Curbing Global Warming with Multi-Scale and Multi-Sectoral Water-Energy-Food Nexus

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About this Research Topic

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Background

The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus constitutes a framework for analyzing the dynamic interactions between water, energy, and food systems and developing strategies for resource sustainability and effective governance. Assessing the exposure and resilience of the WEF nexus to climate change aids in interpretation around how global warming is pronouncedly impacted by the operationalization of the WEF nexus at multi-scales and multi-sectors. Therefore, it not only enriches the understanding of what roles the fundamentals of water, energy, and food security, i.e., effects of interventions, synergies, and trade-offs, play in global climate mitigation, but also supports policy-making in accomplishing the net-zero emissions by 2050 goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

To explore sound operationalization of the WEF nexus for curbing global warming, it entails the following specific objectives: (1) optimizing the use of the nexus resources; (2) investigating the spatiotemporal characteristics of water resources endowment, energy infrastructure, and food consumption patterns; (3) decomposing the sectoral drivers of carbon emissions in the nexus; and (4) scrutinizing the virtual water and carbon flow through interregional and international trades. In this regard, this Research Topic aims to present and disseminate recent advances in sustainable solutions for global climate mitigation through the lens of the WEF nexus at different spatial scales and sector levels.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to:

• Applications of data mining and machine learning to accounting carbon emissions among diversified sectors locally, nationally, regionally, or globally
• Examining sectoral changes in water stress, carbon emissions, and crop cultivation and their drivers locally, nationally, regionally, or globally
• Impacts of interregional and international trades on carbon emissions
• Mapping climate-mitigation synergies and trade-offs between water, energy, food sectors locally, nationally, regionally, or globally

Keywords: climate change, climate mitigation, water-energy-food nexus, water security, energy security, food security

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