Background
The Water-Energy-Food Nexus Initiative has an on-going set of pilot projects focused on supporting the planning for Water-Energy-Food resources in San Antonio and the surrounding region, as climate alters water supplies. This effort has now been underway since October 2015, and we have reached the stage at which we are now ready to engage the Stakeholder community and share outputs of the science accomplished to date.
Why San Antonio?
San Antonio demonstrates a complex Water-Energy-Food resource hotspot within Texas. The case studies now underway will identify a vision for growth that considers the tightly interconnected resources of water, energy, and food by addressing the trade-offs between these resource systems. As home to a rapidly growing population, the proximity to the Eagle Ford shale play, and with major agricultural activity in its environs, San Antonio has many competing demands on water-energy-food resources. Stakeholders need the tools to address future Nexus challenges. Our projects will work to address those needs through six distinct, but interrelated, case studies for which objectives, outcomes, and data collection needs will be identified by the research leads.
About the Nexus
The interconnection of water, energy and food resources is highly complex. The availability of these resources is increasingly stressed by climatic, social, political, economic, demographic, technologic and other pressures. Addressing these challenges requires a better understanding of the nexus formed by the interconnections between water, energy and food resources and will lead to a more equitable allocation and improved management of them.
The Water-Energy-Food Nexus Initiative is composed of Texas A&M University System scientists who are committed to finding solutions to the nexus grand challenges. These scientists and educators make up multidisciplinary teams that share skills, knowledge and scientific abilities. They produce the necessary analytics, grounded in state-of-the-art science, and will now provide a platform to facilitate an inclusive stakeholder dialogues at the local and regional level.
We hope to support a better understanding of the full life-cycle footprints of food, water and energy resources, their products and services. Our work will enable improved, science-based, management of these critical resources and will assist policy makers in planning effectively to address anticipated shortfalls in these primary resources in a changing world.