Despite their inextricable interlinkage commonly known as Water-Energy-Food nexus, the current disconnect in policy development and management of the water, energy, and food resources threatens their security of supply. The security of these basic human needs is aggravated by the cross-cutting role of climate change which impacts their availability.  These apprehensions suggest that contemporary methods are required to improve and enhance integrated approaches and systems in the management of the food, water, and energy sectors within the discourse of climate change. This study applied Systems Thinking methodologies to foster collaboration amongst key stakeholders within Eskom, electricity generating sector in South Africa. This was done through several simulation workshops held amongst these value chain sectors. The workshops have demonstrated the ability of these systems to enable stakeholders to apply the “nexus thinking” approach in managing the sectors of water, food, energy, and climate change within the power utility. The study concluded by recommending application of this simulation within the policy development and other key sectors to enable a broader application of nexus thinking.

Efficient utilization of the limited Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) resources in stressed transboundary river basins requires understanding their interlinkages in different transboundary cooperation conditions. The Blue Nile Basin, a transboundary river basin between Ethiopia and Sudan, is used to illustrate the impacts of cooperation between riparian countries on the Water-Energy-Food nexus (WEF nexus). These impacts are quantified and evaluated using a daily model that simulates hydrological processes, irrigation water requirements, and water allocation to hydro-energy generation and irrigation water supply. Satellite-based rainfall data are evaluated and applied as a boundary condition to model the hydrological processes.The model is used to determine changes in the long-term economic gain (i.e. after infrastructure development plans are implemented and in steady operation) for each of Sudan and Ethiopia independently, and for the Blue Nile Basin from WEF in 120 scenarios. Those scenarios result from combinations of three cooperation states: unilateral action, coordination, and collaboration; and infrastructure development settings including the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and planned irrigation schemes in Sudan. The results show that the economic gain of the Blue Nile Basin from WEF increases with raising the cooperation level between Ethiopia and Sudan to collaboration. However, the economic gain of each riparian country does not necessarily follow the same pattern as the economic gain of the basin.

Världens befolkning och städer växer. I takt med detta ökar efterfrågan på tillgångar av mat, energi och vatten och det finns efterfrågan på tillvägagångssätt som tar hänsyn till både synergier och konflikter mellan dessa. Ett projekt som syftade till att skapa kunskap inom dessa samband genom att använda så kallade Urban Living Labs, ULLs, var det transnationella projektet CRUNCH. Urban Living Labs kan beskrivas som en slags samling tillvägagångssätt som betonar experimentella tillvägagångssätt och en hög nivå av deltagande och samskapande. Men ULLs har visat sig kunna se mycket olika ut och den här studien är ett bidrag till den växande empirin inom ämnet. Studien analyserade hur en av de deltagande städerna inom CRUNCH arbetat med samverkan och samskapande och vilka hinder och möjligheter ULL har som tillvägagångssätt för deltagande, samverkan och samskapande. Detta gjordes genom en kvalitativ fallstudie av Uppsalas ULL Rosendal och analyserades genom teorier om deltagande och kollaborativ governance. Studien fann att deltagandet var smalt och främst skedde genom konsultation och information. De främsta möjligheterna till samarbete verkade vara de inledande villkoren och ett ömsesidigt beroende mellan parterna för att få finansiering till att utveckla sina idéer. De främsta hindren verkade finnas i en obalans i resurser vad gäller finansiering och möjligheter att delta. Men det kanske allra främsta hindret var dock en bristande delad förståelse av begreppet ULL. Begreppet sattes snarare som en ”stämpel” på projekt som redan fanns utan att tillföra dem något extra i form av deltagande eller samverkan. | The world's population and cities are growing. As the demand for food, energy and water resources increases there is a demand for approaches that consider both synergies and conflicts between them. One project that aimed to create knowledge in this nexus by using something called Urban Living Labs, ULLs, was the transnational project CRUNCH. Urban Living Labs can be described as a collection of approaches that emphasizes experimental approaches and a high level of participation and co-creation. But ULLs have been shown to take a variety of different forms and this study is a contribution to the growing empirical evidence in the subject. The study analysed how one of the participating cities within CRUNCH worked with collaboration and co-creation and what obstacles and opportunities ULL has as an approach for participation, collaboration, and co-creation. This was done through a qualitative case study of Uppsala's ULL Rosendal and analysed through theories of participation and collaborative governance. The study found that participation was narrow and mainly took place through consultation and information. The main opportunities for cooperation seemed to be the initial starting conditions and an interdependence between the partners to get funding to develop their ideas. The main obstacles seemed to be resource imbalances in terms of funding and means to participate. But perhaps the main obstacle was a lack of shared understanding of the main concept of ULL. The term was rather applied as a label on projects that already existed, without adding anything extra to them in terms of participation or collaboration.