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The present study aims to assess the socioecological vulnerability of smallholders through an index of Tehri Garhwal Himalaya. The index provides a realistic approach to recognize the contributions of social and ecological factors for household welfare vulnerability to climate change. The approach puts forward various indices for each component of vulnerability to climate change - exposure, sensitivity,...
The construction of hydropower plants on transboundary rivers is seldom done with equal benefits to all riparians, and therefore presents coordination and cooperation challenges. Without a supra-national authority in charge of transboundary river basins, coordination between sectors (water, energy and environment) and cooperation between countries largely depends on willingness of the individual nation...
The paper summarizes four presentations of the session “Environment and Wellbeing: The Role of Ecosystems for Sustainable Development” at the international conference “Sustainability in the Water- Energy-Food Nexus” held on 19-20th May 2014 in Bonn, Germany. The aim of the session was to present current stresses on ecosystem services imposed by global development trajectory, potential impacts on Sustainable...
Thousands of years of development have made the production and consumption of water, energy, and food for urban environments more complex. While the rise of cities has fostered social and economic progress, the accompanying environmental pressures threaten to undermine these benefits. The compounding effects of climate change, habitat loss, pollution, overexploitation (in addition to financial constraints)...
This report explores the exposure and vulnerability of Korea and the Southern African region to climate-driven impacts in the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus. It presents the building of ecological networks as a mean to address climate change - induced alterations of ecosystems and the consequences for humans and nature. Reducing the asymmetry between price and value of water resources is identified...
General warming and extreme weather events associated with climate change are expected to negatively impact water utilities. Water utilities will need to adapt to continue providing safe drinking water and wastewater services. In 2012, the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA) conducted a survey of 53 water utility officials to understand the expert perceptions of climate change risks and...
The novelty of the W-E-F nexus approach, given that it requires new coordination mechanisms within and between institutions and disciplines, requires new forms and types of capacities in order to be effective. This paper identifies some of the existing capacity gaps and measures to address those gaps, in order to ensure a successful implementation of the W-E-F nexus approach. Capacity development...
Water, energy and food are closely connected sectors which interact in a complex manner. Complex problems which need to be addressed in these sectors require informed decisions. The key to this information are data which need to be easily available to the decision maker. In the context of the Sustainability in the W-E-F Nexus conference May 19-20, 2014, the session on ‘Earth Observations, Monitoring...
Coordination of policies in different sectors and at multiple levels is a major task for governing the water-energy-food nexus. Nexus governance has to deal with plurality of policies that are in place (e.g., interaction of policies across levels). Based on an overview of governance challenges, this report provides insights into policy instruments and experiences in their application at the global,...
Mountain regions are highly vulnerable to climate change, as they are ecologically fragile, tectonically and seismically active, and geologically sensitive. The main objectives of this study are to examine socio-ecological transformations and to illustrate the major driving forces - climate change, education and waves of modern civilization - in the Garhwal Himalaya. Data on socio-ecological systems...
Given their substantial societal benefits, such as supporting economic activities and providing better livelihoods in rural areas, ecosystem services should gain higher importance in water-food-energy nexus debates. Yet, not all values from ecosystems are quantifiable, data is often not adequate and methods of measuring these values are not sound. This situation challenges researchers and water managers...
This report attempts to draw out the main messages covered during a session on “Approaches to Resource Management for the Nexus” (International conference on Sustainability in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. Synergies and Tradeoffs: Governance and Tools at various Scales held in Bonn, Germany, on 19th and 20th of May 2014). In this session, the audience was reminded of the importance to think about geography...
Watersheds, climate regimes and nature in general do not abide to boundaries created by human institutions, increasing the difficulty for these institutions to manage them. Human activity is, on the other hand, capable of linking geographically separate regions through trade and supply chains. Implementing the water-energyfood nexus therefore often requires science and policy to work on a trans-boundary...
The Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus approach has an opportunity to create sustainable business solutions, especially in the agricultural sector. This report provides a clear understanding of challenges for the most promising and scalable solutions to the interconnected water, energy and food/feed/fiber problems, allowing combined co-optimization. Searching solutions for nexus challenges, a model based...
Agricultural land use in watersheds for food and biofuels production presents several challenges within the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus at the local and global scales. Firstly, high global energy prices may lead to increasing demand for bio-energy crops, thereby intensifying the competition for arable land and water with food crops. There may be potential net welfare benefits from bio-energy development...
Researchers and practitioners have developed many tools to study the water-energy-food nexus at a variety of scales and perspectives in order to aid decision-making. However, there is a recognised lack of tools that consider these interdependent and complex interactions in an integrated fashion. Whether to connect and federate wellestablished modelling systems and approaches, which may be challenging,...
Many issues in the water, energy and agricultural sector are in fact crosscutting issues, which can only be solved by a nexus approach. A nexus approach means that management solutions account for synergies and tradeoffs between the sectors. Critical issues emerging across the three sectors ask for different policies at different governance levels. However, at each level of policy making the impact...
Sustaining the water-energy-food nexus for the future requires new governance approaches and joint management across sectors. The challenges to the implementation of the nexus are many, but not insurmountable. These include trade-offs between sectors, difficulties of communication across the science-policy interface, the emergence of new vulnerabilities resulting from implementation of policies, and...
This paper examines linkages between climate change and rural out-migration in Himalaya. Subsistence agriculture constitutes the main source of food and rural livelihoods in the region although the availability of arable land is severely limited and crop productivity is low. The constraints of the subsistence economy compel a large proportion of the adult male population to outmigrate from the mountain...
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