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Structuring an integrated water-energy-food nexus assessment of a local wind energy desalination system for irrigation

Title of the magazine or publication: 
Science of The Total Environment

Volume: 
689

Authors:

  • Tarik Serrano Tovar (Institut Metròpoli)
  • Baltasar Peña Suárez (Instituto Tecniológico de Canarias)
  • Ana Musicki (Instituto Tecniológico de Canarias)
  • Juan A. de la Fuente Bencomo (Instituto Tecniológico de Canarias)
  • Violeta Cabello (ICTA-UAB)
  • Mario Giampietro (ICREA)

[*] Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Publication date:
2018

Resume:

Desalination is increasingly put forward as a sustainable local solution to water scarcity in combination with the exploitation of renewable energy sources. However, the complexity of the resource nexus entails the unavoidable existence of pros and cons across its various dimensions that can only be assessed at different scales of analysis. In turn, these pros and cons entail different winners and losers among the different social actors linked through the nexus. To address these challenges, a novel approach to resource nexus assessment is put forward, based on multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM) and recognizing the resource nexus as a wicked problem. The integrated representation identifies the existence of biophysical constraints determined by processes both under human control (in the technosphere) and beyond human control (in the biosphere). The approach is illustrated with a local case study of desalination in the Canary Islands, Spain. The material presented has been generated in the context of the project “Moving towards adaptive governance in complexity: Informing nexus security” (MAGIC) for use in participatory processes of co-production of knowledge claims about desalination, a prerequisite for informed policy deliberation.

DOI:
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.422

Read the article Structuring an integrated water-energy-food nexus assessment of a local wind energy desalination system for irrigation

How to cite this publication?

Peña Suárez, B. [Baltasar]; Musicki, A. [Ana]; de la Fuente Bencomo, J A. [Juan A.]; Cabello, V. [Violeta]; Giampietro, M. [Mario]; Serrano Tovar, T. [Tarik]. (2018). Structuring an integrated water-energy-food nexus assessment of a local wind energy desalination system for irrigation. Science of The Total Environment, 689, .https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.422
https://www.institutmetropoli.cat/en/articles-a-revistes/structuring-an-integrated-water-energy-food-nexus-assessment-of-a-local-wind-energy-desalination-system-for-irrigation-3/