The Nexus Approach to Managing Water, Soil and Waste under Changing Climate and Growing Demands on Natural Resources - Governing the Nexus: Water, Soil and Waste Resources Considering Global Change - page 46

Fig. 3 Inter-linkages among natural resources in relation to food security, sustainability, resource
use efficiency and resilience

intensi cation (Pretty et al. 2011 ) of these limited resources is critical. Sustainable

intensi cation, producing more from less by reducing losses, is relevant to resource

scarcity. Further, simultaneous management of water and energy is also essential to
addressing climate change (Beal et al. 2012 ), and developing climate-resilient
agriculture. In this context, virtual water and the water footprint are also inter-
related (Vel

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cance. Water mismanagement and lack of provisions for adequate drainage can also
exacerbate the adverse effects of soil-water-salinity nexus (Khan et al. 2009 ), which
is a major problem in irrigated agriculture in arid and semi-arid biomes. The
strategy is to avoid deforestation and conversion of natural to agroecosystems and
effectively use resources already allocated to agroecosystems. It is thus important to
protect arable land, biodiversity and ecosystem resilience (Jacobsen et al. 2013 ),
functions and services.
The water-food security nexus is more important now than ever before because
of growing water scarcity caused by increasing population pressure. Water avail-
able for agriculture is a major factor for food security in arid and semi-arid regions
of the world (Rosegrant and Cai 2001 ). The strong nexus between agriculture,
which depends on water availability and economic development, cannot be over-
looked (Rahman and Mikuni 1999 ). The changing and highly variable climate is

á zques et al. 2011 ), and constitute important issues of global signifi-