Abstract
Approaches that integrate feedback between climate, land, energy and water (CLEW) have progressed significantly in scope and complexity. The so-called nexus approaches have shown their usefulness in assessing strategies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the contexts of increasing demands, resource scarcity, and climate change. However, most nexus analyses omit some important inter-linkages that could actually be addressed. The omissions often stem from technical and practical considerations, but also from limited dissemination of new open-source frameworks incorporating recent advances. We review and present a set of models that can meet the needs of decision makers for analysis tools capable of addressing a broad range of nexus questions. Particular attention is given to model accessibility, usability and community support. The other objective of this review is to discuss research gaps, and critical needs and opportunities for further model development from a scientific viewpoint. We explore at different scales where and why some nexus interactions are most relevant. We find that both very small scale and global models tend to neglect some CLEW interactions, but for different reasons. The former rarely include climate impacts, which are often marginal at the local level, while the latter mostly lack some aspects because of the complexity of large full CLEW systems at the global level.
Highlights
Interconnections between hydrology and water systems, natural and human land use, energy resources and climate have attracted increasing attention in the last decade
The so called Climate-Land-Energy-Water (CLEW, often in the literature referred to as Water-Energy-Food (WEF), without mentioning the climate component) nexus perspective aims at understanding complex issues that are intrinsically interconnected in our world and addressing the sustainable development objectives Waughray (2011), IEA (2009), Liu et al (2018a)
The comparison of the thirteen CLEW models presented above allows identification of areas that would most benefit from new developments, while providing a transparent assessment of usability and availability for scientists and non-scientist users
Summary
Interconnections between hydrology and water systems, natural and human land use, energy resources and climate have attracted increasing attention in the last decade. Another stream of CLEW nexus analyses is represented by the development of globally integrated assessment models (IAMs) These models have been used in the last decade to inform the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) on the correlations between human energy use and production with climate, and their scope has been expanded in recent years to incorporate a representation of land and water systems Parkinson et al (2019); Bauer et al (2020); Calvin et al (2019); Bijl et al (2018a); Van Vuuren et al (2019).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
