The water-energy-food nexus in the anthropocene: moving from 'nexus thinking' to 'nexus action'

The Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus has emerged as a multicentric lens for assessing integrated resources management and sustainable development in the past decade. This paper initially reviews the current status of this approach, which has received some critique for being largely conceptual. The call to operationalise the nexus is heralded in many recent publications and a common theme is that 'nexus thinking' must evolve into 'nexus doing'. To this end, this paper seeks to present opportunities to enable and achieve 'nexus doing' through a synthesis of approaches proposed in both contemporary academic journal articles and grey literature. Our synthesis shows that there is a good basis to move forward to implementation and that in places, this has actually started. Nexus policies are being enabled at different spatial extents from regional and national scales to a city level, and appropriate mechanisms and decision support tools to achieve integrated nexus planning are evolving. However, there is no single method that fits all situations; rather the approach must be tailored for each unique situation.