event
Friday 23 Feb 2018: Water-food interlinkages and the Nexus
Dr Floor Brouwer - Wageningen University & Research
Harrison 170 14:30-15:30
Abstract: Water is a scarce natural resource, with farming taking a high proportion of global water use. The efficient use of water resources is urgent to enable a considerable increase of global food production in the coming decades. Similarly, efficiency in food production is essential to enable global access and availability of water resources in the coming decades. Such water-food interlinkages are important areas of research to achieve resource efficiency at different scales (regional, national, Europe and global), and needed to support adequate action. More recently, the Nexus of water, energy, food, land and climate is introduced as a concept to enable synergies across these resources, where applicable, and to cope with trade-offs where noticed. SIM4NEXUS (Sustainable Integrated Management for the Nexus of water-land-food-energy-climate for a resource-efficient Europe) is a Research and Innovation Action to support nexus-compliant practices in Europe. The project aims to address knowledge and technology gaps and thereby facilitate the design of policies within the Nexus. The presentation will address the following topics:
(i) Modelling the Nexus of water-energy-food-land-climate.
(ii) Nexus challenges for specific cases, both in the middle-of-the road scenario (i.e. SSP2 scenario) and in the 2 degree scenario.
(iii) Policy coherence by adopting the Nexus concept.
(iv) Serious Gaming, learning and Nexus-compliant practices
The presentation will conclude on the need for an effective adaptation of policy and their implementation, supporting Nexus-compliant and resource-efficient practices.
Biography: Dr Floor Brouwer is an Environmental Economist, working at Wageningen Research in the Netherlands, in the research area green economy and land use. He holds a PhD in economics from the Free University in Amsterdam for a study on integrated economic-ecological modelling. At Wageningen Economic Research, he leads an acquisition group on the Nexus of water-energy-food-climate. His research is focussed on the sustainable use of natural resources in European agriculture. He is scientific co-ordinator of the H2020 project ‘Sustainable Integrated Management for the Nexus of water-land-food-energy-climate for a resource efficient Europe’) (Research & Innovation Action, 2016-2020) and of the H2020 project ‘Support for Policy Relevant Modelling of Agriculture’ (SUPREMA) (Coordination and Support Action, 2018-2020). Since 1993 (Environment and Climate Research Programme, FP3) he was partner and coordinator in several Framework Programmes of the European Union.
