Abstract While water–energy–food (WEF) nexus is a major livelihood sources for local community, its security issues grow continually and there is limited information on how nexus resource management is effective at delivering livelihoods and food security. These difficulties are related to the lack of local community knowledge of the use and exploitation of water, energy, and food resources; this limited awareness leads to trade‐offs, especially in local and marginalized areas. On the basis of data collected from a local community through a survey‐based approach, this study examines local community perception of nexus resources and their contribution to livelihoods. The results indicate that community perceptions of nexus resources can be understood through social, natural, economic, human, physical, and environmental livelihood indicators. According to our findings, the perception of nexus resources is based on the benefits of individual resources rather than their interlinkages. This could be the result of community perceptions of a particular nexus resource from three nexus sector, that is, food. Food is the center of nexus resources for the community in the study area. This indicates, that there is a missing link between cross‐sectorial resource utilization and management, and full‐scale adoption of the WEF nexus to enhance living conditions. Our findings suggest that there is a low understanding of WEF nexus resource use and management, and the livelihood benefit of individual nexus resources is the primary focus in the studied community. From these results, we recommend more action to be taken by the government and other stakeholders to improve the local community perception of nexus resources for their livelihoods.

B. Clothier et al., 'Investing in water for food, ecosystems, and livelihoods. Preface', 2014

Food production in 2050 will be sufficient, globally, but many of the poor will remain food insecure. The primary cause of food insecurity will continue to be poverty, rather than inadequate food production. Thus, policies and investments that increase the incomes of the poor will remain the best ways to extend food security to all. Investments that promote growth in sustainable agriculture and provide non-farm employment opportunities in rural areas of lower income countries will be most helpful. There will be sufficient water, globally, to achieve food production goals and sustain rural and urban livelihoods, if we allocate and manage the resource wisely. Yet, water shortages will constrain agricultural production and limit incomes and livelihood opportunities in many areas. Policies and investments are needed to extend and ensure access to water for household use and agricultural production. Challenges requiring the attention of policy makers and investors include increasing urbanization and increasing demands for land and water resources. Policy makers must ensure that farmers retain access to the water they need for producing food and sustaining livelihoods, and they must create greater opportunities for women in agriculture. They must also motivate investments in new technologies that will enhance crop and livestock production, particularly for smallholders, and encourage the private sector to invest in activities that create employment opportunities in rural areas.

We explore processes that enable effective policies and practices for managing the links between water, energy, and food. Three case studies are assessed at different scales in the Mekong River basin, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. We find that there are considerable opportunities for improving outcomes for sustainable development by finding solutions that accommodate multiple objectives in the nexus. These include making data more publicly available, commissioning independent experts to advise on contested issues, engaging under-represented stakeholders in decision-making, sharing benefits, exploring different perspectives in forums where alternative development options can be tested and engaging decision-makers at different scales.

Faced with growing pressure upon freshwater resources, increased water productivity in agriculture is essential. Efforts to do so however need to consider the wider role of water in sustaining food production. This paper considers the importance of water management in sustaining fish production in tropical river basins, and the potential for enhancing food production and income to farmers by integrating fish production into some farming systems. Specific examples from selected river systems and irrigated farming systems in Africa and Asia are provided. These highlight the benefits of integrating the water requirements for fish into water allocation decisions. In some cases, these benefits can be realised without any reduction in the water available for other purposes, while in others, a trade-off needs to be considered. The nature of these trade-offs needs to be better understood for better decision making in water management.

Water–energy–food nexus has received global attention, as the interdependency of these resources is crucial to developing conceptual tools for environmental sustainability. Thus, water–energy–food nexus underpins economic development and improves life and well-being. We provide a critical assessment of extant literature on water–energy–food nexus using bibliometric analysis within the last 2 years. Using the keyword “Water-Energy-Food” from 2017 to 2020 in Scopus, data on 235 documents after preprocessing were used for further investigations. We found that scholarly research on water–energy–food nexus is expanding rapidly because of its policy implications. However, results and policy effects were heterogeneous because of a lack of a common conceptual framework of water–energy–food nexus—making the conceptual tool more challenging. Although renewable energy technologies have been described as the antidote for achieving environmental sustainability, however, a sustainability assessment revealed that while fossil fuel energy technologies compete with water withdrawal and consumption, some renewables compete with food for land-use—a situation that requires cost and benefits policy estimation. This article thus highlights that the effect of water–energy–food nexus on environmental sustainability depends on several socioeconomic factors that require attention.

The discourse on the need for water, energy, and food security has dominated the development agenda of southern African countries, centred on improving livelihoods, building resilience, and regional integration. About 60% of the population in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) live in rural areas relying mainly on rainfed agriculture, lacking access to clean water and energy, yet the region is endowed with vast natural resources. The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus is a conceptual framework that presents opportunities for greater resource coordination, management, and policy convergence across sectors. This is particularly relevant in the SADC region as resources are transboundary and supports efforts linked to regional integration and inclusive socio-economic development and security. We conducted an appraisal of WEF-related policies and institutions in SADC and identified linkages among them. The present ‘silo’ approach in resource management and allocation, often conducted at the national level, contributes to the region’s failure to meet its development targets, exacerbating its vulnerabilities. The lack of coordination of WEF nexus synergies and trade-offs in planning often threatens the sustainability of development initiatives. We highlighted the importance of the WEF nexus to sustainably address the sectoral coordination of resources through harmonised institutions and policies, as well as setting targets and indicators to direct and monitor nexus developments. We illustrate the significance of the nexus in promoting inclusive development and transforming vulnerable communities into resilient societies. The study recommends a set of integrated assessment models to monitor and evaluate the implementation of WEF nexus targets. Going forward, we propose the adoption of a regional WEF nexus framework.

The discourse on the need for water, energy, and food security has dominated the development agenda of southern African countries, centred on improving livelihoods, building resilience, and regional integration. About 60% of the population in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) live in rural areas relying mainly on rainfed agriculture, lacking access to clean water and energy, yet the region is endowed with vast natural resources. The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus is a conceptual framework that presents opportunities for greater resource coordination, management, and policy convergence across sectors. This is particularly relevant in the SADC region as resources are transboundary and supports efforts linked to regional integration and inclusive socio-economic development and security. We conducted an appraisal of WEF-related policies and institutions in SADC and identified linkages among them. The present &lsquo:silo&rsquo: approach in resource management and allocation, often conducted at the national level, contributes to the region&rsquo:s failure to meet its development targets, exacerbating its vulnerabilities. The lack of coordination of WEF nexus synergies and trade-offs in planning often threatens the sustainability of development initiatives. We highlighted the importance of the WEF nexus to sustainably address the sectoral coordination of resources through harmonised institutions and policies, as well as setting targets and indicators to direct and monitor nexus developments. We illustrate the significance of the nexus in promoting inclusive development and transforming vulnerable communities into resilient societies. The study recommends a set of integrated assessment models to monitor and evaluate the implementation of WEF nexus targets. Going forward, we propose the adoption of a regional WEF nexus framework.

The water–energy–food nexus is being promoted as a conceptual tool for achieving sustainable development. Frameworks for implementing nexus thinking, however, have failed to explicitly or adequately incorporate sustainable livelihoods perspectives. This is counterintuitive given that livelihoods are key to achieving sustainable development. In this paper we present a critical review of nexus approaches and identify potential linkages with sustainable livelihoods theory and practice, to deepen our understanding of the interrelated dynamics between human populations and the natural environment. Building upon this review, we explore the concept of ‘environmental livelihood security’ – which encompasses a balance between natural resource supply and human demand on the environment to promote sustainability – and develop an integrated nexus-livelihoods framework for examining the environmental livelihood security of a system. The outcome is an integrated framework with the capacity to measure and monitor environmental livelihood security of whole systems by accounting for the water, energy and food requisites for livelihoods at multiple spatial scales and institutional levels. We anticipate this holistic approach will not only provide a significant contribution to achieving national and regional sustainable development targets, but will also be effective for promoting equity amongst individuals and communities in local and global development agendas.