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| Schematic layout of the WEF Nexus Index, with its constituent pillars, sub-pillars, and indicators.
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The call for measuring synergies and trade-offs between water, energy, and food is increasing worldwide. This article presents the development and application of a country-level index that has been calculated for 181 nations using open databases. Following an assessment of 87 water-, energy-, and food-related indicators, 21 were selected to constit...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... on the framework shown in Figure 1, the WEF Nexus Index has three equal pillars representing water, energy and food (refer to Figure 3). Each of these resource sectors, in turn, have "access" and "availability" sub-pillars. ...
Context 2
... A Research-on- Tap The outcome of this analysis and stakeholder/expert engagement was that a set of 21 indicators were selected to compose the WEF Nexus Index, the structure of which is presented in Figure 3. Adequate data is available for the index to be calculated for 181 nations. ...
Context 3
... is, therefore, much work remaining within this region to achieve SDG 6 by 2030, with the median levels of access to at least basic drinking water and sanitation services for the SADC nations being 67.2 and 39.4%, respectively. In contrast, regarding the degree of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) implementation, i.e., SDG indicator 6.5.1 (Supplementary Figure 3 in Addendum E), eight nations have values that exceed the global median (45.0), illustrating the relatively strong adoption of IWRM principles within several SADC countries' policies, institutions, management tools and financing. ...
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Citations
... Moreover, it has a considerably high water footprint (Hoekstra and Chapagain 2011), which, together with the deterioration of water infrastructure (Kang 2019), threatens water security. Therefore, the availability aspect of WEF resources is particularly vulnerable (Simpson et al 2022). Integrating the interaction between WEF security and the nexus approach can prove helpful in achieving sustainable resource management in society. ...
Factors such as climate change, economic development, population growth, pandemics, and geopolitical instability threaten water, energy, and food (WEF) security, which consequently put sustainability at risk. However, studies that simultaneously consider WEF security and sustainability aspects still need improvement. This research aimed to build a sustainable WEF nexus framework and analyze the interrelationships among water consumption, electricity demand, food production, and ecological footprint, considering the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis and external factors of the WEF nexus. For the empirical analysis, this study employed the three-stage least squares method to identify synergies and trade-offs in the sustainable WEF nexus in South Korea using panel data from 2005 to 2019. The results indicated that rice production causes excessive use of agricultural water, thereby deteriorating water availability and quality. This phenomenon leads to scarce water resources and environmental degradation, which negatively impact energy production and sustainability. Although increased agricultural productivity through automation “improves food security,” it can pose a threat to energy security by increasing electricity demand and energy imports. The EKC hypothesis test revealed that environmental problems cannot be solved through economic development. However, the indicators related to WEF security influence environmental sustainability rather than economic growth. These results indicate that WEF security and sustainability can be improved simultaneously by maximizing synergies and minimizing trade-offs within a sustainable WEF nexus. Therefore, this research provides a roadmap for policymakers regarding efficient ways to improve environmental quality and WEF security.
... The goal of these recommendations is to more successfully integrate the NEXUS concept into existing and future NEXUS initiatives so that these initiatives are truly successful, i.e., have a positive impact on the human, socio-cultural, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainability. Water, energy, and food are inextricably linked, meaning that actions in one of these areas have synergistic or often negative effects on the others at different levels and scales (Simpson et al., 2022). Increasing resource demand due to global population growth, not only in numbers but also in consumption patterns, is expected to increase dramatically in the coming decades (FAO, 2014). ...
... The initiation of the water-energy-food (WEF) NEXUS represents the largest step toward ensuring integrated resource management and resource security in the global context of climate crisis and resource scarcity (Taguta et al., 2022). It has gained undivided attention in academia, policy dialogue, industrial innovation, and development as it focuses on developing valuable tools for quantifying and assessing cross-sectoral relationships and interactions ( Fig. 1), and for integrative sectoral planning and growth perspectives (Eftelioglu et al., 2017;Simpson et al., 2022). Currently, more extended NEXUS schemes are introduced by different research teams, adding components, such as the Ecosystems (WEFE) (Bidoglio et al., 2019;Malago et al., 2021), Climate and Land (WEFCL) (Ramos et al., 2022), and Health (WEFH) (Slorach et al., 2020). ...
... The WEF nexus index consists of a collection of 21 indicators. However, it is difficult to reduce the status of a nation's integrated resource management to a single number [33]. This article does not measure the index due to limited access to data, but it does highlight the possibility of improving the availability and accessibility of water, food, and energy through the implementation of SAIL, which is associated with an increase in the WEF nexus index. ...
Indonesia, being an archipelagic country, ranks third in terms of climate risk. Sustainable islands (SAIL) are novel ideas offered as an effective way of achieving Indonesia's sustainable development while also accelerating climate change mitigation and adaptation. The water, energy, and food (WEF) nexus approach will be used to expand SAIL's programs. In this nexus, water is the most essential governing factor for the ecosystem and society. Thus, the SAIL program is adopting rainwater harvesting (RWH), a sustainable technology that supplies water with low energy and cost. To irrigate the crops and generate electricity, the island RWH tank is created by impounding surface runoff over natural landscape depressions equipped with a hydrokinetic power system. An RWH system with a pico-hydropower system is installed on the roofs of all island buildings for both household water consumption and electricity generation. The immediate implementation of the SAIL concept promises to boost Indonesia’s WEF nexus index. Keywords: Island; Nexus; RWH; Sustainability; WEF.
... The scope of the problem is particularly challenging in the modern agricultural industry (Allen and Prinsloo, 2018;Prinsloo and Lombard, 2015b), whereby extended knowledge gap challenges warrant new research and academic contributions to deal with the complexity and diversity of the sustainability criteria defined in a climate-smart agricultural context (refer to Figure A.1). Since agricultural sustainability goals govern the conditions for new energy installations on farms as part of the green energy production movement (Cagle et al., 2020;WWF, 2021), this thesis argues that floating PV sustainability should instead exploit the science of the total environment in the search for a new sustainability assessment paradigm (Alaoui et al., 2022;Luca et al., 2015;Santiago-Brown et al., 2015;Simpson et al., 2022). Within an agricultural context, the complexity and diversity of the impact assessments for floatovoltaics escalate, and the sustainability assessment becomes more problematic because the installation of newly planned PV systems permanently floats on life-and food-sustaining water reservoirs (to impact positively on farmland) (Hoffacker et al., 2017;Vema et al., 2022). ...
... Data-driven decision-making based on WEF Nexus Index, moving from model data to decision making (source:Simpson et al. (2022), page 4). ...
Floating Solar PV (FSPV, FPV or floatovoltaics) is an emerging decentralised energy concept in climate-smart agriculture that is quickly becoming a trend in water-rich regions with high land costs, land scarcity and underutilised water areas. FPV technology has excellent environmental compatibility properties, assists in shrinking a farm's carbon footprint, aids farms in decarbonisation towards a net-zero emissions goal, while supporting sustainable energy development towards better carbon taxation and green energy certification in sustainable farming ventures. Amidst a rapidly growing international interest in floating PV and agrivoltaic solutions as climate-solver technologies, current knowledge gaps around its environmental and energy-water-land resource impact uncertainties are the main barriers to floatovoltaic installation deployments. Current FPV performance and impact assessment methodologies still need to overcome critical knowledge gaps constraining fully functional evidence-based scientific assessments as a mandatory requirement to regulatory project permissions prescribed by law. This doctoral dissertation investigates the characterisation and quantification of floating photovoltaic power performance benefits, environmental impact offsets and economic sustainability profiles in a theoretical PV performance model-driven water-energy-land-food resource features. With FPV as natural resource preservation energy technology touching issues along the interplaying water-energy-land-food nexus dimensions (WELF-nexus), a robust validation of the technology's co-benefits and suggested impacts on the nexus of local energy-water-food (EWF) system was lacking. Rethinking environmental sustainability in the FPV context, this research investigation uncovers the root cause of current predictive analytical problems in floating PV characterisation as relating to critical knowledge gaps and modelling challenges in four dimensions: (a) reductionist thinking philosophy as an overwhelming modelling approach engaged by most current PV system assessment models; (b) low-priority role of the natural environmental system and micro-habitat in the integrated systems modelling characterisation of floating PV as a system of systems; (c) inadequate modelling consideration given the water-energy-land nexus system resources and linkages in a unidirectional open-loop linear assessment framework; and (d) modelling framework does not sufficiently cater for systemic interactions in the topological and ontological structures among the PV ecosystem components. Aiming to find a holistic systems thinking solution, the fourth industrial revolution offers information technology principles that enable subject-matter expert knowledge integration into the virtualization of intelligent energy production models using digital twin technology. As operational research paradigms for floating PV modelling, 4IR in digital twinning enables the study to define a new integrated theoretical framework for sustainability evaluation. Towards simulation analysis, this pluralistic-type systemic intervention can account for the extended range of resource-use-efficiencies and impact-effect-positives of floating PV technology in a computer-aided analysis-by-synthesis technique. While comparing the performances of FPV and GPV systems, this study makes a case for the systematisation of sustainability knowledge in the technogenic assessment for floating PV installations through the co-simulation modelling of a novel integrated technical energy-environmental-economic scientific sustainability assessment framework concept. This institutionalised sustainability framework mechanism drives the computer program logic and architecture in a computer synthesis methodology, to assess the integrative technological, economic and natural environmental system attributes in a pluralistic system dynamical way. The approach is further novel in that it covers both short-term and long-term perspectives in a cascaded closed-loop feedback system, with inter-domain feedback memory in a real-time computer synthesis methodology ensuring causal framework ontology modelling. The proposed sustainability definition and systemic framework policy for geospatial sustainability assessment offer a complex appraisal method and modelling technique that supports project decision-making in broad-spectrum environmental, economic and technical contexts that transcends the conventional technically biased scientific evaluation inherited from ground-mounted photovoltaics. The proposed theoretical reference framework and modelling technique offer multidimensional sustainability indicator dimensions, thus addressing critical decision-making domain elements focussed on by impact assessment practitioners, investment stakeholders and subject experts. The scientific investigation and results confer valuable insights into the value-laden sustainability qualities of FPV in pre-qualifying project-assessment experiments for future planned floating solar projects. The theoretical modelling, simulation and characterisation of floatovoltaic technology offer a data collection toolset for duly required scientific evidence of sustainability traits of the technology in support of the adoption, regularisation and licensing of floating photovoltaic renewable energy system installations. The research advances fresh philosophical ideas with novel theoretical principles that may have far-reaching international implications for developing floatovoltaic, agrivoltaic and ground-mounted PV performance models worldwide.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10500/30091
... Therefore, WEFNI may be acknowledged as a crucial indicator of achieving SDGs 2, 6, and 7 at the country level or on any other scale. Simpson et al. (2022) stated that CI and WEF nexus approach does not solve all challenges related to human development and well-being. However, they can contribute initiation to integrated resources management and policy-making procedure and help to achieve SDGs. ...
Despite the importance of Water-Energy-Food (WEF) evaluations in disseminating information about WEF security challenges, no study on WEF security at a State or Union Territory (UT) level has been conducted in India. We have quantitatively analysed the WEF nexus at State/UT level in India using Pardee RAND WEF Nexus Index (PR-WEFNI) for 2015-16 and 2019-20. The Government of India has implemented several policies to ensure India's WEF security. However, none of the studies have analysed the potential impact of implemented policies in WEF nexus changes. We have proposed an indicator-based approach, i.e., a Policy Implementation Score (PIS), which indicates a policy's progress (in %). PIS is calculated by aggregating indicators related to WEF policy implementation to quantitatively investigate the impact of implemented governmental policies on WEF nexus changes. Results indicated significant variations in WEF sub-indices across States/UTs over the two years under consideration. Most States/UTs showed an increase in the Water Sub-index (WSI) and Energy Sub-index (ESI) due to higher values of Water PIS and Energy PIS but a decrease/no changes in the Food sub-index (FSI) due to lower Food PIS. Moreover, overall WSI, ESI, FSI and WEFNI of India increased by 15%, 6.6%, 0.1% and 8%, respectively , in 2019-20 compared to 2015-16. This study assessed the WEF security status of Indian States/UTs, which helped to recognise respective resource-insecure areas. This approach can help policymakers identify problems, make further modifications, and develop area-specific policies to achieve resource security across India's States/ UTs and other developing economies worldwide.
... En este sentido, Simpson et al. (2022) argumentan que la palabra nexo significa principalmente conectar, aunque su aplicación puede ser variada. Es por ello que el nexo WEF se puede describir comenzando con la sociedad, la cual se encuentra en el centro del sistema ofertando y demandando los tres recursos vitales (Figura 1). ...
... Pero, tanto el clima como el medio ambiente, se gestionan y regulan a través de una gobernanza y políticas públicas eficientes o deficientes, por ello estos elementos se encuentran representados por las capas exteriores del sistema (verde y café respectivamente de la Figura 1), formando una parte integral del nexo que tienen como principal objetivo generar un desarrollo sostenible. A pesar, de que la sociedad se localizó en el centro del sistema como principal ofertante y demandante de los tres recursos, también son los responsables de que se lleve a cabo una adecuada gobernanza e implementación de políticas públicas en beneficio de todos (Simpson et al., 2022 Es así que el nexo WEF se puede considerar como una herramienta para facilitar la gobernanza y guiar la cooperación intersectorial, debido a que la oferta y la demanda de los tres recursos son interdependientes a nivel global, nacional, regional y local (Li et al., 2019). ...
La creciente demanda mundial de agua dulce, energía y alimentos ha generado que la comunidad científica desarrolle un nuevo enfoque, para analizar, evaluar e implementar medidas de mitigación ante esta gran crisis. Es así como surge el concepto nexo agua-energía-alimentos (WEF, por sus siglas en inglés) el cual se refiere a las interacciones que se dan entre estos tres recursos, con todas sus sinergias y compensaciones que resultan de esta relación. Por lo tanto, esta investigación tiene como finalidad explicar cómo se fue desarrollando el concepto desde sus orígenes en la Conferencia Nexus de Bonn en 2011, cuáles han sido las herramientas y metodologías de análisis más empleadas y finalmente, observar algunos casos de éxito. Concluyéndose que lograr un análisis integral de los tres recursos y no evaluar cada recurso por separado, proporcionará una serie de estrategias que ayudarán a reducir los efectos adversos de tipo ambiental, social y económico.
... Therefore, this study proposes a calculation method for the comprehensive WEF security index (WEFSI) by using equal weights for each individual resource security index (presented above) to calculate its arithmetic mean. This follows the concept developed and presented by Simpson et al. (2022). ...
Nexus approaches provide an efficient way to analyze the dynamic evolution of the water-energy-food nexus (WEFN), yet there is a need to close the science-policy divide by making simulation models more practically relevant. This study incorporates society, economy and environment systems (SEE) into the WEFN, simulating a broad environmental system. A system dynamics model is constructed to simulate and dynamically track the development of the WEF-SEE system in Hunan Province, China. The developed model is applied to assess WEF-SEE system trajectories from 2021 to 2035 against nine policy goals formulated by the Hunan Provincial Government. Baseline results suggest that Hunan Province will have a surplus of grain production and will be in a state of "self-sufficiency" in water resources. The energy security situation is not as optimistic, with imports being required to meet demand. The sustainable development of the WEF Nexus will be constrained by resource shortages. As the future development of Hunan Province outpaces environmental protection policies, water pollution and CO2 emissions and are expected to increase. Intra-system trade-offs and synergies under the impacts of different policies indicate that the implementation of an indicative policy has the intended impact within its particular subsystem, but may lead to trade-offs in other subsystems. Due to system interconnectedness, the simultaneous implementation of multiple policies may increase or hinder progress towards certain goals. For example, expanding planting area increases food production, but increase agricultural water demand and water pollutant discharge, counter to water security goal and environmental protection goals. Cross-system impacts must be considered when choosing policies. This study advances environmental system analysis and evaluation, and contributes to practical policy recommendations, providing useful insights for Hunan Province, especially considering potential trade-offs and synergies. Such information could lead to more effective, holistic environmental policy formulation.
... Therefore, this study proposes a calculation method for the comprehensive WEF security index (WEFSI) by using equal weights for each individual resource security index (presented above) to calculate its arithmetic mean. This follows the concept developed and presented by Simpson et al. (2022). Equal weighting emphasizes WEFN's polycentric philosophy that each resource system has equal importance (Owen et al. 2018). ...
The water-energy-food nexus has emerged as a critical research interest to support integrated resource planning, management, and security. For this reason, many tools have been developed recently to evaluate the WEF nexus security and monitor progress towards the WEF-related sustainable development goals. Among these, the calculation of the WEF composite index model is critical since it can provide a quantitative approach to demonstrate the WEF nexus security status. However, the current WEF nexus index model framework needs to include the incorporation of governance indicators, neglecting the importance of governance in the WEF nexus framework. Thus, this article develops a new WEF nexus composite index model that incorporates governance indicators in each subpillar is developed. The principal component analysis (PCA) is adopted to reduce the variables’ collinearity and the model’s dimensionality. A quasi-Monte Carlo based uncertainty and global sensitivity analysis are applied to the index model to assess its effectiveness. Finally, the new WEF index model is applied on the 16 South African Development Community (SADC) countries as a case study. A critical synergy effect within the WEF nexus framework is identified that nations with better WEF governance ability tend to perform better in improving the WEF accessibility capability, suggesting the importance of the governance in the WEF nexus security framework.
This article applies the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus to explore the relationships between Iraq's water (demand and supply), energy (oil, gas and electricity), and food production, moving beyond sector-specific studies. Thus, this is a WEF analysis of a country that is emerging from years of conflict and instability and is among the first WEF applications to Iraq at the national (as opposed to regional or metropolitan) level. We utilize various open-source data, peer reviewed and grey literature to survey environmental conditions, setting the ground for the study of WEF interrelationships. We note the decline in the quality and availability of water, focusing on it as a key input into both agricultural and oil production. We argue that the declining quality and availability of water over many decades is unable to sustain both present agricultural practices and rising oil output, highlighting the difficulty of increasing the outputs of these sectors. As such, the article underlines the need for a multi-sectoral approach in dealing with the present challenges of water, energy and food production and argues that a radical restructuring of the relations between the sectors is required. We offer policy recommendations that seek to overcome internal barriers, constraints that exist and are potentially solvable within Iraq, and other measures geared towards external barriers, including the actions of neighbors.
