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There are water consequences across every life cycle stage of coal‐fired electricity consumption, from production and processing to combustion, which have not been studied with regional specificity. There is often a spatial decoupling between where coal is produced and processed versus where it is combusted for power generation, complicating any analysis to estimate the life cycle water implications of electricity consumption. Furthermore, electricity generated by coal‐fired power plants can be consumed within its own balancing authority or exported to another balancing authority. This analysis spatially resolves the water consumed and water withdrawn for coal mining, coal preparation, and power plant cooling from 1) where the coal is mined to where the coal is burned for power production and 2) where the electricity is generated to where the electricity is consumed. Although the largest portion of coal consumed came from the Northern Great Plains province, coal from this region consumes the least amount of water for mining and preparation compared with other provinces. Water withdrawals for cooling power plants within each balancing authority are driven by cooling technology. Due to the interconnected grid, there can be differences between attributing water footprint at the producer level versus the consumer level. 

Water, energy, and food are all essential components of human societies. Collectively, their respective resource systems are interconnected in what is called the “nexus”. There is growing consensus that a holistic understanding of the interdependencies and trade-offs between these sectors and other related systems is critical to solving many of the global challenges they present. While nexus research has grown exponentially since 2011, there is no unified, overarching approach, and the implementation of concepts remains hampered by the lack of clear case studies. Here, we present the results of a collaborative thought exercise involving 75 scientists and summarize them into 10 key recommendations covering: the most critical nexus issues of today, emerging themes, and where future efforts should be directed. We conclude that a nexus community of practice to promote open communication among researchers, to maintain and share standardized datasets, and to develop applied case studies will facilitate transparent comparisons of models and encourage the adoption of nexus approaches in practice.