Water security and the pursuit of food, energy, and earth systems resilience

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the emergence and interrelation of food, energy, and water security in terms of resource use and the ensuing societal and environmental outcomes. For decades, food security and energy security have been well-accepted, operational concepts. Water security is the latest entrant, yet the implications of water insecurity for food, energy and earth systems resilience have not been adequately considered. This article examines how and why this is so – particularly with growing water scarcity and insecurity that may compete with energy and food security – and emphasizes the critical need to link water-energy-food nexus approaches to earth systems resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• water security
• energy security
• food security
• water–energy–food nexus
• resilience
• earth systems

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was undertaken with partial support of the International Water Security Network, a project funded by Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a charitable foundation helping protect life and property by supporting engineering-related education, public engagement and the application of research. Additional support was provided by the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (project CRN3056), which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (grant no. GEO-1128040), NSF grant no. DEB-1010495, and the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation in Tucson, Arizona.