Integrated Modeling of the Water-Energy-Land-Food Nexus: Importance of Context, Scale, Boundary Selection, and Community Capacity

Water, energy, land, and food resources are critical components in the overall discourse on sustainable human development. There is a consensus in the water-energy-land-food (WELF) nexus literature that the management and... [ view full abstract ]

Water, energy, land, and food resources are critical components in the overall discourse on sustainable human development. There is a consensus in the water-energy-land-food (WELF) nexus literature that the management and allocation of water, energy, land, and food resources at the community-level needs to be considered in a more systemic, multidisciplinary, and practical manner. This paper emphasizes that the nexus cannot be separated, modeled, and understood in isolation from the environment and the systems (social, infrastructure, economic, and environmental) with which it interacts. This paper explores the importance of context, scale, and boundary selection when developing hard system-based models of the nexus at the community-level. It also emphasizes the importance of accounting for community capacity and the level of community development to provide services across the four sectors of the nexus. Communities with higher levels of development can expect to have higher levels of services to start with when managing and allocating their resources. Finally, a simple system dynamics example is presented to illustrate how to link population, WELF resources, and community capacity.

Keywords: WELF nexus, system dynamics, capacity