Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
The Water-Energy-Food Nexus:
Enhancing Adaptive Capacity
to Complex Global Challenges
Christopher A. Scott, Mathew Kurian and James L. Wescoat Jr.
1 Introduction: Global Change, Grand Challenges
Multiple intersecting factors place pressure on planetary systems on which society
and ecosystems depend. Climate change and variability, resource use patterns,
globalization viewed in terms of economic enterprise and environmental change,
poverty and inequitable access to social services, as well as the international
development enterprise itself, have led to a rethinking of development that solely
addresses economic growth. Ful
lling the essential human aspirations for quality of
life, meaningful education, productive and rewarding work, harmonious relations,
and sustainable natural resource use requires ingenuity, foresight and adaptability.
Societal and environmental conditions are changing rapidly in ways that increase
uncertainty for decision-making over a range of scales. The intimate links between
social and ecological processes are strengthened (made more fundamental than
perhaps previously believed) in the age of profound human manipulation of planetary
processes characterized as the Anthropocene (Steffen et al.
2011
). The shift in global
thinking towards sustainable futures is underscored by the global community sub-
scribing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which in 2015 will supplant
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