, safety from flooding in a city is an emergent property resulting from interactions of different components including rivers, city residents, technologies, policies, and other institutions. Interventions seeking to improve safety should start with this recognition. Leveson has developed this notion of safety extensively for applications to complex socio-technical systems (Leveson, 2016). It is important to note that many interactions in systems are not simply additive and produce non-linear effects (Holland, 2014). Emergent properties can be surprising and unpredictable in complex systems. Linear, equilibrium-centric, analytical approaches are inadequate for their study, and non-linear, dynamic systems models and simulations are needed.

Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  313 In the WEF nexus research, a key question has been: How can an understanding of the interactions between water, energy, and food systems be used to enhance water, energy, and food security? If this question is used to guide system boundary selection, it follows that all components related to provision and use of water, energy, and food should be considered as parts of a single system (a single whole), rather than three separate systems. This system (and boundary definition) then implies that water, energy, and food security are its emergent properties and result from interactions between its human, technological and environmental components. The rules of interactions between some of the components are based on physical laws (partially known through studies in chemistry, biology, hydrology, and other sciences). Some other rules of interaction are devised by humans. These are institutions and include policies, laws, customs, and norms that govern human interactions with other humans, technologies, and the environment. Interactions within this system determine the emergent state of water, energy, and food security over time. The term “agent” is often used to refer to system components that can learn and modify behavior such as humans, living organisms, and in some cases machines. CAS have such components, and these “agents learn or adapt in response to interactions with the other agents” (Axelrod, 1997). Markets are good examples of CAS, where agents buying and selling change their strategies. Global trade is through interactions of adaptive agents. A key feature of CAS is that “as the elements react, the aggregate changes; as the aggregate changes, elements react anew. Barring the reaching of some asymptotic state or equilibrium, complex systems are systems in process that constantly evolve and unfold over time” (Arthur, 1999). This notion of constant change is a shift from equilibrium-based analysis developed for mathematical tractability. Unfortunately, most “conventional economic theories choose not to study the unfolding of the patterns its agents create” (Arthur, 1999), and critical issues (with asymmetric outcomes) of stability, safety, and dynamics remain inadequately explored. A CAS framing brings into focus a continually evolving world, and offers a more suitable approach to think about the nexus wherein ecosystems, humans, and other living organisms adapt, technologies (that humans fashion) continually change to serve new needs, and societal norms, values, and knowledge change. Embracing this notion of adaptation creates implications for the planning, design, and regulation of components that contribute to water, energy, and food security. For instance, dams, reservoirs, electric thermal power plants, seawater desalination systems, and other human-built infrastructure are designed for decades of operation, and it is essential to consider changes that may occur in their environment during the operational lifetime, and necessary provisions should be made for adaptation. There are formal methods that have been developed for designing in flexibility (de Neufville and Scholtes, 2011), but application of the methods has been limited. Similarly, adaptive governance and policies have been discussed in literature, but their use in practice remains limited. A CAS lens highlights the need for both advancing and adopting such methods. 17.3.5 Goal-Seeking Behavior and Feedback The control system abstraction (Figure 17.1) was developed by observing how biological regulatory systems in living organisms operated under changing conditions. This was later successfully used in creating regulatory functions in artefacts ranging from temperature controllers in ovens and buildings to motion control in robots, and provided the blueprint for con-

314  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus structing complex machines (Wiener, 1948), organizations (Sterman, 2000), and systems that embodied both (as has been done for methods for designing systems safety; Leveson, 2016). Here, it is proposed that a feedback control abstraction can be useful for studying water, energy, and food security. Such a view elicits examination of goals, and the existence or functioning of controllers, actuators, sensors, and communication links operating at necessary frequencies (to provide timely information and action). Systems theory posits that negative feedback loops (or balancing loops) are “goal-seeking,” and the dynamics are based on the gap between the system state and the system goal. Using this systems parlance, it is proposed that the problem can be framed with a goal of fulfilling water, energy, and food needs, and the goal-seeking behavior can be conceptualized with a set of balancing loops for each resource. Additionally, there are interconnecting links between actions for improving security of one resource that impact the state of other resources (see Figure 17.2).

Figure 17.2

Water, energy, and food security can be conceived as a set of goal-seeking (negative feedback) structures. The interaction links between these structures account for the water-energy-food nexus

Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  315 Setting and changing goals puts necessary actions in motion to seek the desired state. Furthermore, the implication is that if there are no goals, then there is no gap, and the system is essentially in an “open-loop” configuration. There is no process of comparing what is occurring and no course correction. One implication of such a configuration is that any disturbances impinging on the system will have a lasting effect on the system state. This would be in contrast to a negative feedback configuration wherein corrective action will bring the system state back towards a desired (goal) state. Goal-seeking behavior is achieved through an arrangement of sensors (that monitor), controllers (that initiate actions), and actuators (that manipulate the process under control) in a specific feedback configuration (Figure 17.1). This is realized with humans (individuals or groups) utilizing technologies to carry out sensing, controlling, and information linking functions. Time lags, time duration between an action, and when its effect manifests are also important to note. By not accounting for these time durations between cause and effect, actions are often taken that undermine previous attempts to achieve a desired state, and can lead to oscillatory behavior of the system. For systems that include humans, these delays can be due to social factors, such as the time required to collect and report information, time taken in making decisions, and so on. Overall, Figures 17.1 and 17.2 present a system view that is about steering and regulating the system’s dynamic behavior, and prompt questions related to goals, feedbacks, delays, and disturbances. 17.3.6 Adaptation and Adaptive Capacity The definition of adaptive capacity of systems that include humans, technologies, and environmental components varies (Siders, 2019), but it generally refers to a system’s ability to change (adjust) in response to potential opportunity or harm (Clark and Harley, 2020). The changes may occur within components and/or in their pattern of interactions. Adaptive capacity of ecological systems is (partly) determined by genetic diversity within species, and rules of selection favor traits that enhance survivability under a set of environmental conditions. Experts observe: in competitive or human-controlled situations … selective processes also reduce diversity by increasing the frequency of the most optimal types or ideas. Market pressures have contributed to lower cultivated species diversity by promoting the most profitable crops and animals at the expense of a variety of less productive ones (e.g., varieties of apples, cattle, etc.). These species are well adapted to the present production system and taste and perform very well under current (relatively constant) conditions. However, if conditions change, the optimal type can change as well. If disease were to strike a dominant crop or animal, the selective process might not cope if diversity were reduced because of past selection for increased productivity. (Levin et al., 2013)

In social science literature, experts propose that “adaptation is a socio-political process that mediates how individuals and collectives deal with multiple and concurrent environmental and social changes” and focus on understanding “how power is reproduced or contested” (Eriksen et al., 2015). In engineering design literature, technical experts have advocated for modular architectures for system adaptability, and highlight the need for effective sensing and feedback control processes in the system to enable adaptation. These design principles have been used in communication systems, robotics, autonomous cars, and many other types of technological

316  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus systems so that they can adapt their behavior (e.g. path of network connections, trajectory of motion, etc.) in the face of failure, obstacles, or other unexpected occurrences. One can posit that adaptive capacity of the WEF nexus system, with humans, other living species, and technological artefacts included within the system boundary, will be driven by structure (and rules for reshaping) interactions between humans within and across the nested hierarchies of social organization (from household level to national level), modularity of human-built components (such as infrastructure and other technologies), and diversity in the components (biological, social, and technological). Furthermore, adaptive capacity will be determined not only by the constituents of the system and their relationships, but also how fast (or slow) the control and regulating structures (at various levels in the system) operate. 17.3.7 Hierarchical Ordering Complex systems exhibit hierarchical organization (Simon, 1977), and the term hierarchy in CAS literature refers to levels of organization. For instance, the human body consists of hierarchies of organs, tissues, and cells (Simon 1996). A “hierarchy is determined by a succession of enclosing boundaries that pass some signals and not others, e.g. the semi-permeable membrane hierarchies of biological cells. Observation shows that different levels of a CAS hierarchy are subject to specific ‘laws’ that are self-consistent in the sense that laws at one level do not violate laws of lower levels” (Holland, 2014). For example, there are laws governing bonds between hydrogen and oxygen atoms that lead to the formation of water molecules, and there are laws that govern movement of the water molecules as a fluid, laws governing interaction of water with the roots of a plant (capillary action), and so on. Some laws have been observed and understood, and many remain obscure and have yet to be determined. Successfully evolving systems exhibit hierarchies in their component organization, and Herbert Simon argued that the speed of evolution can only be explained in the anatomy of living organisms on the basis of hierarchical ordering: One can show on quite simple and general grounds that the time required for a complex system, containing k elementary components, say, to evolve by processes of natural selection from those components is very much shorter if the system is itself comprised of one or more layers of stable component subsystems than if its elementary parts are its only stable components … Hence, almost all the very large systems will have hierarchic organization. And this is what we do, in fact, observe in nature. (Simon, 1977)

Holling has referred to such hierarchies in ecological and social systems as “nested sets at scales ranging from a leaf to the biosphere over periods from days to geologic epochs, and from the scales of a family to a sociopolitical region” (Holling, 2001). There are similar observations for artificial systems: technological artefacts created by assembling well-defined “sub-systems” or modular units are easily changeable and can be evolved to fulfill new design requirements, fix faults, and be upgraded (Siddiqi and de Weck, 2006). Human-built systems ranging from automobiles, aircraft, spacecraft, to digital computing devices all have underlying modular designs, and research has highlighted the benefits of design modularity for manufacturing, maintenance, and longevity. In summary, successfully evolving systems (in the ecological, social, and technological realms) have been observed to have hierarchical organization. And Holland noted that, “the laws at various levels of the hierarchy are closely linked to the possibilities of ‘steering’

Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  317 complex systems” (Holland, 2014). Thus, it may be fruitful to consider a hierarchical organizing approach for governance and technical components for water, energy, and food security such that steering and adaptation is more readily achieved. If suitable configurations are determined, they can lend not only stability in meeting water, energy, and food security goals but also provide the necessary speed for adaptations. A nested hierarchical consideration could start with the innermost (or first) level of households, then the neighborhood, village or town, city, state (or province), national, and lastly, international levels. Political boundaries can be used to define hierarchies for cities and beyond since governance rules and other institutions regulating water, energy, and food are defined with such jurisdictions. A nested view is also useful as it brings attention to all levels and can partly reduce the risk that large aggregations entail masking inequalities and omitting distribution aspects that can have adverse equity implications. 17.3.8 Leverage and Leverage Points Leverage points “are places in the system where a small change could lead to a large shift in behavior” (Meadows, 2008). These points are often not obvious and have been frequently found to be counterintuitive (partly explaining the difficulty in achieving desired system-level change). Meadows synthesized some important leverage points to be: (a) paradigms, (b) goals, (c) rules for self-organization, and (d) rules (setting constraints and incentives). Paradigms are the “deepest set of beliefs” about the world, for instance, a belief that “nature is a stock of resources to be converted for human purpose,” or “growth is good.” Paradigms are the “shared ideas in the mind of society” out of which goals, structures, and rules arise. Goals are related to the purpose and function of a system, and are an important leverage point because goals set in motion the dynamics and action of interconnected components. The rules for self-organization, that “govern how, where, and what the system can add onto or subtract from itself under what conditions,” are also important points of leverage. Self-organization (closely related to adaptation) lends resilience to living systems and to social systems (that manage to do this successfully), and involves the addition of new components, rules, and interactions that can lead to entirely new structures and behaviors (Meadows, 2008). Rules, governing interactions, are also “high-leverage” points in systems. These include constitutions (at national scales), laws and regulations, incentives and constraints, and are both formal and informal. While some WEF nexus studies have sought to examine interactions, discussions on leverage points are rare.

17.4

INVESTIGATING THE NEXUS WITH A CAS APPROACH: AN APPLICATION TO PAKISTAN

Pakistan is the world’s fifth largest country with over 212 million people (MoPD&SI, 2020), and faces significant challenges in the adequate provisioning of water, food, and energy for its growing population. Pakistan’s economy has a large agrarian sector (19.3 percent of the gross domestic product). Some of the major crops produced in the country include wheat, rice, sugar cane, and cotton, and agricultural products and value-added goods form over 50 percent of exports. The primary energy supply in the country is from oil, biomass, and natural gas. Domestic oil supplies serve 25 percent of demand, and the remaining 75 percent is imported.

318  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Hydropower constitutes 30 percent of the electricity generation mix, and freshwater resources of the country – derived from the Indus river system – serve energy and irrigation needs. Pakistan is largely arid, and the inflow of freshwater from the rivers sustains its agrarian economy. The Indus river and its tributaries have been extensively engineered, and surface canals divert approximately 75 percent of annual inflows for irrigation over 45 million acres (MoW&P, 2012). It is considered to be the largest contiguous system in the world. The irrigation from canals is augmented with groundwater pumped from diesel-powered engines. Over a million pumps are reportedly operating in the Punjab province alone and accounted for up to 12 percent of primary energy consumption in the province in 2010 (Siddiqi and Wescoat, 2013). The irrigation and fertilization practices have increased soil salinity in many parts. The fossil salts deposits at various locations in the river basin get mobilized due to pumping of deep groundwater. The waters from the upper Indus basin also bring in salts. The incoming water is of low salinity, however, the high volume of irrigation implies a significant salt import. It is estimated that approximately 1.5–2.5 tons of salt per hectare per year are added to the irrigated lands (Briscoe and Qamar, 2006). Some irrigators have to mix surface water and groundwater to address salinity issues to maintain crop yields, but pumping groundwater incurs energy expenditure. The issue of energy use for salinity management is poorly understood for this region. In summary, there are significant links between water, food, and energy, stemming mostly due to an agrarian economy. The question of optimal use of resources in this economy has been examined for decades, and most studies (from the 1960s onwards) focused on linear optimization methods (Yang et al., 2016) and hydrological and empirical modeling (Khan et al., 2017). Here, a new (CAS) approach is used to explore interactions of water, energy, and food, and identify potential points of leverage for enhancing water, energy, and food security. 17.4.1 System Boundary The system boundary and scope for the analysis encompass the country’s population, its natural resources, technological components including built infrastructure and machinery, institutions that govern water, energy, and food production, export and import, and the knowledge used for harnessing and consuming resources. In Pakistan, the federal government has a coordinating and adjudicating role in the allocation of river flows that run across the provinces, and also regulates international exports and imports. However, provinces have great autonomy and have jurisdictions on many elements of food production, energy generation, and water use within their boundaries. The majority of national agricultural production is in Punjab. This analysis, therefore, focuses on the system boundary to Punjab as an illustrative case. The household level is used as the starting unit of analysis as that forms the innermost level of the complex system under study, and is also the fundamental level where water, energy, and food security ultimately hold meaning for human well-being. Urban and rural households are separately considered due to major differences on their provision and use of water, energy, and food. Furthermore, only rural households owning farm land are considered in this initial study. Population estimates in 2018 for Punjab were ~110 million people, with 70 million in rural areas in 10.7 million households and 40 million in urban areas in 6.4 million households (MoPD&SI, 2020).

Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  319 17.4.2 Water, Energy, and Food Nexus in Punjab, Pakistan The water, energy, and food interactions are mapped for a rural farming household in Punjab in Figure 17.3 (based on the structure in Figure 17.2).

Figure 17.3

Rural households engage in farming and are reliant on water for irrigation. Due to inadequacy of water supplies, many farms pump groundwater and consume energy for irrigation. Use of biomass and fuel from animal waste for cooking is widely prevalent

The desired level of food production is based on the need for livelihood as well as for household food requirements, and desired level of food production and actual level of food production determine the food production gap. Farmers address this gap (if it exists) through corrective actions that involve increasing cropping intensity and/or livestock production. An increase of cropping intensity requires higher demand for irrigation water. The desired quantity of water, along with actual level of farm water availability, determines the water availability gap, and if it is present, it affects crop yields and depresses food production. The set of links numbered 1-2-3-4-5 in Figure 17.3 mark this set of interactions.

320  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus For farmers who pump groundwater, the interactions include: food production gap → cropping intensity → desired quantity of water → water availability gap → groundwater pumping. The pumping leads to an increase in demand for energy, and is represented as: desired amount of energy → fuel availability gap, and if the gap is present it negatively impacts food production. The interaction links numbered 1-2-3-6-7-10-11-5 in Figure 17.3 constitute this set. The interactions are highlighted in bold and show two major pathways of how food production puts demand on water and energy; limits of these resources affect production. The interactions that can balance (or reduce the gap) for energy availability include using diesel or electricity. Rural electrification has increased in Pakistan, and solar power use has also expanded but remains expensive. An important issue of concern is use of cheap energy that can lead to overabstraction of groundwater – therefore an unlimited and cheap supply of energy is not a sustainable solution in the absence of regulations. Empirical evidence in India (Shah, 2009) and other regions have highlighted these challenges. There are other limiting factors for farm-level production such as total cultivable land, access to quality seeds, fertilizers, and losses from pests and disease (these are not included here for brevity). Farms that are able to meet energy and water needs are able to maintain and even enhance food production. However, the food production gap is exacerbated when desired level for food production rises due to growth in size of households or a need to increase income, and water and energy limitations come into effect. Rural households in Punjab spend up to 45 percent of their income on food, and more than 8 percent on fuel and electricity (HEIS, 2019). In Pakistan, there are ~6.7 million farms (the majority of which are in Punjab), and 73 percent of the farms are less than 3 hectares. The agricultural earnings from small farms are insufficient (households derive only up to 30 percent of monthly earnings from crops and livestock production; HEIS, 2019), and this has partly driven migration of household members to urban regions. Another link in the WEF nexus at the farm level is the use of biomass (wood) and animal waste for fuel. In Punjab, 58 percent of rural households use wood and 14 percent use animal waste as fuel for cooking (MoPD&SI, 2020). This biomass use for rural energy needs has important links with health and environment, and is one where opportunities for improvement are significant. Links connecting crop residue and animal waste to electricity are shown in Figure 17.3 with dotted lines to indicate the potential of biogas and electricity production and one that connects households to rural industry. The crop residues on farms include corn stalk, sugarcane trash, rice straw, wheat straw, and cotton stalks. Residues from individual farms can be combined as feedstock to generate electricity – however, this would require innovations in social and business organization to enable the cost-effective collection of residues. Bagasse – the residue from sugar mills after juice has been extracted – is already used for power generation within sugar mills. But studies show that the efficiency can be improved and electricity can be supplied to the grid with appropriate incentives. Some estimates indicated that the sugar mills produce enough bagasse to generate 5800 GWh of electricity, and animal waste can provide up to 4800 GWh (Irfan et al., 2020). The total national electricity consumption in 2019 was reported to be 127,760 GWh (IEA, 2020), and therefore these sources can provide up to 8 percent of national electricity use. This link between food and energy can be useful to explore further, as it can contribute to partially recovering energy that is expended in producing the crops in the first place.

Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  321 The model in Figure 17.3 shows that it is the agricultural production goal that drives the dynamics of water access (attempts to increase its supply) and associated implications for energy use (e.g. pumping). If the electricity generation in the country from hydropower – which is significantly cheaper to produce as compared to thermal power plants – is also considered here, it is relevant to note that it competes with irrigation needs, and irrigation releases (from reservoirs to canals) are given priority. In Punjab, irrigation-based agricultural production is thus an important place of leverage. The goals of agricultural production on farms are driven by needs of subsistence in many households, but also for livelihoods and exports. Policies that impact goals, and set rules affecting farm production, can have a cascading impact on water and energy sectors. For example, it would be fruitful to explore strategies for steering crop choices (to affect water use), reasonable taxation on commercial produce, and so on. The urban WEF security nexus is illustrated in Figure 17.4. Here, households do not produce, and instead purchase food and spend up to 41 percent of their income on that (HEIS, 2019). The opportunities for synergizing water, energy, and food security at the household level are not the same in the urban case as they are for the rural households. For urban areas, adequate income is essential for fulfilling water, energy, and food needs. The connections between water and food (and also energy and food) are for water heating, cooking (mainly

Figure 17.4

Urban households meet water, energy, and food needs in a variety of ways. Food is mainly purchased, and water and energy are provided through municipal infrastructure. In some cases, off-grid sources of water and energy are used with higher costs

322  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus through gas) and food refrigeration (through electricity). In Punjab, urban households spend over 9 percent of income on electricity and gas (HEIS, 2019). Policies (i.e. rules) for efficiency standards for appliances can make an important difference in energy consumption as well as enable savings for households in energy expense. An additional issue for water, energy, and food security in urban households is access to distribution infrastructure. Grid connections for electricity and pipes for water supply are not available in peri-urban areas that have developed without planning and in many cases without government sanction. In such areas, the water is obtained through purchase from water tankers, or through bottles and containers. The reliability of supply is also an issue: poor services of piped supply have prompted households in cities to drill wells for groundwater. Electricity outages have led to installations of diesel generators and batteries driving up the cost for urban households for energy supply. Solar PV installations have also been pursued, although official statistics show that only 0.3 percent of households in urban Punjab are using solar PV for lighting (MoPD&SI, 2020). 17.4.3 Regulating Water, Energy, and Food Security The household scale is useful as it maps out the connections prevalent for farms and houses within the realm of private action. The question of regulating water, energy, and food from a higher hierarchical level – of provincial scale – is also useful to explore as it is at that level where the distribution of water (in this irrigation-dependent region) is controlled, and where the generation, transmission, and distribution of energy is managed. This exploration is conducted here, with the control-theoretic goal-seeking conceptualization described in Section 17.3, using details from a study that included field interviews with officials in Punjab (Shahid et al., 2019). The Punjab Agriculture Department (PAD), Punjab Irrigation Department (PID), and Energy Department are the key organizations that have jurisdiction over agriculture, water, and energy in the province. Details of the operations of PAD and PID are discussed in Shahid et al. (2019), and a brief summary is provided below. There are three different types of decision-making categories in the functions of the departments: planning, management, and operation. Management involves ongoing decision making while planning is forward looking generally on a timescale of at least one to five years and longer. Planning involves sectoral priorities, future infrastructure investments, policy implementation mechanisms, and “the outputs of the planning process are mid-term and annual development plans with lists of projects to be implemented” (Shahid et al., 2019). But, goals to steer planning are not well organized, and in PAD, “officials frequently cite the impetus for departmental plans to be ad hoc, which comes from demands of donor organizations or provincial tiers.” PAD gathers proposals for projects on water management, agriculture extension services, etc., and selects projects for final approval. Its strategy uses two main considerations: (1) import substitution and export enhancement and (2) productivity enhancement and food security. Crop production monitoring and reporting is carried out at sub-provincial tiers (districts and divisions), and annual data on cultivated areas, crop yields, and output are collected by revenue patwaris (crop-reporting services) and communicated to PAD and the provincial Bureau of Statistics. PAD sets crop targets and implementation details of projects, subsidies, and schemes, and crop targets are communicated to the district and division offices. Additionally, PAD’s field formations work closely with farmers, but limit their role to information and technology dissemination (Shahid et al., 2019).

Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  323 The irrigation infrastructure, managed and operated by PID, is supply based with fixed allocations of canal water to farms. The canal water allocations (or entitlements) are determined by PID on a seasonal basis, and are based on the total provincial supply allocated by the Indus River System Authority. Water deliveries in the canals are monitored and publicly reported by the Programme Monitoring and Implementation Unit in PID. Due to the supply-based (rather than demand-based) irrigation system, PAD has to work within the irrigation limitations as determined by PID. Agriculture officials accept that the largest hurdle to improving crop yield in Punjab is reliable availability of water, but they cannot influence this supply other than encouraging the use of water conservation techniques at the farm level. The field formations of PID identify infrastructural gaps and problem areas, and new projects are planned, approved, and implemented by PID in consultation with the provincial government and the Indus River System Authority. “Efforts in recent years to improve data collection by PMIU [Programme Monitoring and Implementation Unit] in the PID and CRS [crop-reporting services] in the PAD have empowered the departments to carry out more accurate and granular analysis of departmental performance in irrigation and agriculture” (Shahid et al., 2019). However, there is also reportedly a lack of information links. A district official for PAD explained: “There is a lack of ownership of irrigation infrastructure by stakeholders because no feedback is asked from them.” PAD provides subsidies on inputs, technical knowledge, and micro-credit to farmers to support agriculture, however, he explained: “There is a top to bottom sort of implementation. Allocation of subsidies is on the basis of crop acreage, we are not given or asked for any feedback” (Shahid et al., 2019). The Energy Department in Punjab has authority in power generation, distribution, and transmission. The majority of natural resources (of oil, gas, and hydropower potential) are mostly outside the province. But private power producers, and production of solar power and small hydro, have been incentivized by policy. Energy conservation efforts, through audits and retrofitting programs, have also expanded and are considered an important part of addressing energy demand (PED, 2021). Figure 17.5 shows a representation (following the pattern of Figure 17.1) of the summary described above. Figure 17.5 shows a representation of regulatory components and links at provincial level in water, energy, and agriculture in Punjab. Content analysis of annual reports and documents indicate a lack of clear goals for water, energy, and food security (shown through grey and dotted lines in Figure 17.5; PED, 2021). The departments have general vision statements, but formal goals with clear (and ideally coordinated) targets are not evident. The jurisdiction of PAD ends in the field services wing that has an information and services provision role. The production on farms is in control of private actors (farmers) that ultimately determine the level of on-farm crop production in the province. The water, on the other hand, as a critical input of production is fully controlled by PID – but there are area water boards and farmer organizations – for participatory partial management. In the energy sector, natural resources for generation and production are largely outside the province, and thermal power generation within Punjab is mostly through private power producers. The primary function of the energy department is on managing electricity distribution and improving energy use efficiency. Overall, it is evident that components are present for sensing (data collection), controlling (planning), and actuation (farmers, irrigation engineers, private power producers) in the system. However, the quality of functioning of these components, and the accuracy and time-

324  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Figure 17.5

A representation of components and links in water, energy, and agriculture management and planning in Punjab. The dependence of agriculture on irrigation and supply-based operation of canals makes agricultural planning constrained to water allocations. In energy, the provincial management is mostly of distribution and increasing efficient use of energy. Empirical analysis indicates some missing or weak information links

liness of information links, can be improved as surveys show 16.4 percent of the population in Punjab to have moderate to severe food insecurity (PSLM, 2020). It is interesting to observe that private goals of food production drive use of water and energy, and the provincial (government) control is concentrated in public water management – which exerts control on food production in this arid region reliant on irrigation. The rise of groundwater pumping, however, has provided more control to farmers over irrigation. The need for monitoring and coordination is evident here as only the surface system of canals is governed and regulated, and diesel-based, off-grid groundwater extraction (that also levies a high energy cost) remains unregulated. The National Water Policy (approved in 2018 by the Federal Government of Pakistan) includes provisions for provincial governments to institute monitoring efforts to determine sustainable groundwater potential, and to “enforce legislation and take regulatory measures” (MoWR, 2018). So far, coordinated rules for groundwater have not fully emerged. A synthesized view of water, agriculture, and energy points to the potential of adding a component to improve coordination. The Planning and Development Department of the

Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  325 government of Punjab can potentially serve in such a role. This serves as the central agency for compiling all departmental plans and is the final decision-making entity through which projects are approved based on financial constraints. There is an opportunity, through such a department, to coordinate synergistic goals, and assess and strengthen information links. Further, such an agency can examine if institutions (rules) are such that goals at all levels complement (and not impede) achieving the desired water, energy, and food security. Additionally, monitoring activities, such as those carried out by the Bureau of Statistics (PSLM, 2020), that conduct surveys and report information on access to water, food, and energy (and other indicators targeted by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) can also be further integrated in informing planning and coordination of projects.

17.5 SUMMARY The CAS approach discussed here centered on noting that water, energy, and food security can be conceived as emergent properties of a single system wherein interactions can be mapped (and examined) for goal-seeking dynamics. This view departs from a supply chain perspective that has been widely used to think about water, energy, and food, and provides different insights with practical implications. The questions explored here are a first step towards further studies. A CAS approach has unique potential to offer rich insights. As an example, the goal-centric examination raises further questions. For instance, humans have explicit and implicit goals and seek to achieve their goals by adapting their behavior. Furthermore, goals of humans can (and do) change over time. Additionally, there are individual goals and collective goals. In some cases, they may be synergistic and aligned, in other cases they may be in conflict. Agents pursuing conflicting goals engage in actions that cancel out each other’s effects leading to a condition of stasis at the aggregate level. In the context of the WEF nexus, one can conceive of water, energy, and food security goals at individual and community levels. At the individual level these relate to fulfilling basic human needs, and at the community level these resources are also needed for the production of goods and commerce. The competitive goals of some can undermine the fulfillment of goals for others (and hence their well-being), and can lead to undesirable emergent behavior including social unrest, political crises, and ultimately the deterioration and collapse of society. Thus, a key question for further work is about finding ways such that water, energy, and food security goals are fulfilled at individual and community levels while ensuring that water, energy, and food security goals pursued by one (or a particular group of) agent(s) do not undermine the well-being (security) for others. The specific case of Pakistan examined here was a simple demonstration of the CAS concepts. The country is diverse in geography, demography, and climate, and the household-level as well as provincial regulatory-level analysis would need to be expanded for other regions in the country. The analysis will need to be expanded to more comprehensively assess the quality of functioning of each component, and the quality of links. An initial analysis of specific regulatory structures for Punjab showed missing or weak links (Figure 17.5). This will inhibit adaptation at the necessary pace and extent. With a growing population and compounding effects of climate change on the horizon, the lack of adaptability can pose grave threats for the future. Further work is needed that can offer a better perspective (as compared to integrated, linear optimization models) for investigating critical dynamics, temporality, and questions of

326  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus system adaptation. This will be essential for steering the system – through its strategic leverage points – for ensuring water, energy, and food security for present and future generations to come.

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Leveraging the WEF security nexus with adaptive systems  327 Leveson, N.G. (2016), Engineering a Safer World: Systems Thinking Applied to Safety, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Levin, S., T. Xepapadeas, A.S. Crépin, J. Norberg, A. De Zeeuw, C. Folke, T. Hughes et al. (2013), “Social-ecological systems as complex adaptive systems: Modeling and policy implications,” Environment and Development Economics, 18 (2), 111–132. Liu, J., H. Mooney, V. Hull, S.J. Davis, J. Gaskell, T. Hertel, J. Lubchenco, K.C. Seto, P. Gleick, C. Kremen and S. Li (2015), “Systems integration for global sustainability,” Science, 347 (6225), 1258832-1–12. McGinnis, M.D. and E. Ostrom (2014), “Social-ecological system framework: Initial changes and continuing challenges,” Ecology and Society, 19 (2), 30. Meadows, D.H. (2008), Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Hartford, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. MoPD&SI (2020), Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) 2018–19, Islamabad: Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives. MoW&P (2012), Handbook on Water Statistics of Pakistan, Islamabad: Ministry of Water and Power. MoWR (2018), National Water Policy, Islamabad: Ministry of Water Resources. Mukherji, A. (2007), “The energy-irrigation nexus and its impact on groundwater markets in eastern Indo-Gangetic Basin: Evidence from West Bengal, India,” Energy Policy, 35 (12), 6413–6430. Muller, M. (2015), “The ‘nexus’ as a step back towards a more coherent water resource management paradigm,” Water Alternatives, 8 (1), 675–694. Odorico, P.D., K.F. Davis, L. Rosa, J.A. Carr, D. Chiarelli, J. Dell’Angelo, J. Gephart, G.K. MacDonald, D.A. Seekell, S. Suweis and M.C. Rulli (2018), “The global food-energy-water nexus,” Reviews of Geophysics, 56, 456–531. Odum, H.T. (1967), “Energetics of world food production,” in The World Food Problem, Washington, DC, pp. 55–94. PED (2021), Punjab Energy Department, Energy Handbook – Achievements FY2018 – 2020 and Way Forward. Pimentel, D., L.E. Hurd, A.C. Bellotti, M.J. Forster, I.N. Oka, D. Sholes and R.J. Whitman (1973), “Food production and the energy crisis,” Science, 182 (4111), 443–449. PSLM (2020), Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2019–2020: Key Findings Report, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Rammel, C., S. Stagl and H. Wilfing (2007), “Managing complex adaptive systems: A co-evolutionary perspective on natural resource management,” Ecological Economics, 63 (1), 9–21. Richardson, G.P. (2011), “Reflections on the foundations of system dynamics,” System Dynamics Review, 27 (3), 219–243. Ross, A.M., D.H. Rhodes and D.E. Hastings (2008), “Defining changeability: Reconciling flexibility, adaptability, scalability, modifiability, and robustness for maintaining system lifecycle value,” Systems Engineering, 11 (3), 246–262. Selin, H. and N.E. Selin (2020), Mercury Stories: Understanding Sustainability through a Volatile Element, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Shah, T. (2009), “Climate change and groundwater: India’s opportunities for mitigation and adaptation,” Environmental Research Letters, 4 (3), 035005. Shahid, A., A. Siddiqi and J.L. Wescoat (2019), “Reimagining the planning of irrigation and agriculture in Punjab, Pakistan,” in S. Khan and T. Adams (eds), Indus River Basin: Water Security and Sustainability, Amsterdam: Elsevier. Siddiqi, A. and O. de Weck (2006), “Self-similar modular architectures for reconfigurable space systems,” In AIAA 57th International Astronautical Congress, IAC 2006, Vol. 10. Siddiqi, A. and L. Diaz Anadon (2011), “The water-energy nexus in Middle East and North Africa,” Energy Policy, 39 (8), 4529–4540. Siddiqi, A. and J.L. Wescoat (2013), “Energy use in large-scale irrigated agriculture in the Punjab province of Pakistan,” Water International, 38, 571–586. Siddiqi, A., A. Kajenthira and L. Diaz Anadon (2013), “Bridging decision networks for integrated water and energy planning,” Energy Strategy Reviews, 2 (1), 46–58. Siders, A.R. (2019), “Adaptive capacity to climate change: A synthesis of concepts, methods, and findings in a fragmented field,” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 10 (3), 1–18.

328  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Simon, H.A. (1977), “The organization of complex systems,” in Models of Discovery, Cham: Springer, pp. 154–175. Simon, H.A. (1996), The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edition, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sterman, J.D. (2000), Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World, New York: McGraw-Hill. Sterman, J.D. (2012), “Sustainability science: The emerging paradigm and the urban environment,” in M.P. Weinstein and R.E. Turner (eds), Sustainability Science: The Emerging Paradigm and the Urban Environment, Cham: Springer Science+Business Media. Wiener, N. (1948), “Cybernetics,” Scientific American. Woods, J., A. Williams, J.K. Hughes, M. Black and R. Murphy (2010), “Energy and the food system,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 365, 2991–3006. Yang, Y.C.E., C. Ringler, C. Brown and A.H. Mondal (2016), “Modeling the agricultural water-energy-food nexus in the Indus River Basin, Pakistan,” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 142 (12), 1–12. Zhang, X. and V.V. Vesselinov (2017), “Integrated modeling approach for optimal management of water, energy and food security nexus,” Advances in Water Resources, 101, 1–10.

18. An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar

18.1 INTRODUCTION The resource nexus has attracted much scientific and political attention during the past decade, notably increasing the discussion and development of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. Notwithstanding, there remain serious gaps in the theoretical and empirical understanding of the complex interactions and relations within the resource nexus (Liu et al., 2017). The principal epistemological challenge posed by complexity in the analysis of the resource nexus is the simultaneous use of non-equivalent and non-reducible descriptive domains (Giampietro et al., 2006). Analysts implementing quantitative analysis are themselves forced to make a pre-analytical choice of scale and descriptive domain in order to identify the observables to which their data refer. In the analysis of complex systems, this choice entails that analysts can only ‘see’ a limited, incomplete number of relevant attributes of the resource nexus at any given time. In the Horizon2020 project ‘Moving towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing Nexus Security’ (MAGIC), a semantically open analytical approach based on the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) accounting framework has been developed to address the principal epistemological challenge presented by complexity in the resource nexus. The framework in question has been developed alongside provenly valuable empirical assessments of European Union (EU) nexus security. As we will see in this chapter, the framework not only offers a holistic, conceptually robust theoretical foundation, but also a number of technical tools useful for its practical implementation. In this chapter, we first briefly explain the theoretical basis of MuSIASEM and the MuSIASEM toolkit as well as the sustainability concerns (criteria) they serve to address. We then follow that explanation with a presentation on how the MuSIASEM toolkit can be applied, as illustrated with an application of the toolkit to EU agriculture.

18.2

THE STATE–PRESSURE RELATION OF SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

In the MuSIASEM framework, the metabolic pattern of social-ecological systems (SES) is considered to be the external referent for sustainability analyses concerned with the entanglement between the flows of water, energy, food and land uses observed in the resource nexus (Giampietro, 2018). A SES is conceptualised as a metabolic network in which constituent components, existing in the presence of favourable boundary conditions, stabilise each other over an impredicative (self-referential) set of relations. The adoption of this external referent 329

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330  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus and specific conceptualisation endorses the analysis of system characteristics such as the relative size of constituent components, their expected metabolic rates and, more in general, a definition of the societal identity associated with the expression of a given set of functional components reproducing a given set of structural constituents (Renner et al., 2020b). The state–pressure relation of a SES serves as a practical starting point for the sustainability-oriented analysis of SES. The state of a SES is the specific set of relations between structural constituents and functional components (generically ‘structural and functional elements’, or holistically referred to as ‘constituent components’) capable of guaranteeing an internal dynamic equilibrium between: 1. the aggregate requirement of goods and services that must be metabolised by the various constituent components of a SES (consumption); and 2. the ability of the internal structural and functional elements to produce and/or import the goods and services consumed by the SES (production). In this sense, a metabolic perspective studies the integration of the activities of production and consumption required to stabilise the metabolic identity of a system. Focusing on the interactions among the components operating inside the system and using the jargon of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, we can define the metabolic pattern internal to a SES as ‘a local coupling over patterns of exergy degradation (state) mapping onto fluxes of negative entropy (pressure) across different levels’ (Renner et al., 2020b). Hence, the establishment of a metabolic pattern can be seen as a local matching of biophysical demand and supply that is expressed across different levels of organisation – the establishment of metabolic network niches that are occupied by functional metabolic nodes (Giampietro and Renner, 2020). The metabolic approach is therefore fundamentally different from the conventional input/output approach as it characterises the processes determining the definition of inputs and outputs, both in quantity and quality, across levels of analysis. Indeed, as Georgescu-Roegen (1971) put it: ‘the notions of input and output do not make sense if the underlying process is not specified and considered’. In an analysis of the internal state of a SES (viability), it is only possible to observe the metabolism of secondary flows, i.e. the energy carriers, food products and various other goods consumed in the economic process. To explore the interaction of the system with its local environment (feasibility), it is necessary to couple the state of the system (what is going on inside the society) with the set of environmental pressures resulting from the interaction of the system with its surrounding environment. This exercise requires the adoption of a different descriptive domain and different metrics. Indeed, the study of the state–pressure relation, defined at a higher scale, demands an accounting system that can track primary flows, i.e. flows crossing the interface between the technosphere and biosphere, either extracted from primary sources – such as from coal mines, aquifers and rain – or dumped into primary sinks – such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere, pollutants into the water table and solid wastes into landfill. Thus, an analysis of secondary flows is needed to study the state of the system (viability) while the analysis of primary flows provides information on the pressures exerted on the environment (feasibility). In this context, the openness of modern economies (through international trade) is a crucial piece of information for deliberating over resource nexus security and environmental burden shifting. However, at the same time, it represents a major complication in the analysis of the Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus  331 state–pressure relation across scales of analysis and hierarchical levels, due to the complexity of the relations between the different SES involved. Therefore, in order to account for the openness of the system, it is important to identify and distinguish between: 1. internal (‘domestic’) supply systems operating internal to the SES of interest, for which we can calculate both feasibility and viability from observed data; and 2. externalised (‘virtual’) supply systems, which are, in effect, embodied in imported goods. Concerning the latter category, it is only possible to define notional representations of the inputs required for producing the imported commodities (viability and feasibility). The relative share of the internal consumption that is produced internally provides an indication not only of the ‘metabolic security’ of a society and hence its degree of water, energy and food security (i.e. how much the actual metabolic pattern depends on imports) but also of the extent of shifting socio-economic and environmental pressures outside of its boundaries (‘burden shifting’). In summary, the MuSIASEM framework is based on the state–pressure relation of SES and specifically constructed to achieve the following three results: 1. A useful quantitative characterisation of the state of the system: This characterisation includes an operational definition of: (a) the system to which we wish to apply changes; and (b) the state space of the system that can be used to describe changes – i.e. the set of attributes that are considered relevant for studying the consequences of the changes. Two definitions complete the picture: a. A semantic definition of the system: A system is a set of elements that expresses meaningful interactions. In the case of sustainability analysis, the system is a SES expressing a metabolic pattern desirable for the people living in it. A SES is conceptualised as a set of constituent components that preserves and adapts, through coordinated interactions, the identity of the whole through time. The process of self-organisation that preserves the identity of a SES serves to reproduce: (i) its structural constituents, (ii) its functional components (the organisational whole) and (iii) a desirable standard of living for the peoples living in it and providing control over it (Giampietro and Renner, 2020; Renner et al., 2020b). b. A formal definition of the state space: The state space refers to a set of relevant attributes – the choice of which depends on the purpose of the analysis – that must be considered and encoded into proxy variables to generate a useful quantitative representation. In sustainability analysis, the attributes characterising system performance may refer to different criteria (e.g. environmental pressure and impact, economic and technical viability, metabolic security, quality of life) and, therefore, can only be observed across different dimensions and levels of analysis. These attributes are needed not only to describe the current situation (diagnostic mode) but also for defining targets and developing models representing causal relations over expected changes (anticipatory mode). 2. A quantitative characterisation of the state–pressure relation of the system with its environment, by coupling distinct metrics: Because socio-economic systems are not in thermodynamic equilibrium – they are open, dissipative systems whose identity depends on the expression of a metabolic pattern – the internal process of dissipation (state) must be Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

332  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus compatible with the existence of favourable boundary conditions in the system’s environment (admissible environmental pressures). To study the state–pressure relation associated with a realisation of a SES, it is necessary to establish a link between the representation of processes that are under human control and inside the system (technosphere) and the representation of processes that are beyond human control and outside the system (biosphere). The state–pressure concept entails an important complication for the quantitative analysis of scenarios as it requires the adoption of two non-equivalent descriptive domains: one to characterise internal processes and one to characterise the interaction of the system with its environment. Hence, it is necessary to assess in an integrated manner the factors determining coherence over two interfaces: c. The interface between secondary and primary flows in the metabolic pattern: The amounts of secondary flows consumed inside the system (energy carriers, food products, blue water) must be generated using an adequate availability of primary flows, i.e. they depend on the existence of an adequate supply and sink capacity of primary flows, an existence which defines the profile of environmental pressures. d. The interface between the primary flows and the processes taking place in the biosphere: The quantities and types of primary material and energy flows used by the SES of interest to stabilise its internal metabolic pattern must be compatible with the supply and sink capacity provided by the natural processes in the embedding ecosystems according to the characteristics of the ecological funds included in the interface. On this interface, we can establish a link between environmental pressures and environmental impact. 3. A quantitative assessment of the degree to which the state–pressure relation is altered by trade: History has shown that trade and/or domination of other SES (e.g. colonialism) can effectively overcome local environmental constraints. With the rise of globalisation, the practice of externalising required production factors to other SES has become so common that there no longer exists a direct relation between what is produced and what is consumed inside the borders of a country. This fact represents a serious complication for sustainability analysis since the environmental pressures (e.g. GHG emissions) associated with the consumption of goods and services in a given SES is no longer directly related to the end uses associated with the production of goods and services in that SES. For example, a SES can simultaneously increase its population by 20 per cent, maintain the same pattern of consumption per capita and nullify the resulting increase in environmental pressure by simply increasing its imports via financial debt creation. Or it may be the case that a SES specialises in importing low value-added goods only to later transform and export them as high value-added goods, thus generating economic profitability. In conclusion, with the option of importing, a country can ease both socio-economic pressures (by avoiding the labour and technology required for the production of the imported goods, thus overcoming potential viability constraints) and environmental pressures (by avoiding the use of natural resources and sink capacity for the production of imported goods, thus overcoming potential feasibility constraints). The assessment of the level of openness of the system allows analysts to address this problem.

Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus  333

18.3

THE FOUR SUSTAINABILITY CONCERNS ADDRESSED BY MUSIASEM

MuSIASEM distinguishes between four sustainability concerns or criteria of performance, each of which requires specific, non-equivalent analytical tools. All four have been, in essence, introduced in the previous section. A more detailed, systematic overview is provided in the following four sub-sections. 18.3.1 Feasibility In order to be considered ‘sustainable’, the metabolic pattern of a social-economic system must be compatible with the quality and quantity of external biophysical constraints – environmental pressures must be environmentally admissible. Feasibility involves constraints that result from the interaction of a social-economic system (technosphere) with ecological systems (biosphere), both on the supply and sink side. On the supply side: what are the limits of the availability of land, water, fertile soil, solar radiation, primary energy sources and minerals? On the sink side: what are the limits of GHG emissions, solid waste, leakage in water bodies and outflows of other pollutants? In MuSIASEM, these constraints are considered to be beyond human control. The feasibility concern requires us to consider the social-economic system under analysis as a black box interacting with its context (ecological systems) and to characterise the ‘size’ of the metabolism of the social-economic system in relation to the size of the processes providing supply and sink capacity for the primary flows exchanged. This involves the identification and quantification of the different types of environmental pressures that the metabolic process of interest exerts on its context. 18.3.2 Viability In order to be considered ‘sustainable’, the severity of biophysical and economic constraints felt inside the metabolic pattern of a SES must be compatible with the technical requirements of the social-economic system (technosphere). These constraints are determined by processes under human control and include factors such as technological capability, economic viability and labour supply/shortage, the latter associated with socio-demographic variables. Addressing viability requires the analyst to look at what is going on internally in a social-economic system – to open the proverbial black box – in order to characterise the state of the system. 18.3.3 Openness: Security and Burden Shifting In order to address the question of sustainability, the analyst must wield an extensive knowledge of the degree of openness of the system of interest, that is, the degree of domestic control over and responsibility for the production processes supplying the inputs metabolised by the system. Such inputs refer to both primary flows (supply and sink capacity made available by natural processes outside of human control – feasibility) and secondary flows (made available by technical processes under human control – viability). Hence, the openness of the system refers to the degree of dependence of a society on other SES in terms of both supply and sink capacity. Assessment of system openness is particularly important in today’s globalised world,

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334  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus a world where only part of the production processes needed to supply internal consumption activities take place within the borders of any given SES. It should be well noted that metabolic security and burden shifting are two sides of the same coin (degree of openness). This reality entails that the analysis of openness is not only relevant at the national or EU level (for reasons of security) but also at the global level in relation to the international agreements on climate, biodiversity, sustainable development and trade. Indeed, concerns over security and environmental burden shifting have rapidly gained political significance in the last decade, due to mounting geopolitical tensions related to humanity’s concerted encroachment on planetary boundaries (European Environment Agency, 2019; IPBES, 2019; Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has, in particular, accentuated political interest in food security. 18.3.4 Desirability In order to be considered ‘sustainable’, the living conditions associated with the expression of the metabolic pattern of the SES of interest must be perceived as acceptable by the relevant actors (primarily the residents of the SES). Desirability is an elusive criterion to analyse in quantitative terms. While desirability does include attributes that are relatively easy to quantify, such as material standard of living, various other attributes are associated with feelings and concerns such as hopes, fears, fairness and freedom – attributes whose assessment will always be contested. One of the solutions adopted in MuSIASEM to deal with this predicament is to establish a bridge between the metabolic characteristics of the SES under study (the actual state or a proposed change in state) with the corresponding social practices that affect daily life within the system. This approach facilitates the involvement of the users of the analysis in a discussion about the factors associated with the desirability of the state of the system (either in diagnostic or anticipatory mode). A further adopted solution concerns an analysis of the global ethical implications (winners and losers) of the environmental and social (e.g. labour requirements) burden shifting practised by the SES under study (e.g. the EU). In summary, desirability is an overarching concern that encompasses the previous concerns (feasibility, viability and openness) and spans all levels of analysis.

18.4

THE MUSIASEM TOOLKIT

The MuSIASEM toolkit is a set of analytical tools based on the MuSIASEM accounting framework that, used in combination, enables an effective multi-level, multi-dimensional quantitative characterisation of the metabolic pattern of a SES. It is a formalisation of the expected quantitative relations of a SES concerning the four criteria of performance discussed in the previous section – feasibility, viability, openness and desirability. The set of analytical tools consists of four matrices: the internal end-use matrix, the external end-use matrix, the internal environmental pressure matrix and the external environmental pressure matrix. It should be noted that there is no direct one-to-one correspondence between the four criteria

Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus  335 (concerns) previously presented and the four tools. Each concern requires a combined use of several tools. ● The internal end-use matrix (EUMINT) characterises the consumption of secondary inputs (flow and fund elements1) used inside the technosphere for expressing social practices across levels (the local technical processes needed to reproduce the internal state). ● The external end-use matrix (EUMEXT) characterises the consumption of secondary inputs (flow and fund elements) used in the technosphere outside the border of the system to produce goods that are imported into the system (the externalised production processes needed to reproduce the internal state). ● The internal environmental pressure matrix (EPMINT) characterises the quantity of primary flows exchanged with the biosphere inside the system’s border (the local environmental pressures associated with the reproduction of the internal state). ● The external environmental pressure matrix (EPMEXT) characterises the quantity of primary flows exchanged with the biosphere to produce the imports outside the border of the system (the externalised environmental pressures associated with the reproduction of the internal state).

Figure 18.1

The assessment of secondary and primary flows in the internal (observed) and externalised (notional) metabolic pattern assessed by the four tools of the MuSIASEM toolkit Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

336  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus A detailed presentation of the various elements of the MuSIASEM toolkit is available in Giampietro et al. (2020). Figure 18.1 summarises the location (against the backdrop of a metabolic processor) of the quantitative data used to populate the matrices of the MuSIASEM toolkit.

18.5

THE NEXUS STRUCTURING SPACE

Recent developments in MuSIASEM incorporate a new semantic interface called the nexus structuring space that makes use of four different lenses (Giampietro et al., 2020). Each of the four lenses (descriptive domains) is useful for observing different characteristics of the metabolic pattern of a SES. The nexus structuring space allows a systematic application of the MuSIASEM toolkit to concrete sustainability problems both in diagnostic mode – to identify and characterise in quantitative terms the factors that affect the sustainability of the current metabolic pattern of a given SES – and anticipatory mode – to check the plausibility of proposed policies and strategies for change, as well as to identify potential problems in scaling up proposed innovations. The four lenses used in the nexus structuring space are the macroscope, the mesoscope, the microscope and the ‘virtualscope’, the last of which is distinguished to describe embodied resources imported into a SES from abroad. 18.5.1 Macroscope The macroscope is used to observe the state of the system from the inside. It allows us to describe the metabolic characteristics of individual constituent components (such as an economic sector or the household sector), including their absolute and relative sizes, the paces of their metabolic flows, their interactions and the role they play in the expression of the observed metabolic state. Quantification of the relative size of the constituent components (assessed by the size of their fund elements) and the paces of their metabolised flows (the pace of flow per unit of fund – the flow/fund ratio) permits the identification of the relations between functional and structural elements inside the metabolic network. The macroscope provides insight into economic end uses and links those end uses with a set of social practices associated with a current material standard of living. In diagnostic mode, it provides insight into what (for what purpose?) the various functional components of a SES do together with how the various structural constituents of why SES do what they do. In anticipatory mode, the macroscope provides insight into the option space of possible readjustments of the set of relations used to characterise a SES. Use of the macroscope is linked to the use of a given set of accounting categories (metric 1) associated with a quantitative analysis based on the assessment of secondary flows (related foremost to the end-use matrix, viability and desirability). For example, for the nexus element ‘energy’, we look at energy carriers and use three generic accounting categories: liquid fuels, process heat and electricity. Although the three listed energy carriers can all be measured in megajoules (MJ), they are kept on separate accounting ledgers in recognition of major differences in quality and use. For food, we distinguish two generic accounting categories of nutrient carriers, also expressible in MJ: animal products and plant products. For water, we account for cubic meters of blue water use, divided into various relevant subcategories, such as drinking water, irrigation water, cooling water and industrial water. The approach can, of Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus  337 course, be meaningfully extended to include other flows of resources, materials and wastes beyond energy, food and water. 18.5.2 Mesoscope The mesoscope is used to describe the openness of the system. It allows us to identify how much of the total internally consumed commodities are produced domestically and how much are imported. In this way, the mesoscope allows us to assess the dependence of a SES on imports of a given set of commodities and to define a series of ‘virtual’ supply systems (operating elsewhere) required to produce what is imported. Imports may refer to primary sources (e.g. crude oil or roughage feedstuff) or secondary sources (e.g. gasoline or meat) and therefore the information gathered through the mesoscope is closely linked to the information that is gathered through both the macroscope and the microscope. The mesoscope is linked to its own set of accounting categories (metric 2), i.e. those that are used in the definition of commodities in trade statistics. To link the macroscopic to the mesoscopic view, specific forms of energy (or food) must be linked to an equivalent categorisation of traded commodities. For example, generic quantities of electricity (in metric 1) can be mapped onto three categories of energy commodity (in metric 2): baseload electricity, peak electricity and intermittent electricity. Generic quantities of fossil fuels (in metric 1) can be mapped onto five categories of energy commodity: gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, kerosene and other (in metric 2). It should be noted that, when establishing an interface between the various scopes, it is mandatory to maintain closure of the accounting. For example, the total amount of energy assessed with metric 1 must map onto an equivalent amount of energy in metric 2. Closure of the accounting is a particularly important aspect for the operation of the virtualscope. In practice, it is difficult to achieve a perfect closure due to issues of data availability and differences in accounting schema between trade partners. However, available statistics about trade, energy and food balances allow us to obtain useful approximations. 18.5.3 Microscope The microscope describes the state–pressure relation at the local scale. Using the metabolic processor concept to organise the quantitative representation (Cadillo-Benalcazar et al., 2020; Serrano-Tovar et al., 2019), the microscope allows us to identify the set of expected profiles of fund and flow elements needed to express the local process of end uses: 1. the required funds associated with processes under human control, such as human labour and land uses, that define a size for the structural and functional elements (we refer here to transformation processes in which humans can guarantee the stability of a predictable profile of inputs and outputs); 2. flows associated with processes under human control, i.e. secondary inputs transformed into secondary outputs by the local end uses; and 3. flows associated with processes beyond human control, i.e. primary flows derived from and wastes dumped into the biosphere by the local end uses. The microscope’s focus on localised transformations requires an analytical resolution (metric 3) finer than that used in the macro and mesoscope. Local metabolic processes are described in the form of a profile of secondary inputs and outputs derived from and going into the technoMario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

338  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus sphere and a profile of primary inputs and outputs derived from and going into the biosphere, but they also include other flows besides those seen through the macro and mesoscope. For example, to describe the energy transformations taking place in a hydroelectric or a nuclear power plant, we study the profile of all inputs and outputs (e.g. labour, power capacity, water, land use, wastes) related to the production of electricity. This degree of detail allows a site-specific description of the environmental pressures associated with the local flows. This spatial localisation is essential for the assessment of environmental impacts. It allows the analyst to contextualise the assessments of environmental pressures against the characteristics of the local ecological funds and/or the availability of non-renewable resources. Obviously, when using the microscope, the number of relevant accounting categories is relatively larger than at higher levels/scales. It should lastly be noted that the act of categorisation of a fund or flow as in the technosphere (under human control) or in the biosphere (beyond human control) is not always clear – the boundary between the technosphere and the biosphere is fuzzy. 18.5.4 Virtualscope The virtualscope describes the characteristics of a notional set of ‘virtual processes’ that are required to produce the imported goods and services. Combining the information obtained through the mesoscope and the microscope, we can calculate the overall requirement of secondary and primary production factors used by ‘virtual supply systems’ to produce imported goods. These production factors are used outside the borders of the SES under analysis. Hence, the virtualscope focuses on the definition of ‘virtual supply systems’: a notional definition of a given set of production processes associated with a given quantity of imported commodities. For example, for a given amount of imported commodity (e.g. peak electricity measured in kWh, metric 2) we define a notional mix of production processes carried out by different types of power plants (e.g. a combination of hydro, gas turbine and diesel) and assess the corresponding sets of end uses (energy carriers, hours of work and other secondary inputs) and resulting environmental pressures (primary flows on the supply and sink side) related to the operation of these plants (metric 3). These sets of virtual secondary and primary flows represent the estimated quantities of, respectively, the externalised end uses and externalised environmental pressures embodied in that which is imported. We can link these assessments to the state described by the macroscope (metric 1) to assess the extent of metabolic security and environmental burden shifting. Depending on the purpose of the analysis, we can adopt three different rationales to assess the metabolic processors of virtual supply systems: 1. track the countries of origin of the imports and use the observed identities of the metabolic processors of the producing (exporting) countries; 2. generate a notional identity for the metabolic processors of imports based on a representative (average) mix of production processes used to supply that commodity on the global market; and 3. use the identity of the metabolic processors of the SES under study (the local supply system) to calculate the amount of secondary flows (end uses) and primary flows (environmental pressures) that would be needed to internalise the production of the imported commodities.

Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus  339 18.5.5 Summary The relations among the information obtained through the various ‘scopes’ is illustrated in Figure 18.2. The information can be combined in an integrated characterisation of the metabolic pattern of a SES. In most cases, a quantitative analysis will start with a diagnostic round characterising the state of the system through the macroscope to evaluate the relative importance of the various constituent components of the system and the variety of activities expressed by each of them in relation to the different tasks (end uses) required for the reproduction of the existing state. Such an assessment provides a baseline for studies of the viability and desirability of proposed changes.

Note: source.

EC = energy carriers, NC = nutrient carriers, PAS = primary agricultural sources, PES = primary energy

Figure 18.2

Example relations between the macro, meso, micro and virtualscope in the generation of the internal and external end use and environmental pressure matrices in the MuSIASEM toolkit

Following, system openness can be assessed through the lens of the mesoscope. In using the definitions of the traded commodities identified with the mesoscope, it is necessary to decide on a set of notional identities for the virtual supply systems required to produce the traded commodities. A virtual metabolic processor can be defined using a chosen mix of production processes required to produce a given quantity of a specific ‘commodity’. To obtain this result, we must specify in quantitative terms the relations between quantities expressed in metric 2 and metric 3 (see Figure 18.2). In this way, we can scale up the characteristics of the various Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

340  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus processors defined at the local scale (the profile of end uses and environmental pressures associated with a given supply), i.e. local production processes. Different structural elements can be aggregated into functional elements using ad hoc grammars.2 Finally, use of the microscope provides information about the factors determining the state– pressure relation at the local level – an analysis that can be geolocalised to study the potential impact of pressures, which is particularly relevant for the assessment of feasibility. The same approach can be used to define the characteristics of metabolic processors when dealing with the ‘observable’ supply systems operating inside the borders of the systems (e.g. inside the chosen SES). Data on the technical characteristics of local supply systems can be obtained by looking at their functional (benchmarks) and structural (technical coefficients) elements. The difference between the two methods of assessment is noteworthy: whereas the characteristics of the local supply systems are observed, the characteristics of the virtual processors, operating elsewhere and implied in the production of imported commodities, are based on ‘ghost images’ of the various supply systems involved. In summary, by using the various scopes of the nexus structuring space we can generate the presented four integrated matrices that comprise the MuSIASEM toolkit (shown earlier in Figure 18.1) and that cover the diversity of descriptive domains required to supply useful information in relation to the presented four sustainability concerns or criteria of performance. This integrated information space allows for a better-informed discussion about policy scenarios as it allows the selection of ad hoc indicators according to the purpose of the analysis while avoiding the risk of falling into a ‘silo governance’ attractor.

18.6

APPLICATION OF MUSIASEM TO EU AGRICULTURE

This section presents an application of the MuSIASEM toolkit to the EU agricultural system using the nexus structuring space. The example illustrates the specific information structuring and accounting framework developed in Cadillo-Benalcazar et al. (2020) and Renner et al. (2020a) to check the robustness of the narratives used in the EU Common Agricultural Policy in relation to the possibility of achieving the two objectives of ‘increasing competitiveness’ and ‘preserving landscapes and biodiversity’ in the agricultural sector of the EU. An overview of the nexus information space created in support of our agricultural analysis is illustrated in Figure 18.3. The macroscope is referred to by the ‘A’ indicator in Figure 18.3. In diagnostic mode, we observe that environmental conditions and cultural factors cause heterogeneity in the dietary profile of European countries. For example, in terms of absolute apparent dietary consumption, while Austria consumes 3740 kcal/capita/day, Cyprus consumes 2640 kcal/capita/day. In terms of relative apparent dietary consumption, while 36 per cent of the energy consumed in Finland’s diet derives from animal products, 16 per cent of the energy consumed in Slovakia’s diet derives from animal products (percentages exclude animal fats). While 46 per cent of the apparent dietary consumption in Romania’s diet derives from grains, roots and tubers, 31 per cent of the apparent dietary consumption in Cyprus’s diet derives from grains, roots and tubers. Equipped with the information generated via the macroscope, we can already begin to entertain questions such as the relative reliance on animal products – typically associated with a higher standard of living and with higher environmental impacts in the modern agricultural paradigm – across populations. Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus  341

Figure 18.3

A grammar illustrating the expected relations over the different structural and functional elements of a food system when considering its interaction with: (1) local ecosystems in domestic production and (2) other food systems through trade

The mesoscope is referred to by the ‘B’ and ‘C’ indicators in Figure 18.3. Our results suggest that when food self-sufficiency is accounted for in terms of mass of primary product equivalent, approximately 20 EU countries exceed 50 per cent in plant products and approximately 10 countries exceed 50 per cent in products of animal origin. In both cases, the bar is seen to be set fairly low in terms of food self-sufficiency. In terms of animal system feed specifically, only Ireland manages to reach an approximate 50 per cent self-sufficiency rate. All Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

342  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus other EU countries are less than 30 per cent self-sufficient in terms of feed – again, accounted for in terms of mass of primary product equivalent. The microscope is referred to by the ‘D’ indicator in Figure 18.3 (the virtualscope, the detailed example provided in Figure 18.4, parallels on the left side of Figure 18.3). When hypothesising a complete internalisation of the status quo imports, the Netherlands and Belgium would need to increase their agricultural land by roughly 14 and 8 times, respectively. Countries such as Romania, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria would require, under the current conditions of production and the availability of required land, to increase NPK fertiliser usage by roughly 50 per cent. On the other hand, countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Malta – countries with limited land and substantial imports of agricultural commodities – could expect an increase in NPK fertiliser usage of over 90 per cent! Obviously, these dramatic increases in the level of application of technical inputs is an impossible result. This analysis simply indicates the implausibility of the scenario.

Figure 18.4

Example of using the virtualscope to compare internal and external environmental pressures in EU agriculture. Case of the Netherlands illustrated; minority flows (< 2.5 per cent) not included

An example of the logic used to operate the virtualscope is given in Figure 18.4. When accounting for animal system feed in terms of primary product equivalent, we see that, in the Netherlands and using domestic technical coefficients (method 3 of calculating in the virtualscope), nearly all of the blue water use (irrigation) associated with feed production for granivore-specialist farms is embodied in imported feed. That embodied resource use Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus  343 represents more than 50 per cent of the total blue water use for feed production amongst livestock-specialist farms. Moving towards market outputs (on the right of Figure 18.4), we see that, in terms of calories, local livestock systems in the Netherlands produce by and large milk and porcine (pig) products. Moving towards the macroscope, such market outputs could be further contextualised in terms of societal end uses (e.g. household uses, industrial uses, trade for agribusiness). An analysis of the metabolic pattern of the agricultural sector of the EU based on the MuSIASEM toolkit shows that, at the moment, the availability of cheap agricultural imports is an essential and inextricable aspect of modern EU agribusiness. Cheap agricultural imports play a critical role in explaining why a country like the Netherlands has a level of economic export of agricultural products equivalent to that of Argentina and Canada combined, irrespective of the fact that Argentina and Canada together have roughly 75 times more arable land than the Netherlands (FAO, 2019)! Equipped with the information space generated by the described approach, we can provide coherent scientific input to concerns such as what if, in 2050, when the Food and Agriculture Organization predicts an increase in food demand of 60 per cent, cheap agricultural imports are no longer available to EU countries? In this way, the MuSIASEM toolkit assists in examining the sustainability dimension of water-energy-food linkages and navigating the complexity of the resource nexus. As with any quantitative analysis, the availability and quality of data are a limiting factor. This is especially the case when working with biophysical variables spread across different descriptive domains. However, whenever macroscopic discrepancies between what is available and what would be required are discovered, critical issues to be carefully considered can be identified. This is what is called ‘quantitative story-telling’ in the discourse.

18.7 CONCLUSIONS The past decade has seen a boom in water-energy-food nexus modelling and research. During the past decade, however, there has not been a concomitant development of nexus governance methods. Experiences gained in the MAGIC project (Giampietro et al., 2020; Giampietro and Funtowicz, 2020) provide possible explanations for the lack of uptake of nexus modelling: ● Scientific inquiry is currently not providing the quality inputs needed for a meaningful discussion of the resource nexus. Virtually all contemporary nexus models are reductionist in nature and address and fix one issue at a time. Entanglement of resource flows is rooted in the complex metabolic pattern of SES, the analysis of which requires a complex systems and relational analysis approach (Giampietro, 2018). Although such an analytical approach is possible, as shown in this contribution, it is not a straightforward endeavour. It doesn’t appear overnight or as the result of a passionate hackathon – the development of relevant descriptive domains, criteria of performance, data matrices, scopes and metrics is a complicated, highly interdisciplinary endeavour. ● The inconvenient message of the resource nexus is difficult to communicate, it being incompatible with current silo governance structures and the dominant rosy narratives about sustainability in which the sustainability predicament is understood as fixable by techno-scientific imaginaries based on increased technical innovation and new business models (Giampietro and Funtowicz, 2020; Renner and Giampietro, 2020). Results Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

344  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus obtained with MuSIASEM show that the unquestioned endorsement of techno-scientific narratives is a precarious institution. There is no question that it is a useful paradigm, but it must be recognised that it has led to sustainability failures in the past and is leading to sustainability failures in the present. The development of a relational accounting framework such as MuSIASEM, capable of avoiding the pitfalls of reductionism by respecting the indivisibility of the structural-functional resource nexus, can help free analysts from their existing impasse and put the holistic resource nexus concept back into the centrefield of the sustainability debate. The results obtained in the applications of the MuSIASEM toolkit and nexus structuring space to EU policies (e.g., Cadillo-Benalcazar et al., 2020; Giampietro, 2019; Renner et al., 2020a; Renner and Giampietro, 2020; Velasco-Fernández et al., 2020) confirm that MuSIASEM is fully capable to provide robust and relevant information for informing policy.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors acknowledge financial support by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 689669 (MAGIC) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN), through the ‘María de Maeztu’ programme for Units of Excellence (CEX2019-000940-M). In addition, Ansel Renner acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, through the ‘Formación de profesorado universitario’ scholarship programme (FPU15/03376). This work only reflects the view of the authors; the funding agencies are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

NOTES 1.

Georgescu-Roegen (1971) distinguished between flows and funds in order to improve the ability of analysts to account for sustainability issues in SES. While flow elements identify what the system does, fund elements represent what the system is. Fund elements maintain their identity over the course of time of the analytical representation to which they pertain. Examples of typical fund elements include human activity, Ricardian land and sustainably managed aquifers. On the other hand, flow elements change their identity during the analytical representation – they either enter (inputs) or leave (outputs) the representation to which they pertain during the course of time of the representation. Examples of typical flow elements include energy, food and water. 2. ‘Grammar’ is used here in the broad sense of Wittgenstein (2009) to refer to the network of rules that determine what metabolic activities make sense in relation to the identity of a SES. Figure 18.3 provides an example.

REFERENCES Cadillo-Benalcazar, J.J., A. Renner and M. Giampietro (2020), ‘A multiscale integrated analysis of the factors characterizing the sustainability of food systems in Europe’, Journal of Environmental Management, 271, 110944. European Environment Agency (2019), The European Environment: State and Outlook 2020: Knowledge for Transition to a Sustainable Europe, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Mario Giampietro, Ansel Renner, and Juan J. Cadillo-Benalcazar 9781839100550 Downloaded from https://www elgaronline com/ at 11/24/2023 08:09:08PM

An accounting framework recognising the complexity of the nexus  345 FAO (2019), FAOSTAT - Food and agriculture data, FAOSTAT, www​.fao​.org/​faostat/​en/​#home. Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1971), The Entropy Law and Economic Process, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Giampietro, M. (2018), ‘Perception and representation of the resource nexus at the interface between society and the natural environment’, Sustainability, 10, 1–17. Giampietro, M. (2019), ‘On the circular bioeconomy and decoupling: Implications for sustainable growth’, Ecological Economics, 162, 143–156. Giampietro, M. and S.O. Funtowicz (2020), ‘From elite folk science to the policy legend of the circular economy’, Environmental Science and Policy, 109, 64–72. Giampietro, M. and A. Renner (2020), ‘The generation of meaning and preservation of identity in complex adaptive systems: The LIPHE4 criteria’, in D. Braha, M.A.M. de Aguiar, C. Gershenson, A.J. Morales, L. Kaufman, E.N. Naumova, A.A. Minai and A.A. Bar-Yam (eds), Unifying Themes in Complex Systems X: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Complex Systems, Cham: Springer. Giampietro, M., T.F.H. Allen and K. Mayumi (2006), ‘The epistemological predicament associated with purposive quantitative analysis’, Ecological Complexity, 3, 307–327. Giampietro, M., J.J. Cadillo Benalcazar, L.J. Di Felice, M. Manfroni, L. Pérez Sánchez, A. Renner, M. Ripa, R. Velasco-Fernández and S.G.F. Bukkens (2020), ‘Report on the experience of applications of the nexus structuring space in quantitative story-telling’, MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669), Project Deliverable 4.4. IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, https://​ipbes​.net/​ global​-assessment​-report​-biodiversity​-ecosystem​-services. Liu, J., H. Yang, C. Cudennec, A.K. Gain, H. Hoff, R. Lawford, J. Qi, L. de Strasser, P.T Yillia and C. Zheng (2017), ‘Challenges in operationalizing the water-energy-food nexus’, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 62, 1714–1720. Renner, A. and M. Giampietro (2020), ‘Socio-technical discourses of European electricity decarbonization: Contesting narrative credibility and legitimacy with quantitative story-telling’, Energy Research and Social Sciences, 59, 101279. Renner, A., J.J. Cadillo-Benalcazar, L. Benini and M. Giampietro (2020a), ‘Environmental pressure of the European agricultural system: Anticipating the biophysical consequences of internalization’, Ecosystem Services, 46, 101195. Renner, A., A.H. Louie and M. Giampietro (2020b), ‘Cyborgization of modern social-economic systems: Accounting for changes in metabolic identity’, in: D. Braha, M.A.M. de Aguiar, C. Gershenson, A.J. Morales, L. Kaufman, E.N. Naumova, A.A. Minai and A.A. Bar-Yam (eds), Unifying Themes in Complex Systems X: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Complex Systems, Cham: Springer. Rockström, J., W. Steffen, K. Noone, Å Persson, F.S. Chapin, E.F. Lambin et al. (2009), ‘A safe operating space for humanity’, Nature, 461, 472–475. Serrano-Tovar, T., B. Peñate Suárez, A. Musicki, J.A. de la Fuente Bencomo, V. Cabello and M. Giampietro (2019), ‘Structuring an integrated water-energy-food nexus assessment of a local wind energy desalination system for irrigation’, Science of the Total Environment, 689, 945–957. Steffen, W., K. Richardson, J. Rockström, S.E. Cornell, I. Fetzer, E.M. Bennett et al. (2015), ‘Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet’, Science, 80 (347), 1259855–1259855. Velasco-Fernández, R., T. Dunlop and M. Giampietro (2020), ‘Fallacies of energy efficiency indicators: Recognizing the complexity of the metabolic pattern of the economy’, Energy Policy, 137, 111089. Wittgenstein, L. (2009), Philisophical Investigations, 4th edition, Chichester: Blackwell Publishing.

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19. A theoretical framework to address multi-level governance challenges of the water-energy-food nexus Giacomo Melloni, Ana Paula Dias Turetta, Katharina Löhr, Michelle Bonatti and Stefan Sieber

19.1 INTRODUCTION The large amount of literature on the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus in the last years attests to the faith that researchers are putting in the nexus approach to face ever pressing global challenges. The recognition of the promising approach that leverages the synergies and trade-offs of a system of resources has ensured that the topic received a strong momentum and popularity but has also seen disappointed expectations in its practical implementation and lack of widespread adoption in national policies, programmes and institutions (Dargin et al., 2019; FAO, 2018; Shannak et al., 2018). The integration and participation promoted by the approach require in fact a good level of coordination and negotiation across different sectors and scales, opening up to a multi-faceted endeavour of multi-level governance challenges (Czunyi and Thiam, 2015; Pahl-Wostl, 2019; Stein et al., 2014; Weitz, 2017). The disruptive potential claimed to be achieved through the disclosure of sectoral synergies in the resource system is unexploited if efficiency and effectiveness are lost on the side of governance. However, debates on the challenges and definitions of nexus governance, as the missing link to bridge good science to good policy, have received comparatively less attention in the nexus literature and remain underdeveloped (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017; Urbinatti et al., 2020). As a result, the sole analytical intuition that the WEF nexus provides cannot translate into substantial innovation in the use and preservation of natural resources (Halbe et al., 2015; Weitz, 2017). The different dimensions that the nexus tries to act on are often embedded with overlapping interests, roles and responsibilities that characterize the multi-level governance systems. The significant claim of reaching a genuinely holistic approach through the nexus comes not without considerable challenges: to achieve its truly transformative effect in natural resource management, the nexus approach has to bring in a transformation in the whole governance system of natural resources (Halbe et al., 2015; Pahl-Wostl, 2019; Pahl-Wostl et al., 2018). Since there is not a specific governance system that works better, and traditional governance systems can take time to be significantly transformed (Ostrom et al., 2007; Stein et al., 2014), researchers face the dilemma of how to put the nexus into practice in existing settings. With the majority of nexus implementation taking place at local project level (FAO, 2018), researchers and decision makers have to deal with existing governing bodies and can do nothing more than stimulate cooperation processes by co-involving local authorities and authorities in a process 346 Giacomo Melloni

Ana Paula Dias Turetta

Katharina Löhr

Michelle Bonatti

Multi-level governance challenges of the WEF nexus  347 that aligns decision-making processes between sectors and across governmental levels (Scott, 2017). To move forward in this direction, we present a framework that allows for a case-specific assessment of the governance system on which a nexus programme, policy or intervention is being implemented. An ex ante assessment of this topic can provide an agile diagnostic framework for highlighting potential challenges that the nexus approach brings into play and help scale up and disseminate the nexus approach’s adoption. These challenges derive from the integration of goals that involve the use of different resources within different sectors (as water, energy and food) and actors (public and private), as well as across different geographic, governmental and temporal scales into a multi-level governance system (Pahl-Wostl, 2019; Pahl-Wostl et al., 2018). We implement the framework using suggestions from the sprouting literature on nexus governance and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) classification of multi-level governance gaps (Charbit, 2011; OECD, 2009) and the experience in its application to the OECD principles for multi-level water governance (OECD, 2015, 2018a). We create a framework of indicators following the structure of the ex ante sustainability impact assessment tool ScalA (Löhr and Sieber, 2020; Löhr et al., 2022) to highlight the gaps in the multi-level governance system, distinguishing (1) accountability gaps, (2) administrative gaps, (3) policy gaps, (4) capacity gaps and (5) data and information gaps. We suggest a list of 43 indicators to assist decision makers in assessing the set-up of a governance system to implement the nexus approach. The framework can help researchers to address ex ante nexus governance challenges by understanding the issues and actors involved, disentangle relations and power distribution in a specific context and ultimately work through existing arrangements to efficiently and effectively integrate issues and coordinate activities engaging with stakeholders and building trust (Stein et al., 2014). While acknowledging that the framework cannot be considered exhaustive or conclusive, given the magnitude and novelty of the topic, we believe that it can be useful for a future better understanding and development of a mechanism to address the challenges of nexus governance. Our study also puts forward the problematization of nexus governance by breaking it down in specific gaps, each of which may require the application of existing practices, benefitting therefore from further contribution of experts in different fields such as capacity building, stakeholder engagement, monitoring and more. We claim that the adoption of the framework can help researchers and policy makers to consider and address the issues of governance and ultimately break down siloes in natural resource management and prevent science-to-policy gaps in the nexus literature.

19.2

THE BLURRED CONCEPT OF NEXUS GOVERNANCE IN THE LITERATURE

A thorough literature review carried out in 2019 by Fernandes Torres et al. shows an exponential increase in the use of the nexus in scientific papers, as literature reviews also grew in frequency (Albrecht et al., 2018; Baleta et al., 2019; Cairns and Krzywoszynska, 2016; Wichelns, 2017; Zhang et al., 2018; Zhu et al., 2020). However, while much of nexus research focuses on understanding and quantifying the interactions in the natural resource system, less attention is given to the issues arising from governance and policy making, leaving the concept of nexus governance blurred and controversial (Albrecht et al., 2018; Dai et al., 2018; Endo et al., 2017;

Giacomo Melloni

Ana Paula Dias Turetta

Katharina Löhr

Michelle Bonatti

348  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Lele et al., 2013; Shannak et al., 2018; Stein et al., 2014; Urbinatti et al., 2020; Yung et al., 2019). Although not clearly addressed nor exhaustively defined, as in other natural research management approaches, scholars recognize that governance plays a crucial role in the effective implementation of the nexus and the achievement of its ambitious objectives and widespread adoption (FAO, 2018; Fernandes Torres et al., 2019; Stein et al., 2014). Flexibility and adaptability are crucial in the nexus approach, and the lack of a unitary framework to implement it may be seen as a strength or a theoretical weakness. However, in the nexus attempt to capture the specificities of a context, authors recognized that the governance and institutional framework, made by actors and interests, should be carefully considered in the definition of the context analysis (Flammini et al., 2014; Scheumann and Phiri, 2018; Villamayor-Tomas et al., 2015; White, 2017). Urbinatti et al. (2020) conducted a systematic literature review to shed light on how the concept of nexus governance is understood throughout the research. They summarize authors’ attempts to address governance-related issues drawing from concepts from different related disciplines, and note that the concept definition is underdeveloped. In recent years, different publications have directly addressed the concept and challenges of nexus governance, focusing on the concepts of horizontal and vertical integration that make governance the missing link to connect science to policy by making the decision-making process non-linear and complex (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017; Pahl-Wostl, 2019; Weitz, 2017). In this regard, the implementation of a nexus-based programme or policy should start by mapping the complicated system of interaction among institutions, actors and interests to highlight the conditions to disclose successful cooperation (Stein et al., 2014). However, as Weitz et al. (2014) claim, this analysis cannot simply be reduced to a technical and administrative level, as this information alone does not lead to a change in the decision-making process. The substantial challenge arising from the integration of different sectoral policies lies in the negotiation of trade-offs, which is influenced by different goals and responsibilities that are affected by power imbalances and information asymmetries. Researchers should therefore pay attention to the inherent political and relational dimension that steers the possibility and mechanism for coordination. They draw from the principles of Integrative Environmental Governance to stimulate a debate on how to overcome these issues. Srigiri and Dombrowsky (2021) have tackled this issue by framing nexus governance as a polycentric system and developed a framework using the concept of a network of adjacent action situation that evaluates the interdependence among actors and triggers cooperative or competitive coordination in the negotiation of nexus securities. In their framework they integrate an ecology-based political conceptualization of power to extend the governance analysis to understand the coordination arrangements that may arise in the transaction for pursuing WEF securities across sectors. The role of citizen and civil society organizations in governance has also been studied as the demand for transparency and accountability in natural resource management and security services can impact this process, especially if appropriately engaged, with positive consequences on more vulnerable layers of society (Christopoulos et al., 2012; FAO, 2018; Glasbergen, 2011; Kooiman and Jentoft, 2009). The political issue is further amplified when taking into account the multiple scales on which the nexus operates. While the objective of the nexus concept is to address global problems like climate change, a growing population and quickly depleting resources, in practice, it takes place in limited local areas (McGrane et al., 2019). Multi-level governance is framed

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Multi-level governance challenges of the WEF nexus  349 across temporal, jurisdictional and spatial scales and gives rise to new challenges. Pahl-Wostl et al. (2021) categorize the challenges arising as: ● scalar fit, namely the mismatch of boundaries and interlinkages of the resource system, and the administrative scale at which they are dealt with; ● scalar strategies reflecting the power relations to deal with different interests, competencies and goals for resource use; ● institutional interplay that consists in the different roles and responsibilities among governmental authorities and the agency for disrupting new pathways for cooperation horizontally, vertically and diagonally; and ● uncertainty, namely referring to how complexity in the nexus is translated and dealt with, as well as the difficulty to predict outcomes of nexus interactions at large scale and considering numerous influencing factors. In this case, adaptive governance should be able to redirect single actions under clear and transparent principles and consider diverse capacities and inadequate data. Temporal scale affects the decision-making process as scenario planning is often adopted as a tool for interpretations of future climate change or population projections (McGrane et al., 2019). In addition to the above challenges, data and communication have been recognized as playing a central role in nexus governance. On the side of data, their availability or inconsistency across scales can alter the evidence-based perception of synergies and trade-offs, hindering negotiation and failing in formulating nexus-wide considerations, understanding the nexus scope and selecting the best solution for integration (FAO, 2018; McCarl et al., 2017; McGrane et al., 2019). Clear communication regarding data, roles and responsibilities and implementation strategy also has a role in facilitating cross-sector and cross-scale collaboration and creating a robust science–policy interface that brings together the knowledge and interests of academia, government and different spheres of society (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2016; McGrane et al., 2019; Mohtar and Daher, 2016). This also helps to mainstream nexus thinking to incentivize its adoption by responsible organizations by showing the benefits and costs of integration (FAO, 2018). In this regard, Al-Saidi and Elagib (2017) also highlight the unclear dimension of how participatory approach methods can contribute to the integrated decision-making process and coherent policies. As a central part of the nexus approach, stakeholder engagement offers a broad spectrum of possibilities to be investigated to foster knowledge co-creation and the identification of potential barriers (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2016). Considering actors and stakeholders at the core of the nexus analysis allows for a more bottom-up approach that helps to identify critical issues to a specific social and natural environment and define scales of operation (Stein et al., 2014).

19.3

MATERIALS AND METHODS

From November 2020 to January 2021, six focus groups took place virtually to investigate the enabling factors that allow for an effective and efficient implementation of the nexus considering its multi-level governance system using an ex ante approach. Participants came from private and public research institutions for natural resource and land management and environmental preservation. Different areas of knowledge were represented, for example agricultural and development economics, geography, social cohesion and social learning,

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350  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Table 19.1

Definitions of addressed multi-level governance gaps in the implementation of the nexus

Multi-level governance gap Description Accountability gap

Difficulty in establishing clear roles and responsibilities for integrated policy making and programme implementation. Difficulty in ensuring transparency and holding actors accountable for practices that affect other WEF sectors.

Administrative gap

Geographical mismatch between a resource system and administrative boundaries incurring in overlapping stakes, mandates and interests. Need for instruments to reach an effective size and appropriate scale and perception of security across sectors.

Policy gap

Sectoral fragmentation in policy implementation across WEF sectors and inconsistencies across scales. Regulatory frameworks that hinder policy coherence across sectors. Power imbalances across sectors hinder the negotiation of trade-offs across WEF sectors.

Data and information gap

Asymmetries of information and a lack of integrated data that link water, energy and food (quantity, quality, type) between different organizations and stakeholders involved in the three policy sectors. Lack of a monitoring system that can ensure integrated data collection to stimulate long-term consistency in nexus evaluation.

Capacity gap

Uneven knowledge of nexus across WEF organizations and stakeholders and human capital. Insufficient scientific and organizational capacity of local actors to engage in cross-sectoral and cross-scale coordination mechanisms.

Source:

Adapted from OECD (2011).

and participants had previous experience in the implementation of nexus programmes using participatory approaches and in the development of a sustainability impact assessment tool aimed at fostering inclusion and stakeholder engagement. The OECD multi-level governance gap definition and the development of the principles for water governance were used as a reference. During the meetings participants were asked to discuss the challenges of multi-level nexus governance encountered in the literature and to link them to the five governance gaps considered. Thereafter, a prioritization process highlighted specific challenges for each gap, to identify relevant indicators drawn from the literature and related disciplines, as part of the Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (OECD, 2018b). To verify and refine the indicators derived from the literature the group discussions were conducted considering the contribution of each factor to the resolution of each gap, whose definitions have been adapted to move away from a water-centred definition (OECD, 2011) and are summarized in Table 19.1. Table 19.2 displays a list of 43 binary indicators that aim to evaluate exposure to the selected governance gaps, considering enabling factors and practices for multi-level governance. The indicators are framed in such a way that ‘yes’ identifies a situation less likely to incur in governance gaps. 19.3.1 Governance and the OECD Framework for Water Governance In this chapter, we use a definition of governance as described in the influential work of Stoker and used by Urbinatti et al. (Stoker, 1998; Urbinatti et al., 2020) in the discussion of nexus governance as a set of actors and institutions within and outside government boundaries, considering power dependencies and the allocation of responsibilities to address social and economic issues faced by citizens. It also includes autonomous self-governing networks of actors that can demand and steer change. The availability and distribution of information can influence the design of the governance system.

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Administrative gaps

Accountability gaps

Governance gap

Table 19.2

demanding accountability of governments and other powerful actors?

3.3. Is there only one responsible organization/ministry for each WEF sector in the area considered?

geographical and administrative

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4.3. Are there conflict mitigation and resolution mechanisms to manage trade-offs across WEF sectors?

4. Conflict resolution mechanisms 4.2. Have compensatory measures been considered for the nexus sector that is more negatively affected by trade-offs?

4.1. Have trade-offs among resources been balanced to not cause conflict among sector users and providers?

among public-sector bodies?

3.4. Is there a mismatch in the definition of environmental and resource security concerning the water, energy and food sectors

national)?

mismatch between the

scale and problem configuration

3.2. Does the scale of the problem addressed match the scale of governance involved in the decision-making process (local, regional,

3. Vertical and horizontal

3.1. Are there no overlapping jurisdictional boundaries in the resource system considered (municipalities, states, nations)?

2.3. Are regulations and sanctions present and regularly enforced?

2.2. Are there civil society organizations or citizen-driven accountability initiatives with enough resources and information for

and environmental responsibility

2.1. Is there political will in the region to hold powerful actors accountable to comply with formal accountability standards?

property rights holders, relevant stakeholders, national and international legal system, affected population)?

1.2. Are roles and responsibilities clearly allocated for water, energy and food (decision-making structure, authorization, experts,

1.1. Does the project foresee a stakeholder mapping to identify and characterize all actors involved?

Indicator

2. Mechanisms to ensure social

1. Roles and responsibilities

Specific challenge

List of indicators to assess governance systems’ exposure to multi-level governance gaps

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Policy gaps

Governance gap

5.3. Does the project/policy build a comprehensive understanding of social, environmental and economic risks and opportunities

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national, regional and local levels? 6.3. Does the project/policy foresee a strategic framework that considers long-term effects and ensures commitment to the nexus approach? 6.4. Does the project/policy include a strategy for future systematic and periodic assessment of potential positive and negative impacts on WEF sectors?

integration of project/policy

objective across different scales

(geographic and temporal) and

sectors (ministries, public-sector

agencies)

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7.3. Are actors of each sector and scale represented and included in an equal manner in the decision-making process?

negotiation

7.4. Does the project foresee a meeting or consultation of stakeholders to examine conflict and to support negotiation?

7.2. Have vulnerable actors been identified and included in the decision-making process?

7. Power imbalances and

7.1. Have power relations among key stakeholders been analysed?

framework concerning the WEF nexus)?

6.5. Is the project/practice supported by alignment among short-, medium- and long-term objectives and actions (e.g. regulatory

6.2. Are there existing coordination mechanisms that allow for systematic consultation, collaboration and alignment of efforts at the

6. Vertical and horizontal

ministries and public-sector agencies to align respective sectoral programmes, budgets and policies?

6.1. Are there existing mandates and mechanisms (planning processes, budgetary processes, guidelines or regulations) that allow

in its strategy and action plan?

5.4. Is there any explicit willingness by the local or national government or public-sector agencies to adopt the WEF nexus approach

considering all nexus sectors?

social priorities?

governance principles

5.2. Have local actors been involved in defining the nexus problem/solution to allow for a bottom-up approach and definition of

perspectives?

5.1. Does the project/policy provide a clear definition of nexus security considering sectoral priorities and local and national

Indicator

5. Definition of shared

Specific challenge

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gaps

Data and information

Capacity gaps

Governance gap

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12. Monitoring

11. Communication

system?

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the art of the WEF nexus?

12.3. Does the project/policy promote a transparent and independent system reporting to governments and the public on the state of

resource system (i.e. indicators of progress, cost/benefit analysis, impact assessments)?

12.2. Are there evaluation and reporting mechanisms to support evidence-based compliance on the level of conservation of the

12.1. Does the project promote a uniform and standardized monitoring system to foster integrated data collection?

engagement and inform and mainstream access to environmental justice and demand for resource security?

11.4. Does the project promote legal and institutional frameworks and responsible authorities that are conducive to stakeholder

11.3. Does the project/policy promote public awareness on the WEF nexus?

11.2. Is complexity visually represented in an easily understandable way for stakeholders to support dialogue?

public) on the risks and opportunities of the selected practice of water, energy and food services?

11.1. Does the project foresee clear and straightforward communication mechanisms for all stakeholders (including the general

information and to allocate responsibilities and resources for WEF nexus objectives?

10.4. Is there a mechanism for cross-sectoral coordination that allows ministries and public-sector agencies to share data and

10.3. Are there sufficient existing integrated data on WEF nexus resources in the region to define full complexity of the nexus

system boundaries

10.2. Do researchers convene on a selection of indicators at local scale to evaluate the system’s biophysical interlinkages?

10.1. Do researchers convene on the definition of the WEF nexus system, scope and scale to collect data?

workshops, focus groups, questionnaires, share data)?

9.4. Is there a positive attitude by local organizations and authorities to participate in knowledge-sharing activities (e.g. participate in

benefits and costs?

9.3. Are local authorities and organizations engaged and provided with a thorough understanding of the nexus approach and related

among actors?

9.2. Has there been previous nexus-based programme or policy implementation in the area that has brought capacity-related lessons

9.1. Does the level of technical knowledge on the WEF nexus of implementing organizations match project/policy requirements?

8.3. Have property rights of users and providers of resources been assessed in the definition of the stakeholder engagement strategy?

policies (e.g. basing organization)?

8.2. Is there in the area an operating interministerial body or organization for horizontal coordination of water, energy and food

practices, policies or regulations are misaligned (policies, incentives, regulations)?

8.1. Does the project/policy foresee a review of existing barriers to policy coherence and/or areas where water, energy and food

Indicator

10. Data availability and nexus

sharing and participation

9. Attitude toward knowledge

and institutions

8. Assessment of existing policies

Specific challenge

Multi-level governance challenges of the WEF nexus  353

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354  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus The concept of integration to deal with different uses of natural resources is not a new idea, as it is not the investigation of the question of scale and cross-sector integration (Lockwood et al., 2010; Lovell et al., 2021). The nexus approach bears similarities with different holistic approaches for natural resource management and participative decision making (Allouche et al., 2014; Leck et al., 2015; Weitz et al., 2014) which share similar multi-level governance challenges. In particular, it has often been juxtaposed to integrated water resource management (IWRM) (Benson et al., 2015; Grigg, 2019; Hagemann and Kirschke, 2017; Muller, 2015; Pittock et al., 2015; Salam et al., 2017) and seen as an alternative to what has been considered an approach overly water-centred. Instead, the nexus has been praised to have shifted the paradigm of integration as it is rooted in the intersectorality of resource use issues, the interdependence and interdisciplinarity of management decisions and the interactionality of impacts, resources and allocations (Al-Saidi and Elagib, 2017). With the present research, we build upon the classification of OECD multi-level governance gaps to assess the nexus literature’s issues. The classification has been largely applied in different countries to develop the OECD principles for water governance (OECD, 2018a). The potential of the principles for water governance goes beyond the boundaries of water policy, as they have also been indicated as a relevant tool to attain policy coherence (OECD, 2018a). The OECD has investigated evidence on several governance gaps, affecting in particular water policy design and implementation. The framework to address multi-level governance gaps has been developed as an analytical framework to orientate policy responses and good practices to identify and prevent governance challenges that have been found in different countries and institutional settings (OECD, 2015). We believe that there is a high correspondence of issues faced by both the nexus governance and application of the OECD governance gaps in defining the OECD principles for water governance. The water sector itself holds intrinsic characteristics that make it highly sensitive and dependent on multi-level governance (OECD, 2015, 2018a). To analyse the governance framework of a participative natural resource management approach such as that of the nexus, it is therefore necessary to highlight each gap considering the stakeholders involved (from researchers, public institutions, policy makers, private stakeholders, businesses and representatives of civil society), policies and laws, as well as the local community’s attitude towards sustainability and the presence of widespread nexus thinking at all these levels (Fernandes Torres et al., 2019).

19.4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

19.4.1 Administrative and Accountability Gaps Mismatches between geographical boundaries of a resource system and administrative roles are common in the nexus as it tries to mobilize three geographically widespread and highly interlinked sectors. Overlapping mandate structures can conflict with each other threatening the decision-making process (Benson et al., 2015; Urbinatti et al., 2020), causing administrative gaps. Different levels of government objectives can also foresee diverse uses of land and resources for national or regional purposes, which often do not coincide with those of the local population. Both vertically and horizontally, relationships among institutions and power imbalances can incur administrative gaps by shaping the nature of the collaboration process

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Multi-level governance challenges of the WEF nexus  355 and policy change (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2016; Mohtar and Daher, 2016; Pahl-Wostl, 2019; Stein et al., 2014). Unclear system boundaries are a result of administrative gaps and can cause a blurred distribution of roles and responsibilities, translating in accountability gaps. The issue of accountability is critical when dealing with integrated resource systems as it can prevent or mitigate negative social and environmental impacts and prevent abuses of power and, in general, directs power holders’ actions toward more socially and environmentally sustainable results by reflecting the voice of citizens (Bovens, 2007; Koppell, 2005; Nuesiri, 2016). Scholars recognize the need to define roles, responsibilities and institutional frameworks in advance, also in order to better coordinate the information flow among them, by operating a clear mapping of stakeholders (Campese et al., 2016; Lele et al., 2013; Scott et al., 2015; Weitz et al., 2014; White, 2017), consider asymmetries in the distribution of power and ensure mechanisms to solve conflicts and hold actors accountable for their actions (Lele et al., 2013; Nuesiri, 2016; Sharma and Kumar, 2020; Villamayor-Tomas et al., 2015). The distribution of authority and control over the resources can also impact power relations and, therefore, the coordination mechanisms among actors, as actors with a shared mandate may enter either in competition or cooperation. Negotiation among department and ministries of synergies and trade-offs will easily incur in competing goals and priorities, calling for a careful review of policy effects with stakeholders, and should consider compensation and conflict mitigation approaches to deliver the best policy mix (Endo et al., 2015; Kurian, 2017; UN ESCWA, 2016). The process of negotiation should go through clear identification and engagement of a diverse group of stakeholders allowing for equal representation of interests across sectors (FAO, 2018; Srigiri and Dombrowsky, 2021). Roles and responsibilities need to be mutually recognized and enforced by law and institutions. The relevance of civil society organizations fulfils both the task of representing societal needs and of holding powerful actors accountable for their actions and improving transparency. Representing the actors involved is the first step before analysing the political dimension that will drive negotiations and balance trade-offs. Stakeholder and network analysis can also be used to disclose power imbalances across stakeholders and decision makers and to identify marginalized actors (Kurian et al., 2018; Melloni et al., 2020; Stein et al., 2014; White, 2017). 19.4.2 Policy Gaps Authors convene that among all challenges in operationalizing the nexus, the final playground on which the approach’s success is measured will be on its ability to shape coherent policies across sectors and levels (Hoff, 2011). The imperative of policy coherence has been pursued by different disciplines in natural resource management and by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the case of the nexus, the imperative for policy coherence lies on its theoretical base and strives to go further than past approaches that have at least in part failed, as in the case of IWRM. Instead, since the Bonn Conference of 2011, the nexus surged as a normative concept to overcome the complex natural resource challenges of sectoral responses to interlinked natural resource systems (Hoff, 2011). In this attempt, one of the primary goals of nexus implementation would be to find the best policy mix and governance arrangement across the water, energy and food sectors using a holistic view that encompasses biophysical and socio-economic interlinkages (Papadopoulou et al., 2020; Srigiri and Dombrowsky, 2021; Weitz, 2017). Policy gaps usually result from incoherence between different policy spheres

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356  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus (e.g. national, sub-national or international), with a lack of coordination of policy goals (OECD, 2009, 2018a). As Weitz (2017) remarks, attaining policy coherence is not only a matter of administrative and technical issues of coordination, but it is also susceptible to the political process of negotiation of trade-offs, information asymmetries, agency and power influences, as well as resources and capabilities amongst actors and institutions (Lele et al., 2013; Perrone and Hornberger, 2014; Pittock et al., 2015). This means that policy making must deeply embrace a more comprehensive nexus understanding of problems and shared principles and develop what Fernandes Torres et al. (2019) define as ‘nexus thinking’ to nurture the discussion on overarching policy objectives also across different levels of governance (UN ESCWA, 2016). In this direction, Papadopoulou et al. (2020) elaborated a case study to explore possible options to integrate policies better considering nexus objectives and instruments. In their contribution, stakeholder analysis and policy analysis are revealed to be useful to highlight conflicts in policy implementation, synergies and trade-offs in the decision-making process, as they are time consuming. They note that the selection of specific objectives, such as climate change, demographic risks or the SDG framework (Srigiri and Dombrowsky, 2021; Timko et al., 2018), can have a strong influence on sectoral objectives by directing policy objectives towards the confrontation of impacts on different sectors, enhancement of resilience and adaptation ability. Conversely, the most effective instruments are selecting indicators to estimate integrated impacts, encouraging specialization in all productive sectors and promoting public awareness on the most pressing risks, such as climate change. To nurture discussion and negotiation, the role of stakeholder engagement is crucial in creating the so-called science–policy interface to facilitate the negotiation of trade-offs and incorporating in the discussion knowledge, needs and purpose to achieve a mutually acceptable management policy (Hoolohan et al., 2018; Howarth and Monasterolo, 2016; Mohtar and Daher, 2016). Strengthening the participatory approach of the decision-making process can in fact help to address power imbalances (FAO, 2018). The indicators proposed in Table 19.2 are a reflection of the authors’ contribution and draw from suggestions of the OECD Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development Toolkit (OECD, 2018b), which stresses the need for horizontal and vertical integration in policy making in framing policies. The tool is used to better understand synergies between economic, social and environmental policies and can be used to coordinate policies across the water, energy and agriculture and food sectors (Lindberg and Leflaive, 2015). Grouping together the needs highlighted in the nexus literature and relative recommendations, we propose indicators that help to: (1) smooth communication through engagement and dialogue on overarching critical issues and priorities and sound understanding of the nexus by defining solid shared policy priorities and governance principles to ultimately strengthen cooperation and ease negotiation; (2) evaluate existing mechanisms for vertical and horizontal cooperation across sectors and scales; (3) temporal scale, vision and mandate; and (4) an enquiry on power imbalances for negotiation. 19.4.3 Information and Data Gaps The push towards innovative governance systems that support the reconfiguration of a consolidated sectoral response has to be justified by a solid and precise representation of complexity, making data availability imperative for efficient governance in the nexus (McGrane et al.,

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Multi-level governance challenges of the WEF nexus  357 2019). Each phase of the nexus assessment requires different kinds of information and data, and very often, the kind of data required on the aggregate effects of the resource systems are not available (Liu et al., 2017). Accordingly, data challenges arising from nexus complexity are present for data development, retrieval, calculation and use (McCarl et al., 2017). At the desk phase of the assessment, data are needed to foster expert dialogue on the best solutions, and following this, a sound monitoring system should be able to capture the impact of the selected solutions on resource security. This should be easily accessible to enhance trust and shared among countries to promote international cooperation (UNECE, 2018). This section considers data and information flow as structural to the decision-making process and their implication on multi-level governance divided in a communication strategy to foster stakeholder dialogue and knowledge creation, data availability and monitor provisions. McCarl et al. (2017) conducted a review of the main issues regarding nexus data. Many of the highlighted data challenges are linked to the multi-level and multi-stakeholder dimensions that characterize nexus governance. A fundamental challenge involves the clear establishment of the system boundaries, considering the market and natural linkages that can be endogenous or exogenous to the nexus scope in each setting. Also, the lack of a unitary framework to assess interlinkages in the WEF system has given rise to an extensive array of modelling to represent complexity and address water, energy, food and other components, that is continuously being tested and reviewed by scholars (Endo et al., 2015; Kaddoura and El Khatib, 2017), reflecting in some way the ability of the nexus approach to be adapted to different contexts and priorities. The consequences, however, are that often data are not readily available to support innovative and integrated quantitative assessments (de Strasser et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2017; McCarl et al., 2017), both for proprietary and data sensitivity reasons and as a consequence of longstanding data management practices of sectoral agencies. Furthermore, WEF sectors often operate at different levels, complicating household-level and national data integration consistently as granularity increases (McCarl et al., 2017; McGrane et al., 2019). Consistency across organizations should be stimulated by establishing indicators and data-sharing practices and supporting the interregional or international exchange of experiences (FAO, 2018). The quest for enhanced communication across stakeholders has been remarked as an essential component throughout all the phases of nexus policy making and programme implementation (Flammini et al., 2014). Comprehensive communication plans should involve researchers from different fields to foster knowledge co-creation among authorities and stakeholders to disclose synergies and avoid conflict (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2016). Stakeholders may see in the lack of communication a threat to project implementation as a covert cause of possible conflict (Melloni et al., 2020; White, 2017). In this regard, different scholars find it crucial to promote regular workshops and focus groups and periodic unilateral communication throughout the development of the decision-making process. Also, the representation of biophysical complexities should be visually facilitated to support dialogue with non-experts and improve study acceptance (McCarl et al., 2017). Monitoring and reporting integrated natural resource systems’ impact require a holistic approach and a variety of inputs. This is already advocated in impact assessments, where sustainability takes into consideration economic, environmental and social changes (Gottret and White, 2021; McGrane et al., 2019). Moving beyond siloed sectoral approaches requires developing new methodologies to collect data, new databases and data-processing methods (UNECE, 2018). It is crucial to build up a robust evidence base of compliance within companies and organizations to monitor and report data to ensure that standards and obligations

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358  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus are being met (McGrane et al., 2019). This can help develop a consolidated and long-lasting governance system that can control nexus systems and replicate good practices. The definition of the appropriate geographical scale (again, temporal, spatial and jurisdictional) and establishing uniformity regarding indicators and framework are essential to establish accountability and reliability of data provided for future integrated assessments. 19.4.4 Capacity Gaps Sub-national authorities and institutions often lack the capacity to respond to decentralized tasks and public administration infrastructure can have varying levels of capacity development needs and predisposition to interagency cooperation, as well as limited knowledge about the nexus (UN ESCWA, 2016). Another reason may be that local authorities and citizens simply lack motivation or don’t see the benefits in relation to higher costs and efforts for coordination (FAO, 2018). Local authorities need to be properly engaged and made aware of the benefits of coordination which may be consolidated through incentives. Non-governmental and civil society organizations can build up awareness and facilitate the implementation of development actions thanks to their links with local populations (UN ESCWA, 2013). To deal with the multi-faceted endeavour of the nexus, existing institutions and governance systems need to develop the capacity to operationalize the practices on cooperation and knowledge sharing needed to achieve coherent policies and effective results for the whole system of resources (Kurian et al., 2018; Melloni et al., 2020; Stein et al., 2014). This includes a screening of existing policies, incentives and regulations, and the social dimension and culture which may unveil informal institutions and beliefs (Howarth and Monasterolo, 2016; OECD, 2018a; Rahman et al., 2017) and require political commitment and scientific backing to instil a participatory intersectoral approach to policy formulation and implementation (UN ESCWA, 2016). Widespread adoption of the nexus among institutions and workers of public-sector agencies should be stimulated, also considering past nexus projects or policies in the region. In order to do so, the attitude towards attending capacity-building and knowledge-sharing activities should be evaluated across actors to set up activities that encourage relationship building across sectors throughout the decision-making process (UN ESCWA, 2016). Assessing institutional capacity may also help disclose factors that weaken interinstitutional cooperation, the adoption of innovative governance models that ensure accountability and transparency and consider disruptive technologies and the establishment of public–private partnerships (Pritchard, 2014) or social learning practices with a wider array of environmental, social and economic benefits (GIZ, 2016; Neil Adger et al., 2005).

19.5

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

The nexus attempts to address ever pressing global challenges through a substantial transformation in the way we manage resources. However, the actions required to govern the nexus require collective mobilization in resource systems that often go beyond national boundaries. Variations across countries could be considerable of course, and depend among others on local conditions and geography. Consolidated institutions and sectoral ministries, if not radically transformed, will at least need to ensure coordination mechanisms to identify, balance and negotiate synergies and trade-offs. In order to successfully scale up the implementation of

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Katharina Löhr

Michelle Bonatti

Multi-level governance challenges of the WEF nexus  359 the WEF nexus, there should be a major shift in the way programmes and policies are implemented. Vertical and horizontal integration make multi-level nexus governance a challenging but key factor to fully operationalize the nexus. From a pragmatic point of view, this would require researchers and decision makers to follow a step-wise approach to steer the functioning of the governance system, understand its functioning and put into action effective measures to avoid governance gaps. Our framework serves to support researchers and decision makers in this purpose, by providing a checklist of factors that have been suggested in the literature as relevant to avoid governance gaps. The OECD framework has helped us to break down the analysis following specific governance areas using suggestions from the OECD principles for multi-level water governance. The use of this framework at an early phase of a nexus project or policy implementation will help researchers and decision makers to identify governance gaps and to support the selection of ad hoc actions to stimulate the participation and coordination of actors and stakeholders. This will help to build up capacity for future nexus implementation and stimulate users and authorities to create mechanisms for coordination to collect data, assess options and handle governance transition that can ultimately reduce inefficiencies and improve practical cooperation among ministries, stakeholders and organizations that can help to scale up successful nexus practices and enhance transparency. The framework will benefit from future elaboration to consider other aspects of governance, as funding, budgeting or legal gaps.

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Giacomo Melloni

Ana Paula Dias Turetta

Katharina Löhr

Michelle Bonatti

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Giacomo Melloni

Ana Paula Dias Turetta

Katharina Löhr

Michelle Bonatti

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Giacomo Melloni

Ana Paula Dias Turetta

Katharina Löhr

Michelle Bonatti

362  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Pittock, J., S. Orr, L. Stevens, M. Aheeyar and M. Smith (2015), ‘Tackling trade-offs in the nexus of water, energy and food’, Aquatic Procedia, 5, 58–68. Pritchard, M. (2014), A Field Practitioner’s Guide. Institutional and Organizational Analysis and Capacity Strengthening, IFAD, November. Rahman, H.M.T., A.S.S. Ville, A.M. Song, J.Y.T. Po, E. Berthet, J.R. Brammer et al. (2017), ‘A framework for analyzing institutional gaps in natural resource governance’, International Journal of the Commons, 11 (2), 823–853. Salam, P.A., S. Shrestha, V.P. Pandey and A.K. Anal (eds) (2017), Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Principles and Practices, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Scheumann, W. and G. Phiri (2018), Coordination: The Key to Governing the Water-Land-Food Nexus in Zambia? Discussion Paper 20/2018. Bonn: German Development Institute. Scott, A. (2017), Making Governance Work for Water-Energy-Food Nexus Approaches, Working Paper, June, CDKN. Scott, C.A., M. Kurian and J.L. Wescoat (2015), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: Enhancing adaptive capacity to complex global challenges’, in M. Kurian and R. Ardakanian (eds), Governing the Nexus, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 15–38. Shannak, S., D. Mabrey and M. Vittorio (2018), ‘Moving from theory to practice in the water-energy-food nexus: An evaluation of existing models and frameworks’, Water-Energy Nexus, 1 (1), 17–25. Sharma, P. and S.N. Kumar (2020), ‘The global governance of water, energy, and food nexus: Allocation and access for competing demands’, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 20 (2), 377–391. Srigiri, S.R. and I. Dombrowsky (2021), ‘Governance of the water-energy-food nexus for an integrated implementation of the 2030 Agenda’, Discussion Paper, accessed at https://​doi​.org/​10​.23661/​DP2​ .2021. Stein, C., J. Barron and T. Moss (2014), Governance of the Nexus: From Buzz Words to a Strategic Action Perspective, Brighton: The Nexus Network. Stoker, G. (1998), ‘Governance as theory: Five propositions’, International Social Science Journal, 50 (155), 17–28. Timko, J., P. Le Billon, H. Zerriffi, J. Honey-Rosés, I. de la Roche, C. Gaston, T.C. Sunderland and R.A. Kozak (2018), ‘A policy nexus approach to forests and the SDGs: Tradeoffs and synergies’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 34, 7–12. UN ESCWA (2013), The Role of NGOs and Civil Society Organizations in the Deployment of Renewable Energy in Rural and Remote Areas in the Arab Region: The Need to Transform Constraints into Opportunities, accessed at http://​css​.escwa​.org​.lb/​SDPD/​3229/​1wp​.pdf. UN ESCWA (2016), Developing the Capacity of ESCWA Member Countries to Address the Water and Energy Nexus for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals, accessed at www​.unescwa​.org/​sites/​ www​.unescwa​.org/​files/​publications/​files/​water​-energy​-nexus​-regional​-policy​-toolkit​-english​.pdf. UNECE (2018), A Nexus Approach to Transboundary Cooperation: The Experience of the Water Convention, accessed at https://​unece​.org/​fileadmin/​DAM/​env/​water/​publications/​WAT​_NONE​_12​ _Nexus/​SummaryBrochure​_Nexus​_Final​-rev2​_forWEB​.pdf. Urbinatti, A.M., L.L. Benites-Lazaro, C.M. de Carvalho and L.L. Giatti (2020), ‘The conceptual basis of water-energy-food nexus governance: Systematic literature review using network and discourse analysis’, Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, 17 (2), 21–43. Villamayor-Tomas, S., P. Grundmann, G. Epstein, T. Evans and C. Kimmich (2015), ‘The water-energy-food security nexus through the lenses of the value chain and the institutional analysis and development frameworks’, Water Alternatives, 8 (1), 21. Weitz, N. (2017), ‘Closing the governance gaps in the water-energy-food nexus: Insights from integrative governance’, Global Environmental Change, 9. Weitz, N., M. Nilsson and M. Davis (2014), ‘A nexus approach to the post-2015 agenda: Formulating integrated water, energy, and food SDGs’, SAIS Review of International Affairs, 34 (2), 37–50. White, D. (2017), ‘Stakeholder analysis for the food-energy-water nexus in Phoenix, Arizona: Implications for nexus governance’, Sustainability, 9, 2204. Wichelns, D. (2017), ‘The water-energy-food nexus: Is the increasing attention warranted, from either a research or policy perspective?’, Environmental Science and Policy, 69, 113–123.

Giacomo Melloni

Ana Paula Dias Turetta

Katharina Löhr

Michelle Bonatti

Multi-level governance challenges of the WEF nexus  363 Yung, L., E. Louder, L.A. Gallagher, K. Jones and C. Wyborn (2019), ‘How methods for navigating uncertainty connect science and policy at the water-energy-food nexus’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7, 37. Zhang, C., X. Chen, Y. Li, W. Ding and G. Fu (2018), ‘Water-energy-food nexus: Concepts, questions and methodologies’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 195, 625–639. Zhu, J., S. Kang, W. Zhao, Q. Li, X. Xie and X. Hu (2020), ‘A bibliometric analysis of food-energy-water nexus: Progress and prospects’, Land, 9 (12), 504.

Giacomo Melloni

Ana Paula Dias Turetta

Katharina Löhr

Michelle Bonatti

20. Ecosystem services and the nexus for achieving urban sustainability Jiangxiao Qiu, Hui Zhao, Deyong Yu and Jianguo Wu

20.1 INTRODUCTION Globally, more than half of the population is living in urban areas that rely predominately on external supplies of essential resources (e.g. food, energy and water) and flows of vital ecosystem goods and services (i.e. benefits people obtain from nature). The United Nations projects that by 2050 an additional 2.5 billion people will become urban dwellers, driving the proportion of urban populations up to 68 percent (Forman and Wu, 2016; Seto et al., 2017). Urban areas are the hubs for human activities that generate approximately 80 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (Ramaswami, 2020). On the other hand, urbanization and associated resource demands have directed enormous resource flows and consumptions, making urban areas “hotspots” that exert substantial pressures on regional and global sustainability. Consequences of urbanization are further exacerbated by other global changes, such as intensifying land use, worsening pollution and changing climate (Seto and Satterthwaite, 2010; Elmqvist et al., 2019). All these stressors can interact in ways that may compromise long-term resilience, and lead to abrupt changes that exceed the “planetary boundary” for human society (Carpenter et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). Given these challenges, it is of paramount importance to explore sustainability pathways that harness synergies, mitigate unwanted trade-offs and improve urban resilience to future environmental changes. Such knowledge is vital because urban areas are becoming central to ensuring a sustainable future planet (Elmqvist, 2018). Also, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot possibly be achieved without urban sustainability being viable (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2003; Wu, 2014; Acuto et al., 2018). Many of the SDGs are tightly connected to the supply of ecosystem services (Wood et al., 2018) and the nexus of key resources, such as SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 13 (climate action) and SDGs 14 and 15 (life on land and below water). Among all essential resources, water, energy and food (WEF) are the most fundamental to the survival of humans and the basic life-supporting functions of contemporary society. It has been revealed that considerable urban WEF demands and flows have exerted far-reaching impacts on the sustainability of our environment (Huang et al., 2016; Fragkias et al., 2017). For example, recent studies showed that 27 megacities alone account for 9 percent of global electricity use, 10 percent of gasoline consumption and 3 percent of municipal water use, most of which are imported from proximal or distant regions outside cities, and they are also responsible for 13 percent of global solid wastes (Varis et al., 2006; Kennedy et al., 2015). Urban areas depend on food supplied from regions beyond their administrative or jurisdictional boundaries (Qiao et al., 2011). In the United States, food travels an average of about 1,200 miles before being consumed by urban residents (Ramaswami et al., 2012). Recent 364

Ecosystem services and urban sustainability  365 shifts towards resource-intensive consumption patterns will further heighten outsourced environmental footprints from urban areas (Shafiee-Jood and Cai, 2016). Thus, understanding how to meet urban WEF demands while minimizing associated environmental impacts within and beyond urban boundaries is pivotal to achieving urban sustainability. To achieve these goals, one key knowledge gap is to unravel the linkages between the WEF nexus and flows of ecosystem services – two important concepts in environmental sustainability that have garnered substantial research and policy interests, but have developed mostly in parallel. Specifically, nexus thinking and approach has been identified as a priority for sustainability in the United States and worldwide and is promising in multiple ways (National Research Council, 2013; Allouche et al., 2014). For one, it explicitly recognizes complex interactions between sectors and resource systems and addresses cross-sectoral externalities by closing materials and resource loops (Bazilian et al., 2011; Hoff, 2011; Hussey and Pittock, 2012; Ringler et al., 2013). Additionally, it provides a lens through which an interrelated set of goals and outcomes can be defined and coordinated efforts can be leveraged beyond conventional academic and policy silos (Bazilian et al., 2011; Romero-Lankao et al., 2017). In the WEF context, the emergent competitions for water between the food and energy systems, or vice versa, tensions for energy between the food and water systems, are increasingly recognized, calling for enhanced understanding of their linkages to reduce trade-offs and improve synergies (D’Odorico et al., 2018). An extensive literature has revealed that interlinkages among the WEF sectors are numerous, with multiple layers of interdependencies and interconnections associated with available resources, internal cohesion among communities involved and external climatic, geopolitical, demographic and socioeconomic drivers (Chang et al., 2020). One case is that food production requires water for irrigation, which will need energy for extracting and distributing water resources, and energy generation often needs water to cool power plants. Hence, it is critical to take a nexus lens to address WEF interactions for synergistic strategies (e.g. circular economy) aimed at supporting sustainable resources management and resilient WEF securities. Ecosystem service is another imperative concept and framework for environmental research and decision making (Carpenter et al., 2009; Posner et al., 2016; Díaz et al., 2018). Ecosystem service originates from the notion that nature performs fundamental life-supporting services to human survival, such as food and fiber products, clean water, flood mitigation and disease regulation (Mooney and Ehrlich, 1997). It can be traced as far back as Man and Nature (Marsh, 1864) on finite natural resources, and the pioneering concept of natural capitals (Vogt, 1948). Over the past two decades, there has been a rapid development in ecosystem service studies, with two prominent milestones – Nature’s Services by Daily (1997) and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005). Both of these seminal works have spurred a vast amount of research and policy interests, and established a framework to mainstream ecosystem service to help guide environmental policy and decision making (Guerry et al., 2015; Posner et al., 2016). Previous literature has identified different mechanisms underpinning supplies of ecosystem services, many of which are related to the WEF nexus and processes (e.g. water and energy balance and biogeochemical cycling). Further, ecosystem service research has provided tools and created knowledge to facilitate regional and national environmental decision making by assessing trade-offs and synergies across multiple sectors under diverse management scenarios (Daily et al., 2009; Díaz et al., 2015; Guerry et al., 2015). However, thus far, few studies have investigated the relationships and reciprocal feedbacks between ecosystem services (e.g. supply, demand and distributions) and the nexuses of WEF in which

366  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus food, water and energy resource sectors are highly interwoven. Yet, enhanced knowledge of the WEF nexus could promote resource use efficiency and ultimately foster sustainable flows of ecosystem services. Further, given the massive urban resource demands, it inherently relies upon external supplies of resources and ecosystem services. Hence, there is a key cross-scale dynamic, where changes in local supplies of ecosystem services could interact with regional resource supplies. One example is that the local supply of food production services (e.g. via urban agriculture) can lead to a decreased food supply, which further reduces the associated water and energy footprints related to food supply chains. Moreover, urban areas are increasingly concerned with the security of basic WEF needs that can be vulnerable to factors such as climate disruptions, disturbances, public health crises and other social-environmental surprises (Eakin and Luers, 2006). Specific examples include the extended outage of electricity supply due to hurricanes (e.g. Hurricane Irma) and wildfires (e.g. California, 2019), and disruptions of regional food supply chains in an era of pandemic (e.g. the ongoing Covid-19). Therefore, it is imperative to adopt a cross-scale dynamics and resilience-based approach to better understand and manage urban WEF resources and associated urban ecosystem services (e.g. food, carbon sequestration, climate mitigation, flood mitigation) that accounts for their collective dynamics and responses to environmental changes. To this end, in this chapter, we propose and elaborate the conceptual framework of Desirable Operating Space (DOS), which can help address urban WEF sustainability challenges and that reconciles cross-scale dynamics, nexus interlinkages and resilience thinking, and unravels the interlinkages between the WEF nexus and ecosystem services. We first briefly review the foundational concepts and theories from different fields that contribute to the DOS framework by embracing three explicit dimensions – WEF supply, resilience and environmental sustainability. We then elucidate the scales over which DOS can and should be studied and implemented. Further, we discuss a set of quantitative approaches that could be used to operationalize and implement the DOS framework that account for its interlinkages with ecosystem services. Finally, we conclude with exemplary research questions pertaining to urban sustainability which are addressable with the DOS framework. While we focus on the urban WEF nexus as an example, we expect that our analytical framework is broadly applicable to other resource and service sectors (e.g. climate, health, waste and emissions) and their interactions in urban systems.

20.2

KEY CONCEPTS

The DOS framework does not arise de novo, but rather draws from concepts and theories in fields of resilience, sustainability science and social-ecological systems (e.g. Kates et al., 2001; Walker et al., 2004; Folke, 2006; McGinnis and Ostrom, 2014; Elmqvist et al., 2019). It also benefits from contemporary development in research areas such as environmental footprint (Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014) and planetary boundary (Steffen et al., 2015). Here, we briefly highlight these intellectual roots, and emphasize key conceptual theories and empirical advances that underlie and help shape the development of the DOS framework. One of the first notable applications of DOS occurred in physics and nuclear research, where it was used to delineate an optimal and steady state for reactor performance (Devoto and Fenstermacher, 1990; Meier et al., 2001). Until recently, DOS has been extended to natural

Ecosystem services and urban sustainability  367 resources and environmental sustainability research, including those focused on urban water resource management and socio-hydrology (Srinivasan et al., 2017; Krueger et al., 2020). Yet thus far this framework has been used often without an explicit definition. Hence, we provide a specific definition of DOS for the urban WEF context, which is defined as the system’s capacity to tolerate stressors while sustaining long-term human demands for essential resources and ecosystem services (e.g. WEF in this case) without intensifying environmental footprints. Our definition and uses of the DOS framework is adopted from Krueger et al. (2020), but operationalized to the urban WEF systems that account for the supply of multiple ecosystem services. However, it is worth noting that, different from Krueger et al. (2020), our defined DOS framework explicitly embraces a broader suite of resource sectors, natural capital and their interactions, and accounts for factors and processes across a hierarchy of scales that can influence the urban DOS. Such a holistic and cross-scale perspective is vital for addressing urban sustainability, given inherent interdependencies and interconnections across different resource sectors both within and beyond the urban boundary. Specifically, with this definition, DOS has four core elements (see Figure 20.1): 1. Resilience thinking that emphasizes the ability of systems to absorb shocks and external stressors, and adapt and reorganize to maintain a “desirable” state (Holling, 1973; Folke, 2006). 2. Sustainability consideration that focuses on achieving the normative and “desirable” goals of fulfilling human needs for vital resources (e.g. WEF) and ecosystem services, while minimizing environmental impacts so as to operate within the planet’s carrying capacity (Wu, 2014; Seto et al., 2017). The use of ecosystem services helps assess nature’s contribution to human needs (e.g. food, water and biofuel) (Carpenter et al., 2009), whereas the use of environmental footprints helps quantify negative impacts that humans have exerted on natural systems (Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014). Balancing the supply of ecosystem services and associated costs in the environmental footprints is thus key to achieving environmental sustainability. 3. Social-ecological perspective that accounts for interactions and feedbacks between intertwined human and natural systems (Ostrom, 2009; Qiu et al., 2018b). 4. Hierarchies of scale, where factors and processes across multiple levels of scale and in distant locations can together shape the condition and dynamics of urban DOS. Another crucial contemporary concept that the DOS framework builds upon is the “planetary boundary,” which was initially introduced by Rockström et al. (2009) as the “Safe Operating Space” and further updated and elaborated by Steffen et al. (2015). The planetary boundary identifies limits of multiple control variables and key processes within which the Earth system could safely operate (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). For example, prior empirical works, originally at the global scale, discovered that several planetary boundaries (i.e. climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change and biogeochemical flows) have been overstepped mostly due to human activities (Gerten et al., 2013; Mace et al., 2014; Diamond et al., 2015; Steffen et al., 2015; Newbold et al., 2016). While this concept and its application has significantly influenced the discourse on global sustainability, its potential is not fully realized due to scale mismatches between knowledge infrastructure and action (Anderies et al., 2018). In other words, to be more effective in guiding sustainability transitions, the planetary boundary needs to be operationalized to local and regional scales where

368  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Figure 20.1

Core elements for quantifying the Desirable Operating Space for urban systems and possible quantitative indicators, using WEF resources as an example

most management, policy and governance occur (Dearing et al., 2014; Fang et al., 2015; McLaughlin, 2018; Zipper et al., 2020). DOS is uniquely positioned to address such research needs, where the planetary boundaries can be downscaled and partitioned into local shares (i.e. top-down limits) and/or reconciled and determined by local stakeholders (i.e. bottom-up inputs) (Figure 20.1). Hence, DOS is in principle a more confined operating space focusing on desirable states for human development that contribute to relevant SDGs. In other words, if consequences of human activities could help maintain urban systems within the defined DOS for the urban WEF nexus, it could ultimately help achieve long-term urban sustainability.

20.3

PIVOTAL SCALE FOR OPERATION

Achieving DOS for the urban WEF nexus requires an appropriate physical scale with spatially heterogeneous and interacting natural and artificial landscape elements to provide WEF

Ecosystem services and urban sustainability  369 resources and ecosystem services and absorb ensuing environmental impacts (Wu, 2013; Liao et al., 2020). As previously stated, given the massive urban WEF demands, it is not practically feasible for a single city to be self-sustainable or resilient to drastic environmental changes. But, an urban region (or a metropolitan region), including the “natural systems in our place, our nourishment, and our home range,” is more likely to be sustainable (Forman, 2008, 2014) and capable of withstanding external shocks, hence offering a pivotal scale at which DOS could be achieved (Figure 20.2). With this specification, an urban region is essentially a large regional landscape encompassing a major central population center, several satellite cities, a mosaic of surrounding natural and production lands, with strong radial directionality in the flows and movements of resources and services and great internal heterogeneity. Hence, the urban region is the primary physical “space” for studying and achieving the urban WEF nexus-based DOS, and also a conceptual “home base” from which within- and transboundary interactions of resource flows and dynamics can be explicitly and geospatially quantified. Delimiting the DOS for urban regions and exploring strategies that enhance resilience of urban WEF systems to environmental changes and maintain urban regions within DOS are essential to sustainable urban development.

Source:

Adapted from Forman (2014).

Figure 20.2

Concept, scale and hierarchy of the urban region that is pivotal for studying the Desirable Operating Space for urban WEF systems

Besides the urban region, two other hierarchical levels of scale also need to be considered in investigating the urban DOS (Figure 20.3). On the basis of the hierarchy theory (Allen and Starr, 1982; O’Neill, 1986; Wu and David, 2002), these scale domains include: (1) upper level – i.e. national and global scale that provides top-down constraints, controls and contexts for the focal urban-region scale; and (2) lower level – i.e. cities and townships that offer bottom-up processes, components and mechanisms for explaining behaviors observed at the urban-region scale. In the context of the urban WEF nexus, for example, the upper and focal scales together set the transboundary supply chain for importing WEF resources for urban residents, which can lead to embodied environmental footprints (Figure 20.4). The lower and focal scales together set the within-boundary WEF interactions (Figure 20.4), such as (1) water for food (e.g. water for food-related activities such as the preparation and processing of food and irrigation for food production); (2) water for energy (e.g. cooling power plants, energy production and evaporative cooling to reduce energy usage); (3) energy for water (e.g. energy used for local water supply, withdrawal, distribution and treatment); (4) energy for food (e.g. energy for food production, processing, storage and distribution); (5) food for energy (e.g. food waste for energy generation through anaerobic digestion and biofuel).

370  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus

Figure 20.3

A hierarchical, multiscale approach to conceptualize the urban WEF nexus-based Desirable Operating Space: (1) focal scale as the urban region; (2) national/global scale providing top-down constraints and setting the transboundary WEF supply chain; and (3) city scale providing bottom-up processes and setting within-boundary WEF interactions

WEF interact with the supply of urban ecosystem services across scales, where (1) WEF demands within urban regions can be satisfied through both local within-boundary production of WEF-related services (e.g. food supply, water recycling, renewable energy generation) and/ or (2) transboundary WEF supply from outside of the urban regions. In addition, increased local provision of ecosystem services can indirectly reduce external WEF supplies; e.g. heat mitigation services can lead to a reduction of energy use and thus energy supply. Depending on the specific context of each urban region, their relative proportion can be optimized to minimize environmental footprints and achieve environmental sustainability. With this hierarchical scale structure, WEF nexus interactions exist in both within-boundary WEF production and transboundary WEF supply, all of which need to be accounted for in determining the WEF nexus-based DOS.

Ecosystem services and urban sustainability  371

Note: This diagram outlies the common and generic WEF processes and interactions, which likely differ across study regions and research contexts. Source: Adapted from Ramaswami et al. (2017).

Figure 20.4

20.4

Schematic of major within- and transboundary urban WEF nexus interactions

IMPLEMENTATION APPROACHES

Based on the conceptual foundation (Figure 20.1), the urban WEF nexus-based DOS can be quantified using relevant indicators representing three dimensions: WEF supply, resilience and environmental sustainability. In this section, we will discuss potential approaches to quantify and implement the DOS for the urban WEF nexus in which their interdependencies and interconnections are taken into account. However, these are by no means prescriptive and exhaustive, but rather serve as a starting point to allude to potential directions that may be suitable for a given research context. The exact implementation approaches will likely differ and be case-specific if the DOS framework is applied to different resources or a nexus context other than urban WEF systems. Specifically, the first essential step is to quantify the dynamics and interlinkages of urban WEF resources (i.e. supply, flow and consumption). There is a plethora of quantitative methods

372  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus that can be used for such analyses and assessments (Karnib, 2017; Zhang et al., 2019; Chang et al., 2020). For example, computational models such as system dynamics models (Ford and Ford, 1999; Walker et al., 2014), agent-based models (Ng et al., 2011), integrated assessment models (Welsch et al., 2014), biophysical models (Yang et al., 2016; Qiu et al., 2018a) and input–output models (Zimmerman et al., 2016) have been used for quantifying WEF dynamics across a range of systems and scales. Different models can also be coupled (e.g. coupling a biophysical model with an agent-based model) to capture fine spatial-temporal variations in the production, consumption and flow of WEF resources driven by social-ecological factors (e.g. population, economics, climate, diet, technology, social norms, etc.). In addition to modeling approaches, empirical assessments using data (e.g. census, biophysical measurements, remote sensed datasets, like a snapshot or temporal series of snapshots) from sources including government agencies, non-profit organizations and literature can also be used to quantify WEF production, their flows and relationships (e.g. using the flow diagrams such as a Sankey diagram to quantify resource exchanges and flows; Wicaksono et al., 2017). Based on quantification of WEF stocks and flows (either using modeling or empirical assessment approaches), three DOS dimensions can then be investigated. 20.4.1 DOS 1: WEF Resource Supply The first DOS dimension (Figure 20.1) is resource supply (S), which refers to the extent to which human WEF demands can be satisfied both locally and externally and encompasses the availability, access and management of sources. One possible metric is the ratio of total available WEF resources in a given urban region and total WEF demands. Total available WEF resources can be quantified using an aforementioned modeling and empirical assessment; it can be further distinguished between those met within or outside the urban region (i.e. Surban­ vs. Sexternal) to determine the degree to which an urban region is self-sufficient in resource production. Total WEF demands can be derived from the socioeconomics and census data, and aggregated by different sectors (e.g. transportation, food and utility). S can be computed first for each food, water and energy resources, and then averaged to derive a composite measurement. System analyses can be performed to determine whether there are any leverage points where WEF interlinkages can be optimized for maximizing cross-sectoral synergies and thus increasing S. Examples of intervention scenarios include maximizing local supply and recycling, optimization in supply chains through globalization and alterations in consumption patterns that reduce WEF demands. An S = 1 could be used as a tentative desirable threshold for this dimension of DOS; however, more preferably, the threshold of S could be determined based on inputs from stakeholders through a bottom-up process. Further, other potential metrics may be used to characterize this DOS dimension, such as the percentage of population with insufficient access to WEF, degree of WEF resource stress and WEF usage per capita (relative to global averages). 20.4.2 DOS 2: WEF Resource Resilience The second DOS dimension (Figure 20.1) is resource resilience, which is defined as the capacity of social-ecological systems to absorb or tolerate stressors so as to retain essential structures and functions (Holling, 1973; Walker et al., 2004; Norris et al., 2008). Resilience is crucial to ensure the sustainable flow of WEF resources and ecosystem services. There are many

Ecosystem services and urban sustainability  373 definitions of resilience (e.g. ecological resilience, engineering resilience, community resilience, psychological resilience), and in this chapter, we chose to adopt that of the Resilience Alliance1 in the quantification and implementation of the DOS framework that emphasizes the extent to which the system (in our case, the urban region) is capable of self-organization, learning and adaptation. Given this definition and on the basis of temporal dynamics of WEF resources and flows (either from modeling or empirically), generic system properties (Scheffer et al., 2015), such as resistance and recovery time, can be estimated to assess resilience. In the WEF context, for example, resistance can be quantified as the magnitude of maximal, immediate change of WEF resource supplies due to external environmental changes or disturbances (Orwin and Wardle, 2004); recovery time can be quantified as the time interval of recovery between maximum changes in WEF resource supplies post-disturbance and an equilibria state pre-disturbance (if there is any). Further, additional indicators (both quantitative and qualitative) that focus on other aspects of system resilience (Biggs et al., 2012; Carpenter et al., 2014), such as learning, adaptation and connectivity, and external resource dependency can also be developed based on each specific research context. Resilience indicators can be calculated for each food, water and energy resource sector separately, as well as for the integrated urban WEF systems. It is critical to note that there is no silver bullet approach for quantifying resilience, and therefore it is important to explore multiple indicators of resilience to see how consistent results are, and possibly combine multiple indicators to characterize the overall resilience (Dakos et al., 2012). 20.4.3 DOS 3: WEF Environmental Sustainability The third DOS dimension (Figure 20.1) is environmental sustainability. For the urban WEF systems, for example, it can be quantified using environmental footprint indicators, which can then be compared against the downscaled global limits or locally determined thresholds by stakeholders (Zipper et al., 2020). In alignment with the “planetary boundary” in Steffen et al. (2015), footprint family indicators including carbon footprint, water footprint, ecological footprint, land footprint and nitrogen and phosphorus footprint can be quantified using standardized approaches for the urban WEF systems, based on aforementioned modeling or empirical assessment of WEF resources, flows and demands. More specifically, carbon footprint can be calculated using the hybrid Environmental Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (Lin et al., 2013), water footprint can be calculated using the top-down approach following the Water Footprint Assessment Manual (Aldaya et al., 2012), ecological footprint can be calculated following the National Footprint Accounts – a standardized process by the Global Footprint Network (GFN, 2012), nitrogen and phosphorus footprint can be quantified as the total amount of reactive N (Nr) and P released to the environment from the urban region’s resource consumption, following Leach et al. (2012) and Wang et al. (2011). In addition, thresholds of footprint indicators for an urban region can be determined using regional shares downscaled from global limits in the planetary boundary (Steffen et al., 2015) or other global assessments (e.g. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Based on these global limits, the “equal share per capita” allocation mechanism (Dao et al., 2018) can be used to calculate the limits for each focal urban region, following Lur, j = (Pur, j /Pw, j)×Lw, j (where Lur, j and Lw, j are urban and global limits for year j, and Pur, j and Pw, j are urban and global population, respectively, for year j). While there are other allocation approaches, the “equal share per capita” mechanism may be justified since it is based on the principles of sustainable

374  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus development assuming that the past, current and future populations have similar rights to resources. The urban region limits can then be converted to those associated with the urban WEF systems, based on historical regional proportion of WEF sectors’ footprints to the entire urban region footprints. Besides the top-down approach, the thresholds of footprint indicators for an urban region can also be determined using a bottom-up approach that uses the principles of the planetary boundaries framework to generate locally meaningful limits and boundary values (Zipper et al., 2020). Based on calculated footprints for the urban WEF systems, as well as globally downscaled or stakeholder-driven footprint limits, the ratio of the footprint over the limit can be computed to determine the contributions of WEF-related footprints to their corresponding environmental sustainability limit of DOS. Ratios can be calculated for each individual footprint and averaged to derive a composite measurement, which can then be categorized into different states (e.g. desirable, uncertain and risk, as in Dao et al., 2018) to assess and quantify the environmental sustainability dimension of DOS. 20.4.4 Relationships between DOS for WEF and Ecosystem Services It is critical to note that the provision of urban ecosystem services is tightly linked to the three dimensions of WEF nexus-based DOS. Specifically, local supply of provision services (e.g. urban food production, water recycling/reclamation and renewable energy generation) can directly affect the WEF resource supply. Local supply of regulation services (e.g. heat mitigation, water and nutrient retention) can also indirectly affect the WEF demands and thus their supplies both within and beyond urban region boundaries. In addition, given such linkages, the resilience of urban ecosystem services underlies the resilience of urban WEF systems. Finally, increased provision of a suite of ecosystem services can essentially mitigate transboundary resource supplies and corresponding environmental footprints, hence further enhancing the last dimension of the WEF nexus DOS.

20.5

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Sustainability challenges facing our biosphere are increasingly recognized as complex in nature and intertwined within social-ecological systems. Given the current trends of urbanization and prospects of an urban planet (Elmqvist et al., 2019), it becomes apparent that addressing urban sustainability and resilience to future environmental changes is pivotal to achieving the regional and global SDGs. Addressing these challenges, nonetheless, requires a holistic, dynamic, multi-sectoral and cross-scale framework and approach that accounts for interdependencies and interconnections among different sectors (e.g. WEF nexuses) and their interlinkages with ecosystem services. We argue that the proposed DOS framework is well positioned to bridge this gap, to provide an actionable framework to understand dynamics and nexus interactions of urban resource systems, to quantify the multidimensional space within which urban regions could safely operate and to support evidence-based decision making and system integration in urban systems during the new era of complex human–nature challenges.

Ecosystem services and urban sustainability  375 A list of exemplar research and practical questions pertaining to urban WEF systems that can be effectively addressable with the DOS framework and approach is: ● What are the DOS of major urban WEF systems across the globe? Which urban regions of the world are within the defined limits of DOS? And what underlying factors explain variations in the degree to which urban regions are within the DOS? ● What are the optimal allocations between local versus external dependency that can help maintain the WEF systems of urban regions within the DOS? How do they differ across geographic regions? ● Are there inherent trade-offs or co-benefits between the three dimensions of DOS for urban WEF systems? If so, what management interventions or urban resource governance could minimize trade-offs and enhance the co-benefits? ● What are the leverage points in the WEF interactions (i.e. keystone nexus) across scales that could bolster the resilience and environmental sustainability of urban WEF systems, while still meeting urban WEF demands (i.e. its position within the DOS)? ● How effective are leverage point-based interventions for maintaining urban WEF systems within the DOS under future climate and socioeconomic changes? Such a framework can help reveal trade-offs and synergies across different sectors and scales, embrace resilience thinking and sustainability considerations in environmental decision making and promote integrated planning, governance and management to achieve urban sustainability.

NOTE 1. See also the website of the Resilience Alliance (www​.resalliance​.org) to learn about resilience concepts and how they are translated into practice.

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Ecosystem services and urban sustainability  379 Vogt, W. (1948), Road to Survival, New York: William Sloan Associates. Walker, B., C.S. Holling, S. Carpenter and A. Kinzig (2004), “Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social-ecological systems,” Ecology and Society, 9. Walker, R.V., M.B. Beck, J.W. Hall, R.J. Dawson and O. Heidrich (2014), “The energy-water-food nexus: Strategic analysis of technologies for transforming the urban metabolism,” Journal of Environmental Management, 141, 104–115. Wang, F., J.T. Sims, L. Ma, W. Ma, Z. Dou and F. Zhang (2011), “The phosphorus footprint of China’s food chain: Implications for food security, natural resource management, and environmental quality,” Journal of Environmental Quality, 40, 1081–1089. Welsch, M., S. Hermann, M. Howells, H.H. Rogner, C. Young, I. Ramma, M. Bazilian, G. Fischer, T. Alfstad and D. Gielen (2014), “Adding value with CLEWS: Modelling the energy system and its interdependencies for Mauritius,” Applied Energy, 113, 1434–1445. Wicaksono, A., G. Jeong and D. Kang (2017), “Water, energy, and food nexus: Review of global implementation and simulation model development,” Water Policy, 19, 440–462. Wood, S.L.R., S.K. Jones, J.A. Johnson, K.A. Brauman, R. Chaplin-Kramer, A. Fremier et al. (2018), “Distilling the role of ecosystem services in the Sustainable Development Goals,” Ecosystem Services, 29 (Part A): 70–82. Wu, J. (2013), “Landscape sustainability science: Ecosystem services and human well-being in changing landscapes,” Landscape Ecology, 28, 999–1023. Wu, J. (2014), “Urban ecology and sustainability: The state-of-the-science and future directions,” Landscape and Urban Planning, 125, 209–221. Wu, J. and J.L. David (2002), “A spatially explicit hierarchical approach to modeling complex ecological systems: Theory and applications,” Ecological Modelling, 153, 7–26. Yang, Y.E., S. Wi, P.A. Ray, C.M. Brown and A.F. Khalil (2016), “The future nexus of the Brahmaputra River Basin: Climate, water, energy and food trajectories,” Global Environmental Change, 37, 16–30. Zhang, P., L. Zhang, Y. Chang, M. Xu, Y. Hao, S. Liang, G. Liu, Z. Yang and C. Wang (2019), “Food-energy-water (FEW) nexus for urban sustainability: A comprehensive review,” Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 142, 215–224. Zimmerman, R., Q. Zhu and C. Dimitri (2016), “Promoting resilience for food, energy, and water interdependencies,” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6, 50–61. Zipper, S.C., F. Jaramillo, L. Wang‐Erlandsson, S.E. Cornell, T. Gleeson, M. Porkka et al. (2020), “Integrating the water planetary boundary with water management from local to global scales,” Earth’s Future, 8, e2019EF001377.

PART V OUTLOOK

21. Water-energy-food nexus in international law: a legal analysis Paolo Davide Farah and Imad Antoine Ibrahim

21.1 INTRODUCTION Natural resources management has been a challenging task as governments at the regional, national, and international levels have attempted to develop the legal frameworks to address the governance gap through a multiscale and multilevel approach for years (Coria and Sterner, 2011; Farah and Rossi, 2011). The recognition of the interlinkages between water, energy, and food in recent years, especially in the last decade, has further complicated natural resources governance (Dodds and Bartram, 2016; Liu et al., 2017). Despite all the literature examining the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus, the use of this concept for the establishment of policies is, for the time being, limited (Albrecht et al., 2018). A huge amount of WEF nexus research is future oriented in that it addresses future challenges affecting natural resources management where other matters such as climate change and population growth represent a part of that challenge (Hoolohan et al., 2018). Yet, there is a lack of tools and mechanisms for addressing the challenges emerging from the water, energy, and food sectors, and their interconnection through the nexus exists, despite the increasing focus on these matters (Mohtar and Daher, 2016). In fact, cross-sectoral cooperation is needed as most administrations and institutions tackle only one specific sector. Such cross-sectoral cooperation may be achieved either through a new governance system or by the adaptation of the existing policies, although both have pros and cons (Märker et al., 2018). The synergies between the three different sectors have been recognized in fields such as engineering for years, while lawyers and social science researchers have only begun addressing this issue recently (Wiegleb and Bruns, 2018). Lawyers and legal researchers, in particular, did not have to address the existing synergies for a variety of reasons such as the legal distinction that was usually made at the domestic level with regard to each particular resource. In addition, different authorities and regulators were created to manage each resource separately (Belinskij, 2015; Boute, 2016). At the international level, each of the three WEF sectors has developed separately and, through the use of existing global legal frameworks and provisions, some sectors do acknowledge the existence of each other (either directly or indirectly). From a legal perspective, however, some sectors are much less developed (Bodansky, 2010; Fortin, 2017; Wawryk, 2014). As such, it is only now that lawyers and legal scholars, who were forced to address this question, are considering it from a global and domestic lens, where the focus is on whether the concept itself makes sense from a legal perspective and on the legal consequences that may emerge as a result. To that end, this chapter is seeking to answer the following questions: is it possible and helpful to regulate the WEF nexus under an international legal perspective? Which kind of rules can be established and how is it possible to strike a balance among diverging values and interests and within different and equally important global common goods represented within 381

382  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus the WEF nexus itself? This is also true in the analysis of non-trade concerns in international economic law (Farah and Cima, 2016) and we can draw a parallel of the findings in this field and apply them to the WEF nexus. While it is not possible to provide a clear and precise answer to these questions due to the many factors involved and the complexities surrounding this topic, the authors will point to two main realities that must be considered when examining this topic: (1) that any regulation of the WEF nexus needs to occur in the context of fragmentation of international law, and (2) that fragmentation is needed to address all the existing common challenges from a legal perspective. Keeping these realities in mind, the authors will focus on whether already existing rules can regulate the WEF nexus with an improved coordination of different treaties and rules, or whether, given the complexity and the need for harmony among different values, treaties, legal systems, and the strong influence of ever changing science and technology, this would not be enough. The chapter will focus on how to regulate the WEF nexus at the global scale, but it will also point out that this does not automatically mean that it would be efficient to address the WEF nexus in practice. The WEF nexus is exemplary of the ever growing connection between global and local concerns (represented by the use of the word “glocalism”) and of the growing research in the area of comparative international law, transnational law, and of interconnections between law and other disciplines, such as law and geography or legal geography, law and social sciences, and humanities such as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, or other fields. Law, including international law by itself, is not fully capable of assessing, and even less capable of solving, complex situations such as those of the WEF nexus, which are mostly related to situations that take place at the basin and regional levels.1 Therefore, there is a need for a more context-specific regulation to strike a balance between global and local regulations. The best solution here would certainly require the assistance of other fields and disciplines. The authors will emphasize that the most efficient legal solution is a combination of global rules providing guidelines with basin-specific regulations that should be drafted in the framework of transboundary water agreements adopted at the basin level and tailored to the needs and circumstances of each basin. To that end, the chapter will first examine the WEF nexus from a legal perspective before proceeding to discuss the realities of the fragmentation in international law. Later, the authors will examine the legal developments that need to occur through the lens of efficiency and effectiveness.

21.2

REGULATING THE NEXUS

Well-informed science-based decision-making processes do not always translate into more effective and efficient regulations and policies. In cases such as the WEF nexus, in particular, science and technology are creating possible interferences and overlaps among several different legal fields (Mercure et al., 2019). It is essential for the effective governance of the WEF nexus to monitor and assess the appropriateness and efficacy of the institutions responsible for managing and regulating it. For harmonizing the WEF nexus from a legal perspective, researchers and policymakers need to address and solve numerous challenges, as the implementation of policies addressing it is in its nascent stage (Liu et al., 2017). In particular, avoiding conflicts of laws and regulations is paramount, but equally important is ensuring that the socio-political considerations and concerns are respected in the law and policymaking process for reconciling

Water-energy-food nexus in international law  383 the WEF nexus (Howe, 2018). The governance and regulation of water, energy, and food is enforced through separate frameworks and instruments where the sectoral approach and divide is the dominant one. Therefore, it is not easy to determine the legal implications and the interdependencies among these different and sometimes diverging fields. As a consequence, the adoption of law and policies affecting one sector does not often lead to legislation changes in the rest of the sectors to align them together (Rahman, 2013). As a result, some scholars have called for the establishment of new regulatory frameworks (Hoff, 2011), while others call for a “reconstruction and revision of the existing policy frameworks to move away from the compartmentalized government policy and regulation” (Sharmina et al., 2016, p. 81). From a global standpoint, any policy or legal framework developed for the implementation of the WEF nexus must be in compliance with human rights laws and aligned with the internationally recognized principles included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Stephan et al., 2018). The appropriate legal framework addressing the WEF nexus at the international level is a question of governance with several challenges which prevent cooperation among water, energy, and food institutions and organizations. In particular, a more precise definition of the roles of, and linkages between, policies and institutions at various political and administrative levels is necessary (Middleton et al., 2015). As a matter of fact, the attention and focus on global common goods at the international level in a non-departmentalized manner including in areas not so much permeable to human rights, sustainability, and other values extremely relevant for the WEF nexus (such as international economic law and international investment law) are also a relatively recent development. For this reason, it is normal that we are still now confronted with a fragmented approach related to transboundary resources that are, in one way or another, connected. International law imposes a duty of cooperation upon states in sharing natural resources and the first step is to try to solve possible conflicts of laws and regulations due to the separate rules applied to water, energy, and food. The different legal regimes applicable to these resources are still under development, which may provide an opportunity for a great harmonization and the consequent inclusion of new provisions and principles. In this context, it has been argued that such international legal regimes, like international water law, require a stronger enforcement mechanism, while international energy law requires adding cooperation provisions. International law has several general obligations, including customary international law (Tunkin, 1993), that may be relevant to the WEF nexus, such as the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources (United Nations General Assembly, 1962), the principle of good neighborly relations (Soto, 1996), the duty not to cause harm (including environmental harm) (Tignino and Bréthaut, 2020), and the duty to cooperate in good faith (Kolb, 2017; Leb, 2013). One suggestion to solve the problem of the fragmented approach to transboundary resources is the creation of a joint commission or a structure of experts advising states in the area of natural resources cooperation. Indeed, it has been noticed in places like the Senegal River that these types of overreaching international or regional collaborations and common institutional frameworks can help to solve the state-level divide and facilitate the build-up of trust and understanding among the parties involved. Ultimately, these transparent and collective instruments help avoid conflicts through a more appropriate management of transboundary water sources and an equitable and rational use of water (Boute, 2016). The fragmentation and absence of a regulatory framework integrating water, energy, and food towards the efficient implementation of the WEF nexus (Boute, 2016; Rodríguez,

384  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus 2017) requires that the potential regulations adopted are flexible in case changes occur. Such flexibility is also needed as it pertains to the inclusion of innovative ideas and best practices (Bhaduri et al., 2015). The lack of adequate regulations for addressing the WEF nexus has been experienced worldwide, especially in China and the United States (Keulertz et al., 2018). Nevertheless, some countries are attempting to address it (Gurdak, 2018). Inadequate regulatory regimes addressing the WEF nexus cannot provide the necessary protection for the people and the planet (Allan et al., 2015). Establishing a legal framework in the transboundary context that addresses the WEF nexus is not an easy task as there are numerous issues that must be considered, including how the nexus would be implemented legally. Further, states’ compliance with international law is an additional challenge, especially in the framework of shared natural resources (Ibrahim, 2020). The most relevant development in the transboundary context is the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) nexus methodology developed for water-energy-food ecosystems (WEFE) (De Strasser et al., 2016; UNECE, 2018). Other relevant documents include the European Commission Position Paper on the WEFE nexus and the SDGs (European Commission, 2019) and the new European consensus on development, “Our world, our dignity, our future” (European Commission, 2018). The WEFE nexus methodology examined the various ways that synergies can be created between the different sectors in the framework of transboundary river basins (Schneider and Avellan, 2019). This methodology has been applied in several river basins in recent years and analyzed by numerous scholars (De Strasser et al., 2016). The methodology consists of: 1) defining the institutional framework; 2) identifying key actors and mapping links between them; 3) providing detailed governance analysis of key sectors; 4) identifying intersectoral policy issues and rivalries; 5) extracting relevant governance aspects from the nexus dialogue and 6) defining, presenting and validating possible policy interventions as nexus solutions. (UNECE, 2018, pp. 21–22)

UNECE has conducted WEFE nexus assessments in several locations around the world, for instance, the transboundary river basins in the Sava, Isonzo/Soca, Narva, Syr Darya, Niger, Mekong, and the North-West Sahara Aquifer (Kibaroglu and Gürsoy, 2015; UNECE, n.d.). Yet, the problem with existing transboundary water agreements that govern such basins is their focus on water sharing instead of imagining an overreaching system capable of bringing together various WEF resources (Beisheim, 2013). In this context, it has been argued that international river basin organizations and regional energy organizations could be important players in the creation of a governance framework for the WEF nexus and ultimately expanding the actual application of customary international law and international environmental law principles along with benefit-sharing opportunities and agreements (Dombrowsky and Hensengerth, 2018). Besides UNECE, the European Commission developed a nexus process that includes several steps. The first step is having qualitative, as well as quantitative, data and information concerning the interplay between the various nexus fields. These data and information need to be adapted to the context and linked to the policies and needs. The second step is a nexus assessment with the aim of understanding the interplay between its various elements and identifying collaboration points and interests. This occurs though an understanding of “1) energy balance; 2) water balance-quality; 3) climate variability; 4) food security and 5) ecosystems” (European Commission, 2019, p. 15). Various factors play a role in the assessment, namely “the context, the issues, the actors, and the capacities involved, the constructiveness of the

Water-energy-food nexus in international law  385 dialogue, the availability of information (data and knowledge …), and the political will” (European Commission, 2019, p. 16). The final step involves dividing the nexus policy dialogue into scenario development and response options. The scenario development option shall estimate the impact of nexus development policies on the environment and society in the short/medium and long terms. Response options and trade-offs are reached based on the scenario development resulting in the adoption of a strategic framework for WEFE nexus for security development as well as investment plans and development measures. The European Commission nexus methodology was for instance implemented in practice in the Mekrou river basin shared between Benin, Burkina Faso, and Niger (European Commission, 2019). In this context, the nexus methodology included: a) the state of the art of the socio-economic and biophysical issues in the Mekrou river basin; b) identification of the key issues and priorities for development by local-national stakeholders; c) identification of interactions between the different sectors; d) the development of nexus analysis tools (E-NEXUS) to simulate stakeholder objectives/priorities/solutions with local scientific and technical partners; and finally, e) running models and optimisation analysis to test development scenarios and feed the policy maker dialogues. (European Commission, 2019, p. 19)

The above legal analysis highlights the need for further examination of the role of law and, for our analysis, of international law in the regulation of the WEF nexus, which will be examined in the following sections of this chapter.

21.3

FACTORS AFFECTING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEXUS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW

Before addressing the different ways that international law may regulate the WEF nexus, it is important to focus on two key elements that must be considered in this context. The first element is whether the fragmentation of international law, under which such regulations would take place, is inevitable. The second concerns the question of whether such fragmentation is actually needed. 21.3.1 Fragmentation of International Law Is Inevitable Numerous scholars have discussed the dangers of the fragmentation of international law as though these dangers should push the international community to unify existing rules (Koskenniemi and Leino, 2002). Nonetheless, the existence of problems emerging from such fragmentation does not mean that it can be eliminated, as fragmentation of international law is inevitable for numerous reasons. In fact, since its emergence, international law has been represented through different sets of complicated rules that were never unified (Leathley, 2007). Fragmentation of international law is the result of several factors that include having various competing and specialized regulations addressing, in many instances, similar issues and the emergence of secondary rules as well as the absence of global institutions able to tackle the conflicts between various global regulatory frameworks (Leathley, 2007). Other scholars have offered a more detailed list of factors for which fragmentation has occurred, namely the multiplication and specialization of international rules; regional and global interdependence among various topics such as environment and health; the increasing role of non-state actors;

386  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus and others. This resulted in an international system that is unorganized given the conflicts and tensions among the various global regulatory systems (Hafner, 2004). In this context, according to many scholars, the result of any attempt to unify international law is failure; as such fragmentation cannot be faced using such rationales, while other scholars simply do not see how this phenomenon can be reversed (Megiddo, 2018). This phenomenon especially increased at the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s with the growing role of non-state actors on the international scene, among many other reasons (Peters, 2017). In fact, how can fragmentation not occur when international law is currently affecting all issues and challenges related to global governance, ranging from economic development and environmental protection to human rights and many other fields (Hakimi, 2017). This is not to say that fragmentation does not pose serious problems. For instance, it has been argued that fragmentation affects the development of a “more democratic and egalitarian international regulatory system” while undermining the integrity of global law from a normative perspective (Benvenisti and Downs, 2007, p. 597). In that sense, fragmentation of international law is the norm and not the exception, and fragmentation has only been increasing over the years (Broude, 2013). The fragmentation of international law has been the subject of countless articles and studies where the focus is on the positive and negative consequences of fragmentation, challenges, and solutions to the phenomenon (Van Aaken, 2009). The issue of fragmentation of international law is not novel. Rather, scholars, jurists, and philosophers have been examining the issue for decades, to the point where a disagreement has emerged about the nature of international law, what is binding and what is not, and the role of the different actors in the international legal regime (Cheng, 2011). The main assumption that international lawyers and scholars had when the topic of fragmentation was discussed is that fragmentation is something to be concerned about and that they need to avoid it. The main reasons for this are “the emergence of ‘self-contained regimes’ and the ‘proliferation’ of international courts and tribunals” (Treves, 2009, p. 214). Given the above-mentioned factors, fragmentation is inevitable (Van Asselt et al., 2008). In fact, such fragmentation reflects the growing maturity of international law where numerous independent areas have developed (Atapattu, 2016). 21.3.2 Fragmentation of International Law Is Actually Needed The lack of coherence of international law highlights the need for the fragmentation of the global legal regime, as all of the different legal aspects can be examined through fragmentation. There would not be a point in which international law could be treated as national law in terms of unity, which is why, in practice, fragmentation plays a necessary and important role (Matz-Lück, 2008). To that end, numerous institutions and international courts have been created to tackle the different needed norms and global regulatory frameworks (Ajevski, 2015). This is important given the lack of hierarchy among the different actors. Because of that, the international legal field includes multiple authorities issuing rules and regulations (Den Heijer and Van der Wilt, 2016). In fact, to a certain degree, fragmentation is a necessity and should not be seen through a negative lens as it allows the provision of attention to all international law areas (Voigt, 2009). In this context, the negative consequences of fragmentation mentioned in the previous section must be managed and assessed by the legal professionals (Jing, 2014), as the development and further evolvement as well as the emergence of new self-contained regimes is only

Water-energy-food nexus in international law  387 expected to continue, given the increasing technicalities of the global issues that are in need of regulations (Simma and Pulkowski, 2006). Self-contained regimes are autonomous, having their own internal mechanisms and law-making procedures and in certain cases tribunals (Ajevski, 2014). The fragmentation of the international social world has attained legal significance especially as it has been accompanied by the emergence of specialized and (relatively) autonomous rules or rule-complexes, legal institutions and spheres of legal practice. What once appeared to be governed by “general international law” has become a field of operation of such specialist systems as “trade law,” “human rights law,” “environmental law,” “law of the sea,” “European law” and even such exotic and highly specialized knowledges as “investment law” or “international refugee law” etc. – each possessing their own principles and institutions. (International Law Commission, 2006, p. 11)

In that sense, fragmentation of international law, and of public international law in particular, is needed given the existence of global problems that require good management in an efficient manner while still empowering “new interests and forms of expertise” (Koskenniemi, 2007, p. 1). Different international legal regimes have been created along general law disciplines, such as international criminal law, international environmental law, international trade law, and many others, addressing specific technical issues. In this context, the emergence of numerous forms of fragmentation is evident (Koskenniemi, 2005). Another way of seeing fragmentation is “the splitting up of the law into highly specialized ‘boxes’ that claim relative autonomy from each other and from the general law” (Donald et al., 2017, p. 2). Hence, international specialized regulations have flourished in all legal fields (Peters, 2016). That emergence of those different regulatory regimes led to the development of a huge number of agreements that have specific objectives, with highly technical aims, towards the regulation of a specific area. This pragmatic approach is a must to avoid legal traffic and address specific situations and circumstances. In contrast, the treaties that have general principles, a broader nature, and constitutive elements are fewer in number and are characterized with “a level of abstraction, with the tendency to establish general axiological and legal principles” (Dimitrovska, 2015, p. 12). The practical consequences of fragmentation are becoming appreciable by the international community, despite the existing challenges (Draghici, 2012), especially as fragmentation is being understood “as a potential expression of a vital and viable development of law” (Matz-Lück, 2008, p. 108). Hence, any discussion revolving around the establishment of a regulatory framework addressing the WEF nexus must take into account the fact that the fragmentation in international law is both inevitable and needed. The development of any potential legal regime shall take place in this context, which means that the global regulatory frameworks addressing water, energy, and food should be considered where their provisions and principles would offer the greatest help.

21.4

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE WATER-ENERGY-FOOD NEXUS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW IN PRACTICE

The debate concerning the establishment of an international regulatory framework related to the WEF nexus is a debate over the effectiveness and efficiency of such a system in comparison to alternative methods of regulation. In this context, the terms effectiveness and efficiency

388  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus have two different meanings despite sounding similar. A first definition explaining the difference between these two is the following: “Being effective is about doing the right things, while being efficient is about doing things right” (Goh, 2013). Another definition states that effectiveness represents “the degree to which something is successful in producing a desired result,” while “efficiency centers on how something is done. Whether or not a task is done with minimal waste or minimal effort is the primary concern” (Writing Explained, n.d.). In other words, “[e]ffectiveness focuses more on whether or not something can be accomplished at all, while efficiency focuses on how to get it done in a way that minimizes waste or time” (Writing Explained, n.d.). Another simple explanation of the difference between both terms is that “when something is effective it produces a result even if it takes some unnecessary resources to do so. When something is efficient, not only does it produce a result, but it does so in a quick or simple way using as little material, time, effort, or energy as possible” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). The following sections will examine the proposal of establishing a global regulatory framework on the basis of these two terms. 21.4.1 Establishing a WEF Nexus Global Regulatory Framework The number of international conventions addressing a wide range of global challenges that require an international solution has increased in the last few decades. Since the adoption of the Stockholm Declaration in 1972, treaties in the environmental field have been progressively adopted due to the increasing awareness of the importance of environmental matters to include the damage that is being done to the environment as a result of human activities (Weiss, 2011; Weiss et al., 2006). Despite such progress, the process of preparing, developing, and adopting an international environmental agreement (IEA) was, and continues to be, an extremely complicated business where numerous factors may affect the adoption, ratification, and successful implementation of an agreement (Lymann, 2015; Rose, 2011). Moreover, the growing number of IEAs does not mean that global environmental problems have been solved. On the contrary, new environmental problems have emerged, while numerous ones that existed a few decades ago are still prevalent and the seriousness of their consequences has increased (Pereira, 2015). In this context, academics, scholars, and practitioners have questioned the effectiveness of IEAs, ultimately citing their failure to address the global environmental problems as the main reason for their ineffectiveness. Other factors include the complicated processes needed to adopt IEAs, the need for compromises to ensure that states sign and ratify such conventions, and the lack of enforcement ability of the international community, despite the existence of enforcement mechanisms in many of these agreements (Goeteyn and Maes, 2011; Zovko, 2005). This is not to say that there are no advantages for the adoption of such treaties or that no progress has been made, but rather, the progress made is still not matching expectations in light of the magnitude of environmental problems that require immediate solutions (Sandler, 2017). The water, energy, and food sectors have a different degree of regulations globally. The most established global regulatory framework is the one related to water in the transboundary context, where international water law has slowly but progressively developed in the last few decades resulting in the adoption and ratification of two international water conventions and numerous other instruments. The two conventions are the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses of 1997 and the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes of 1992.

Water-energy-food nexus in international law  389 Moreover, the Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers of 2008 represent the most sophisticated attempt for the regulation of transboundary aquifers despite their non-binding nature (Eckstein, 2017; McCaffrey, 2019). The situation of the energy sector is different given the existence of several sources for energy, mainly oil, gas, coal, nuclear power, and, to a certain extent, renewables (Ritchie and Roser, 2020). The legal developments of this field at the international level were greatly affected by the technological progress of each of these sources as well as factors including geopolitical realities, like the 1973 Arab-Israeli war that affected oil and gas imports and exports (Heffron et al., 2018; Wawryk, 2014). And while a few comprehensive energy conventions exist, like the Energy Charter Treaty (1994), this field lacks the existence of a holistic international energy treaty that addresses all issues related to energy matters (Heffron and Talus, 2016). Moreover, numerous conventions which are not focused on energy have energy provisions or other provisions that directly or indirectly influence this field, such as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs in international trade law, for instance (1947; Leal-Arcas and Abu Gosh, 2014). As for the food sector, there are different elements that need to be considered, primarily that this sector also includes agriculture, while other factors such as health-related matters, where regulations are being adopted, also play an important role (Fortin, 2017). At the international level, a global comprehensive convention addressing food sector-related issues does not exist; thus, these issues are addressed through the adoption of numerous regulations within existing treaties, such as the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (1995). Moreover, there are international treaties addressing specific elements such as the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 2009), the International Plant Protection Convention (1997), and the Rotterdam Convention (1998), while commissions such as the one on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the International Rice Commission have been established (Berry-Ottaway and Jennings, 2016). In this context, the adoption of a convention addressing the interlinkages between the water, energy, and food sectors needs to consider the realities mentioned in the previous paragraphs. In that sense, the developments required to occur at the international level will take years to happen, as is the case with other IEAs, where numerous negotiation rounds, agreements and disagreements, discussions, and objections will emerge (Muñoz et al., 2009). Moreover, factors such as short-term state interests, constant administration changes, ideological differences, different priorities, and differences in the capabilities, capacities, and situation of each country (Mitchell, 2003) will negatively affect the process of reaching a consensus needed for the adoption of a WEF nexus comprehensive agreement. Once a convention is adopted, the process of ratifying it by the different states may or may not occur and, even if it does, it will take many years to complete. Thus, by the time the agreement enters into force, it will likely need to be updated as a result of the new factors and elements that would have emerged since its adoption. Moreover, once ratified, states need to make concrete changes within their legislation to comply with the convention. Given the sensitivity of each of the fields, there is a high likelihood that a state will not comply with the provisions of a WEF nexus treaty. To address this reality, it would be best that the supposed treaty adopts general and broad provisions that may take the form of guiding or general principles reflecting, for instance, best practices in the different fields or other elements that may be deemed important enough to be included. This strategy can guarantee the effectiveness of any adopted convention addressing the three sectors together, where such treaties can constitute a reference for the states that need

390  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus to address the interlinkages between water, energy, and food in the transboundary context. Nonetheless, such long-term effectiveness does not mean that the adoption of a convention is the most efficient way to tackle the issues occurring at the basin and regional levels. 21.4.2 The Most Efficient Legal Mechanism for Addressing the WEF Nexus in the Transboundary Context Global governance through international law represents a very important means and an effective mechanism to combat global challenges such as climate change or the recent Coronavirus that has negatively affected the world in a very short period of time (Burci, 2020; Weiss, 2008). Global regulatory frameworks, despite the current reality discussed in the previous section, have already played a great role and are expected to play an even greater one in the coming years, due to the global nature of the existing and emerging problems and challenges, such as regulating artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. These technologies are constantly evolving at a speed that surpasses the ability of legislators to address the legal consequences of technological innovation (Allott, 1999; Burri, 2017; Yasuaki, 2003). It is in this context that global regulatory frameworks are needed where the regulation of the WEF nexus represents another matter that requires a global intervention (Morgera and Kulovesi, 2016). The most effective global regulatory framework that can address the nexus, as pointed out earlier, is a set of guiding or general principles that guarantee the potential signature and ratification of a future convention by the different nations. Even though this represents the most effective strategy to address the nexus globally, it does not mean that this is the most efficient solution. Even if management of the nexus represents a global challenge in the sense that it affects all nations that must address the interplay between the water, energy, and food sectors in the transboundary context, this challenge actually occurs at the basin or regional level (Koulouri and Mouraviev, 2020; Lawford et al., 2013). Indeed, the interplay between the three sectors takes place among a specific number of states that are usually sharing transboundary freshwaters used simultaneously for the generation of energy such as hydropower and for food by using it in the agricultural sector (Keskinen and Varis, 2016; Keskinen et al., 2016). A global regulatory framework, despite its effectiveness, is insufficient to address each case. Therefore, a specific approach tailored to transboundary water basins, be it surface water or groundwater, is necessary. Worldwide transboundary freshwaters are being regulated through transboundary water agreements, where the current basis for many of the existing agreements is international water conventions and instruments that have been adopted since the 1950s and, especially, the 1960s with the Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers of 1966. These agreements may take the form of multilateral, regional, or bilateral water treaties depending on the number of nations sharing the freshwater resource (Puri, 2003; Salman, 2008). They are drafted with the objective of addressing all the relevant issues associated with good governance of each specific basin, taking into account all the geopolitical, social, and economic factors, as well as other factors in addition to the obstacles that may endanger the effective implementation of the treaty (Cooley and Gleick, 2011). These conventions are tailored to the context of each basin, despite the often general nature of the provisions of the treaties and, in many instances, their ambiguities which allow states a huge margin of interpretation (Giordano et al., 2014).

Water-energy-food nexus in international law  391 It is through these conventions that international water law principles, such as the principle of equitable and reasonable utilization, the obligation not to cause significant harm, and the principle of cooperation, are incorporated. Protocols or other documents are also being drafted on the basis of these conventions and address specific matters that require detailed regulation (Rahaman, 2009). Hence, despite the existence of a global regulatory framework taking the form of international water law where agreements and instruments have been adopted to address the challenges surrounding the question of transboundary water governance, specific basin agreements are still needed in practice. The global regulatory framework provides the basis for the adoption and implementation of transboundary water agreements (Dinar, 2008; McCaffrey, 2013). Similar rationales can take place in the context of the WEF nexus, where the existing conventions related to water, energy, and food can provide the necessary basis for the adoption of a holistic and comprehensive global regulatory framework addressing the nexus. This, in turn, would provide the legal support for the regulation of the interplay between the water, energy, and food sectors at the basin and regional levels. The question is then how to regulate the nexus within each specific basin based on the global framework adopted. Nations sharing transboundary freshwaters can include a provision related to the nexus within any water agreement that may be adopted providing the basis for considering the interlinkages between the water, energy, and food sectors. Nonetheless, given the existence of numerous international agreements and instruments addressing either water, energy, or food and the comprehensive and holistic approach of the international regulatory framework that will need to be adopted, a provision within the water treaty is not enough to address this issue. Rather, the provision within the water agreement must, on one hand, refer to the importance of considering the nexus but also, on the other, prepare the legal basis for the adoption of another document that may take, for instance, the form of a protocol to the agreement, where all the detailed matters related to the interlinkages are considered. Such a document can also be adopted in the situation where an agreement already exists to avoid the hassles of attempting to amend a water agreement that took great efforts to be adopted in the first place and where there is a low probability that another agreement could be adopted again. Within this document, all the specific matters related to the interplay between the water, energy, and food sectors would be considered where the international regulatory framework shall serve as the basis for the provisions of the document. The work that has been and is currently being conducted by the UNECE Water Secretariat on this topic should serve as guidelines. Specifically, the methodology that was established in recent years and implemented in several transboundary basins could be utilized (De Strasser et al., 2016; UNECE, 2018). Hence, adopting general global binding guidelines in the form of a convention that is effective at reaching a consensus among the nations, while still providing a more holistic and comprehensive approach to the topic, is a must. Simultaneously, having more specific basin-level agreements that are more efficient in reaching an actual practical solution and addressing the issue at the basin level in combination with a global convention would constitute the perfect solution.

21.5 CONCLUSION Throughout this chapter, the focus was on analyzing the WEF nexus from a legal perspective, to determine whether it makes sense to examine the nexus through that lens, and what kind of

392  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus legal solutions can be provided to address it. To that end, the authors focused on examining this issue through the lens of effectiveness and efficiency concepts. The authors are of the opinion that a global regulatory framework is appropriate and would be effective at ensuring the existence of international guidelines to address this issue, and ultimately providing directions to different countries on this matter, which would be a highly effective mechanism for that purpose. However, although such mechanisms may be effective at the global scale, they are insufficient given the nature of the WEF nexus that is usually context specific as the interlinkages between the three sectors usually occur at the basin and regional levels and not the international level. Hence, a more context-specific and efficient legal approach is needed, regardless of the international regulatory framework that will be established despite its importance. This is where the authors suggest the inclusion of a general provision related to the nexus within the transboundary water agreements based on which a later document can be adopted taking, for instance, the form of a protocol that can be established when a water agreement already exists. Such a document should include detailed provisions and information related to the management of the nexus using the future international regulatory framework and other instruments. This is not to say that such a solution is easy, in fact it has been pointed out in another study that the inclusion of a nexus provision within a transboundary water agreement does not guarantee a state’s compliance with such a provision (Ibrahim, 2020).

NOTE 1. River basins are “extents of land that drain all streams and rainfall toward the same terminus, generally a river or the sea, or sometimes an inland water body” (Molle, 2017, p. 1).

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Water-energy-food nexus in international law  395 Lawford, R., J. Bogardi, S. Marx, S. Jain, C.P. Wostl, K. Knuppe, C. Ringler, F. Lansigan and F. Meza (2013), “Basin perspectives on the water-energy-food security nexus,” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 5 (6), 607–616. Leal-Arcas, R. and E.S. Abu Gosh (2014), “Energy trade as a special sector in the WTO: Unique features, unprecedented challenges and unresolved issues,” Indian Journal of International Economic Law, 6 (1), 1–53. Leathley, C. (2007), “An institutional hierarchy to combat the fragmentation of international law: Has the ILC missed an opportunity?” New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, 40, 259–306. Leb, C. (2013), Cooperation in the Law of Transboundary Water Resources, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Liu, J., H. Yang, C. Cudennec, A.K. Gain, H. Hoff, R. Lawford, J. Qi, L. de Strasser, P.T. Yillia and C. Zheng (2017), “Challenges in operationalizing the water-energy-food nexus,” Hydrological Sciences Journal, 62 (11), 1714–1720. Lymann, E. (2015), “Rethinking international environmental linkages: A functional cohesion agenda for species conservation in a time of climate change,” Fordham Environmental Law Review, 27 (1), 1–56. Märker, C, S. Venghaus and J.-F. Hake (2018), “Integrated governance for the food-energy-water nexus: The scope of action for institutional change,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 97 (C), 290–300. Matz-Lück, N. (2008), “Promoting the unity of international law: Standard-setting by international tribunals,” in D. König, P.-T. Stoll, V. Röben and N. Matz-Lück (eds), International Law Today: New Challenges and the Need for Reform?, Berlin: Springer, pp. 99–121. McCaffrey, S. (2013), “The progressive development of international water law,” in F. Rocha Loures and A. Rieu-Clarke (eds), The UN Watercourses Convention in Force: Strengthening International Law for Transboundary Water Management, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 10–19. McCaffrey, S. (ed.) (2019), The Law of International Watercourses, New York: Oxford University Press. Megiddo, T. (2018), “Beyond fragmentation: On international laws integrationist forces,” Yale Journal of International Law, 44 (1), 115–147. Mercure, J.F., M.A. Paim, P. Bocquillon, S. Lindner, P. Salas, P. Martinelli et al. (2019), “System complexity and policy integration challenges: The Brazilian energy-water-food nexus,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 105, 230–243. .learnersdictionary​ .com/​ qa/​ How​ -to​ -Use​ Merriam-Webster (n.d.), accessed March 25, 2020 at www​ -Effective​-and​-Efficient Middleton, C., J. Allouche, D. Gyawali and S. Allen (2015), “The rise and implications of the water-energy-food nexus in Southeast Asia through an environmental justice lens,” Water Alternatives, 8 (2), 627–654. Mitchell, R.B. (2003), “International environmental agreements: A survey of their features, formation, and effects,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 28 (1), 429–461. Mohtar, R. and B. Daher (2016), “Water-energy-food nexus framework for facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue,” Water International, 41 (5), 655–661. Molle, F. (2017), “River basin management and development,” in D. Richardson et al. (eds), The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology, New York: Routledge, pp. 1–12. Morgera, E. and K. Kulovesi (eds) (2016), Research Handbook on International Law and Natural Resources, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Muñoz, M., R. Thrasher and A. Najam (2009), “Measuring the negotiation burden of multilateral environmental agreements,” Global Environmental Politics, 9 (4), 1–13. Pereira, J.C. (2015), “Environmental issues and international relations, a new global (dis)order: The role of international relations in promoting a concerted international system,” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 58 (1), 191–209. Peters, Anne (2016), “Fragmentation and constitutionalization,” in A. Orford and F. Hoffmann (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law, New York, pp. 1011–1032. Peters, A. (2017), “The refinement of international law: From fragmentation to regime interaction and politicization,” International Journal of Constitutional Law, 15 (3), 671–704.

396  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Puri, S. (2003), “Transboundary aquifer resources: International water law and hydrogeological uncertainty,” Water International, 28 (2), 276–279. Rahaman, M. (2009), “Principles of international water law: Creating effective transboundary water resources management,” International Journal of Sustainable Society, 1 (3), 207–233. Rahman, M. (2013), “Legal knowledge framework for identifying water, energy, food and climate nexus,” accessed March 25, 2020 at https://​dblp​.org/​rec/​conf/​jurix/​Rahman13​.html. Ritchie, H. and M. Roser (2020), “Energy (Our world in data, 2015, most recent substantial revision in July 2018),” accessed March 25, 2020 at https://​ourworldindata​.org/​energy​#citation. Rodríguez, B.M. (2017), “The water-energy-food nexus: Trends, trade-offs and implications for strategic energies,” Thesis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Rose, G.L. (2011), “Gaps in the implementation of environmental law at the national, regional and global level,” Kuala Lumpur: UNEP. Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. Signed in 1998. Salman, S.M.A. (2008), “The Helsinki rules, the UN watercourses convention and the Berlin rules: Perspectives on international water law,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, 23 (4), 625–640. Sandler, T. (2017), “Environmental cooperation: Contrasting international environmental agreements,” Oxford Economic Papers, 69 (2), 345–364. Schneider, P. and T. Avellan (2019), “Water security and sustainability,” in W. Leal Filho (ed.), Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education, Cham: Springer. Sharmina, M., C. Hoolohan, A. Bows-Larkin, P.J. Burgess, J. Colwill, P. Gilbert, D. Howard, J. Knox and K. Anderson (2016), “A nexus perspective on competing land demands: Wider lessons from a UK policy case study,” Environmental Science and Policy, 59 (C), 74–84. Simma, B. and D. Pulkowski (2006), “Of planets and the universe: Self-contained regimes in international law,” European Journal of International Law, 17 (3), 483–529. Soto, M.V. (1996), “General Principles of international environmental law,” ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law, 3 (1), 194–209. Stephan, R.M., R.H. Mohtar, B. Daher, A.E. Irujo, A. Hillers, J.C. Ganter et al. (2018), “Water-energy-food nexus: A platform for implementing the sustainable development goals,” Water International, 43 (3), 472–479. Tignino, M. and C. Bréthaut (2020), “The role of international case law in implementing the obligation not to cause significant harm,” International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 20, 631–648. Treves, T. (2009), “Fragmentation of international law: The judicial perspective,” Agenda Internacional, 16 (27), 213–253. Tunkin, G. (1993), “Is general international law customary law only?” European Journal of International Law, 4, 534–541. UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) (2018), “Methodology for assessing the water-food-energy-ecosystem nexus in transboundary basins and experiences from its application: Synthesis.” UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) (n.d.), “Water-food-energy-ecosystem nexus,” accessed March 25, 2020 at https://​unece​.org/​environment​-policy/​water/​areas​-work​ -convention/​water​-food​-energy​-ecosystem​-nexus. United Nations General Assembly (1962), General Assembly resolution 1803 (XVII) of 14 December 1962, “Permanent sovereignty over natural resources.” Van Aaken, A. (2009), “Defragmentation of public international law through interpretation: A methodological proposal,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 16 (2), 483–512. Van Asselt, H., F. Sindico and M.A. Mehling (2008), “Global climate change and the fragmentation of international law,” Law and Policy, 30 (4), 423–449. Voigt, C. (ed.) (2009), Sustainable Development as a Principle of International Law: Resolving Conflicts between Climate Measures and WTO Law, Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Wawryk, A. (2014), “International energy law: An emerging academic discipline,” in P. Babie and P. Leadbeter (eds), Law as Change: Engaging with the Life and Scholarship of Adrian Bradbrook, Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, pp. 223–256.

Water-energy-food nexus in international law  397 Weiss, E.B. (2008), “Climate change, intergenerational equity, and international law,” Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, 9, 615–627. Weiss, E.B. (2011), “The evolution of international environmental law,” Japanese Yearbook of International Law, 54, 1–27. Weiss, E.B., S.C. McCaffrey, D.B. Magraw and A.D. Tarlock (2006), International Environmental Law, 2nd edn, New York: Aspen Publishers. Wiegleb, V. and A. Bruns (2018), “What is driving the water-energy-food nexus? Discourses, knowledge, and politics of an emerging resource governance concept,” Frontiers in Environmental Science, 6 (128), 1–15. Writing Explained (n.d.), “Efficiency vs. effectiveness: What’s the difference?,” accessed March 25, 2020 at https://​writingexplained​.org/​efficiency​-vs​-effectiveness​-difference. Yasuaki, O. (2003), “International law in and with international politics: The functions of international law in international society,” European Journal of International Law, 14 (1), 105–139. Zovko, I. (ed.) (2005), International Law-Making for the Environment: A Question of Effectiveness, Joensuu: University of Joensuu.

22. The relevance and challenges in communicating the nexus Guido Schmidt, Christine Matauschek, Maïté Fournier, Anna Saito, Bassel Daher and Rabi H. Mohtar

22.1 INTRODUCTION Communication is the act of conveying a message from one entity or group to another through the use of mutually understood signs, symbols, and semiotic rules; often with the aim of being accepted and followed. This can range from, a researcher providing recommendations to a policy maker or manager; a policy maker establishing rules for users, or a manager listing ‘research needs’ to be further investigated. Unidirectional communication can evolve to bi- or multidirectional conversations, such as during workshops or aim for co-creation, through the collaborative development of values (concepts, solutions, products, and services) together with experts and/or stakeholders (such as customers, suppliers, etc.) (Fronteer, 2018). Communicating the nexus is challenging, and frequently when asking practitioners to explain what a nexus initiative is about, they struggle with engaging communication and the response then starts with ‘The nexus is a challenge …’ or – even worse – ‘… a problem’. This draws out a negative perception and disinterest in counterparts, and can even block further communication completely, as stakeholders tend to perceive that they already have enough problems and rather wish to look for solutions. In addition, it shows that practitioners might be too focused on their own perspective of the nexus, without having prepared a message to communicate and to engage with others. Should we even use the ‘nexus’ as a buzzword? The trouble with buzzwords is that they are usually vague, with many different meanings across different sectors (policy making, science, etc.). Critics put forward the lack of a common definition and understanding as reason to turn down the nexus concept (Galaitsi et al., 2018) as the concept causes confusion (Cairns and Krzywoszynska, 2016). It is sometimes difficult for the target audience to understand the difference between ‘nexus’ and other concepts such as ‘integrated management’, ‘circular economy’, or ‘holistic approaches’ which are more familiar. The word ‘nexus’ is therefore often associated with other words to narrow down its scope: ‘resource nexus’, ‘natural resources nexus’, ‘water-energy-food nexus’, ‘water-energy-biodiversity nexus’, ‘water-soil-waste nexus’, etc. Considering the need to prepare and disseminate information for different audiences, but also to strengthen communication for already involved stakeholders, this chapter aims to make nexus communication more accessible. The first step to communicating on the nexus is thus to explain the term and how it differs to other approaches. This chapter aims to guide nexus initiative practitioners (researchers, project managers, natural resource administrators, policy makers, etc.) on why, what, to whom, when, and how to communicate about the nexus, with a focus on those aspects where the nexus is somehow ‘special’. Whilst this is a guide to illustrate, each initiative and practitioner shall find their own way forward to the specific desired outcome of the communications activities; we 398 Guido Schmidt

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The relevance and challenges in communicating the nexus  399 suggest the best way is to have a thorough thought about the questions which structure this chapter. A curious and straightforward path to focus the communications is preparing for a 30-second pitch – imagine you would get a slot in a television prime-time news show, what would you prioritise? The texts are based on referenced literature and the practical experience of the authors.1

22.2

WHY SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE ABOUT THE NEXUS?

There are two main reasons why communication about the nexus is important. First, communication is one of the most powerful instruments in the twenty-first century. It can foster awareness, learning something new, widening horizons, identifying what society needs, understanding different sectors and cultures, and generally sharing and generating new and existing information (Gammelgaard Ballantyne, 2016; Nerlich et al., 2010; Salleh, 2019a). The nexus brings a wider understanding of the interlinkages between natural resources and so must be communicated, as it conveys new knowledge and alternative points of view. Communication empowers stakeholders and society to be more aware of natural resource management, their own role in such management, and engages them in changes towards a sustainable future (GSDRC, 2020). The nexus highlights the direct and indirect impacts that one sector or one policy has on others, the feedback loops that lead to conflicts or scarcity, and provides the opportunity for the impacting sectors or policies to change. By revealing the links and interdependencies, the nexus allows the identification of potential solutions and opportunities. Every time you want to resolve one specific environmental problem, it can deteriorate other environmental assets. So, every time you want to do politics in favour of solving one environmental problem, you create other problems elsewhere. So, one aspect that interested me is that when we take, for instance, two big domains … they are fundamentally contradicting one another in certain points, which results in contradictory politics … These contradictions are put to question by (the nexus) and these are also questions, which resonate in local politics. (Stakeholder mobilised for the SIM4NEXUS project)

Second, communication is a tool to foster interaction between independent sectors, and it supports integrated sector thinking in science and policy making, where a lot of information has not yet been prepared (Weitz et al., 2017, p. 165). Despite the tight interconnectedness between resource systems and respective governing sectors, decision making remains siloed, resulting in the development of solutions to system-level challenges that are fragmented, and potentially competing and incoherent. Here, communication could act as a needed link to provide and exchange new or already existing cross-sectoral data and knowledge, which might help avoid myopia, leading to a long-term change in stakeholder, policy, and scientific thinking (Cremades et al., 2019, pp. 1–6). In this sense, the nexus is comparable to the interconnected – though still fundamentally independent – Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Griggs et al., 2017, p. 7; Laspidou et al., 2020); both aiming to achieve complex goals for a sustainable future (Bundeskanzleramt, 2020; IISD, 2020; Mulholland et al., 2017). For example, energy transition policies promote the diversification and increase of energy from renewable sources, such as solar or biomass. If solar farms are developed on the ground, they may compete for access to land with crops dedicated to energy production, which are in

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400  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus turn competing with the production of food or feed. In places where land resources are scarce because of their many uses (agriculture, forestry, housing, industry, transports, etc.), the projected increase in both solar and bioenergy may exceed land capacity. Either some sectors will contract (less cropland, fewer forests, fewer industrial sites – which seems unlikely) or the development of renewable energy will be adapted to the local settings (solar panels on roofs, bioenergy produced from waste, etc.). All stakeholders involved in energy transition and territorial planning should be informed of these constraints and opportunities as this has strong implications on the political decisions regarding investments (lessons learned from the SIM4NEXUS France-Germany case study’s stakeholder workshop, 15 November 2019). What we noticed in our meetings and discussions is that stakeholders started thinking in new categories. They are not thinking only in one resort (representing one ministry, only thinking about their own problems). They have a little bit of this widened approach; they have this interlinkage of other aspects of what they are taking. So, we have noticed that people start thinking in this direction. (Practitioner working on the SIM4NEXUS project)

22.3

WHAT IS DIFFERENT IN NEXUS COMMUNICATIONS?

Commonly cited barriers resulting in low levels of communication between cross-sectoral stakeholders include financial, legal, non-uniform language and planning horizons, differences in value systems, and a lack of common goals and collaborative projects (Rosen et al., 2018). There are three main aspects why communicating the nexus might be different compared to other communication on the environment or natural resource management. First, ambition. Nexus initiatives aim to assess and solve (all) complex system interactions between various resource domains like water, energy, food, and land; sometimes in addition to related topics such as ecosystems/biodiversity, economy, climate, and health (Laspidou et al., 2018, p. 1). While system interdependencies have been taken up by many similar integrated approaches, they usually tend to stress one sector in their assessments over others (i.e. one sector figures as the anchorage point from which and against which to analyse existing interlinkages with other sectors). The nexus concept aims to go further in its holistic thinking by valuing the synergies and interconnections as a whole to overcome segmented planning (Leck et al., 2015; Weitz et al., 2017) in areas strongly influenced by economic, social, and political pressures, as well as by natural resource constraints and technology availability (Waughray, 2011). One visual example is provided by Figure 22.1, which showcases some of the interactions that might occur between the water, energy, and food sectors. As illustrated by the equilateral triangle, the focus of nexus communications is on highlighting existing system interdependencies equitably, in order to move from an ‘integration within sectors’ to an ‘integration between sectors’ (Hoff, 2011). Such ambitions therefore call for adapted communication tools which help the public to embrace the width of the nexus without being overwhelmed by the complexity. A challenge in this regard is to strike the right balance between simplification and providing the sufficient detail. Interactive visuals, which allow the user to navigate information, accessing different layers of details or showing/hiding parts of the system, are recommended to communicate on the nexus. Serious games are for instance a powerful tool to convey messages and knowledge in a playful manner, which are highly relevant for nexus issues (Sušnik et al., 2018). They allow the user to trigger one domain of the nexus and observe the ripples on the other domains.

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The relevance and challenges in communicating the nexus  401

Source: UNU-FLORES.

Figure 22.1

Interactions within the water-energy-food nexus

It also offers the opportunity for cross-sectoral stakeholders to evaluate different scenarios and form their own conclusions (Rosen et al., 2018). Decision makers across different sectors can benefit from developed models and tools which evaluate trade-offs with possible pathways forward. Serious gaming offers them the opportunity to co-create scenarios and come up with their own conclusions and understanding of the tight interconnections that exist across sectors, as opposed to receiving those conclusions and recommendation from researchers and scientists developing those tools. (Feedback from one stakeholder at a water-energy-food engagement meeting focused on San Antonio, Texas)

Given the broad variety of topics addressed, nexus initiatives must deal with differences and gaps in data, information, tools, and knowledge, as well as in the common understanding (Ramos et al., 2020). There is also a challenge in offering platforms and arenas for researchers or practitioners to disseminate their results and tools outside of their field or community. The ambition of nexus communication is rising to the challenges by embracing the complexity, while striving toward clear communication. Second, the target audience. Nexus initiatives require the active engagement (data provision, assessment, discussion, co-creation, testing, negotiation, agreement) of stakeholders from different nexus domains and organisations, including the public. ‘Nexus communication by definition addresses more than one sector or policy field, with different policy-making

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402  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus processes and timing, interests, cultures, people’ (practitioner from the Nexus Project Cluster). Therefore, the nexus needs to serve as a horizontal platform that cuts across disciplinary expertise, and that is equidistant from different sectors (Mohtar and Daher, 2016). Successful communication should therefore draw on different (tailor-made) approaches, tools, and languages. Delivering this tailor-made nexus information at the right moment can however prove more challenging, as compared to conveying sectoral information, since actors often need to be convinced to adopt broader perspectives and lift themselves above their own scope of expertise. Moreover, the term ‘nexus’ does not exist in all languages and may thus be understood differently by the various target audiences. The nexus terminology can help to harmonise and frame discussions and simplify language, but as a scientific jargon, it can also generate distrust or misunderstanding. Third, resources. Usually, nexus initiatives are time-limited (e.g. one to four years for a research project) with fixed budgets for communications and implementation, thus, marking off when targeted interaction with stakeholders is to take place. Between and within such projects, there can be time lags as well as changes in staff; therefore, continuity and trust building are often not a given. While this may be true for many research projects, nexus initiatives are as aforementioned quite ambitious in targeting and dealing with many actors, which can further exacerbate potential resource constraints. As the nexus concept is rather new, a relationship can only slowly build with stakeholders and needs to be maintained for much longer than a few months or years. Communication actions should therefore aim at the creation of material which can be used even once the project has concluded (publications, massive open online courses, etc.) or spark other self-sustaining tools as training. However, despite the differences, there are science and policy concepts close to the nexus, such as the SDGs and Integrated Assessments. The SDGs are supported by strong communication (UN SDG Action Campaign, n.d.), and some of the lessons learned and recommendations for strengthening their communications apply also to the nexus: to craft new narratives for sustainable development, work with myth busting and challenging people’s views, lead to developing political will, involve people to act for themselves locally, target emotionally driven action by creating empathy, innovate in presenting results and performance data, and last but not least, be positive (OECD, 2017; The Guardian, 2015; World’s Best News, n.d.). Lessons learned from the Texas A&M Water-Energy-Food Nexus Initiative (Mohtar and Daher, 2019) highlighted the importance of investment of time and effort in communicating across disciplines and cross-sectoral stakeholders, with the goal of understanding the interdependencies and identifying synergistic goals across different groups. The early engagement of cross-sectoral stakeholders and the identification of the growing competition and risks associated with business-as-usual pathways alerted stakeholders about the need for collectively working towards avoiding future water shortages in their region. This was facilitated through scenario-based analysis which allowed for the quantification of trade-offs and synergies expected in the short and long term.

22.4

WHAT SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE?

Nexus communications should focus on the most relevant conflicts at a local, regional, national, or global level (depending on the scope of the nexus initiative), reflect the future implications of decisions made by stakeholders across the nexus domains (Cremades et al.,

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The relevance and challenges in communicating the nexus  403 2019, p. 4), and/or showcase case studies which have failed to or successfully addressed the conflicts. Notably case studies can serve as a means for learning (Mohtar and Daher, 2019), highlighting the level of potential competition across sectors and the opportunities for cooperation and integrative decision making (Daher et al., 2019). Communications should clarify the redundancies, gaps, and incoherent policies and actions and outline solutions to address unwanted outcomes (Weitz et al., 2017, p. 168). One key message to communicate with cross-sectoral stakeholders needs to focus on beyond zero-sum game solutions, by expanding resource potential through reduced interdependencies and increased sectoral synergies (Mohtar and Daher, 2017). This could be facilitated through the development of analytics that highlight the trade-offs associated with different pathways forward, with the goal of catalysing an evidence-based dialogue between cross-sectoral stakeholders and decision makers (Daher and Mohtar, 2015). Another form of communication could include creating a common narrative around a given ‘nexus hotspot’ with projected competition across sectors which may be supported by spatial and social network maps, among others (Daher et al., 2019). An example of that was demonstrated through the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Initiative which focused on the San Antonio Region in Texas. San Antonio is home to a rapidly urbanising population, with major agricultural activity surrounding the city and a growing production of oil and natural gas in its underlying Eagle Ford shale play. The region of San Antonio represents a nexus hotspot whose stakeholders compete across sectors for the same limited water, land, and financial resources and whose projection trends indicate continued growth across those sectors. One of the powerful tools that was used at one of the earlier stakeholder engagement activities was a spatial map of the region with color-coded water wells respective to each of the growing sectors (municipal, agricultural, energy), which shows obvious competition between them. This spatial map was juxtaposed against a social network map showing low levels of communication between the three sectors, which was the result of a survey sent to the stakeholders (Daher et al., 2019). Having such a visual facilitated the development of a common understanding of the level of potential competition and highlighted the need for integrative planning across sectors. Proposed solutions should address how to deal with overarching governance dimensions such as legitimacy, equity, inclusiveness, transparency, participation, accountability, effectiveness, and efficiency (Nesbit et al., 2019; Weitz et al., 2017, p. 168), including which of these will be addressed. Explicit mention should be made to the complexity and uncertainties of assessments and proposals, including specific data/information gaps which might even be closed by a consecutive input from the audience. Conflict resolution-oriented communication should also aim for ‘connecting the silos’ (Mohtar and Daher, 2016, p. 658) by overcoming boundaries rather than ‘breaking silos down’, as such attitudes would negatively impact on the conditions for environmental policy integration: trust, sense of ownership, the capacity of knowledge assimilation, and understanding the challenge (Nilsson and Eckerberg, 2009). A potentially useful mechanism is to create neutral spaces to explore and discuss innovative solutions (Christopoulos et al., 2012); today’s communications tools can offer such opportunities. A review of 17 prominent nexus-related websites shows that key terms such as ‘interconnection’ and ‘complexity’ are widely used to introduce such initiatives (Box 22.1). However, they largely refer to concepts and tools key to transformation, and less to the governance and communication itself. The rather technical approach is also reflected in the fact that none of

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404  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus the assessed sites transmits a sense of urgency, despite increasing political and societal calls for such action.

BOX 22.1 REVIEW OF NEXUS INITIATIVE ENTRY/MAIN WEBSITES How do nexus projects present themselves? ‘Interconnection’ and ‘complexity’ are the most commonly used terms, apart from ‘nexus’ and the concerned resources (‘water’, ‘energy’, ‘land’, ‘food’, and ‘ecosystems’). The websites make repeated references to the development of concepts (‘approach’, ‘knowledge hub’, ‘solution’) and technical tools (‘model’, ‘decision-analytic framework’) to change the current natural resource management by processes of ‘transformation’ or ‘integration’ towards ‘sustainability’ and ‘security’. None of the assessed sites transmits a clear sense of urgency. The link between the nexus and the SDGs is rarely made at a prominent level. There are only a few websites which explicitly mention people, society, or target audiences (‘we’, ‘stakeholder’, ‘practitioners’, ‘researchers’, and ‘policy makers’) as a part of the change-making process. Whilst often more positive aspects (‘evidence’, ‘pathways’, ‘decision making’, ‘long-lasting bridge’, ‘security’) are illustrated in the project or main website titles and texts, the negative ones (‘conflict’, ‘trade-off’, ‘dispute’, ‘competing needs/interests’, ‘challenge’, ‘risk’, ‘painful’, ‘effect’) are frequently omitted. Possibly related to the fact that nexus websites often belong to research initiatives and are set up at the beginning of the research and not necessarily updated later, the verbs used in slogans and texts usually express an initial stage of certainty (‘test’, ‘search’, ‘explore’, ‘understand’, ‘advance’, ‘find’, ‘aim’) rather than achievements; this also implies that lessons learned are not always shared via the main websites. Source: Author’s analysis of nexus initiative main websites (accessed 15 December 2020): www​.sim4nexus​ .eu/​; https://​dafne​.ethz​.ch/​; https://​flores​.unu​.edu/​en/​; https://​magic​-nexus​.eu/​; www​.hzg​.de/​ms/​clisweln/​index​ .php​.en; http://​steppingupnexus​.org​.uk/​; www​.water​-energy​-food​.org/​; www​.unwater​.org/​water​-facts/​water​ -food​-and​-energy/​; www​.fao​.org/​land​-water/​water/​watergovernance/​w​aterfooden​ergynexus/​en/​; www​.gwp​.org/​ en/​GWP​-Mediterranean/​WE​-ACT/​Programmes​-per​-theme/​Water​-Food​-Energy​-Nexus/​the​-nexus​-approach​ -an​-introduction/​; www​.unece​.org/​env/​water/​nexus; www​.reeep​.org/​water​-energy​-food​-nexus​-agrifood; www​ .unenvironment​.org/​events/​un​-environment​-event/​ways​-walk​-water​-energy​-food​-nexus​-talk​-food​-perspective; www​.sei​.org/​topic/​water​-energy​-food​-nexus/​; https://​ec​.europa​.eu/​jrc/​en/​publication/​eur​-scientific​-and​-technical​ -research​-reports/​water​-energy​-nexus​-europe; https://​ec​.europa​.eu/​international​-partnerships/​topics/​water​-energy​ -food​-and​-ecosystem​-nexus​_en; www​.unwater​.org/​the​-water​-food​-energy​-ecosystems​-nexus​-in​-transboundary​ -basins/​.

22.5

WITH WHOM SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE?

Ideally, every nexus initiative undertakes a proper stakeholder identification and engagement process (Reed et al., 2009), where the corresponding actors are targeted. There is an increasing recognition to engage actively not only researchers but also other stakeholders from industry, government, culture and media, and the civil society (‘quintuple helix’; Carayannis et al., 2012) in the process as well as in bi- and multidirectional communication (Daher et al., 2020; Mohtar and Daher, 2019), as all these can contribute to finding solutions and are often co-responsible for or affected by the implementation of such solutions. Despite recent nexus research developments in the past decade, we know little about the extent to which researcher and stakeholder perspectives converge over these issues. As

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The relevance and challenges in communicating the nexus  405 researchers continue to work toward developing a better understanding of the interconnected resource challenges, and toward supporting stakeholders in addressing them, it is important to ensure high levels of communication and engagement between both groups at different stages of a project. This becomes particularly useful when rapid recommendations to address timely resource challenges are needed. Reducing the length of the feedback cycle between researchers and stakeholders who are making decisions, through ensuring a level of convergence between their perspectives, would allow for the development of informed policy incentives, technologies, and management practices that appropriately respond to the resource challenges facing societies (Daher et al., 2020). Therefore, communication needs to happen within three key environments: (1) between researchers across different disciplines; (2) among stakeholders across different sectors; and (3) between the interdisciplinary researchers and cross-sectoral stakeholders. In Colombia, the gap that needs to be addressed in the science–policy interface is basically the bidirectional communication between government and the scientific community. The academic sector conducts very significant and innovative research in different fields. However, many of these investigations are not aimed at solving the problems of the country, and moreover, are not readily available to policymakers. Likewise, in some cases, policymakers struggle with specific situations, and sometimes do not manage to respond to suggestions or recommendations from academia. (Interview with Cristian Rivera Machado, a waste-energy nexus practitioner; Salleh, 2018)

In addition, some of the barriers and solutions to nexus conflicts lie outside the scope and mandate of the easily known stakeholders, in a more distant part of a broader social network (Weitz et al., 2017, p. 169). Involving them offers possibilities for the transfer of solutions from other nexus initiatives or case studies or cross-fertilisation from other sectors. In consequence, the target audiences of communications should be aimed broader than only the known and engaged stakeholders, and this is worth exploring from the grassroots to the higher policy levels (Salleh, 2019a). The nexus initiative practitioners should also assess how to strengthen the communication capacity of the team.

22.6

WHEN SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE?

The shift of decision makers’ mindsets is typically a slow and gradual process (Weitz et al., 2017, p. 169). This explains the poor uptake of recommendations from time-limited nexus initiatives and is a major constraint for those initiatives which aim to stimulate a supply-driven change, which might not be based on a local need and societal urgency. This however does not mean that communication during and after a nexus project is not quintessential for spreading the message. Quite to the contrary, through nexus initiatives various stakeholders and actors are mobilised and acquainted with the nexus concept, which creates a momentum on this topic. It is useful to capture and build on this momentum with subsequent actions when possible, as actors are still engaged and receptive to such missions. Early engagement allows for a process of co-creation of critical research questions between the respective researchers and stakeholders. It also allows for the development of a common language and framework, and for discussing differences in values and goals.

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406  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Nexus communication can moreover adapt to ongoing developments by referring to short-term, mid-term, and long-term challenges – depending on the target audience’s work horizon – and associate action-oriented messages (including risks of non-action) accordingly. This can prove counteractive, however, as it may become more difficult to convince decision makers about the needed urgency of action. As with the SDGs, action is urgent. The ‘natural resource crisis’ is considered one of the most likely and impacting existential risks (in a 5–10-year horizon) for the global society (World Economic Forum, 2021). In the past years, the need for urgent action on climate change has however been mainstreamed to political commitments and individual actions. It is difficult to imagine that the nexus will find its slot in the overloaded mind of managers from different sectors if the perception remains that ‘tomorrow’s action’ will be enough. A possibly more successful strategy is to build on political or sectorial ‘windows of opportunity’ favourable to bringing the nexus topic up within the timeline of nexus actors, or even adapt the communications to their preferences. This might result in stronger engagement and uptake, but also increases risks regarding the transparency of the process. ‘Windows of opportunity’ might be identified by an assessment of upcoming policy or management initiatives of the concerned stakeholders, or via a specific risk assessment. For example, the already mentioned SDGs or the European Green Deal, both aiming for cross-sector targets, provide the opportunity to address the nexus and policy coherence (Witmer, 2020). Examples of window of opportunity strategies have been developed by research project contributions to the Region of Sardinia’s Strategy for Climate Change Adaptation, adopted in 2019 (Ledda et al., 2020; SIM4NEXUS Brochure, 2020; Trabucco et al., 2018) or cooperation agreements between UNU-FLORES and the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Tanzania, resulting in a 2015–2021 research action by Sekela Twisa on ‘Monitoring sustainability of rural water supplies in Sub-Saharan Africa’ (Salleh, 2019b).

22.7

HOW SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE?

Promoting research, peer reviews, publishing, and conferences are the most used tools in policy and science communication (Langan et al., 2019, p. 499), but this unidirectional communication will largely be insufficient for a nexus initiative to stimulate change in managers and stakeholders. As depicted by the SIM4NEXUS vision of the nexus concept, nexus communication does not only encompass the diffusion and translation of complex ideas, but should likewise build upon the complexity of its implementation, thus leading to a consolidation of various knowledge-sharing methods, nexus methodologies, and decision support tools. Nexus communication should stimulate exchange, and thus be informative, interesting, and interactive. As projects and initiatives usually comprise rather technical assessments like modelling or policy analysis, the hiring of professionals in communication would be a good investment for defining and implementing strategies and tools, whilst also building the communications capacity of project teams, including stakeholders. The language used should be adapted to the target audience(s), and this includes consideration as to whether the term ‘nexus’ is appropriate. It is therefore recommended to prioritise the nexus term only in communication with nexus-aware counterparts and employ other more descriptive terms for newcomers and initial engagement. The choice can be to keep the term ‘nexus’, though it does not exist in the native language, as it is short and potentially attractive

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The relevance and challenges in communicating the nexus  407 to people in need of innovative approaches or solutions. The nexus term should then be defined clearly from the beginning. I didn’t know the terminology of ‘nexus’, but I liked the holistic view (360 degrees). That when speaking of water, one has to think about food production, one has to think about energy transition, in order to account for collateral damage. (Stakeholder mobilised for the SIM4NEXUS project)

The alternative is to not use the nexus term but existing equivalents in the native language. Indeed, the nexus word can have a repelling effect on people who seek information for their domain exclusively or are not allowed to step out of their assigned roles. Who feels responsible for the nexus in public administrations? Often no one, and so nexus conference flyers or nexus articles might be completely dismissed. Equivalent terms (Chun, 2014; JDG, 2016) comprise instance complexity, dilemma (Abbott et al., 2017; Siegfried, 2009), conflict, trade-off, and synergy. These can then be complemented with a parenthesis addition of the nexus, if there is a strong wish to introduce the term. The nexus complexity should be communicated transparently, including explicit information about data and information gaps and uncertainties of assessments and proposals (Cremades et al., 2019, p. 7), with appropriate details according to the chosen communication stream and target audience. The nexus communication should furthermore transfer the complexity in a reasonably simplified and (visually) attractive form to bridge the boundary between data and information assessment and decision making, for example using visualisation tools such as infographics and Nexus Directional Chords (Laspidou et al., 2020), by improved metrics/ indicators as ‘eye-opening evidence’ (Völker et al., 2019, p. 8), storytelling (e.g. Ripa and Giampietro, 2017), or by simulation games (Van Pelt et al., 2015) including serious gaming experience (GWP-Med, 2017; SIM4NEXUS, 2020). These tools can be very useful if they guide and focus the audience in understanding the main nexus interaction challenges and the consequences of (non-)action, and therefore should be either self-explicit or supported by an accompanying text. I remember playing the [SIM4NEXUS Serious] game on Greece with summer school participants in Amsterdam, most of whom came from outside Europe. The case was a very complex model consisting of 14 regions. I was not able to reach the climate targets myself but a couple of young, committed women managed to do so and were able to even increase the climate score over time. They really showed that reaching climate targets is possible – you need to be consistent and firm in your measures. These players might not have been familiar with the conditions in Greece but were willing to play and found it very informative. They saw gaming as a way to develop new mechanisms and better foresight. (Interview with Floor Brouwer; Salleh, 2020)

Methods of science communication have evolved in recent years, and new technologies, such as videos, blogs or websites, and online communication make information almost accessible to everyone (Langan et al., 2019, p. 502). An advantage of the new forms of social and print media communication is that they allow communication with audiences without great delay, whereas academic publications and conferences require more time to organise and are therefore less suitable for quick and continuous information diffusion. At the same time, new communication platforms have come into use, which allow connections between specific groups of people across professions or domains. Depending on the target group in question, professional social networks can be utilised for targeted dissemination and knowledge exchange. Scientific social networks such as Researchgate, Academia, or Mendeley are

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408  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus for instance well used among researchers and can thus provide an additional entry point to contact and exchange with the research community (Waechter, n.d.), while LinkedIn is more appropriate for the business world. When it comes to reaching a wider audience, social media offers a new channel through which complex information can be translated into something that is more easily understood and easier for people to relate to without overwhelming them (Mulholland et al., 2017). To communicate the nexus successfully, it is important to relate the information about the nexus with what matters to the audience in question, as knowledge alone is insufficient to encourage change and may merely lead to information fatigue (Mulholland, 2018, cited in Mulholland, 2019). As the nexus approach aspires to reach many dimensions, it is reasonable to identify ‘multipliers’ or ‘spokespersons’ that can make the link between the research teams and the practitioners (at different scales and sectors), speaking their own language and using the relevant communication tools to address them. These can be professional networks, trusts, associations, conventions, federations, think-tanks, etc. Another technique that is increasingly gaining attention is the art of storytelling and its use in the realm of science communication (Dahlstrom, 2014; Sundin, 2018). As the example of San Antonio illustrates, constructing a common narrative about the local governance situation can help to bring sectoral stakeholders together and to communicate complexities in a more understandable format. While storytelling or narrative communication is becoming more popular for communicating to non-specialist audiences, its use for evidence-based science communication is often debated. In contrast to more argument-based science communication, storytelling is centred around a specific cause-and-effect relationship tied to specific personas and their actions. Thus, stories are told about certain protagonists and the hurdles they face, the efforts they make to master the situation, and the lessons that can be drawn from it. Even though this form of communication is less based on accuracy and can be less rigorous than conventional logical scientific communication, it has certain benefits to it: stories are appealing and easier to comprehend for a diverse audience and make the content more tangible. Empirical studies have moreover shown that stories have a ‘privileged status in human cognition’, meaning that cognitive functions such as motivation, interest, and transfer into long-term memory are highly receptive to narrative telling and to processing such information (Glaser et al., 2009, as cited in Dahlstrom, 2014; Graesser and Ottati, 1995). In particular for communicating the nexus, storytelling can be a means to engage stakeholders and to communicate complexities in a more understandable and compelling manner. How nexus stories are then put into practice can vary, but the emphasis should remain on providing relevant (contextual) information, dismissing unnecessary details, and adapting to the target audience. As with stakeholder mobilisation, early engagement can allow crafting narratives together with the stakeholders, whereas more constructive and solution-oriented storytelling tries to explore solutions when presenting the scene (Mulholland, 2019; Sundin, 2018). The selection of the right strategies and tools will depend on many factors, including knowing what the goals are for in the respective nexus communication and who is to be addressed. Once these have been clearly established, messages that are in line with said communication goals and that have been adjusted to the audience in question can be constructed and the communication means chosen. While conventional science communication methods may remain central to nexus communication in a research context, it is necessary to explore new or even multiple communication channels for this special topic to reach sector stakeholders and the public.

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The relevance and challenges in communicating the nexus  409

22.8 CONCLUSION Given the relevance and difficulty of engaging stakeholders from both different topic sectors (water, energy, agriculture) and backgrounds (researchers, industry, government, culture and media, the civil society), we strongly recommend that communication is put on the forefront to contribute to transformational change and nexus literacy. Developing a communication strategy should not come as an afterthought, but rather needs to be a key component of a project at its conceptual stage. Transdisciplinary researchers and cross-sectoral stakeholders need to be in communication from project inception, in order to allow for a process of co-framing of research questions and the co-creation of possible solutions. This is especially relevant as natural resource crises and conflicts are increasingly recognised as existential societal risks and require urgent action, beyond the action area of knowledge developers. Proper communication between the different actors is a core activity to focus the research in order to identify action-relevant knowledge gaps, engage and mobilise stakeholders, and facilitate taking action. Nexus communications should widen intersectoral understanding and help with the achievement of complex sector-defined and/or interrelated targets as e.g. set by the SDGs. This requires adaptation in timing, language, and tools. Communication tools should be tailored to making people think about uncertainties and changing frameworks, and the added value of exploring, testing, and co-creating e.g. in interactive discussions, serious gaming, and similar tools. Communicating the nexus implications using scenarios including the risks associated with business can motivate stakeholders to accept long-term sustainability wins over short-term losses. Communicating is complex in itself and needs proper consideration of means and resources spent. So far, there is no blueprint to offer and only few consolidated lessons learned or shared experiences. A review of communication impacts and activities in the short term and long term remains thus critical for improving and upscaling nexus literacy.

NOTE 1. We benefited from several research groups within the ‘Nexus Project Cluster’ which kindly provided their thoughts, inputs, and quotes from the projects.

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The relevance and challenges in communicating the nexus  411 Ledda, A., E.A. Di Cesare, G. Satta, G. Cocco, G. Calia, F. Arras, A. Congiu, E. Manca and A. De Montis (2020), ‘Adaptation to climate change and regional planning: A scrutiny of sectoral instruments’, Sustainability, 12 (9), 3804. Mohtar, R.H. and B. Daher (2016), ‘Water-energy-food nexus framework for facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue’, Water International, 41 (5), 655–661. Mohtar, R.H. and B. Daher (2017), ‘Beyond zero sum game allocations: Expanding resources potentials through reduced interdependencies and increased resource nexus synergies’, Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering, 18, 84–89. Mohtar, R.H. and B. Daher (2019), ‘Lessons learned: Creating an interdisciplinary team and using a nexus approach to address a resource hotspot’, Science of the Total Environment, 650, 105–110. Mulholland, E. (2019), ‘Communicating sustainable development and the SDGs in Europe: Good practice examples from policy, academia, NGOs, and media’, ESDN Quarterly Report, 51. Mulholland, E., A. Bernardo and G. Berger (2017), ‘Communication and awareness raising in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs: Activities and challenges’, ESDN Quarterly Report, 44. Nerlich, B., N. Koteyko and B. Brown (2010), ‘Theory and language of climate change communication’, WIREs Climate Change, 1 (1), 97–110. Nesbit, M., T. Filipova, T. Stainforth, J. Nyman, C. Lucha, A. Best, H. Stockhaus and S. Stec (2019), ‘Development of an assessment framework on environmental governance in the EU member states – final report’, Report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy for the European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment. Nilsson, M. and K. Eckerberg (eds) (2009), Environmental Policy Integration in Practice: Shaping Institutions for Learning, London: Routledge. OECD (2017), 10 Learning Areas for SDG Communications: Discussion Note for the OECD DevCom Peer Learning Hub, accessed 14 January 2021 at www​.oecd​.org/​dev/​pgd/​DevCom​_10​_Learning​ _Areas​_SDG​_Communications​.pdf. Ramos, E., D. Kofinas, C. Laspidou, C. Papadopoulou, M. Papadopoulou, F. Gardumi et al. (2020), ‘SIM4NEXUS D1.5: Framework for the assessment of the nexus’, SIM4NEXUS – H2020. Reed, M.S., A. Graves, N. Dandy, H. Posthumus, K. Hubacek, J. Morris, C. Prell, C.H. Quinn and L.C. Stringer (2009), ‘Who’s in and why? A typology of stakeholder analysis methods for natural resource management’, Journal of Environmental Management, 90, 1933–1949. Ripa M. and M. Giampietro (eds) (2017), ‘Report on nexus security using quantitative story-telling’, MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669) Project Deliverable 4.1, July, revised November. Rosen, R.A., B. Daher and R.H. Mohtar (2018), ‘Water-energy-food nexus stakeholder information sharing engagement workshop’, Water Resources Science and Technology Book and E-Book Publications and Reports, 3. Salleh, A.F. (2018), ‘On the waste-energy nexus and boosting science–policy interface: An interview with Cristian Rivera Machado’, accessed 15 February 2021 at https://​flores​.unu​.edu/​en/​news/​news/​ on​-the​-waste​-energy​-nexus​-and​-boosting​-science​-policy​-interface​-an​-interview​-with​-cristian​-rivera​ -machado​.html. Salleh, A.F. (2019a), ‘For a meaningful science–policy interface, scientists have to do these three things’, accessed 15 February 2021 at https://​flores​.unu​.edu/​en/​news/​news/​for​-a​-meaningful​-science​-policy​ -interface​-scientists​-have​-to​-do​-these​-three​-things​.html​#info. Salleh, A.F. (2019b), ‘Why engage policy and what does it take? Nexus seminar on siloes, trade-offs, and synergies in the water-energy-food nexus’, accessed 15 February 2021 at https://​flores​.unu​.edu/​ en/​news/​news/​why​-engage​-policy​-and​-what​-does​-it​-take​-nexus​-seminar​-on​-siloes​-trade​-offs​-and​ -synergies​-in​-the​-water​-energy​-food​-nexus​.html. Salleh, A.F. (2020), ‘Nexus for society: In conversation with Dr Floor Brouwer’, accessed 15 February 2021 at https://​flores​.unu​.edu/​en/​news/​news/​nexus​-for​-society​-in​-conversation​-with​-dr​ -floor​-brouwer​.html. Siegfried, T. (2009), ‘Water and energy conflict in Central Asia’, accessed 14 January 2021 at https://​ blogs​.ei​.columbia​.edu/​2009/​08/​18/​water​-and​-energy​-conflict​-in​-central​-asia/​. SIM4NEXUS (2020), Serious Game, accessed 25 June 2020 at www​.sim4nexus​.eu/​page​.php​?wert​=​ SeriousGame. SIM4NEXUS Brochure (2020), ‘How to secure the efficient use of our scarce natural resources? Findings from SIM4NEXUS – Sustainable Integrated Management for the NEXUS of

Guido Schmidt

Christine Matauschek

Maïté Fournier

Anna Saito

Bassel

412  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus water-land-food-energy-climate for a resource-efficient Europe’, accessed at 22 February 2020 at www​.sim4nexus​.eu/​userfiles/​Sim4nexus​_brochure​_complete​_low​_​.pdf. Sundin, A. (2018), ‘Make your science sticky – storytelling as a science communication tool’, accessed 13 January 2021 at www​.sei​.org/​perspectives/​make​-science​-sticky​-storytelling​-science​ -communication​-tool/​. Sušnik, J., C. Chew, X. Domingo, S. Mereu, A. Trabucco, B. Evans et al. (2018), ‘Multi-stakeholder development of a serious game to explore the water-energy-food-land-climate nexus: The SIM4NEXUS approach’, Water, 10 (2), 139. The Guardian (2015), ‘How to communicate the sustainable development goals to the public’, accessed 14 January 2021 at www​.theguardian​.com/​global​-development​-professionals​-network/​2015/​sep/​07/​ how​-to​-communicate​-the​-sustainable​-development​-goals​-to​-the​-public. Trabucco, A., J. Sušnik, L. Vamvakeridou-Lyroudia, B. Evans, S. Masia, M. Blanco et al. (2018), ‘Water-food-energy nexus under climate change in Sardinia’, Proceedings, 2 (11), 609. UN SDG Action Campaign (n.d.), Sustainable Development Goals Action Campaign, accessed 12 January 2021 at www​.sdgactioncampaign​.org/​. Van Pelt, S.C., M. Haasnoot, B. Arts, F. Ludwig, R. Swart and R. Biesbroek (2015), ‘Communicating climate (change) uncertainties: Simulation games as boundary objects’, Environmental Science and Policy, 45, 41–52. Völker, T., K. Blackstock, Z. Kovacic, J. Sindt, R. Strand and K. Waylen (2019), ‘The role of metrics in the governance of the water-energy-food nexus within the European Commission’, Journal of Rural Studies. Waechter, F.M. (n.d.), ‘Social media for science and research: Current trends and future possibilities’, Fmwaechter.com, accessed 6 January 2021 at https://​fmwaechter​.com/​social​-media​-science​-resear ch/. Waughray, D. (2011), Water Security: The Water-Food-Energy-Climate Nexus: The World Economic Forum Water Initiative, Washington, DC: Island Press. Weitz, N., C. Strambo, E. Kemp-Benedict and M. Nilsson (2017), ‘Closing the governance gaps in the water-energy-food nexus: Insights from integrative governance’, Global Environmental Change, 45, 165–173. Witmer, M. (2020), ‘Policy Brief SIM4NEXUS – SIM4NEXUS 8 policy coherence recommendations to the European Green Deal’, January, revised October, accessed 4 February 2021 at www​.pbl​.nl/​sites/​ default/​files/​downloads/​sim4nexus​-green​-deal​-policy​-brief​.pdf. World Economic Forum (ed.) (2021), ‘The global risks report 2021’, accessed 4 February 2021 at www​ .weforum​.org/​reports/​the​-global​-risks​-report​-2021. World’s Best News (n.d.), Communicating the Sustainable Development Goals – for Everyone, accessed 14 January 2021 at https://​worldsbestnews​.org/​partners​-projects/​communicating​-the​-sustainable​ -development​-goals​-everyone/​.

Guido Schmidt

Christine Matauschek

Maïté Fournier

Anna Saito

Bassel

Index

Abwasserverband Braunschweig, Germany 119 Academia 407 academic education 153 ACCBAT project 279 actionable knowledge, for nexus governance 71 action, theory of 70 adaptation and adaptive capacity 315–16 adaptive governance 313, 329, 349 Agenda 21 178 Agenda 2030 9, 99, 144, 152 Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (1995) 389 agricultural development, in Andean countries in Chile 236–9 in Ecuador 242–4 in Peru 239–41 present and future water-energy-food-environment challenges 232–3 agricultural emissions 40 agricultural exports 231, 280 agricultural land area 38 agricultural management 38, 219 agricultural marketing 251 agricultural production 38, 134, 211 agricultural water use, efficiencies in 38 agricultural water withdrawal, overview of 45 agriculture resilience 285 agri-food value chain 285 agri-tech 276 agro-economies 194 agro-food sector 273 agroforestry 219, 222–3, 232 aims of WEF nexus 20–21 air pollution 82–3, 85, 240 air quality, indoor 194 ‘alternative’ water supplies, use of 37 anaerobic digesters 47, 119 anaerobic digestion 220 use in wastewater treatment plants 47 anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) 118–19 animal feed production 296 anthropogenic contamination 96 aquaponics 196 Arab-Israeli war (1973) 389 Arab Science and Technology Plan of Action (2011) 275 Arab Summit 275

arid water-stressed areas 87 ARIMNET projects 284–5 artificial intelligence 125, 390 ash water recirculation 102 atmospheric CO2 concentrations 39 Australia, management of the nexus in Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper 261 Budj Bim aquaculture system 253 Clean Energy Act (2011) 259 climate mitigation and energy policies 258–60 Climate Solutions Fund 261 construction of desalinisation plants 256 COVID crisis and 267 dam and water distribution systems 253 Emissions Reduction Fund 259 First Nations peoples 252 food policy 261 free market economic policies 251 hydro-illogical cycle 253 Indigenous Australians 252–3 key interlinkages 261–7 community and research sectors 262–3 government 264–7 market mechanisms 263–4 Land Use Futures programme 263 lessons 267–8 manifestations of 262 ‘more crop per drop’ water efficiency programmes 255 Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) Agreement 251, 257 National Water Grid Authority 253 National Water Initiative 256–7 pioneering myth 253 versus limits to growth 253 reasons of 250–52 salinity pollution from agriculture in river systems 251 volumetric-based water management plans 257 Water Act (2008) 257 water and climate change adaptation policies 256–8 water policy 252–5 water pricing 254 water-related decision making 253 wetland ecosystems 257

413

414  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus ‘wheat-sheep’ zone 261 AZMUD project 285 Barcelona process (1995) 284 benthic community 180, 188 bioalgae 183 bio-based electricity generation 41 biodegradable polymer 285 biodigesters 47, 220 biodiversity 38, 135 biodiversity loss 38 bioenergy 2, 40, 46, 82, 101, 183, 211, 223, 226, 400 clean 38 produced from waste 400 biofertilizers 275 biofouling 180 biofuel crops production of 46, 298 sugarcane plantations 298 biofuels 1, 39, 86, 88, 92, 223, 295, 311, 367 crop production to generate green energy 296 for emissions reductions 46 ethanol as 46–7 GHG impact compared to fossil fuels 46 growth of crops to produce 46 production of 46 as a renewable energy source 41 for transport and energy generation 46 water use for 308 biogas 47, 117, 119, 196, 219 technologies in sub-Saharan Africa 220 biogeochemical cycling 365 bioliquids 92 biomass 46, 83, 117, 140, 181–3, 219, 223, 282, 317, 320, 399 production of 140, 182 biomaterials 182, 183 biomethane 85–6, 89 biopower 101 blue economy assessment methods in the marine domain ecosystem services 186 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) 186 Integrated Cumulative Effects Assessment 185–6 Marine Strategy Framework Directive 185 association of oceans and sea-water areas in 178 environmental impact of bioenergy and biomaterials 183–4 energy production 180–81

extraction of minerals and aggregates 183 food production 181–2 overview of 184 tourism 182–3 fisheries and aquaculture 181 marine nexus approach 187–8 marine renewables 181 pressure on the marine environment 179–80 research and development investments 178 sustainable development of 188 blue water footprint, of global crop production 41 blue water resources 44 Bonn Nexus Conference (2011) 55, 355 Brasov City 139–41 capacity-development programme 151, 156, 165 incorporation of CLEWs in 159–60 knowledge transfer 165 partnerships and collaborations 169 sustaining capacity and 166 vision of 166 carbon capture and storage 97, 101, 259–60 carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) 82, 85–7, 92, 101 carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 93 from electricity generation 100 energy-related 82, 83, 85 in Sustainable Development Scenario 85 carbon footprint 373 of electric vehicles (EVs) 83 reduction of 84 carbon-neutral energy 297 carbon sequestration 30, 366 causal loop diagram 6, 64, 203 CEVITAL (Algerian agribusiness group) 275 charcoal energy system 226 production 219–20 chemical and biochemical oxygen demand 118 chemically bound energy 117 chemical oxygen demand removal 119 Chile, export-oriented agriculture in 236–9 Copiapó 238 lessons and challenges 239 Petorca 236–8 rural drinking-water provision 237 water code and 237 circular economy (CE) 8, 50, 196, 276, 365, 398 adoption of 199 application to water systems 114 business opportunities 122–4 as a catalyst for innovation 116–22 innovative circular showcases 118–22

Index  415 innovative solutions for the water sector 116–18 enabler for new business and services 124–6 EU framework for promoting 113 European Commission Communication Paper on 113 innovative solutions for the water sector 116–18 versus nexus 114–15 notion of 113 policy and legislative barriers and opportunities 126–9 product design 113 society-wide benefits 113 strategies in industry 58 tenets of 115 transformational 116–18 city water demand, growth in 37 civil society organizations 3, 348, 355, 358 clean energy sources of 39 technologies for 89, 92 transition objectives 88 climate change 179 climate emissions, agricultural-related 38 climate, land, energy and water systems (CLEWs) 149 incorporation in capacity-development programmes 159–60 knowledge-transfer activities 157 Open Source energy Modelling System (OSeMOSYS) 159, 162, 170 summer schools 162–3 climate mitigation 3, 132, 258–60, 297, 366 climate services (CS) concept of 9 decision-making process 134 definition of 132 development of 132 effectiveness of 144 importance of 143 integrated modelling of the nexus for 135–8 integrating the nexus approach with 138–43 case of Brasov City and Tărlung River Basin 139–41 challenges regarding 142–3 integration of the nexus approach with 133–5 interdisciplinary nature of 9, 133 process of 132 climate-smart strategies 139 closed-cycle recirculating-type cooling towers 102 coal-fired electricity generation 41, 259 coal-fired generators 251 coal-fired power generation 87, 98

coal-fired power plants 87 coal-fired power stations 259–60 coal mining 295 coastal countries and coastal areas, development of 178 coastal flooding 193–4 communicating, of WEF nexus barriers in 400–402 cause-and-effect relationship 408 challenges regarding 406 conflict resolution-oriented 403 definition of 401 multidirectional 398 process for 406–8 in public administrations 407 reasons for 399–400 stakeholder identification and engagement process 404–5 steps for 398 things to be communicated 402–4 time-limited 405–6 unidirectional 398 communities of practice (CoPs) 128, 151, 163, 168 complex adaptive systems (CAS) 11, 308, 310–17 comprehensive literature review, of WEF nexus 214 Comprehensive Project for Sustainable Agricultural, Environmental and Social Development of Ecuador (PIDAASSE) 243 concentrating solar power (CSP) 87, 97 consumer behaviour 113, 164 control system abstraction 313 Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (1997) 388 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (1992) 388 correlation and causality, in WEF nexus 47–8 countries of origin 338 COVID-19 pandemic 82, 92, 213, 334 effect on global energy demand 193 recovery plans 194 Creating Interfaces project 202 croplands 38 Earth’s surface used for 44 crop procurement policies 312 crop productivity 45, 218, 221 curricula development 170 cyber attacks 90, 92 cybersecurity 82, 90 dam developments 61, 66, 69

416  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus data visualization 200–201, 204 decarbonised gases 89 decarbonization technologies 138 decentralised water technologies, in Europe 127 decision making 2 science-based evidence in 9, 382 deforestation 83, 220–21, 258, 292 desalinated water, use for irrigation 46 desalination technologies 283 desertification 241, 282 Desirable Operating Space (DOS) to address urban WEF sustainability challenges 366 applications of 366 core elements of 367–8 definition of 367 development of 366 implementation approaches 371–4 WEF environmental sustainability 373–4 WEF resource resilience 372–3 WEF resource supply 372 implementation of 373 key concepts 366–8 pivotal scale for operation 368–71 relationships with WEF and ecosystem services 374 temporal dynamics of 373 for urban regions 369 see also Safe Operating Space diesel-powered engines 318 distributed energy-generation technologies 221 domestic energy resources 81 Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers (2008) 389 Dresden Nexus conference (2019) 157 drip irrigation 217 in Morocco 280 technique 38 technologies 223 dry-cooling technology 102–3 ecological footprint 373 ecological network analysis 3 economic development, economic growth to sustain 48 ecosystem services assessment of marine environment 186 concept of 186 sustainable development of 134 Ecuador, water infrastructure in lessons 243–4 new water regulation 242 Santa Elena province 242–3 EdGeWIsE project 285

Egypt, technological innovation for WEFE nexus development in 277–8 hybrid system for renewable energy 277–8 integrated water-energy-food nexus model 278 solar technology applied to agriculture 278 electricity consumption 42, 47–8, 85, 88, 107, 320 electricity generation coal’s share of 83 decarbonising of 84 global 83 in India 107 technology for 41 use of water for 98 electricity mix 90 diversification to reduce GHG emissions 108 electricity production bio-based 41 coal-fired 41 fossil fuel burning for 40 global 40 key policies related to 100–105 nuclear 41 use of food waste 47 water 41 electric power plants 194 electric vehicles (EVs) carbon footprint of 83 deployment of 82–3 electric heavy-duty trucks 82 lifecycle emissions 83 Ellen MacArthur Foundation 114 El Niño Southern Oscillation 250, 253 emergence, notion of 312 empirical research 60, 62 ‘end-of-waste’ criteria, establishment of 127 energy balance 365, 384 Energy Charter Treaty (1994) 389 energy consumption 41, 217, 322 in different global regions 39 in food manufacturing 45–6 residential 44 in reverse-osmosis (RO) desalination plants 43 in water sector 42–4 energy crisis 98 energy demand of water treatment 43 world total primary energy demand by fuel 85 energy efficiency 82–3, 85, 87, 89, 196, 225 in RO plants 43 energy efficiency, at urban level 152

Index  417 energy innovation 92 energy insecurity 216–17 energy mix 87, 88 diversification of 100–101 used to generate electricity 41 energy production 87, 180–81 in India 98 use of water for 40, 41–2, 98 energy sector cyber disruptions and data privacy concerns 90 decarbonisation of 85 risks of digitalisation to 90 energy security 8, 11, 17, 18, 31, 82, 92 concerns related to fossil fuel production 89 implications of the energy transition 89–91 energy services, electrification of 90 energy subsidies 243 energy sustainability 81 energy system, present scenario of 83–4 energy transition 84–6 impact on energy-water nexus 86–9 energy use, water-related 43 Entrepreneurship Ecosystems Strategy 275 environmental degradation 36, 134, 221, 232, 236 environmental footprints 365–7, 369–70, 373–4 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) 64, 186–7 Environmental Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment 373 environmental management 6, 204 environmental sustainability 5, 242, 365–7, 370–71, 373–4 ERANETMED programs 284–6 ethanol production of 46–7 sources of 47 EU Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (2014/89/EU) 188 EU-Med Ministerial Conference on Higher Education and Scientific Research (2007) 284 European Commission Communication Paper ‘Towards a circular economy: A zero waste programme for Europe’ 113 definition of climate services 132 Position Paper on the WEFE nexus 384 European Eco Label system 128 European Green Deal 406 European–Mediterranean cooperation in S&T 285 European Neighborhood Policy 286 European Research Area for Climate Services 132 European Union (EU)

Circular Economy Action Plan 126 Fertilizer Regulation 127 eutrophication 179, 182 evaluating of WEF nexus 30–31 details of indicators for each new step 31 revised nexus process description 30 event management systems 125 expert knowledge, transfer of 169 export-oriented agriculture 231, 236, 244 farming, export-oriented 244 feedback control abstraction 314 fertilisers and pesticides, runoff pollution due to use of 45–6 fish consumption 181 fish farming 182 fish stocks 66 ‘fit-for-purpose’ recycled water 116 flood control 232, 244, 292, 295, 299 flood irrigation 38 flood mitigation 365–6 in urban-rural catchments 7 flue gas desulfurization 104 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 150, 194, 212, 277 food chain 44, 180 food consumption, livestock-based 50 food crops for human consumption 46 used for production of biofuels 46 energy 46 food demand 38, 44, 49–50, 134, 273, 292, 296, 343 Food, Energy, Environment, Water Network 275 Food-Energy Nexus programme (United Nations University) 114 analytical framework to tackle food and energy-related challenges 16 food insecurity 194, 212–13, 222, 233, 324 food loss 45 food-processing wastes 47 food production 2, 181–2, 211, 218, 252, 297, 318, 319 and distribution 211 energy consumption in 45 services 366 use of fertilisers and pesticides 45 water 44–5 food quality 220 food refrigeration 322 food resource overexploitation 50 food resource pathways 36

418  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus food security 1, 8, 11, 17–18, 20, 31, 58, 61, 115, 216, 219, 221–2, 280, 308 agricultural exports and 231 global 295 urban 195 food supply chains 211, 366 food trade 16, 221, 298 food transport 243 food waste 38, 44 anaerobic decomposition of 47 as contributor to energy generation 47 reduction of 38, 50 forest management 134, 141, 143 formal learning 151–3, 156, 162–3, 167, 168 fossil-based energy 50 fossil energy 280 fossil-fueled power stations 104 fossil fuels 86, 88, 219 coal 83 electricity generation 255 impact on environment and health 81 production of 83 resources of 39 share in total primary energy demand 83 subsidies for coal and gas-based systems 260 use for electricity generation 40 fuel mix 41, 83, 87–8 fuel saving 101 game theory 29–30 General Water Directorate (DGA) 238 Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the International Rice Commission (2016) 389 GeoAgro 277 geothermal energy 40, 258 German Corporation for International Cooperation 164 ghost fishing 182 Global Agro-Ecological Zones system 277 global development, over WEF nexus 40 global electricity production 39 global energy demand 83, 193 global food demand 38, 134 Global Framework for Climate Services 132 global nexus resources, pathways for 49–50 global resource production and consumption systems 50 Global South 3 global warming 39–40, 50, 102 global water demand 88 Global Water Partnership 19 glocalism, notion of 382 good urban governance 198 Government of India (GoI) 101

Grand Ethiopian Resistance Dam (GERD) system 218 gravity-fed piped systems 217, 218 Great Ruaha River System, Tanzania 219 green energy demand for 297–8 development of 297 greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions 40, 44, 91, 101, 183, 220, 255, 330 impact of energy production and agriculture on 50 by industrialised economies 81 green loans 260 green-tech 276 green water 44 gross domestic product (GDP) 48, 219, 231, 364 gross value added (GVA) 178, 182, 254 groundwater anthropogenic contamination of 97 extraction of 96 overexploitation of 97 pumping of 98 recharging 118 use in irrigation 96 heat energy 44 heat exchangers 117 heat pumps 92, 117, 196 heat stress 222 heavy metals, release of 181 Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers (1966) 390 hierarchical ordering 316–17 Hoff’s seminal paper nexus literature 20 Horizon2020 project 329 horticulture 117 human capital 275 human–wildlife conflicts 220 humidification-dehumidification, concept of 283 hydrocarbons 47, 86, 180–81 hydro dams 298 constructions of 294, 299 global distribution of 294 hydroelectric plants, life-cycle global warming emissions from 102 hydroelectric production 134 hydrogen-powered heavy trucks 92 hydroponics 196, 278, 282 hydropower 10, 16, 39–42, 66, 91, 101–2, 106–8, 215, 221, 224, 259–60, 297, 301, 318, 323 development of 61, 69, 244 generation of 102, 218–19, 292 investment in 63–4 stations 310

Index  419 ice-free land surface 38 Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) 250 India’s electricity-water nexus adoption of pollution-control measures 104 super-critical technology 105 coal-based thermal generation capacity 103 diversification of energy mix 100–101 energy production 98 freshwater-cooled thermal utilities 104 groundwater 96 hydro and nuclear power 97 impact matrix for examining 107 in irrigation sector 98 land acquisition for power based on water availability 104 monsoonal trends and 97 National Water Policy (2012) 98 “no new coal” policy 104 policy coherence in 99–100, 105–7 policy solutions and objectives for 106 “Power for All by 2022” program 101 renewable energy sources (RES) 97 Ultra-Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) 101–2 water-efficient cooling technologies 102–3 water resources and the electricity sector 96–9 water sources for cooling in thermal power plants 103–4 Indus river system 318, 323 industrial discharges 97 informal learning 151–2, 156 innovation management 282 integrated assessment modelling 3 integrated management 5, 19–20, 27, 30, 134–5, 138–9, 141, 144, 185, 202, 236, 273, 280–81, 398 integrated natural resources management 7 Integrated Nutrient Management Plan 126 integrated quantitative assessments 357 integrated resource management 2, 7, 20, 26, 31, 245 Integrated Solutions for Water, Energy and Land project 167 integrated water resource management (IWRM) 19–20, 273, 355 assessment and scrutiny on 19 definition of 19 failures of 19 purpose of 27 top five models used in 27 Integrative Environmental Governance 348 intelligent agro-photovoltaic (PV) experimental station 276

interactions, within the water-energy-food nexus 401 interdisciplinary thinking and practices, institutionalisation of 169 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 93, 212, 373 interlinkages, of WEF nexus correlation and causality in 47–8 energy for food 45–6 water 42–4 food for energy 46–7 governance of 62 towards the nexus 40–41 water for energy 41–2 food 44–5 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 157, 159 International Centre for Theoretical Physics 162 International Energy Agency (IEA) 83–4, 87 on energy-related water consumption 97 Stated Policies Scenario 84–5, 88 Sustainable Development Scenario 92 international environmental agreement (IEA) 388 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis 277 international law, WEF nexus in duty of cooperation upon states in sharing natural resources 383 fragmentation of 385–7 consequences of 387 global regulatory frameworks 385, 388–90 implementation of 383 factors affecting 385–7 in practice 387–91 for regulating the nexus 382–5 strategic framework for security development 385 International Plant Protection Convention (1997) 389 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 2009) 389 ion exchange resins 119 irrigated nut tree plantations, growth of 258 irrigation, in agriculture 11 in India 98 reuse of unconventional water for 281 solar-powered pumping for 280 technology 215–18 Johannesburg Plan 178 Jordan National Water Strategy 2016–2025 276

420  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Law 276 Sahara Forest project, Aqaba 282 WEFE nexus in 281–2 Karm Solar start-up (Egypt) 278 knowledge bank 167, 169 knowledge co-creation, of the WEF nexus 68, 198, 349, 357 knowledge creation 149, 170, 202, 357 knowledge development 4 knowledge dissemination 160, 167 knowledge exchange 133, 170, 195, 407 knowledge gap 50, 155, 365, 409 knowledge production 58–9, 66, 71 knowledge sharing 9, 57, 162–3, 166, 172, 358, 406 knowledge transfer 150, 162–3 activities in terms of capacity levels 162, 172 and capacity-development programmes 165 data access, availability and retrievability 164–5 decision-making process 165 of expert knowledge 169 experts’ professional mobility 166 individual beliefs and values 165 limited availability of human and infrastructure resources 165 long-term 171 in planning 168 policy mandates and cycles 164 siloed approach in 165 sustaining capacity 166 in the transition to an integrated planning approach barriers 163–5 challenges 165–7 enablers 167–9 opportunities 169–71 Kyoto Protocol (1992) 81, 258 land

degradation of 292 in energy vertex 295 for food production 39 in food vertex 295–6 management of 222–4 surface area 46 tenure systems 223 water-energy-food nexus 296 in water vertex 294–5 land footprint 373 land reclamation, in South Africa 223 land use 38 for food production 292

global 291–2 land-water-energy-food (LWEF) nexus 292–3 conceptual framework of 293–4 food production 297 in Mekong river basin 297–300 La Niña 253 Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) 231 learning about the nexus 150, 151–2, 157 assessment of 167–8 in formal education processes 153–4 importance of 152–3 in the perspective of capacity levels 158 in professional development and practice 154–7 entry points to nexus learning 156–7 types of learning and levels of capacity 155–6 legal mechanism, for addressing the WEF nexus in the transboundary context 390–91 life-cycle assessment 6 LIVES project 70 livestock management 220 low-carbon development 6 low-carbon economy 81, 89, 105 low-carbon technologies 89 deployment of 85–6 production of 90 Luc Hoffmann Institute 60 machine-learning algorithms 125 Mackellar, Dorothea 250 Mar del Plata Conference, Argentina (1977) 4 marine energy production 180–81 marine environment, pollution of 179 marine flora and fauna, mechanical destruction and killing of 183 marine-invasive species 180, 181 marine renewables 181 Marine Strategy Framework Directive 185 marine wildlife tourism 183 maritime transport 178, 188 marketisation of water 254 Mediterranean Water Policy 286 Mekong Flooded Forest landscape 61–3 Mekong Flooded Forest water-energy-food nexus 64 Mekong River Basin (MRB) 293 LWEF system 297–300 in Southeast Asia 61 Mendeley 407 methane gas climate impact of 47 leak detection 92 produced from food waste 47 methodologies and tools, for WEF nexus

Index  421 choosing a way forward 29 for effective decision making 22–30 evaluating the aspects of interest 28–9 framing and decomposing information 26–8 overview of 23–5 transdisciplinary research principles in 26 microalgae 116 micropollutant removal 116 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries 276 Millennium Development Goals 152 minerals and aggregates, extraction of 183 mining industry 90, 238–9 modelling tools, development of 170 ‘more crop per drop’ water efficiency programmes 255 Moroccan Green Plan 280 Morocco, WEFE nexus in drip irrigation 280 National Program for Pooled Sanitation and Reuse of Treated Wastewater (2005) 281 reuse of unconventional water for agriculture irrigation 281 seawater desalination 281 solar-powered pumping for irrigation in agriculture 280 Moving towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing Nexus Security (MAGIC) 329 Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) toolkit 329, 331, 334–6, 339, 343 application to EU agriculture 340–43 elements of 336 external end-use matrix (EUMEXT) 335 external environmental pressure matrix (EPMEXT) 335 four sustainability concerns addressed by desirability 334 feasibility 333 openness 333–4 viability 333 internal end-use matrix (EUMINT) 335 internal environmental pressure matrix (EPMINT) 335 nexus structuring space macroscope 336–7 mesoscope 337 microscope 337–8 virtualscope 338 recent developments in 336 mutual learning, motivation of 58

national and international development agendas 170 Nationally Determined Contributions 81 natural gas, demand for 89 natural resource crisis 406 natural resources interlinkages between 195–7, 399 management of 27, 134, 201, 310, 346–8, 354, 355, 381, 399–400, 404 need for sustainable management of 1 utilization of 225 natural resources nexus 398 net-zero emissions 84, 258 New Leipzig Charter 195, 204 NextGen initiative 116, 118 nexus assessment project 160 nexus dialogues 9, 71, 150–52, 157, 160–62, 167, 169, 384 Nexus Directional Chords 407 nexus frameworks 5, 8, 18, 99, 124, 167, 171, 196, 214, 224, 293 nexus governance adaptive 349 administrative and accountability gaps 354–5 attributes of 56–7 capacity gaps 358 civil society organizations in 348 concept of 348 effective 59 equitable 59 exposure to multi-level governance gaps 351–3 framework for 384 framing of ‘actionable knowledge’ for 71 information and data gaps 356–8 of interlinked water-energy-food resources 62 in literature 347–9 materials and methods 349–54 multi-level and multi-stakeholder dimensions of 357 multi-level governance gaps in the implementation of 350 and OECD framework for water governance 350–54 policy gaps 355–6 robust 60 transdisciplinarity for see transdisciplinarity, for nexus governance ‘Nexus Health’ indicators 30 Nexus Index 30 nexus knowledge 149, 151, 153, 155 transferring in CLEWs-type applications 159–63

422  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus capacity-development programmes 159–60 nexus dialogues 160–62 summer schools 162–3 nexus learning process see learning about the nexus nexus literacy and distrust 201 Nexus Platform knowledge Hub 164 nexus research, goals of 56–7 ‘nexus thinking’ methods, institutionalisation of 69 Nexus Tools Platform 27 nitrogen and phosphorus footprint 373 non-governmental organizations 143, 197, 199, 282, 297 non-renewable energy sector 48 North-West Sahara Aquifer 384 nuclear electricity generation 41 nuclear power, expansion of 88 nuclear reactors 92 nutrients, in wastewater 116 recovery of 119, 199 ocean acidification 179 loss of biodiversity due to 180 ocean alkalinisation 182 ocean fertilisation 182 ocean thermal energy conversion systems 181 oil and gas exploration 180 oil fields, geographic distributions of 295 on-farm crop production 323 Open Source energy Modelling System (OSeMOSYS) 159–60, 162, 170 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 347 Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development Toolkit 356 ozone 194 parceleros 241 Paris Agreement 39, 81, 84, 87, 92, 100, 180 Penn State WEF-Nexus strategic initiative 164 PHEMAC project 285 planetary boundaries 36, 38, 48, 263, 334, 364, 366–8, 374 plastic degradation of 179 global production of 179 impact on marine environment 187 microplastics 179 pollution 187 Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development 350 policy–science interface 169 policy-science-society interface 171

pollution-control measures, adoption of 104 population growth and urbanization 194 “Power for All by 2022” program 101 power-generating technologies 101 PRIMA initiative 285 public international law, fragmentation of 387 public–private partnerships 358 quality of life 194–5, 202, 205, 331 quantification, of WEF nexus 31 ‘Race to Zero’ campaign 84 rainfed agriculture 44 rain-fed agriculture 218, 221 rainwater harvesting 37, 117, 197 regional knowledge-based economy 275 regulation of WEF nexus 382–5 renewable energy 219–21 development of 400 renewable energy sources (RES) 39–40, 47, 97 biofuels as 41 renewables, deployment of 89 Researchgate 407 resource demand and exploitation, global drivers of 47 resource efficiency 4, 7, 9, 18, 20, 115, 186, 195, 213, 273 resource life cycle 123 resource management 2, 4, 7, 19–20, 27, 31, 59, 72, 150, 152, 162, 201, 211, 213, 222, 233, 245, 273, 277, 310, 346 resource nexus 2, 5, 11, 329–30, 343–4, 398 resource scarcity 4, 18, 134, 273 resource security 4, 11, 56, 197, 274, 357 resource system boundaries 20 revenue patwaris (crop-reporting services) 322 reverse osmosis stations 279 technologies 88 Rio+20 Conference 17, 178 Rio de Janeiro Conference (1992) 4 Rotterdam Convention (1998) 389 runoff pollution 46 rural-to-urban migration 193 Safe Operating Space 49, 51, 367 Sahara Forest project, Aqaba (Jordan) 282 salinity pollution, from agriculture in river systems 251 Santa Elena Aqueduct Hydraulic Plan (PHASE) 243 ScalA impact assessment tool 347 science communication, methods of 406–8 ScienceDirect 20 science–policy interface 11, 165, 172, 356

Index  423 science–policy relationships, in governance and management 59 science-to-policy gaps 347 sea-level rise 193–4 sea temperature, rise in 179 effects on coral reef 179 sea transport 180–81 seawater-cooled greenhouses, for food production 282 seawater desalination 88, 281–2, 308, 313 seawater greenhouses (SWGH) 283 seaweed production 183 services, demand for energy 1 sewage sludge 126, 196 Sewage Sludge Directive (SSD) 126 sewer-mining technology 122 SIGMA-NEXUS project 285 silos 198 SIM4NEXUS project 30, 157, 399, 406–7 sludge-dewatering process 119 sludge production 118 small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) 275 social-ecological systems (SES) 56 components of 330 environmental pressures 330 internal state of 330 secondary flows 330 state–pressure relation of 329–32 social injustice 32 social innovations 1, 274 social learning 7, 57, 70, 128, 171, 349, 358 social network maps 403 social well-being 273 socio-economic developments 7, 36, 135, 281 socio-hydrology 367 Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT model) 141 solar electric power 40 solar photovoltaics (PV) 83, 90, 221, 259, 322 solar-powered pumping, for irrigation in agriculture 280 solar pumping irrigation systems 217, 278 solar PV water-pumping system, for the development of rural areas 278–9 solid and liquid fuels, storage of 41 solid waste management 27 south and eastern Mediterranean (SEM) countries 273 nexus development in the context of policies on science, technology and innovation 284–7 nexus-enabling environment 274–6 opportunity for innovation in 274–6 research and development (R&D) 275

role of innovation in operationalizing the nexus 282–3 to integrate the nexus as an engine to create jobs 283 for seawater greenhouses (SWGH) 283 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 274 technological and social innovations 274 technological innovations along WEFE nexus in 276–82 Egypt 277–8 Jordan 281–2 Morocco 280–81 Tunisia 278–80 transboundary cooperation on science and technology (S&T) 274 Southern Africa Development Community 221 Spernal Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP), UK 118 units of the nutrient recovery system at 120 stakeholder identification procedures 64 stakeholder network analysis 29 start-up company 278 steam cycle 87 Stockholm Conference (1972) 4 Stockholm Declaration (1972) 388 stormwater harvesting 37 Structure of Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) 153 summer schools, nexus-themed 162–3 super-critical technology, adoption of 105 supply chains, of the WEF nexus 196 surface water management 117 sustainable development 4, 59, 116, 149, 178 in Andean countries 244–5 of ecosystem services 134 environmental, economic and social dimensions of 4 global partnership for 99 integrated planning for 58 of nexus resources 135 Policy Coherence for 350 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4–5, 17, 81, 99, 135, 152, 212, 274, 325, 355, 364, 383, 399, 402, 406 energy-related 84 SDG 6.1 37 SDG 11 204 urban 195 Sustainable Development Scenario 87, 92 expansion of nuclear power in 88 water consumption in 88 sustainable energy engineering programmes 151 sustainable management, of water and agri-food systems 285 sustainable urban development 9, 195, 204–5, 369

424  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus sustainable wastewater management multi-method interdisciplinary research approach towards 29 synthetic fertilisers, energy-intensive 47 system boundary 318 system dynamics modelling (SDM) 6 quantitative 6 Tărlung River Basin 139–41 Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) 84 technological development 46, 116, 282 technological innovation 115, 390 role in operationalizing the nexus 282–3 for WEFE nexus development in 276–7 Egypt 277–8 Jordan 281–2 Morocco 280–81 Tunisia 278–80 technology transfer 275, 283 temperature pollution 179 Texas A&M Water-Energy-Food Nexus Initiative 402 thermal differences 181 thermal energy, in wastewater 117 thermal pollution, from power plants 87 thermal power generation 98 efficiency of 90 thermal power plants (TPPs) 87, 98, 102 use of alternative water sources for cooling in 103–4 thermal pressure hydrolysis process (THP) 119 thermal technologies 88 Third World Water Forum 16 Torres, Fernandes 347, 356 trade-off analysis, of WEF nexus hydropower 218–19 irrigation 215–18 land management 222–4 renewable energy 219–21 water management 221–2 transboundary aquifers, regulation of 389 transboundary freshwaters, sharing of 390–91 Transboundary Nexus Assessment Methodology 150, 161 transboundary nexus systems 161 transboundary water agreements, framework of 382 transboundary water governance 391 transdisciplinarity, for nexus governance 57–8 actionable knowledge 71 benefits of 68–70 co-creation of solution-oriented and transferable knowledge 64–6 connecting theory and practice in 72

for effective responses to nexus issues 58 knowledge reintegration strategies 66 lives project cases of 60–70 methodological approaches to 58 observation of 71–2 participatory scenario modelling 71–2 in practice 60–70 project accountabilities and road map 61 project research design overview 63 purposes, accountabilities and intended outcomes of 60–62 reintegration and application of created knowledge 66 research design for 62–7 social ecological systems framework 62 support for effective governance 59 equitable governance 59 responsive governance 59 robust governance 60 system knowledge 64 target knowledge 66 team building and problem framing 62–4 theory to practice of 70–72 transformation knowledge 66 triple-loop learning framework 66 transdisciplinary research 7–8, 26, 32, 55, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 69–70, 72 transformation knowledge 26 Tunisia, technological innovation for WEFE nexus development in 278–80 solar PV water-pumping system for the development of rural areas 278–9 water desalination for agricultural uses 279 water desalination using solar energy 279–80 Twenty-First Conference of the Parties (COP 21) 81 Ultra-Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) 101–2 United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development (1992) 4, 178 Conference on the Human Environment (1972) see Stockholm Conference (1972) Environment Programme Governing Council 99 Framework Convention on Climate Change 84, 252, 258 General Assembly 99 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) Capacity Building national-level initiatives 156–7 Economic Affairs and Policy Division of 159

Index  425 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Asia-Pacific training 157, 162 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) 157, 384 Nexus Task Force meetings of 157 Water Secretariat 391 uranium resources 250 urban agriculture 196, 366 urban air pollutants, production of 194 urban development sustainable 205 in the United States 196 urban drainage systems 256 urban ecosystem services 366, 370, 374 urban food security 194–5 urban food systems 58 urban living laboratories (ULLs) 200, 203 urban metabolism model 195–6 urban planning 58, 71, 93, 195, 245 urban resource systems 374 urban sustainability 199, 202, 364–6, 368, 374–5 urban wastewater 118, 126 Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD) 126 Urban Water Optioneering Tool (UWOT) 122 urban water resource management 367 urban WEF nexus 193–5 Creating Interfaces project 202 governance processes 197–9, 202 interlinkages between natural resources 195–7 participatory modelling 203–4 transdisciplinary approaches 199–201 data visualization 200 participatory modelling 201 urban living laboratories (ULLs) 200, 203 Wilmington case 203, 204 UWOT model, for Athens Plant Nursery 121 value-added goods 317, 332 value chain, of rare earth minerals 89 virtual supply systems 331, 337–9 virtual water, concept of 16 vocational education 153, 165, 167–8, 171 vulnerability of WEF systems 221 waste circular systems 221 waste management 27, 126–7, 179, 202, 276 waste-to-energy technologies 220 wastewater nutrients in 116 recovery of 119 recycling of

reuse and 197 technology for 122 reuse of 37, 88, 197 treatment of 37, 88, 126 demand for 88 types of energy in chemically bound energy 117 thermal energy 117 wastewater treatment plants recovery of nutrients from 199 use of anaerobic digestion in 47 water consumption 134 electricity-related 41 for food production 44–5 values for a variety of energy sources 42 water contamination 87, 96 water demand agricultural 37–8 in cities 37 for crops 44 for energy generation 40, 41–2 global 88 water desalination for agricultural uses 279 using solar energy 279–80 water-ecosystem interactions 285 water-efficient technologies, for thermal power 102, 106 water, energy and food resource pathways 36 water, energy and food (WEF) sectors 273 ‘Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus’ Conference (2011) 114 water-energy-biodiversity nexus 398 water-energy-food ecosystems (WEFE) 384 water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) nexus 113, 287 water-energy-food (WEF) nexus 150, 194, 211–12 academic research on 3 achievements of 9–10 adaptive capacity of 316 aims of 20–21 assessment of methods and tools for 2–4 benefits of 17 concept of 1, 8–9 key events in evolution of 16 definition of 5, 18, 99 development of 17 effectiveness of 213 environmental sustainability 373–4 evolution of 21–2 interactions within 401 methodology of 3 objectives and approach 212–14

426  Handbook on the water-energy-food nexus overview of 18–22 in Pakistan 11 in policy and research 4–6 publications per year 21 quantification of 31 quantitative analysis of 11 resource resilience 372–3 resource supply 372 reviews of 3 strengthening of 11–12 sustainability in 5 systems approaches to 6–7 understanding of 7–8 water-energy-food nexus sectors energy 39–40 food 38 water 36–8 Water, Energy Food Resource Platform 274–5 water-energy-food security nexus 308 complex adaptive systems and adaptation and adaptive capacity 315–16 emergence 312–13 goal-seeking behavior and feedback 313–15 hierarchical ordering 316–17 interactions 311–12 leverage and leverage points 317 system 310–11 system boundary 311 Indus river system 318 in Pakistan 11, 317–25 regulation of 322–5 systems theories and 309–10 systems-theoretic research themes 309 water, energy, and food interconnections 310 water-energy management 116 water footprint 41, 107, 221, 373 Water Framework Directive 286 water governance 244 OECD framework for 350–54 Water Law (2009), Peru 239–41 in Arequipa city 239–40 in Ica valley 240–41 lessons and recommendations 241 water losses 37, 43–4, 88 water management 64, 196, 221–2 sustainable 116 water pricing 254, 312

water production, from seawater desalination in the Middle East 88 water productivity, rates of 1 water quality 91, 97, 118, 126, 134, 140, 193, 217–18, 220–21, 223, 252 water reuse in agriculture 126 Water Reuse Regulation 126 water savings cooling technologies 102 and efficiency 44 techniques for 222 water scarcity 16, 90, 92, 102, 184, 233, 236, 238, 273, 282, 296, 299 water sector energy consumption in 42 energy demand, rise in 88 water security 2, 17, 22, 61, 86, 187, 222 water services 1 demand for 88 water-sharing agreements, in South Africa 221 water-soil-waste nexus 398 water stress 87, 93, 96–9, 101, 103–4, 107, 122, 193, 212, 238 water use, global 37 water wells, color-coded 403 water withdrawals energy-related 87 values for a variety of energy sources 42 wave energy 181 wetland ecosystems 257, 298 wet-tower cooling 87–8 wind energy 8, 83, 187, 263 World Climate Conference (2006) 132 World Economic Forum 2 annual meeting of 17 Water Advisory Committee of 17 Water Security: The Water-Energy-Food-Climate Nexus (2011) 17, 214 World Energy Outlook 84 World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002), Johannesburg 4 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) 2 Global Network 60 goals on biodiversity conservation 60 Luc Hoffmann Institute 60 zeolites 119