Opportunities in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Approach: Innovatively driving economic development, social wellbeing, and environmental sustainability
2018
Mohtar, Rabi H.
Growing demands for interconnected resources emerge in the form of hotspots with different characteristics. The business as usual allocation model will not be able to address the current and anticipated complex and highly interconnected resource challenges. Identifying cross-sectoral synergies, and adopting a new paradigm for resource allocation, moving from silos to nexus and integration, will result in opportunities for business growth, economic development, and improving social well-being. Solutions and interventions need to be multi-faceted and opportunities need to be identified with holistic trade-offs in mind. Nexus hotspots in Texas, with its spatially varied water scarcity, energy resource abundance, and exponential population growth, differ from hotspots in Northeastern United States, where water quality, drainage, and managing extreme events are greater challenges. While the principles and experiences of FEW system dynamics are common across hotspots, the solutions and responses to system challenges are bound by local knowledge, conditions, and rates of change.
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