PrintRequired Reading:
Leck, H., Conway, D., Bradshaw, M., & Rees, J. (2015). Tracing the water–energy–food nexus: description, theory and practice. Geography Compass, 9(8), 445-460.
The authors examine reasons for the increase in research focused around the nexus of water, energy, and food (WEF). In so doing, they investigate why it would be difficult to achieve the type of disciplinary boundary that is typically promoted in scholastic research and consider how to initiate many of the present theories and practices that have yet to be applied in the real world. Leck et al. (2015) indicate that there are although the nexus approach has been around prior to this increase, it has been challenging to encompass the interdependent WEF relationships and thus limiting its execution and progress at all scales of implementation. The future of nexus approaches to address global environmental change is promising should the movement be able to overcome previous hurdles. As advancements in technology to learn more of the linkages of WEF at varied scales as well as promoting collaboration between state and non-state entities continues, these hurdles will become more manageable.
"Identifying winners and losers in WEF nexus decision-making and giving explicit attention to justice and equity concerns are central for nexus agendas to be socially progressive (Dupar and Oates 2012; Stringer et al. 2014)."
"As Allouche et al. (2014: 23) explain, ‘food, water and energy have never been conceptually separated in the way that experts have sought to understand them. Indeed, it may be that the WEF nexus is the (re)discovery by experts working in silos of what practicing farmers and fishers already knew’."
"...scalar considerations are central to the nexus because water, energy or food interventions are not necessarily suitable or effective at all scales."
Huntington, H. P., Schmidt, J. I., Loring, P. A., Whitney, E., Aggarwal, S., Byrd, A. G., ... & Wilber, M. (2021). Applying the food–energy–water nexus concept at the local scale. Nature Sustainability, 4(8), 672-679.
This paper presents an effort to use FEW Nexus thinking to a specific social-ecological syste / setting in rural Alaska. In doing so they demonstrate that the framework can be applied beyond the theoretical. The authors raise concern that Nexus approaches fail to cover other factors that are very important to community well-being and may in fact be even more important than food, energy and water (in this case governance and transportation). They also note that proper consideration of these additional aspects of the system further complicates analysis.
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 & Policy 90: 173-182.
This paper provides a case study of what the study of the Food-Energy-Water Nexus looks like in real life: here in the upper Blue Nile watershed in Ethiopia. The paper tries to move from the abstract idea of the nexus to examine the collaboration and cross-sector coordination needed to achieve integrated management of Food, Energy, and Water production. As you read this paper, try to link back to your reading on governance in past weeks; what similarities and differences do you note?
NOTE: Links to the readings are located in the Week 6 module in Canvas.