Perception and representation of the resource nexus at the interface between society and the natural environment

“…and Governance to the European Commission [14] has referred to socio-technical imaginaries in this regard, a concept first developed by Jasanoff [15]: we are living in a “regime of economics of technoscientific promises” characterized by “the creation of a fiction in order to attract…”

“In relation to the use of models and indicators it is considered essential to guarantee credibility, relevance (salience), and legitimacy by respecting stakeholders’ divergent values and beliefs [28].”

“This same message is found in many papers dealing with the nexus [18–32].”

“Remaining with the terminology proposed by Lotka [49] and endorsed by Georgescu-Roegen [50], the exosomatic metabolism of human society refers to the set of metabolic conversions of energy and matter taking place outside the human body, but under human control.”

“Hence the In the need administrations to focus on livelihood in order to protect local communities [35]; and horizontal coordination between international development partners to reduce the risk that actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals could later undermine one another [32].”

“…we find a diversity of ‘answers’ to the question ‘what is observed’ in the nexus: (i) sectors [17,23,24,26,29–32]; (ii) resources [21,24]; (iii) WEF systems [19,21,31]; (iv) parties using WEF resources [30]; and (v) interactions over flows, sectors, policies, and different ways of thinking [1].”

“This integration and coordination process has to be extended to policy fields [17,24,26], explicitly address the environment and future generations [20,24], and balance the different goals and interests of the parties using”

“…[17,18,22]; integrate WEF policies while integrating WEF sectors [17,19,21,23,26,29–32]; manage the synergies and trade-offs through an improved understanding of how these interactions are shaped by environmental, economic, social and political changes [24]; and avoid externalization [17,23].”

“In the nexus literature, we find a diversity of ‘answers’ to the question ‘what is observed’ in the nexus: (i) sectors [17,23,24,26,29–32]; (ii) resources [21,24]; (iii) WEF systems [19,21,31]; (iv) parties using WEF resources [30]; and (v) interactions over flows, sectors, policies, and different…”

“Indeed, many of the authors addressing the nexus from a social perspective warn about the possible negative consequences that a technocratic approach can imply [1,20,22,24,25,33,34].”

“Against this historic background the resource nexus represents an inconvenient narrative as it reintroduces the ‘uncomfortable knowledge’ [16] of the neo-Malthusians in the sustainability debate.”

“Indeed, many of the authors addressing the nexus from a social perspective warn about the possible negative consequences that a technocratic approach can imply [1,20,22,24,25,33,34].”

“no holistic vision in the literature of what exactly is observed when we study the nexus in the external world (see Table 4); the external referent is simply not defined [47].”

““nexus represents a multi-dimensional means of scientific enquiry which seeks to describe the complex and non-linear interactions between water, energy, and food, with the climate and further understand wider implications for society” [29]”

“Indeed, an average of 30% of cropland was needed for feeding power animals [52].”

““Even when the particles are separated by a large distance a quantum state must be described for the system as a whole” [48].”

“What is it that generates binding or connection and how? In the nexus literature, we find a diversity of ‘answers’ to the question ‘what is observed’ in the nexus: (i) sectors [17,23,24,26,29–32]; (ii) resources [21,24]; (iii) WEF systems [19,21,31]; (iv) parties using WEF resources [30]; and (v) interactions over flo…”

“There is general consensus in the literature on the nexus that it is urgent to improve the quality of both the scientific inquiry about the nexus and the integration of policies and actions in the water, energy and food sectors [1,17–31 ,”

“…system evolved from the seminal work of, among others, Holling [39,40], Berkes et al. [41,42], Gunderson and Holling [43], and Glaser et al. [44], and can be defined as the complex of functional and structural components operating within a prescribed boundary that is controlled in an…”

“In the 1960s and 70s, the exponential nature of growth in population and energy consumption caused concern about the sustainability of human development [5–9].”

“The interface between scientific inquiry and governance gives rise to several questions: How to decide whether the semiotic process is dealing with facts or concerns? [1]; How to integrate the existing approaches and analytical tools into a holistic vision of the issue? [30]; and How can we capitalize on the knowledge…”

“…complex set of relations It will generate representations referring to non-equivalent descriptive domains and, as a consequence, require the simultaneous use of models that are not reducible to each other [55]. associated with societal metabolism has on different dimensions and scales of analysis.”

“This requirement made human muscle power based on endosomatic metabolic conversions inadequate and explains why horses and mules were essential for cultivating early monocultures [53].”

“…food security by balancing the budget between demand and supply [17,18,22]; integrate WEF policies while integrating WEF sectors [17,19,21,23,26,29–32]; manage the synergies and trade-offs through an improved understanding of how these interactions are shaped by environmental, economic, social…”

“However, considering all these problems simultaneously across different scales and dimensions of analysis, under the umbrella of the resource nexus, the Cartesian dream of prediction and control [2] shatters: the underlying sustainability problem cannot be solved with technological fixes.”

“…not least, the process of governance has to be able to preserve its legitimacy: “integrated and multi-objective planning and transparent processes are vital in order to avoid public distrust in implementing new projects and also to ensure fair and equitable access to water by different users” [34].”

“In this situation a quantitative exploration of the option space can only be done by examining relations of congruence over the different quantitative representations similar to a sudoku game [56].”

“[25] Possible misuse of the term ‘nexus’ to avoid the question as to whose values count: “ . . . the term is being appropriated by dominant discourses of the managerialist type, which we suggest risks turning the nexus into a ‘matter of fact’, ‘a single discrete self-evident problem susceptible to…”

“Existing institutions are fragmented into silos that deal separately with narrowly defined problems corresponding to highly specific spheres of analysis [3,4].”

“The perception of the autopoietic process as a whole: this refers to the political process that determines the identity of society required for adjusting and (re-)shaping its institutions [46].”

“…the complex of functional and structural components operating within a prescribed boundary that is controlled in an integrated way by the activities expressed by a given set of ecosystems (in the biosphere) and a given set of social actors and institutions (in the technosphere) (Giampietro, 2018a).”

“Given the geographical collocation of the authors, and their engagement in EU policy-related research, e.g. in MAGIC (Giampietro, 2018), in the cooperation with the European Environment Agency, and in European science advice fora (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies, 2019), the text…”

“In this sense, the leading nexus discourse (re)produces a neo-Malthusian narrative: Giampietro (2018) even speaks of “the return of the Neo-Malthusians” (ibid. p. 2).”

“Its availability is essential for evaluating trade-offs and synergies and reducing conflicts and vital aspects of sustainable development [48].”

“production process with the users of the analysis (Giampietro, 2018).”

“Incorporating detailed sets of environmental calculations into such models is cumbersome not only from a computational point of view; it is also complicated by the vastly different semantics employed to define energy and environmental dynamics [4].”

“The project succeeds in anticipating possible water futures and in identifying and excluding unrealistic narratives as technoscientific fantasies [109,114,115].”

“…(measured against external constraints on the system) and viability (measured against the internal constraints of the system of the operation and dynamics of the system are assessed, including the role of human and other impacts on environment systems (Giampietro et al. 2009; Giampietro 2018).”

“Silo thinking is singular in focus that is mostly associated with it and conveys the necessary definition of scope, context, dimension, and sphere that in turn influence reasoning and analysis [18,43].”

“In this way, it is possible to assess the biophysical constraints on the supply side and the environmental impact on the sink side in socio-ecological systems (SES) through the addition of the flow-fund (FF) model [14], relational analysis [45,46], and the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of the social-ecological system…”

“These messages come from the culture and structural values of society (Giampietro 2018).”