Journal
WATER
Volume 11, Issue 11, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/w11112330
Keywords
water-energy-food nexus; social-ecological systems framework; water pollution; agricultural policy; livestock farming
Categories
Funding
- MWK Lower Saxony Niedersachsisches Vorab as part of the collaborative project metapolis-an inter and transdisciplinary research platform for the sustainable development of urban-rural relations' by Federal State of Lower Saxony [ZN3121]
- Federal Ministry of Education and Research (joint project AgroEcological solutions for Safe and fair Operating Spaces of agricultural systems in the urban-rural transition zone-AgroEcoSOS) [031B0420]
- German Research Foundation DFG
- Technische Universitat Braunschweig
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Policymaking in the water-energy-food nexus is characterized by complex ecological, social, and economic interdependencies. Nexus research assumes these interactions to be overseen in the respective resource governance resulting in sectoral perspectives contributing to unsustainable outcomes. In Germany, the political priority given to the formation of an internationally competitive livestock sector by means of intensification, specialization and regional concentration has exerted sustained pressure on water and soil resources. The expansion of bioenergy plants promoted by the renewable energy act has exacerbated the situation. Despite the persistency of the ecological challenges, German policymakers only reacted when the European Commission referred Germany to the European Court of Justice. Current policy efforts to tackle the ecological problems are now provoking disruptions in the agrarian sector in regions with high nitrate concentrations in water resources. By combining the social-ecological systems framework with hypotheses derived from nexus research, we explore the interactions between food, water and energy systems and aim at understanding the unsustainable outcomes. We argue that the non-consideration of the complex interdependencies between the agricultural, the water and the energy system in policymaking and the divergence of policy goals constitute a major cause of unsustainable governance.
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