The nexus: reconsidering environmental security and adaptive capacity.

Published in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, v. 21:15-21 
Authors

Grenade, R., House-Peters, L., Scott, C.A., Thapa, B., Mills-Novoa, M., Gerlak, A. and Verbist, K.
Publication year 2016
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2016.10.009
Affiliations
  • University of Arizona, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, 803 E. First St., Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
  • California State University, Long Beach, Department of Geography, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90840, USA
  • School of Geography and Development, ENR2 Building, South 4th Floor, P.O. Box 210137, Tucson, AZ 85721-0137, USA
  • UNESCO-International Hydrological Programme, Hydrological Systems & Water Scarcity Section, Enrique Delpiano 2058, Santiago, Chile

 

 
IAI Program

CRN3
IAI Project CRN3056
Keywords
Human-environment nexus
food-energy-water-environment nexus
social-ecological systems
adaptive capacity
environmental security

Highlights

•Current nexus thinking is limited to water, energy, and food as resources.

•As a fundamental conceptual framing, the nexus must include the environment.

•In the social–ecological systems framework, the nexus framework enhances options to adapt to global change.

•Our re-conceptualized nexus framework integrates adaptive capacity and the water–energy–food (WEF) resource nexus.

•The nexus concept should acknowledge and incorporate bi-directional drivers of earth systems and planetary boundary thresholds.

Abstract

The water-energy-food nexus has emerged as a productive discourse and methodology in academic research, science-policy dialogues, and development agendas. While the nexus provides a robust framework for interdisciplinary study, research remains focused on synergies and tradeoffs in resource 'security' and fails to adequately acknowledge the environment as the set of natural processes underpinning the nexus, particularly interactions among water, energy, and food. Resource security as a reductionist discourse does not address the limitations and potential of natural processes and the dynamic nature of human processes, especially adaptation to global change. A review of recent literature highlights the need to redefine the nexus to fundamentally incorporate the environment, and, drawing on social-ecological systems thinking, to integrate considerations of adaptive capacity and resilience within nexus theory and practice. Future directions for this line of inquiry include identifying feasible ways of assessing the nexus in the context of dynamic social and ecological systems, and implications that adaptive actions have across resource-use sectors and the environment. A more holistic nexus framework enhances our options to manage environmental interactions, human activities, and policies to adapt to global-change uncertainties.