The Water-energy-food nexus: what the Brazilian research has to say

Abstract

The Food-Water-Energy (FWE) nexus represents, above all, a perspective, a way of looking at the world, the problems, the solutions, providing a view of the three main resource systems of food, water and energy, not in isolation, but as a system, with many and diverse cross-links between the subsystems. So, analytically speaking, it is a unifying concept, an antidote to the relentless pressures towards reductionism. Human society and its interactions with the natural environment form a dynamic socio-ecological system of such impressive complexity that reductionist approaches seem inevitable to make research and management on the subject viable. This development is not just an illusion - this book already presents some real examples of inter and transdisciplinary approaches, with the FWE nexus as a shared lens to better observe where problems occur and where sustainable solutions can be found.