The water-land-food-energy-climate Nexus for a resource efficient Europe

Laspidou, C.; Witmer, M.; Vamvakeridou-Lyroudia, L.S.; Domingo, X.; Brouwer, F.M.; Howells, M.; Sušnik, J.; Blanco, M.; Bonazountas, M.; Fournier, M.; Papadopoulou, M.P.

The water-land-food-energy-climate Nexus for a resource efficient Europe

2017

Α novel methodology for addressing policyinconsistencies and knowledge gaps that hinder thetransition to a greater resource efficiency Europe isproposed. We focus on the integration of all differentsectors that interact and influence each other, namely the“water- energy- food- land use- climate nexus” and wedevelop tools for identifying and quantifying their complexinterlinkages under the influence of climate change. Inorder to achieve this, we employ a series of sophisticatedmodels (referred to as “thematic models”), each of whichaddresses a different nexus dimension, or a combination ofa few, while none addresses all nexus dimensions in anintegrative manner. We use dynamic systems modelingand other complexity science techniques in order to“merge” different thematic model outputs in a singlecoherent result, which is presented to the user in an easy tocomprehend Serious Game environment. This way, theeffect of policies that are designed to affect one field(nexus dimension) on others can be quantified andsimulated, thus informing policy-makers for theunintended consequences of their policies, reducinguncertainties, covering knowledge gaps and leading to aresource efficient Europe faster.

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