Nexus approach of water-energy-food-land interactions for multi-scale sustainability

Abstract:

Multi-scale governance of water-energy-food-land is essential in Anthropocene, because environment, society and economy related to each resource are connected as nexus through socio-ecological system. The impacts and causalities of human-nature interactions are clear as nexus in Asia. For instance, more than 70 percent of global groundwater depletion due to agriculture productions occurs in Asia, and more than 55 percent of groundwater footprint as local environmental impact is produced for international food trade from/to Asian countries. Water, energy and food are interlinked each other beyond the boundaries of each resources shed through the food and energy trades. Inter-linkages between water-food-energy under the limited land and climate change, and environmental/ economical/social impacts, are analyzed as multi-scale integrated nexus governance by increasing synergies and reducing tradeoffs. An integrated nexus model for decision support is developed to analyze the nexus and assess environmental and economic impacts, with three databases of resources, interlinkage, and scenario in multi-spatial scale. Integrated indices on water-energy-food-land in term of economy, society and environment are developed in multi-spatial scale.