Table Of ContentSDG: 11
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Lira Luz Benites Lazaro
Leandro Luiz Giatti
Laura S. Valente de Macedo
Jose A. Puppim de Oliveira Editors
Water-Energy-
Food Nexus and
Climate Change
in Cities
Sustainable Development Goals Series
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Lira Luz Benites Lazaro
Leandro Luiz Giatti
Laura S. Valente de Macedo
Jose A. Puppim de Oliveira
Editors
Water-Energy-Food
Nexus and Climate
Change in Cities
Editors
Lira Luz Benites Lazaro Leandro Luiz Giatti
Department of Environmental Health Department of Environmental Health
School of Public Health School of Public Health
University of São Paulo University of São Paulo
São Paulo, Brazil São Paulo, Brazil
Laura S. Valente de Macedo Jose A. Puppim de Oliveira
Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Fundação Getulio Vargas
São Paulo School of Management FGV EAESP and FGV EBAPE
(FGV-EAESP) São Paulo, Brazil
São Paulo, Brazil
ISSN 2523-3084 ISSN 2523-3092 (electronic)
Sustainable Development Goals Series
ISBN 978-3-031-05471-6 ISBN 978-3-031-05472-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05472-3
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Foreword
More than ever, cities are at the frontline of global change, and their local
government leaders need to rapidly act in nearly every dimension of urban
life.
Cities, towns, and their surrounding regions are often seen as centers of
opportunity and prosperity, and, indeed, they often act as important hubs for
economic opportunity, innovation, co-creation, production, consumption,
inclusivity, as well as social and cultural interaction.
At the same time, our current global challenges, including global public
health crises such as COVID-19; the need to end systemic inequities and
poverty and to better apply technological advancement; the increasing
impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation; the effects
of rapid urbanization and demographic change; and the lack of resilience in
urban service systems, processes, and approaches are all particularly visible
in urban environments and require urgent action from local government
leaders.
Moreover, as important engines of economic development, cities rely
heavily on water, energy, and agricultural produce to sustain development.
For this reason, cities can and must play an important catalyzing role in opti-
mizing water, food, and energy synergies and closing the water, energy, and
nutrients loops.
Addressing the strong nexus between water, energy, and food at urban
level in policy making is therefore essential to enhance sustainability both at
local and global levels.
Projections by relevant UN agencies suggest that the demand for freshwa-
ter, energy, and food is rising due to demographic changes, economic devel-
opment, and international trade, among others, and play out particularly in
urban areas.
Population growth and increase in economic productivity will require an
increase in agricultural production by about 70% by 2050 and about 50%
more primary energy by 2035.
Changes in energy usage and types of energy production (for example,
fossil fuels replaced by hydropower or biofuels) affect water usage and
impact agricultural production.
Climate change is causing additional pressure on water availability and
quality as well as on agricultural production. Extreme events have severe
socioeconomic and environmental consequences, causing further vulnerabil-
ity of people and natural resources. Actions to mitigate and adapt to climate
v
vi Foreword
change can have strong implications for the surface and ground water system
and its users.
The resulting conflicts in the allocation of water and between the water,
energy, and food sectors cause additional concerns in regard to the sustain-
able management of surface and ground water bodies and the interlinkages
with urban areas, where a very large proportion of the world's population
lives.
Taking a water-energy-food (WEF) nexus approach in urban policy mak-
ing, governance, and management will help address these complex and inter-
linked challenges by exploiting available synergies across all policy areas,
maximizing coherence, and promoting positive trade-offs between different
policies.
A core premise of the WEF nexus approach is that the policy objectives in
one sector (water, energy, or food) can interact with those in other sectors
because they are either preconditions for the realization of another sector’s
objectives, or one sector (system) imposes conditions or constraints on what
can be achieved in the other sectors. In other words, some policy objectives
have synergies across sectors, while others require trade-offs. Objectives in
different sectors can also reinforce action towards objectives in other
sectors.
Urban policy formulation that is based on a WEF nexus approach will go
beyond sectoral solutions and actively address synergies, trade-offs, as well
as externalities between the water, energy, and food sectors. And thus it can
support the transition to global sustainability.
Literature on the nexus approach follows often three core themes: the
nature of the relationships between water, energy, and food; the consequences
of change in one sector for change in the other sectors; and the implications
for policy making.
The last of these themes is relatively unexplored, and there is a lack of
evidence and knowledge about the governance, and institutional and political
economy factors that determine the effectiveness of the nexus approach.
It is therefore much welcomed that the authors in this book examine and
review in particular the potential, the benefits, and the policy implications of
the WEF nexus approach at the urban level and within a context of current
global sustainability agendas; through a series of hand-on cases, they present
the opportunities of the WEF nexus approach to achieve innovation and trans-
formative change; and they discuss concrete areas of synergy and policy ini-
tiative that the WEF nexus approach allow to raise urban resilience.
When a group of forward-thinking cities founded ICLEI in 1990, they
took action for sustainability, well before sustainable development was the
predominant model for change. The entry point was protecting and conserv-
ing the environment. Since then, ICLEI has evolved with a focus on main-
streaming sustainable development in all aspects of life.
Our ICLEI network reaches well over 2500 cities, towns, and regions and
is widely recognized as a leading organization with visionary leaders acting
worldwide. We represent small, large, and often fast-growing cities, towns,
and counties, vast metropolitan areas, capitals, provinces, and regions.
Foreword vii
With the start of the Decade of Action in 2021 and through the UN sustain-
ability frameworks in place towards 2030 and 2050, notably the Paris Climate
Agreement and new commitments (NDCs), the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), and the New Urban Agenda – for which we advocated inten-
sively over the last two decades – cities and their leaders must now, more than
ever, implement the global sustainable development agenda in collaboration
with all levels of government, academia/research, the private sector, and civil
society.
We are grateful to the authors for the guidance presented in this book on
the use of the WEF nexus approach to help sustain and scale up action over
the span of this decisive decade for both people and planet alike.
Secretary General, ICLEI-Local Governments Gino Van Begin
for Sustainability
Bonn, Germany
Preface
Sustainable and resilient cities are crucial for securing social inclusion and
improving the quality of life for their inhabitants, given that the production
chains and the supply of water, energy, and food are strongly interdependent.
However, the intricate multi-scale relations between natural resources and the
urban systems underpinning the water-energy-food nexus are still poorly
understood, even as the contexts become increasingly complex.
This book aims to explore and strengthen the transdisciplinary aspects of
the water-energy-food nexus in cities in the face of the challenges and threats
of climate change. Experts highlight urban nexus issues and/or propose solu-
tions to decision makers globally when dealing with the social, economic,
and environmental consequences of the siloed governance of water, energy,
and food, and the implications for achieving Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs).
In this book, the nexus approach is conceived as a multidimensional means
of scientific investigation that seeks to understand the complex and non-linear
interrelationships and interdependencies between water-energy-food under
climate change, and to better understand the wider implications of this for
urban societies. This approach proposes to reduce trade-offs among develop-
ment goals and generate co-benefits that help encourage sustainable develop-
ment. Governing the nexus in cities is one of the greatest resource challenges
of our time, but one that can also generate relevant alternatives with which to
tackle climate change. The concepts of governance and nexus reflect impor-
tant challenges in an increasingly interconnected and rapidly changing world.
This requires a broad-based investigation of the relationships between disci-
plines and methods and the co-creation of solutions between different actors
in society.
Thus, we conceptualize the dialogue between the nexus and climate
change in urban areas, emphasizing its socio-political dimensions while dis-
cussing the role of cities in the contemporary global environmental crises. As
a result, this linkage is characterized as a necessary perspective for pursuing
the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), given the recognition of the
importance of interconnectivity between traditionally isolated sectors.
Furthermore, nexus approaches cannot be restricted to isolated territorial
boundaries; it is necessary to understand and act from a territorial perspective
in the analysis of open systems, in which cities, due to their disproportionate
uses of resources, form the center of the debate concerning sustainability and
planetary limits. In addition, socio-political dimensions are considered to be
ix
x Preface
a critical element in the nexus approach used within this book. The linkage is
not limited to technical approaches so that the nexus perspective refers to the
engagement of different institutions and social actors, interconnecting exist-
ing governance structures and seeking effective contributions to address non-
sustainability and resource vulnerabilities.
The book presents discussions and case studies covering the range of cur-
rent international concerns relating to sustainable urban development, the
nexus, and climate change dialogue. Figure 1 shows the more prominent
words in the textual content of the chapters, while Fig. 2 indicates the most
relevant book content topics by frequency, demonstrating the strength of their
relationships within the texts of the various chapters. The emphasis of these
relevant themes reinforces the correspondence of the entire book's content
with its objectives.
The book targets policy experts, academics, and researchers (including
PhD and master’s students of courses in public policy, development planning,
urban and regional studies, public health, environment, climate change,
energy studies, environmental planning/engineering, and transportation). We
organized this book with the intention of contributing to global discussions
concerning how cities can represent possibilities to navigate and manage sus-
tainability from local to global. We believe that the wealth of knowledge pre-
sented in these studies will also inspire teachers of undergraduate and
graduate courses to use WEF Nexus and Climate Change in Cities as a topical
and informative classroom textbook.
São Paulo, Brazil Lira Luz Benites Lazaro
Leandro Luiz Giatti
Laura S. Valente de Macedo
Jose A. Puppim de Oliveira
