Linking Environmental Policy Integration and the Water-Energy-Land-(Food-)Nexus: A Review of the European Union’s Energy, Water, and Agricultural Policies

Sandra Venghaus,Sophia Dieken,Florian Siekmann,Carolin Märker

doi:10.3390/en12234446

Abstract

Against the backdrop of climate and environmental pressures, as well as limited resource availability and trade conflicts, devising policies for energy and the use of natural resources in general becomes exceedingly complex. Moreover, policies are required to account for interrelations between individual resources and between different sectors and policy fields, but implementation often lacks. To evaluate the current state of integrated policy design in the EU, a review of European energy, water, and agricultural policies was conducted. Using a qualitative comparative research approach, the objective was to identify and explain the differing degrees and variations in policy integration among them. To this aim, the concepts “Environmental Policy Integration” and “Water-Energy-Land Nexus” were jointly applied as analytical frameworks. The analysis revealed that currently, different authorities are endowed with largely sectoral mandates. Accordingly, the respective sectoral policy sets are historically grown based on differing sets of formal and informal rules and processes, thus making policy integration among the sectors, let alone within the nexus, a highly challenging task.

Highlights

A multitude of environmental, economic, political, and social challenges demonstrate that current practices of natural resource management are unsustainable
The results indicate that of the relevant policy sectors, in the energy sector, cross-sectoral considerations are least integrated into policy design
The analysis showed that including the objectives of the WFD into the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is currently the most prominent attempt of especially vertical policy integration on a sectoral level

Summary

Introduction

A multitude of environmental, economic, political, and social challenges demonstrate that current practices of natural resource management are unsustainable. In this context, current research shows that sectoral interdependencies among resources are increasingly important [1,2,3,4,5,6] and they influence each other through complex feedback [7]. 1990s, integrative policy concepts such as Environmental Policy Integration (EPI) and, more recently, the nexus around the conflicting interdependencies among water, energy, and land (WEL Nexus) have entered public and political agendas. In 2011, the World Economic Forum in its ‘Global Risks Report’ identified the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus as one of its three cross-cutting global risks [9], and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) under its ‘Vision 2050’

Objectives

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion