Introduction
This collection is centered on the so-called nexus. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a ânexusâ may be defined as: (a) connection, link, and also a causal link; (b) a connected group or series and (c) center, focus (see www.âmerriam-webster.âcom/âdictionary/ânexus). There is a well-known trend in policymaking circles toward integrating water, energy and food policyâthe WEF nexus âwithin an overarching climate change and security ânexusâ (see Water Alternatives special issue guest edited by Allouche et al. 2015 and International Journal of Water Resources Development special issue guest edited by Allan et al. 2015). This is reflected in the policy frameworks of the Department for International Development (DfID) and the German Development Agency (GIZ) where the ânexusâ is the new operating framework. In addition, significant forums such as the Stockholm World Water Week, hosted by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), and the World Economic Forum have drawn concentrated attention to the linked security issues surrounding water, energy and food, largely from a management perspective (WEF 2009; 2011a, b; 2015). The basic argument is that treating water resource management discreetlyâeven if within an Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) frameworkâis incomplete, because all water decisions impact possibilities for âenergy securityâ and âfood securityâ , particularly within an era of globalization under the overarching context of climate change. According to Stern and Ăjendal (quoted in Leese and Meisch 2015: 695â696), a nexus âcan be understood as a network of connections between disparate ideas, processes or objects; alluding to a nexus implies an infinite number of possible linkages and relationsâ. However, water, in the words of the WEF (2011a), is the âgossamerâ strands that hold the web of resource use together. In other words, water is at the heart of the nexus. So, water resource use decisionsâeven if biased toward blue water (defined as flowing surface water and accessible groundwater )âshould at minimum take into consideration the role and place of water across key sectors, especially energy and food (and vice versa). There is also a sense of urgency about the nexus: the FAO (2014) highlights that agriculture accounts for 70 percent of global water withdrawals and that food production accounts for 30 percent of global energy use , so linkages are already significant. Moreover, it is anticipated that the rising global population will require 60 percent more food by 2050, that energy demands will increase by 50 percent by 2035 and that irrigation itself will use 10 percent more water than it does now. Thus, it is imperative that management practices âget it rightâ sooner rather than later (see, also, Leese and Meisch 2015: 698). A nexus approach, it is argued, will enable the crafting of better policy and practice. For Al-Saidi and Elagib (2017: 1137), the WEF nexus is a ânew kind of environmental policy paradigmâ, and the nexus focus has, in their estimation, been quite successful in changing policy debates.
Outside of policy circles, there exists a critical and somewhat skeptical perspective on the ânexusâ. It seems clear that, as a policy discourse, âthe nexus approachâ is elite driven, drawing together state and private sector actors in a concerted attempt to deal withâthrough marketization and commoditization of essential goodsâthe hypothesized negative impacts of increasing resource demands across water, food and energy âsectorsâ (Allouche et al. 2015; Leese and Meisch 2015: 704). On one level, the nexus is simply a fact: since water and energy availability affects food production , and methods of food and energy production affect water supplies, and since climate change adds uncertainty to existing supplies of freshwater, then food and energy âsecurityâ will inevitably be impacted by water availability and so on, resulting in mutual vulnerability . To say that we should recognize these interlinkages and build them into resource use policy and practice is, in fact, to say nothing new. Al-Saidi and Elagib (2017), in their important review of the literature pertaining to the nexus, show how nexus thinking extends back to at least the 1980s across different disciplines in the sustainability sciences. Matthew, in his afterword to this collection, suggests that the nexus was first flagged in the Brundtland Commission Report, Our Common Future, with one essential difference: back then, the focus was on inter-governmental cooperation as the driving force behind sustainable development . In the current iteration, at least as it is articulated by groups such as the World Economic Forum , the key to sustainability lies with markets and the private sector . To systematically build this recognition into private sector practice, given current path dependencies related to physical supply chains and metaphysical objectives such as âprofitâ, is, however, both new and extremely difficult (Allan et al. 2015: 303â304). It is also highly problematic, particularly for those at the bottom of the global economic pyramid (Leese and Meisch 2015).
On another level, however, the ânexusâ may be read as an over-simplified and apolitical approach to resource management. For example, in her remarks made at the Waterloo workshop where these ideas and several of the chapters included here were first presented, Jennifer Clapp worried about the implications of âresource reductionismâ, pointing out that food security has many dimensions beyond âsupplyâ: for example, availability, access , stability and utilization. At the same time, she argued, there are many (global) drivers to water, energy and food insecurity that force us to look beyond âmanagement of scarce resourcesâ as an adequate approach: for example, subsidies, trade agreements/trends, financial markets, global investment patterns, aid policies, geopolitical/economic considerations and so on. In his remarks made at the Waterloo meeting, Simon Dalby was equally skeptical, reminding us that when security moves into the conversation, other lenses such as âdemocracyâ or âequityâ or âsustainabilityâ tend to get squeezed out (cf. Leese and Meisch 2015). Dalby also points out the fact that climate change as a phenomenon is not a consequence of scarcity but of production: over-production and over-consumption leading to certain types of resource scarcity . In Richard Matthewâs words, âsystems of scarcity generate big winners and big losersâ. When scarcity and security are brought together in political discourse, the outcome is generally an attempt to secure, that is, to capture the available amount of, a resource perceived to be essential but increasingly scarce .
In his remarks made at the Waterloo meeting, Richard Matthew highlighted the ways in which âthe nexusâ, âthe green economyâ and ânatural capitalâ all go together as a means of enabling business and governance elites to think about the interrelationship of things most often dealt with discretely: through separate ministries, departments and so on. Drawing on the âevidenceâ provided by the World Economic Forum , for Matthew, it is quite astounding how swiftly business and policy elites have been able to (a) reduce complex and interrelated phenomena to a simple equation: growth puts pressure on linked resources, and therefore increased efficiency will reduce such pressure and (b) render âscarcityâ to a market-led, one-size-fits-all solution: since water is at the heart of the nexus, and since water is underpriced, the answer is to price water accordingly. Put differently, governance oversight combined with private sector entrepreneurial capacity will ensure that resources are allocated efficiently, so ensuring resource security. According to Matthew, âit is breathtaking how WEF can move to a solution in secondsâ (See his formal remarks on the Nexus here: https://âwww.âyoutube.âcom/âwatch?âv=ârIM0tJ1AkZQ; also, see his blog on the nexus here: http://âisn.âethz.âch/âDigital-Library/âArticles/âDetail/â?âlng=âen&âid=â179227). For Dalby , however, not all nexuses are the same, and we would do well to engage rather than ignore the nexus dialogue despite both our misgivings about its current characterization and our skepticism regarding our ability to alter its form.
The remarks highlighted above from Clapp, Dalby and Matthew were made at an international workshop entitled âHealthy Climates: interrogating the water-energy-food-climate security nexusâ held at the University of Waterloo in the winter of 2014. Several of the chapters in this collection were originally presented at this meeting and have undergone extensive revisions, while the balance has been specifically recruited because of their particular approach to understanding key questions relating to water within and beyond the ânexusâ. It is clear from the papers presented at the Waterloo meeting and in this collection that scholars of resource development, governance and management are already ânexus sensitiveâ, utilizing a sort of ânexus sensibilityâ in their own studies, whether it concerns the ways and means of achieving water security in rural villages in Tanzania or Botswana or...