This paper aims to analyze the scientific evolution and research trends concerning the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus, as well as its development within scientific databases. To achieve this, a bibliometric analysis has been conducted using publications sourced from Scopus and Web of science databases. This study examined key aspects such as primary journals, prominent authors, affiliated institutions, countries of origin, subject areas, and notable keywords. Furthermore, there is a dedicated section that delves into research and innovation gaps within publications related to the WEF nexus. Results reveal that research on the WEF nexus has experienced exponential growth over the past decade, with the majority of publications emerging between 2017 and 2023. The United States leads in this field, with engineering and environmental science being the predominant research categories, with Spain and Italy being the prominent countries in Europe. The WEF nexus concept in the agriculture sector is notably underdeveloped, particularly in its ties with the Sustainable Development Goals and the science–policy–society interface. The study stresses the importance of integrating health considerations into the WEF Nexus to understand the interconnections and their implications on public health, thereby enriching the Nexus approach with a critical dimension of human well-being. This situation underscores the urgent need to create a nexus community that bridges science and practice, and to incorporate this specialized discipline into university curricula. | Peer Reviewed | Postprint (published version)

Food, energy and water are important basic resources that affect the sustainable development of a region. The influence of food–energy–water (FEW) nexus on sustainable development has quickly become a frontier topic since the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were put forward. However, the overall context and core issues of the FEW nexus contributions to SDGs are still unclear. Using co-citation analysis, this paper aims to map the knowledge domains of FEW nexus research, disentangles its evolutionary context, and analyzes the core issues in its research, especially the progress of using quantitative simulation models to study the FEW nexus. We found that (1) studies within the FEW nexus focused on these following topics: correlation mechanisms, influencing factors, resource footprints, and sustainability management policies; (2) frontier of FEW studies have evolved from silo-oriented perspective on single resource system to nexus-oriented perspective on multiple systems; (3) quantitative research on the FEW nexus was primarily based on spatiotemporal evolution analysis, input–output analysis and scenario analysis; (4) the resource relationship among different sectors was synergies and tradeoffs within a region. In general, current research still focuses on empirical data, mostly qualitative and semiquantitative analyses, and there is a lack of research that can systematically reflect the temporal and spatial contribution of the FEW nexus to multiple SDGs. We believe that future research should focus more on how FEW nexus can provide mechanistic tools for achieving sustainable development.

Food, energy and water are important basic resources that affect the sustainable development of a region. The influence of food–energy–water (FEW) nexus on sustainable development has quickly become a frontier topic since the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were put forward. However, the overall context and core issues of the FEW nexus contributions to SDGs are still unclear. Using co-citation analysis, this paper aims to map the knowledge domains of FEW nexus research, disentangles its evolutionary context, and analyzes the core issues in its research, especially the progress of using quantitative simulation models to study the FEW nexus. We found that (1) studies within the FEW nexus focused on these following topics: correlation mechanisms, influencing factors, resource footprints, and sustainability management policies; (2) frontier of FEW studies have evolved from silo-oriented perspective on single resource system to nexus-oriented perspective on multiple systems; (3) quantitative research on the FEW nexus was primarily based on spatiotemporal evolution analysis, input–output analysis and scenario analysis; (4) the resource relationship among different sectors was synergies and tradeoffs within a region. In general, current research still focuses on empirical data, mostly qualitative and semiquantitative analyses, and there is a lack of research that can systematically reflect the temporal and spatial contribution of the FEW nexus to multiple SDGs. We believe that future research should focus more on how FEW nexus can provide mechanistic tools for achieving sustainable development.

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.

Access to clean water, reliable energy services and adequate food supply are basic needs for life and contribute to the reduction of national and global levels of human poverty and forced migration. This study concentrated on reviewing progress made in understanding the relationship between the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus and climate change adaptation, using Africa as a case study. The method used to achieve this objective was the bibliometric analysis, covering the period from 1980–2021. Data used for this study were acquired from theWeb of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. Initially, 95 documents were retrieved from theWoS and Scopus core collection databases, but 30 duplicates were removed, and 65 documents were used. The outputs were further analysed using the bibliometric R package and VOS viewer. Analysis of the top 100 keywords in the 65 publications that link WEF nexus with climate change adaptation for Africa showed that 46 keywords fall under the application of WEF nexus, 31 keywords under the implementation of WEF nexus and 23 keywords under the implication of WEF nexus. Researchers from countries around the world have published the WEF nexus work undertaken on the African continent. Countries with the highest number of publications were South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Germany, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Thematic analysis was used to explore the conceptual structure of WEF publications, and it produced four themes: (i) well-established concepts appropriate for structuring the conceptual framework of the field of WEF nexus in Africa; (ii) strongly developed concepts but still marginal for the field of WEF nexus in Africa; (iii) not fully developed or marginally interesting concepts for the field of WEF nexus in Africa, and (iv) significant cross-cutting concepts in the field of WEF nexus in Africa in relation to climate change adaptation. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on the WEF nexus by pointing out dominant themes from those that are still emerging in the scholarly work done in Africa. | The Water Research Commission in South Africa. | https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability | am2023 | Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology

The Water Energy Food nexus is a powerful topic in agricultural systems to elucidate threats to biodiversity conservation and culture. This paper aimed to recapitulate nexus thinking research, focusing on social-ecological transitions of agriculture systems and biodiversity management within the Water-Energy-Food nexus. We developed a systematic review and a bibliometric analysis derived from 529 documents in the Scopus database. The ToS method identified a total of 81 relevant information in the sample of documents (529) categorised into roots (10), trunks (9) and leaves (62). This review paper situates types, focus, and highlights regarding biodiversity and prevalent thematic research areas such as “Food Nexus”, “Environmental Flows”, “Sustainability”, “Transitions”, and “Governance”. Our results suggest that future research should focus on the nexus of “Water-Energy-Food-Biodiversity” and propose a transdisciplinary approach to elucidate the state of sustainability transitions in the agricultural systems at the landscape level. It could increase stakeholder interest in conservation, and sustainability management, to reverse biodiversity losses in ecosystems. © 2023 | Authors would like to thank Instituto de Investigación Alexander von Humboldt in Colombia, and The Transnational Centre for Just Transitions in Energy, Climate and Sustainability- TRAJECTS of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Instituto de Estudios Ambientales, and Faculty of Engineering.

The water–energy–food (WEF) nexus has emerged as a frontier issue in interdisciplinary research and is one of the most complex sustainability challenges that the world is faced with today. In this review, we ask: (i) how can the interdependent relationships among water, energy, and food resources be identified? (ii) what methods have been applied to understand these relationships? and (iii) what are the future opportunities and challenges for the WEF nexus development? To answer these questions, we provide a critical assessment of the relevant literature from Web of Science database on WEF nexus published between 2008 and 2019 using a bibliometric analysis. Using the resulting 396 published articles, we systematically reviewed the concept and the bibliometric characteristics of the WEF nexus research to assess the development footprint. Based on the most popular topics and research methods found in these publications, we discussed the major research limitations as well as future opportunities and challenges for WEF research. An examination of internal and external relationships among topics showed that the three most recent hot areas of WEF nexus research include (i) water, energy, and food, (ii) policy-making and resource management, and (iii) system models and methods. Specifically, considering that no one method can solve all problems, we innovatively summarized the application scope and the advantages and disadvantages of each method, with a particular focus on the WEF nexus models. This was undertaken to support readers in choosing a scientific method to analyze the specific WEF nexus related issues. We anticipate that complex interdependence mechanisms, data uncertainty, analytical model development, and in-depth policy implementation will pose the greatest challenges for future WEF nexus research; however, these challenges will also generate better research opportunities. This bibliometric review highlights that to increase understanding of complex WEF systems and formulating optimal strategies to manage them is of great significance for environmental and social sustainability.

The residues of antibiotics in the environment pose a potential health hazard, so highly sensitive detection of antibiotics has always appealed to analytical chemists. With the widespread use of new low-dimensional materials, graphene-modified electrochemical sensors have emerged as an excellent candidate for highly sensitive detection of antibiotics. Graphene, its derivatives and its composites have been used in this field of exploration in the last decade. In this review, we have not only described the field using traditional summaries, but also used bibliometrics to quantify the development of the field. The literature between 2011 and 2021 was included in the analysis. Also, the sensing performance and detection targets of different sensors were compared. We were able to trace not only the flow of research themes, but also the future areas of development. Graphene is a material that has a high potential to be used on a large scale in the preparation of electrochemical sensors. How to design a sensor with selectivity and low cost is the key to bring this material from the laboratory to practical applications.

Dissertation (MSc (Geoinformatics))--University of Pretoria, 2023. | The challenge of meeting the growing demands for water, energy, and food is further complicated by the impact of climate and land use and land cover (LULC) change. The Mpumalanga Province where agricultural production compete with coal mining for land and water consumption is a prime example of challenges involved in sustaining the water, food, and energy. A more holistic understanding of LULC can help in managing competing land use objectives, leading to improved climate change adaptation strategies. The Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus is an effort to address challenges affecting WEF sectors by taking into consideration the inter-relatedness and interdependencies between these sectors to balance their perspectives and management. As a result, this study aimed to undertake a pragmatic approach that is based on geospatial analytical methods to support WEF nexus climate change adaptation in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province. To achieve this, the study investigated the impact of LULC change on WEF resources by analyzing South African National Land Cover (SANLC) data from 1990, 2014, 2018 and 2020 using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing techniques. The study also located the recently completed and ongoing adaptation projects that contribute to the WEF nexus in the study area. As such, the logistic regression model was implemented using three scenarios to understand the drivers of the location of the WEF nexus-based climate change adaptation interventions or actions spanning from environmental to socio-economic drivers. Scenario 1: Model based on environmental variables only; Scenario 2: socio-economic variables only and scenario 3: combining environmental and socio-economic variables. Based on the understanding of the drivers and spatial estimation, a framework or model was developed to synthesize and prioritize potential areas of climate change adaptation intervention or action in Mpumalanga Province. The results of LULC change over the study period (1990 – 2020) show that the LULC areas under agriculture, built-up areas, mines and quarries increased from 18.84%, 2.33%, 0.61% in 1990 to 23.73%, 3.41% and 0.79% in 2020, respectively. While grasslands have decreased from 37.36% in 1990 to 30.39% in 2020. All of these changes have a direct impact on water supplies, energy sources, and food production. It was evident that more interventions were associated with areas of extreme climatic variables (e.g., drought related). All models were statistically significant, with Area Under the Curve (AUC) = 72% for scenario 1; 67% for scenario 2 and 73% for scenario 3. The results of the spatial estimation revealed that the northeastern region and northwestern region of the Mpumalanga Province should be prioritized for adaptation interventions. This work provided a broader view of the impact of resource use and management on the overall environment and societal well-being. The results obtained from this study indicate that the use of geospatial tools can be beneficial in the planning and prioritization of activities related to climate change adaptation. | Water Research Commission (WRC) | Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology | MSc (Geoinformatics) | Unrestricted | Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences

In the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation, the concept of the water-energy-food nexus (WEF nexus) has resulted in an increased focus on the long-neglected potential trade-offs between the water, energy, and food sector. In this study, we obtained 3077 publications from the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) in the Web of Science. A bibliometric method was used to characterize the publications, the participating countries, and the research trends in the field of the WEF nexus. The results show (i) the number of scientific publications increased exponentially from 2011 to June 2019, with an average annual growth rate of 27.87%. (ii) The Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres had the most publications related to WEF nexus research. (iii) Environmental Sciences Ecology was the subject category with the most publications. (iv) WEF nexus research was led by the USA, which produced 40.14% of the publications in this field, and five of the ten most influential institutions are American institutions. (v) China ranked in second place regarding publication volume and exceeded the UK in 2016 in annual publications. The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the most productive research institution. (vi) Academic collaboration between countries was widespread in the WEF nexus field; the top 10 most productive countries all had high proportions of collaborative publications (> 40%), and Austria had the highest percentage (91.49%). (vi) Co-word analysis indicated that the term map had three clusters in 1988–2011 focusing on biological production, climate and meteorology, and land surface research. In 2012–2019, the term map also had three clusters, including experimental research on recyclables, resource management, and land-atmosphere interactions. Frequency analysis of the keywords in different countries showed different research emphases in the top 10 most productive countries. The analyses of frequently used keywords also revealed the research hotspots and trends. “Climate change” was the second most frequently used keyword in these countries. The interpretation of climate change mitigation and adoption strategies from the WEF nexus perspective is an important research direction.