Pathways for FEW nexus collaboration in U.S. city resilience planning

The food-energy-water (FEW) nexus has been argued as an approach to improve system resilience and sustainability theoretically. However, there is limited empirical understanding of which governance factors lead to FEW nexus collaboration in practice. The purpose of this study is to investigate the conditions associated with FEW nexus collaboration in cities in resilience planning: does it arise from risk of resource insecurity, pre-existing governance mechanisms, or both? The study analyzed the 22 cities in the United States that are part of the Resilient Cities Network using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The results show that food, energy, and water insecurity are not sufficient to explain FEW nexus collaboration in resilience planning. However, the results do show that FEW nexus collaboration is present in resilience planning in (a) cities that do experience water insecurity and employ two of three investigated governance conditions—policy coherence, stakeholder participation, or institutional support—or (b) that employ all three governance conditions, regardless of whether or not they experience water insecurity. It concludes that the risk of resource insecurity alone is not sufficient to explain cities’ implementation of FEW nexus collaborations and provides policy recommendations for increased FEW nexus collaboration in practice.

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