1st Edition

Food, Energy and Water Sustainability Emergent Governance Strategies

    278 Pages 34 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    292 Pages 34 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Societies around the world face an increasingly uncertain future as social and ecological changes create pressure on resource governance, and this uncertainty calls for new models that illuminate the intersections of civil society, public sector, and private sector resource management. This volume presents a diversity of collaborations between various governance actors in the management of the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus. It analyses the ability of emergent governance structures to cope with the complexity of future challenges across FEW systems.

    Divided into two sections, chapters in the first half of the book present a collection of case studies from around the world exemplifying how FEW nexus challenges are addressed in a multitude of ways and by a variety of actors. Chapters in the second half offer broader perspectives on the management of FEW and underline the lessons that emerge from applying a FEW lens to the question of natural resource governance.

    The varied examples in this book highlight that the management of FEW is often a question of reinventing, adapting, and building upon existing practices. Such practices are deeply embedded in unique socio-cultural, environmental, and political contexts as well as ‘hard’ infrastructures. Most of all, this edited volume seeks to communicate the wealth of ideas from committed individuals who continue to work to improve natural resource governance and our sustainable futures.

    1. An Introduction to Food-Energy-Water nexus thinking and Sustainability Governance

    Laura M. Pereira and Caitlin A. McElroy

    2. Securing Food, Energy, and Water in India: Shifting the governance landscape to tackle socio-economic challenges through integrated policies

    Melissa M. Rohde

    3. The evolution of the narrative of corn in Mexico from impediment to progress, to a commodity and as heritage

    Alexandra Littaye

    4. Historical Path Dependencies and Energy governance in post-apartheid South Africa

    Agostino Inguscio

    5. Water for Energy in China

    Xiawei Liao, Jim Hall and Nick Eyre

    6. The case of Peruvian asparagus: water governance trade-offs under climate change

    Swathi Veeravalli

    7. Water Markets and the Food-Water-Energy Nexus in Australia

    Michael Valli and Alexandra M. Girard

    8. Institutional bricolage to address sustainability challenges in the South African sugarcane industry: a case study of the SUSFARMS® initiative in the Midlands area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

    Jessica Cockburn, Vaughan Koopman, Laura Pereira and Jaci van Niekerk

    9. Corporate Water Risk and Return

    Alex Money

    10. Natural resource management and Marine Protected Areas: the importance of balancing environmental sustainability and community support

    Tomas Chaigneau

    11. An Ontology of development in the Geopolitical North: Resource extraction in the Canadian Northwest Territories and the shift in indigenous experiences of nature.

    Brice Perombelon

    12. Bridging ICTs with governance capabilities for food-energy-water sustainability

    Timothy Karpouzoglou, Laura Pereira and Samir Doshi

    13. Out of sight, out of mind? Bringing the governance of mining and water risk into focus.

    Caitlin McElroy

    14. Conclusion

    Laura Pereira, Alexandra Girard and Caitlin McElroy

    Biography

    Laura M. Pereira is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and a researcher at the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

    Caitlin A. McElroy is a Departmental Research Lecturer at the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment and the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, UK.

    Alexandra Littaye is a researcher at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, UK.

    Alexandra M. Girard is an independent researcher and consultant in environmental management and gender issues based in Sydney, Australia.