The Water-Energy-Food nexus as a tool for advancing sustainable and resilient agrifood systems: A systematic review
This systematic review of 62 studies (2016–2025) reveals that while the Water–Energy–Food nexus framework effectively addresses environmental and economic dimensions of agrifood systems, it currently lacks sufficient integration of social, governance, and resilience factors, particularly at local scales, necessitating more holistic and participatory methodological approaches to achieve truly sustainable and resilient outcomes.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine a world where the water needed to grow crops, the energy required to pump that water, and the food that eventually reaches our tables are not separate problems, but parts of a single, tightly woven system. This is the reality of the water-energy-food nexus. In this framework, a decision to use more water for irrigation might mean less energy available for other needs, or a shift to a new energy source could alter the land available for farming. For decades, experts have tried to manage these resources in isolation, but growing climate change, population pressure, and economic instability have shown that this approach is failing. To build a future where people are fed, water is clean, and energy is reliable, we must understand how these three pillars support and sometimes strain one another. The goal is to create agricultural systems that are not just productive, but also resilient—able to withstand shocks like droughts or supply chain breaks—and sustainable, meaning they do not use up the resources future generations will need.
A team of researchers from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine set out to see how well this "nexus" idea is actually being used to solve these problems. They conducted a systematic review, a rigorous method of gathering and analyzing every relevant study they could find, to understand the current state of the field. They looked at 62 specific studies that applied the water-energy-food framework to agricultural systems with the explicit goal of improving sustainability or resilience. Their findings reveal a landscape that is full of promise but still stuck in the early stages of development. While the concept is widely accepted, the way it is being measured and applied often misses the mark, focusing heavily on production numbers while overlooking the human and social factors that truly determine whether a system can survive a crisis.
The researchers found that the field is growing rapidly, with the number of relevant studies jumping from just one in 2016 to eighteen in 2024. However, this growth has a significant blind spot. The vast majority of this research is concentrated in China and Iran, with very little work being done in Africa, despite the continent facing some of the most severe challenges in food security and resource management. Furthermore, most studies are looking at the problem from a distance, analyzing entire provinces or river basins rather than the local farms and communities where these systems actually operate. This creates a gap between high-level planning and the ground-level realities of farmers who need to make daily decisions about what to plant and how to survive a dry season.
When the researchers examined what these studies were actually measuring, a clear pattern of imbalance emerged. The studies were overwhelmingly focused on the physical production of food, specifically staple crops like cereals. They counted how much grain was grown and how much water was used to grow it, but they rarely looked at whether that food was accessible to poor families, how much was wasted after harvest, or how diverse the diet was. Similarly, the energy analysis focused on how much fuel was needed to run machinery or pump water, often ignoring whether that energy was affordable or reliable for the people using it. Water studies prioritized the total amount of water available, paying little attention to water quality or whether the water was actually accessible to those who needed it. In short, the research treated food, water, and energy as simple commodities to be counted, rather than as complex systems intertwined with human lives.
Perhaps the most critical finding was the difference between how the researchers treated "sustainability" versus "resilience." Sustainability, which means meeting current needs without harming the future, was assessed in every single study. Resilience, which is the ability to bounce back from a shock like a flood or a market crash, was almost entirely ignored. Only four of the 62 studies actually tried to measure resilience. The researchers noted that while scientists talk about resilience, they rarely build it into their models. They also found that the studies were heavily skewed toward environmental and economic factors, such as crop yields and costs, while largely ignoring social issues like gender equality, fair wages, or the role of local governance. Without these social and political dimensions, a system might look efficient on paper but could collapse the moment a community faces a crisis.
The tools used to reach these conclusions were mostly mathematical models designed to optimize resource use, such as finding the most efficient way to distribute water. While these tools are good at calculating flows and efficiency, they are often too rigid to capture the messy, adaptive nature of real human communities. The researchers concluded that for the water-energy-food nexus to become a truly useful tool for the future, it must move beyond simple counting and optimization. It needs to include the voices of local people, account for social inequality, and measure a system's ability to adapt to the unexpected. Until the research shifts to include these human and social elements, the framework will remain a powerful idea that has not yet fully translated into the practical, resilient solutions needed to feed a changing world.
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