Local community perceptions toward livelihood and water–energy–food nexus: A perspective on food security

Abstract

AbstractWhile water–energy–food (WEF) nexus is a major livelihood sources for local community, its security issues grow continually and there is limited information on how nexus resource management is effective at delivering livelihoods and food security. These difficulties are related to the lack of local community knowledge of the use and exploitation of water, energy, and food resources; this limited awareness leads to trade‐offs, especially in local and marginalized areas. On the basis of data collected from a local community through a survey‐based approach, this study examines local community perception of nexus resources and their contribution to livelihoods. The results indicate that community perceptions of nexus resources can be understood through social, natural, economic, human, physical, and environmental livelihood indicators. According to our findings, the perception of nexus resources is based on the benefits of individual resources rather than their interlinkages. This could be the result of community perceptions of a particular nexus resource from three nexus sector, that is, food. Food is the center of nexus resources for the community in the study area. This indicates, that there is a missing link between cross‐sectorial resource utilization and management, and full‐scale adoption of the WEF nexus to enhance living conditions. Our findings suggest that there is a low understanding of WEF nexus resource use and management, and the livelihood benefit of individual nexus resources is the primary focus in the studied community. From these results, we recommend more action to be taken by the government and other stakeholders to improve the local community perception of nexus resources for their livelihoods.