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Insights on the Water–Energy–Food Nexus and Sustainable Development
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Insights on the Water–Energy–Food Nexus and Sustainable Development

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water-Energy Nexus".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 December 2025 | Viewed by 1437

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Riza Radmehr

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural Economics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA
Interests: food policy; environmental and resource economics; sustainable development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The increasing demand for water, energy, and food resources, along with the challenges of climate change and environmental damages, has intensified the importance of understanding the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus. Quantifying, recognizing, and managing the complex interlinkages among these resources is crucial for ensuring sustainable development, particularly in solving global challenges such as water scarcity, energy security, and food production.

This Special Issue seeks to collect original research and review articles that examine interactions within the WEF nexus and their implications for sustainability.

The topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Optimization approaches of the WEF nexus.
  • Simulation models for WEF analysis.
  • Application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize resource management and decision-making within the WEF nexus.
  • Application of life cycle assessment thinking in managing WEF nexus.
  • Adaptation to climate change within the context of the WEF nexus.
  • Enhancing environmental sustainability through the WEF nexus.
  • Agricultural waste management and managing WEF nexus.
  • Remote sensing and geospatial analysis for WEF nexus monitoring.
  • Evaluation of the impacts of economic and environmental policies on the WEF nexus.

Dr. Riza Radmehr
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • environmental sustainability
  • food production
  • water management
  • energy security
  • machine learning
  • waste management
  • remote sensing analysis

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

25 pages, 2640 KiB  
Article
Differentiated Optimization Policies for Water–Energy–Food Resilience Security: Empirical Evidence Based on Shanxi Province and the GWR Model
by Ruopeng Huang and Yue Han
Water 2025, 17(10), 1540; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17101540 - 20 May 2025
Viewed by 473
Abstract
Shanxi Province, a key energy base and water source in China, has long borne the responsibility of supplying external resources. Ensuring the security of its water–energy–food (WEF) resilience has remained a persistent challenge for local authorities. Conventional WEF nexus optimization policies often overlook [...] Read more.
Shanxi Province, a key energy base and water source in China, has long borne the responsibility of supplying external resources. Ensuring the security of its water–energy–food (WEF) resilience has remained a persistent challenge for local authorities. Conventional WEF nexus optimization policies often overlook the heterogeneity of influencing factors arising from geographic variability, leading to generalized approaches that lack precision and efficiency in resource governance. To address these limitations, this study employed the Moran’s I index, exploratory regression analysis, and the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to investigate the spatial patterns of factors influencing WEF resilience across 11 cities in Shanxi Province from 2014 to 2023. Based on these analyses, the study proposes targeted policy recommendations that account for regional heterogeneity and prioritize differentiated strategies, thereby avoiding the pitfalls of a one-size-fits-all framework. This tailored approach aims to support Shanxi in managing the enduring pressures of external resource supply. The main findings are as follows: (1) WEF resilience in Shanxi exhibited significant spatial autocorrelation, with Moran’s I values ranging from 0.013 to 0.043, confirming the influence of spatial geographic factors on the studied variables and supporting the applicability of the GWR model; (2) key factors influencing WEF resilience included population density, technological innovation, industrial structure, and resource mismatch, with effect sizes ranging from −0.90 to −0.48, 0.68 to 1.01, 0.43 to 0.79, and −0.45 to −0.22, respectively; (3) drawing on the spatially variable impact of these factors, the study offers optimization strategies that emphasize regional specificity and multi-policy prioritization to enhance WEF resilience across Shanxi Province. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insights on the Water–Energy–Food Nexus and Sustainable Development)
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32 pages, 5449 KiB  
Article
Energy for Water and Food: Assessing the Energy Demand of Jordan’s Main Water Conveyance System Between 2015 and 2050
by Samer Talozi, Ahmad Al-Kebsi and Christian Klassert
Water 2025, 17(10), 1496; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17101496 - 15 May 2025
Viewed by 656
Abstract
Jordan is a relatively small country with limited natural resources, but it faces a burgeoning demand for water, energy, and food to accommodate a growing population, refugee migration, and the challenges of climate change that will persist through the rest of this century. [...] Read more.
Jordan is a relatively small country with limited natural resources, but it faces a burgeoning demand for water, energy, and food to accommodate a growing population, refugee migration, and the challenges of climate change that will persist through the rest of this century. Jordan’s Main Water Conveyance System is the backbone of distributing scarce water resources to meet domestic and agricultural demands. Therefore, understanding how the future energy requirements of this system may change is critical for managing the country’s water, energy, and food resources. This paper applied a water balance model to calculate the energy consumption of Jordan’s Main Water Conveyance System between 2015 and 2050, and the results point to high energy requirements for the future of distributing Jordan’s water. In the base year of 2015, the unmet water demand was 134.55 MCM, and the supplied water volume delivered was 438.75 MCM, while the energy consumption was 1496.7 GWh. The energy intensities for water conveyance and water treatment were 7.11 kWh/m3 and 0.5 kWh/m3, respectively. We examined five scenarios of future water and energy demand within Jordan: a reference scenario, a continuation of current behavior, two scenarios incorporating improved water management strategies, and a pessimistic scenario with no interventions. According to all scenarios, the energy consumption is expected to be doubled by the year 2050, reaching approximately 3172 GWh. It is recommended that Jordan prioritizes solar-powered conveyance and pumping to reduce the projected doubling of energy demand by 2050. Across all scenarios, the demand for nonrenewable energy associated with water conveyance is projected to rise significantly, particularly in the absence of renewable integration or efficiency interventions. Total water demand is expected to increase by up to 35% by 2050, with urban and agricultural sectors being the primary contributors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insights on the Water–Energy–Food Nexus and Sustainable Development)
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