Speaking on World Water Day in March 2011, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban-Ki Moon, noted that the interconnects between water, energy and food are among the greatest challenges that mankind faces.
There is also a dire need to enhance the livelihoods of the “bottom billion” who are undernourished, without access to electricity and clean water ( IRENA, 2015). This is due to an increasing population, urbanisation, and an additional three billion middle-class people by 2030 ( WWF and SABMiller, 2014). The NIC (2012) estimate that the growth in demand for food, water and energy by 2030 will be 35, 40, and 50 percent, respectively. Projections are that the global demand for resources is going to escalate on this “hot, hungry, crowded, and fast evaporating planet” ( WEF, 2011). However, Sachs (2015) states that “Of all of the problems of reconciling growth with planetary boundaries, probably none is more urgent and yet more complicated than the challenge of the world's energy system.” In their 2011 publication, Water Security: The Water-Food-Energy-Climate Nexus, the World Economic Forum highlighted that in many locations around the globe, water has been consistently under-priced, groundwater has been depleted, and that unlike energy, water has no substitutes or alternatives ( WEF, 2011). The finite and indispensable nature of freshwater also came to the fore during the first decade of the twenty-first century. These increased food prices are an indication of growing natural resource scarcity ( Ringler et al., 2013). Just a few years after this latter statement, average world food prices increased significantly, leaving a large portion of the global population unable to afford their basic nutritional needs ( Mohtar and Daher, 2012).
(1972) warned almost half a century ago, “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialisation, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years.” Some three decades later they stated that “the human economy is exceeding important limits now and that this overshoot will intensify greatly over the coming decades” ( Meadows et al., 2004). Finally, the potential of the WEF nexus to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is reviewed. Various criticisms levelled at the WEF nexus, such as the neglect of livelihoods and the environment in assessments, are noted, together with governance considerations associated with this framework. The challenge of integrating and optimising the components of this multi-centric nexus is examined, with four case studies being presented. Drawing from an extensive review of published literature, the paper presents various interpretations of the concept while also considering the novelty of the WEF nexus. This paper presents a study of the evolution of the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus since its rise to prominence in policy and development discourses in 2011. 2Centre for Water Resources Research, College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.1Jones and Wagener (Pty) Ltd., Centurion, South Africa.