Water-Food Nexus Assessment in Agriculture: A Systematic Review

The water-energy-food nexus: a systematic bibliometric analysis

Adequate water, electricity, and food are essential for sustainable development. Regional conflicts intensified by global water, energy, and food shortages necessitate a rethinking of the security and interdependence of these resources. However, most earlier scholars concentrated on the subsystems of the water-energy-food nexus (WEF nexus), lacking holistic studies. Therefore, to understand the history and current state of research on the WEF nexus and predict future research directions, this study analyzed 1313 journal articles from the Web of Science database between 2007 and 2022 using the bibliometric analysis and Citespace software. The findings in this study indicate that (1) the progress of the WEF nexus research can be classified into three stages between 2007 and 2022: the early stage (2007-2010), the fast-developing stage (2011-2015), and the steady and in-depth stage (2016-2022). The WEF nexus has become a hot zone for academic research. (2) Map of the network of countries, institutions, and author collaborations implies tight academic collaboration among countries, institutions, and writers. (3) Climate change, integrated WEF nexus, sustainable development, and security are research hotspots in this field. Meanwhile, energy security, circular economy, and resource allocation are advanced subjects in this field. These key findings can provide managers and researchers with valuable information for decision-making.

Development of WEF-P Nexus based on product-supply chain: A case study of phosphorous fertilizer industry in Morocco

The aim of this study was to analyze various sustainability strategies for phosphate and phosphorous fertilizer production systems from the perspective of their holistic impacts on water, energy, and CO₂ emissions. The study was conducted using the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus Tool 2.0, adapted to include the phosphate industry (WEF-P tool). It assesses the scenarios based on priorities identified by the Moroccan phosphate industry, such as the environmental impact of transporting phosphate rock by train and phosphate slurry by pipeline and increased desalinated water use. Results show that each scenario's sustainability can be assessed in terms of phosphate production, processes, resource (water and energy) availability, and CO₂ emissions in mining and manufacturing areas. The analytical methodology of the tool is based on an integrated supply chain and life cycle assessment, which includes the production flows linking mining phosphate and manufacturing phosphorous fertilizers and their water and energy supply systems. Field surveys were used to identify the supply chain and estimate the relationships between production and resource consumption in each process. The tool is a decision-support platform that produces sustainability indices for multiple scenarios of resource allocation (water and energy) and CO₂ emissions, allowing stakeholders to compare potential outcomes and formulate decisions based on their understanding of the actual trade-offs involved.

A review on water simulation models for the WEF Nexus: development perspective

The primary impediment to adopting the Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) Nexus is a lack of a comprehensive and user-friendly simulation model. According to our search on Google Scholar and the Scopus databank, WEF Nexus studies can be divided into three broad categories: (1) studies about the nexus concept, (2) studies related to nexus modeling and software development, and (3) case studies. Given that the present study's objective is to review various solutions for WEF Nexus modeling and also to prepare a checklist of available models to find a better model for nexus simulation, we excluded papers and studies which were related to the nexus concept. After that, we split up other papers that talked about nexus and software development into (1) integrated and (2) compiled approaches. Then, it was attempted to identify the shortcomings in each approach. It was shown that the existing integrated WEF Nexus models (such as MUSIASEM, NexSym, CLEW, and ANEMI) had some significant drawbacks compared to compiled alternatives. Several of the major shortcomings of existing integrated models include the following: (1) They did not cover all spatial scales; (2) they included only a limited number of interactions across WEF subsystems; and (3) some of these models were unavailable. Therefore, as a general result of the current study, it was shown that compiled approach is generally preferable compared to available integrated models. In this regard, we tried to find the best water simulation models to implement in the nexus concept. We searched for papers about water simulation models and defined water subsystem requirements in the nexus concept. So, we evaluated each water simulation model based on its ability to cover water subsystem requirements. This work illustrates the capability of a suitable water simulation model to be utilized in the nexus concept and provides a holistic checklist to choose the preferred water simulation model based on the needs of each issue.

Classifying New Hybrid Cooperation Models for Short Food-Supply Chains—Providing a Concept for Assessing Sustainability Transformation in the Urban-Rural Nexus

In response to the negative effects caused by structures of the dominant agricultural system and new market opportunities, increasing food supply structures have re-emerged in the urban-rural context of industrialized countries in recent years. These food supply structures often accompany new forms of hybrid cooperation models, including actors and institutions that have not shared resources previously. They form new alliances for sustainable transformation in the agri-food sector. Simultaneously, discourse has arisen in science and practice about the sustainability potential of such hybrid cooperation, referring to a lack of critical systematization and the necessity for creating an assessment concept. From the latter, one could draw conclusions about the transformative potential of such cooperation models and their potential to serve as blueprints for other regions. In this conceptual paper, a classification approach derived from social enterprise literature is elaborated, extended, and evaluated, to design a classification of new hybrid cooperation models that allow comparisons between regions and are sensitive to their dynamics. We show in an application how the classification approach, considering the dimensions “actors”, “resources”, and “actions”, serves to discover patterns in the development of short food-supply chain practices, identifying individual transition paths and, thus, making statements about their sustainability and challenges.

The Impact of Sustainability Goals on Productivity Growth: The Moderating Role of Global Warming

The objective of this paper was to gain novel insights into the complex relationships among Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in shaping productivity (GDP/capita) growth. Using dynamic panel regressions on data collected in 138 countries between 2000 and 2017, we found that rising temperatures negatively affect growth and mitigate the impact of other SDGs on growth. We also found that CO₂ emissions have a U-shaped relationship with growth; life expectancy negatively influences growth (positively moderated by rising temperatures), and food security positively impacts growth (negatively moderated by rising temperatures). This study highlights the difficulty of simultaneously implementing SDGs and elucidates novel research perspectives and policies to decrease the negative impacts of climate change on socio-economic and environmental well-being.