Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
nodes are expressed as the water-energy nexus, the food-water nexus, etc. The
nexus is simultaneously about resource recovery through ef
ciency improvements
and the recovery of saved resources in the process of ef
ciency conversions.
Below, we will demonstrate, via a series of thought exercises, how use of the
other two resources is viewed from the position of each node of the nexus (see
Fig.
1
a, b). In other words, from a water resource perspective, how do food (pro-
duction, distribution and security) and energy (generation, supply, dependence
within the water sector) appear in terms of resource recovery and operational
ef
ciency gains? In order to represent these challenges as seen from multiple nexus
perspectives, in Fig.
1
b we characterize processes and management distinctly from
materials and resources.
2 Resource Use and Policy Integration
Integration of resource-use practices and comparative views across distinct disci-
plinary domains had gained traction before the mid-2000s advent of the WEF Nexus.
Early thinking on irrigation management linked to integrated pest management
(IPM) arose out of serious environmental and agronomic challenges presented by the
Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. But these were local, and occasionally
regional, management problems even though globalization trends during that period
raised evidence of their recurring nature. Systems thinking, integrated approaches
and interdisciplinarity were making headway. Irrigation, for example, was in vogue
as a socio-technical domain of study and practice. Natural resources in a watershed
context were increasingly linked to food production, while water and food access
was recognized to be strongly mediated by social and institutional dynamics,
especially via diverse forms of collective action around common-pool resources
(Kurian and Dietz 2012). This became a development imperative, a moral and
ethical challenge. In line with the quality of life view that we espoused in the
introductory paragraphs, above, there is heightening awareness of the ethical and
moral dimensions of water, energy and food (L
pez-Gunn et al.
2012
).
Parallel trends in thinking were emerging for energy resources, in which end-
users
รณ
ciency and unleashed
the development potential of economic opportunity and quality of life at local,
regional, national and indeed global scales. Energy self-provisioning in many
developing country settings was transitioning over to utility-based or cooperative
forms of energy supply. The links of the energy sector with food production and
supply were recognized and consolidated programmatically (e.g. via UNU initia-
tives cited above). But it was the same Green Revolution set of challenges
necessitating coordination between irrigation and pest management that ultimately
raised the need for water-energy-food linkages, which a generation later is
expressed as the WEF Nexus. Thus, India with chronic water, energy and food
insecurity undergirded by poverty and development challenges, was centre stage for
emergence of the nexus concept. India also became, and in some respects remains,
'
behaviours and choices strongly in
uenced energy suf
Search WWH ::
Custom Search