Abstract
The “nexus” is a potentially very appropriate approach to enhance resource efficiency and good governance in transboundary basins. Until now, however, evidence has been confined to isolated case studies and the nexus approach remains largely undefined. The methodology presented in this paper, developed for preparing a series of nexus assessments of selected river basins under the Water Convention of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), is a timely contribution to this ongoing debate. The nexus assessment of a transboundary basin has the objective of identifying trade-offs and impacts across sectors and countries and to propose possible policy measures and technical actions at national and transboundary levels to reduce intersectoral tensions. This is done jointly with policy makers and local experts. Compared to an Integrated Water Resource Management approach, the water energy food ecosystems nexus approach concurrently considers multiple sectors and their evolution. This offers the opportunity to better involve key economic sectors—energy and agriculture in particular—in the dialogue over transboundary water resource uses, protection and management.
Highlights
The concept of regional, national and local integrated resource assessment and the links between resources and service supply chains have grown in understanding [1]
By sharing key lessons learned from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) nexus project, this paper aims at contributing to the current discussion on the nexus in general, and the practical value of applying a nexus approach in transboundary contexts in particular
“nexus issues” and “nexus solutions” were defined, respectively, as a problematic situation that affects more than one sector and an intervention that would benefit more than one sector
Summary
The concept of regional, national and local integrated resource assessment and the links between resources and service supply chains have grown in understanding [1]. The term nexus has been used in a variety of contexts with the aim of advancing an understanding of how sectors are linked, and in turn to inform cross-sectoral governance coherence. Resources become scarcer as demand for them increases. The established “silos” approach to policy making (developing and implementing sectoral plans independently, without accounting for trade-offs and impacts across sectors) becomes more and more risky because spillover effects across sectoral policies become more expensive and unsustainable. The interlinkage (or “nexus”) between sectors becomes stronger. This calls for coherent, responsible and consultative planning [7,8]
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