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1. A social network analysis of collaborative governance for the food-energy-water nexus in Phoenix, AZ, USA

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-021-00676-3  

   Jones, J. Leah ; White, Dave D. ( March 2021 , Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   Despite the known benefits of integrated policy and planning, traditional governance decisions in the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus are often made without cross-sector collaboration, potentially leading to unintended consequences and decreased resource security. Applying collaborative governance approaches to the FEW nexus provides an opportunity to shift towards integrated policy of food, energy, and water governance; doing so first requires an understanding of the limitations of current governance structures and the opportunities for change. We conduct a social network analysis of stakeholders in Phoenix, AZ using secondary data sources to construct the social network of collaboration and to analyze the ability of the governance landscape to facilitate or hinder collaborative governance. The social network measures indicate potential challenges to collaborative governance of FEW nexus stakeholders, such as limited trust between actors. However, leveraging bridging actors provides opportunities to increase collaborative governance between sectors. This research is important for implementing collaborative FEW nexus governance in practice. 

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2. Stakeholder Workshops Informing System Modeling—Analyzing the Urban Food–Water–Energy Nexus in Amman, Jordan

   https://doi.org/10.3390/su141911984  

   Klauer, Bernd ; Küblböck, Karin ; Omann, Ines ; Karutz, Raphael ; Klassert, Christian ; Zhu, Yuanzao ; Zozmann, Heinrich ; Smilovic, Mikhail ; Talozi, Samer ; Figueroa, Anjuli Jain ; et al ( October 2022 , Sustainability)

   Large cities worldwide are increasingly suffering from a nexus of food, water, and energy supply challenges. This complex nexus can be analyzed with modern physico-economic system models. Only when practical knowledge from those affected, experts, and decision makers is incorporated alongside various other data sources, however, are the analyses suitable for policy advice. Here, we present a concept for “Sustainability Nexus Workshops” suitable for extracting and preparing relevant practical knowledge for nexus modeling and apply it to the case of Amman, Jordan. The experiences of the workshop participants show that, although water scarcity is the predominant resource problem in Jordan, there is a close connection between food, water, and energy as well as between resource supply and urbanization. To prevent the foreseeable significant degradation of water supply security, actions are needed across all nexus dimensions. The stakeholders demonstrate an awareness of this and suggest a variety of technical measures, policy solutions, and individual behavioral changes—often in combination. Improving the supply of food, water, and energy requires political and institutional reforms. In developing these, it must be borne in mind that the prevalent informal structures and illegal activities are both strategies for coping with nexus challenges and causes of them. 

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3. Heat and Mass Transfer in the Food, Energy, and Water Nexus—A Review

   https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4047089  

   Derby, Melanie M. ; Adams, Allison N. ; Chakraborty, Partha P. ; Haque, Mohammad Rejaul ; Huber, Ryan A. ; Morrow, Jordan A. ; Riley, Gennifer A. ; Ross, Molly ; Stallbaumer, Emily M. ; Betz, Amy R. ; et al ( September 2020 , Journal of Heat Transfer)

   Abstract Engineering innovations—including those in heat and mass transfer—are needed to provide food, water, and power to a growing population (i.e., projected to be 9.8 × 109 by 2050) with limited resources. The interweaving of these resources is embodied in the food, energy, and water (FEW) nexus. This review paper focuses on heat and mass transfer applications which involve at least two aspects of the FEW nexus. Energy and water topics include energy extraction of natural gas hydrates and shale gas; power production (e.g., nuclear and solar); power plant cooling (e.g., wet, dry, and hybrid cooling); water desalination and purification; and building energy/water use, including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration technology. Subsequently, this review considers agricultural thermal fluids applications, such as the food and water nexus (e.g., evapotranspiration and evaporation) and the FEW nexus (e.g., greenhouses and food storage, including granaries and freezing/drying). As part of this review, over 100 review papers on thermal and fluid topics relevant to the FEW nexus were tabulated and over 350 research journal articles were discussed. Each section discusses previous research and highlights future opportunities regarding heat and mass transfer research. Several cross-cutting themes emerged from the literature and represent future directions for thermal fluids research: the need for fundamental, thermal fluids knowledge; scaling up from the laboratory to large-scale, integrated systems; increasing economic viability; and increasing efficiency when utilizing resources, especially using waste products. 

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4. A 40-year review of food–energy–water nexus literature and its application to the urban scale

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab0767  

   Newell, Joshua P. ; Goldstein, Benjamin ; Foster, Alec ( July 2019 , Environmental Research Letters)

   Essential for society to function, the production and consumption of food, energy, and water (FEW) are deeply intertwined, leading to calls for a nexus approach to understand and manage the complex tradeoffs and cascading effects. What research exists to date on this FEW nexus? How have scholars conceptualized these interactions at the urban scale? What are some promising approaches? Where are the research gaps? To answer these questions, we conducted a quantitative review of the academic literature on the FEW nexus (1399 publications) over more than four decades (1973–2017), followed by in-depth analysis of the most influential papers using an evaluation matrix that examined four components: 1) modeling approach; 2) scale; 3) nexus ‘trigger’; and 4) governance and policy. Scholars in the fields of environmental science predominated, while social science domains were under-represented. Most papers used quantitative rather than qualitative approaches, especially integrated assessment and systems dynamics modeling although spatial scale was generally recognized, explicit consideration of multi-scalar interactions was limited. Issues of institutional structure, governance, equity, resource access, and behavior were also underdeveloped. Bibliometric analysis of this literature revealed six distinct research communities, including a nascent urban FEW community. We replicated the analysis for this urban group, finding it to be just emerging (80% of papers have been published since 2010) and dominated by scholars in industrial ecology. These scholars focus on quantifying FEW flows of the urban metabolism in isolation rather than as a nexus, largely ignoring the political and socio-economic factors shaping these flows. We propose the urban FEW metabolism as a boundary object to draw in diverse scholarly and practitioner communities. This will advance research on complex FEW systems in four key areas: (1) integration of heterogeneous models and approaches; (2) scalar linkages between urban consumption and trans-boundary resource flows; (3) how actors and institutions shape resource access, distribution and use; and (4) co-production of knowledge with stakeholders.

    

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5. The Social Origins of Rebellion: Toward a New Quantitative Research Agenda

   https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027231202037  

   Koren, Ore ; Uzonyi, Gary ( September 2023 , Journal of Conflict Resolution)

   Quantitative approaches to conflict research are evolving to incorporate better theoretical, methodical, and dataset tools. One key area where our progress is especially limited relates to the social origins of rebel groups: how a group’s political identity emerges as a focal point for mobilization and future conflict behaviors. We benchmark two key empirical agendas in civil war and rebellion research and then discuss key contributions of this special issue. In bringing together multiple theoretical perspectives and original datasets, including the individual-level and group-level data, the contributions to this special feature push the research frontier further along these lines. Jointly, they demonstrate that a rebel group’s origins – where it comes from, who are its constituents, what is its political appeal, and how it organizes – have far-reaching implications to explanations along different dimensions and across a wide range of contexts and regions.

    

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