An Organizing Principle for the Water-Energy-Food Nexus

• Main Authors: Chad W. Higgins, Majdi Abou Najm
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-10-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: nexus; water-energy-food; resource management
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/8135

The nexus between water, energy, and food has recently evolved as a resource-management concept to deal with this intimately interwoven set of resources, their complex interactions, and the growing and continuously changing internal and external set of influencing factors, including climate change, population growth, habits and lifestyles alternations, and the dynamic prices of water, energy, and food. While an intriguing concept, the global research community is yet to identify a unifying conceptual and mathematical framework capable of adapting to integrate gathered knowledge and ensuring inclusivity by accounting for all significant interactions and feedbacks (including natural processes and anthropogenic inputs) within all nexus domains. We present an organizing roadmap for a conceptual and mathematical representation of the nexus. Our hope is that this representation will organize the nexus research and formalize a way for a generalizable framework that can be used to advance our understanding of those complex interactions, with hope that such an approach will lead to a more resilient future with sustained resources for the future generations.